Today’s culture revels in moral relativism. People reject the existence of objective moral principles; they argue that whatever makes them feel good is good, and whatever makes them feel bad is bad.

However, irrespective of our subjective feelings, actions have objective consequences. Consider the activity of taking narcotic drugs. Even if it feels good, its results are objectively bad: those who take drugs repeatedly, apart from ruining their health, get addicted. Addiction obstructs addicts in acting constructively and impels them to act destructively – this consequence of addiction is factual and non-relativizable.

What applies to drug use applies to all actions, even those whose consequences are less deleterious. Our actions contain the inbuilt consequence of shaping our dispositions, with which we have to live thereafter. The Bhagavad-gita (16.12) cautions that our desires become like shackles.

Thankfully, the principle that actions shape dispositions works positively too. In fact, tapping this principle positively is the purpose of moral guidelines given in scripture. Those guidelines discourage actions that foster unhealthy dispositions and encourage actions that foster healthy dispositions.

Won’t such guidelines make us feel bad about ourselves when we can’t abide by them? Possibly. But, even if we feel bad initially, we will ultimately feel enduringly good. To feel good by relativizing morality is to blind ourselves to consequences – it is self-deception that ends in self-degradation.

The best way to feel good is by realizing our spirituality. We are souls, parts of an all-good God, Krishna. When we follow the topmost scriptural principle to connect with him by practicing bhakti-yoga, we feel good, serene, satisfied.

Instead of relativizing morality, we can strive to live according to scriptural guidelines for activating our dormant devotion to Krishna. By the resulting purification, we will relish steady absorption in him and feel good perennially.

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