A Peculiar System of Morality

Darryl L. CarterBenjamin B. French #15

A Definition of Freemasonry

• “Freemasonry is peculiar system of morality, veiled in allegory, and illustrated by symbols.”

• Note: it is the system that is peculiar, not the morality

A Goal of Freemasonry

• “Freemasonry takes good men and makes them better.”

• First five days of Genesis: “Tov”, “good”: “partially ordered”

• End of the sixth day: “Tov Me’od”, “very good”: realized, completed, unified, “finished”

A Goal of Freemasonry

• “Ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, … ”-1 Peter 2:5

• Tov: “Rough Ashlar”

• Tov Me’od: “Perfect Ashlar”

What is Morality?• Latin: moralitas: "manner, character, proper

behavior“. • In its descriptive usage, morality means a code

of conduct or a set of beliefs distinguishing between right and wrong behaviors.

• In its normative and universal sense, moralityrefers to an ideal code of belief and conduct which would be preferred by the sane "moral" person, under specified conditions. -Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Premise

• No code of conduct or set of do’s and don’ts can make a good man better.

• A code of conduct or set of do’s and don’ts can only test a good man:

• Judgment, discretion, commitment, tolerance of pain/punishment

Examples• Freemasonry and La Cosa Nostra: codes of

secrecy enforced under the threat of penalty

• Codes of secrecy: test a man’s fear, commitment, judgment, discretion, and loyalty

• Urban anarchy: “Don’t snitch”

• Sometimes violation of codes of beliefs and behaviors lead to moral and spiritual growth: Yeshua healing on the Sabbath

Conclusion

• Only a system of morality based on freedom can improve a good man, and thus improve society.

• For me, this is the “Free” in Freemasonry.

• Such a system of morality is paradoxical, and is thus “peculiar”.

Nefesh

• Lower morality: Pure selfishness no conscience

• Behaviors are legislated by other human beings; behaviors are outward, and thus can be rewarded or punished by a society.

• Don’t do it

• Example: “Thou shalt not murder.” • -Exodus 20:13

Nefesh• Governed by the Freudian “id”: pleasure

• Instincts, drives, reflexes: unconscious

• Adam: Nefesh Chaya

• Extreme example in behavior: the sociopath

Ruach: • Higher morality: conscience, sense of guilt:

dissonance between a code and inner desires or emotions.

• At this level morality cannot be legislated by humans, it is an internal process

• Don’t even think it

• Example: “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, …nor any thing that is thy neighbor's.-Exodus 20:17

Ruach• Freudian “ego” and “super-ego”: ordinary self-

awareness

• Knowledge of good and evil under free will

• The ego plays the role of adversarial mediator between the id and the super-ego

• This the level “good men”, the Rough Ashlar of Freemasonry

Neshama

• Highest morality: empathy, love.

• Selflessness

• “…Greater love have no man than this, that a man lay down his life…” (John 15:13)

• Extreme example in behavior: the hero

Neshama

• Awareness of the Chaya: the transpersonal soul

• The Cloud of Unknowing-Anonymous

• The “Perfect Ashlar”

Neshama

• “In general, we count as part of our personality only that which we can recognize as being an individual trait or as diverging from the norm. But we consist of everything the world consists of, each of us, and just as our body contains the genealogical table of evolution as far back as the fish and even much further, so we bear everything in our soul that once was alive in the soul of men.” -Herman Hesse, Demian

Conclusion

• Only a system of morality based on freedom can improve a good man, and thus improve society.

• Only freedom can elevate soul consciouness from Ruach to Neshama.

Krishnamurti

Argument

• “A man who says ‘I want to change, tell me how to’ seems very earnest, very serious, but he is not. He wants an authority whom he hopes will bring about order in himself. But what authority ever brings about inward order? Order imposed from without must always breed disorder.”-J. Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known

Argument

• “So you are left with yourself, for that is the actual state for a man to be who is very serious about all this; and as you are no longer looking to anybody or anything for help, you are free to discover; and when there is freedom, there is energy, and when there is freedom, it can never do anything wrong.”

-J. Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known

Argument

• “Freedom is entirely different from revolt. There is no such thing as doing right or wrong when there is freedom. You are free and from that centre you act. And hence there is no fear, and a mind that has no fear is capable of great love. And when there is love it can do what it will.”-J. Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known

Argument• Freedom “to discover” one’s true nature leads to

love

• Love cannot be commanded.

• “Love thy neighbor…” (Lev. 19:18)

• Love is the product of an free and elevated consciousness

Argument

• Freedom to discover what about one’s nature?

• The Truth

• What is the Truth?

• All is One.

Argument

• The Truth: All is One, and the One is infinite

• “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear as it is-infinite”-William Blake

• “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”. -John 8:32

Argument• The two great equations of The Upanishads:

• Atman is Brahman

• Tat Tvam Asi: “Thou art that”

• “What we are looking for is what is looking.”-St. Francis of Assisi

A Peculiar System

• Everything that I’ve said thus far probably deserves to be called “peculiar”.

• But nothing that I’ve said can be readily systematized.

• How can you systematize freedom in a way to improve men and society?

FDR’s Four Freedoms• “In the future days, which we seek to make

secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression-everywhere in the world.

• The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way-everywhere in the world…

FDR’s Four Freedoms• …The third is freedom from want-which,

translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants-everywhere in the world.

• The fourth is freedom from fear-which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor-anywhere in the world…

FDR’s Four Freedoms

• That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.”

• -Franklin D. Roosevelt (Holland Lodge #8, NY) excerpted from the State of the Union Address to the Congress, January 6, 1941

Norman Rockwell

Four Freedom’s Monuments

UN Honor Flag 1943-1948

The Fallacy

• Social change cannot occur without a fundamental change at the level of the individual’s consciousness.

• Thus we need a system of morality that based on freedom that can improve individuals.

Awareness of the Unity of the Past

• “The outward social structure is the result of the inward psychological structure of our human relationships, for the individual is the result of the total experience, knowledge and conduct of man…The individual is the human who is all mankind. -J. Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known

Freedom from the Past

• “Most of us walk through life inattentively, reacting unthinkingly to the environment in which we have been brought up, and such reactions create only further bondage, further conditioning, but the moment you give your total attention to your conditioning, you will see that you are free from the past completely, that it falls away from you naturally.”-J. Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known

Conditioned Hatred of the Feminine

• The spirituality of a society begins with its women

“Duke” EllingtonEdward Kennedy“Duke”Ellington

Prince HallFreemasonSocial Lodge #1Washington, D.C.

William Thomas “Billy” Strayhorn

Duke and Strays

• "....Billy Strayhorn was my right arm, my left arm, all the eyes in the back of my head, my brainwaves in his head, and his in mine."- Duke Ellington

A Peculiar System

Strayhorn’s Four Freedoms• “Freedom from hate, unconditionally.”

• “Freedom from self pity.”

• “Freedom from fear of possibly doing something that may help someone else more than it will him.”

• “Freedom from the kind of pride that could make a man feel he’s better than his brother.”

Thank You