Question: I am wondering whether it is actually Paramatama prompting someone when he says that his conscience tells him that something is right or wrong. Is it correct to say that what one calls conscience is actually Paramatama?
Answer by Romapada Swami:
Often, but not always.
Supersoul sanctions everything that happens within the material energy, so we can say that “Not even a blade of grass moves without the sanction of the Supreme.”
Conscience, moreover, implies an explicit direction towards goodness or even divinity, which most certainly emanates from Supersoul.
But some of the “inner directions” that we feel are far from Divine, or even goodness.
For example, it is possible for someone to do something that is terrible, and to feel no sense of conscience. That absence of conscience, or the acceptance of some wrong to be right (ignorance, forgetfulness) is sanctioned by Paramatma, but that is not at all the personal wish or higher direction of Paramatama.
On the other hand, one may be tuning into on an inner prompt that is NOT the divine direction of God, yet still think it to be so. In fact, the prompt may be harmful for the individual as well as for others. That is not the function of conscience, but of ignorance.
