Voice of Conscience

According to Rousseau, conscience and conscience alone can elevate human beings to a level above that of animals. It is conscience, understood as infallible judge of good and bad, which makes man like God. Conscience itself is, in this context, understood as divine, as an "immortal and celestial voice". Therefore, if the voice of conscience is the same as the voice of God, then conscience is nothing human.

Q. What is conscience?

·     Conscience is a kind of faculty which is unvarying, innate, and incorruptible and it is present in all human beings. In other words, conscience is the true self of human beings and a Kindle of guidance. It is a dependable source and it carries a voice. When someone feels that sermon, recommendation, or exhortation from one’s conscience, it is referred to as the voice of conscience.

Q. What is the challenge and how to listen to the voice of conscience?

·    The challenge is the noise around us. The noise of confusion, ignorance, beliefs, notions, power, dogmas, upbringing, pressure, and other temptations. And in the midst of that noise, one will have to learn to heed to the voice of conscience. For listening to that voice in the middle of that noise of darkness one needs that input of human values and ethical competence. That ability to investigate that noise will prepare a mortal to listen to the voice, the voice of conscience.

So how to listen to that voice of conscience?

·     It will take efforts to clear the noises. And for a bureaucrat who is always guided by rules and public benefit, one needs a sincere conditioning as well as practice to heed to the voice of conscience clearly. Here apart from family upbringing, we have to continuously train ourselves to seek guidance from within while making any decision.

·      In a materialistic world there is a lot of noise and surprisingly we all keep a keen ear to those echoes. But an acute focus of self on the self will construct and evolve a person to reach nearer to that spirited self for listening to that voice of conscience.

·    So when a person carries a spirited urge for the truth, for the righteousness in conduct one can approach one’s conscience more and more clearly.

·     We need some time to introspect, contemplate and evaluate our behaviour, our actions and here our conscience will keep on guiding us provided we are seeking for that faculty.

·       Great Vivekananda or Mahatma Gandhi are towering leaders who carry those soulful ears to listen to the voice of conscience in the midst of noises.

Q. Current Example/Case Study regarding Voice of Conscience

Bihar teacher listens to ‘conscience’, returns 33-month salary to college

·     An assistant professor of Nitisheswar College, in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur, Lalan Kumar, 33, has returned nearly Rs 24 lakh — his total earnings since joining the job in September 2019 — as no student turned up for a single class in these 33 months, and his “conscience did not allow” him to pocket the salary without teaching.

·      He said “My conscience does not allow me to take a salary without teaching. “Even during online classes (during the pandemic), there were only a handful of students present for Hindi classes. If I take a salary without teaching for five years, it would be academic death for me.”