"the search for freedom, freedom to perceive, without obsessions, all that's humanly possible." -Don Juan

I am sure that many people here can empathize with that search. Many people whom I have talked to, this seems an unspoken paradigm permeating our culture. I am unsure if it transcends our generation(s), but it feels like the most obvious place to go in my mind. I want expand myself, I want to grow. I want to learn as much as I can. I want to experience as diverse an array of experiences as I can. And obsession is just an inhibiting factor that serves to limit our expansion. When I say obsession, I really mean a kind of dependence or addiction. There is certainly a right place for healthy interest. But the point at which you cannot see outside of your own perspective is the point at which you are stuck in it. I want to experience as much as I can without becoming stuck in anything of which I cannot escape on my own free will.
Something I have been exploring along those lines is the extent to which moral preferences inhibit experience and may well serve to limit the amount that we learn from a given experience. It seems to me that the reason many people make decisions based mostly off of moral grounds, at least in a situation in which they must react immediately, they do it out of fear. Their moral paradigms are not empowering them but instead forcing them into a state of fear about the consequences of betraying a system which they place emotional faith in. They are afraid of, for instance, feeling guilt, other people treating them negatively, or any other array of consequences.
But if you liberate yourself from this fear, even if you make a decision which you may now deem immoral, would you not be in a better position to learn from the experience?

This also brings into question the imposition of society's morals onto our minds as a method of control and conformity.
I think it is important to challenge your own morals. Do not have blind faith.
Things like the morality of murder, theft, the personhood of nonhuman organisms, even something simple like the act of making somebody else violently uncomfortable, also violence in general; these things need to be called into question.

We are at a point in history in which it is imperative to call to question as many reasonable things as we can think of!
In much of the psychedelic culture I see more conformity than I would like to, too many people think that psychedelics reveal a single truth.
YOU ARE NOT RIGHT!
NEITHER AM I!

APPLY A DIMINISHED EGO TO YOUR DAILY LIFE
(but really. don't.)

Interesting post.

Personally I never really understood where morals come from. The ones I originally learned about were based on christian religion, though I was not brought up religiously. The way it seemed to be explained there, why one was to have these morals, was as not to offend God. And in a more indirect but obvious way - so later you can go to heaven instead of going to hell. So in a way the morals seemed to me, based on a kind of self-protection.

There are those among us who believe humans cannot act without the motivation being self-centered. I.e. if you don't think your action will do you good, you won't lift a finger. Now without debating what the person perceives as "good", this would mean exactly what I described above. Any kind of morality is just disguised selfishness. If you believe what I presumed.

What about altruistic people, you may ask then... Well, they may just have a different definition of self, or a different idea of what is good for them. Doing something good for the neighbor may be good to keep the relationship harmonious and avoid trouble down the way... Or perhaps if you have a more flexible sense of consciousness or are a very empathic person, doing something good for the neighbor actually makes you feel good because you feel what the other person feels.

I always liked that last manner for creating my own morals.

What you say about fear may be true to some degree. Guilt and social stigma or being cast out are things that are feared by many I suppose, and they are not desirable things. So I think it's more a question of what outweighs what - the benefit of the possible action or the negative repercussions it might have - and this is what I'd say modern morals are based on.

As for believing in one truth and the psychedelic community... perhaps there are many out there that do believe this, and yes we see them come here now and then, but in general I think the population of the nexus is more open minded than that, so no need to shout.

I was raised in a secular home, where morality was not really openly discussed. So to whatever extent is possible, I feel that my own morality formed organically, through experience and interaction. My moral code is very similar to the basic Golden Rule; treat others as you want to be treated. And this comes not from some sense of fear of society's rejection, because frankly I never cared- but from what feels like a very practical, sort of karmic view of things: To quote another cliche, what goes around comes around. Our actions within the larger group are noticed and remembered, and may enhance or limit our opportunities in the future. In short, behaving at least somewhat agreeably in the present is an investment in having a more agreeable social environment in the future.

But of course this needs to be taken with a grain of salt. It's easy to get caught in a trap where you doubt the rightness or wrongness of every little action, and end up living an overly constrained life as a result. So my own morality is based largely on trying not to hurt or annoy others in an obvious way. I think that's fair enough, and leaves me free to do an awful lot of things without fear of offending God or any of that nonsense. So I do have constraints, but the limitations that I place on my own actions simply reflect the way that I want to be treated, and by and large it does work out that way.

I think it's a toxic lie that religions claim that atheists are naturally amoral.

At the same time, by individuals having some sense of personal morality, it becomes possible for us to have a civilization.

Like everything else, it's all about finding a balance that works for you.