Daily Meditation: Tuesday, February 8, 2005

Conscience - is appeased only if we make amends

02/08/2005

The human conscience is a reality, a merciless reality. Take the case of a criminal. Whatever he does, he cannot rid himself of certain anxieties: the police, prison, his victim’s revenge, remorse. Why? Because he has set certain processes in motion which are now reflected in his conscience, and he can no longer find peace. It is not his conscience which produces these images, since it is only a screen and is not responsible for anything that is projected there. We can understand, then, why some people surrender spontaneously to the police and agree to be punished for their offences: something within them knows they deserve punishment, but also that they must make amends. For it is by atoning that they free their conscience, and once they have done so, a new ‘film’ is projected on their screen.