The Ethical, Moral, and Moral Deterioration of the Indonesian People Can Be Healed Through Spirituality
Author: Jacob Ereste
Freelance Journalist
Entering the spiritual realm requires strong and steadfast ethics, resisting the temptation to deviate from good and evil, thus contaminating the purity and honesty of one’s heart, striving to do one’s best and not harming others or oneself. Thus, the requirements for achieving a good moral order—without flaw or blemish—can lead to pure and noble morals. Because only with a pure, honest, and sincere soul can one reach the many varied spiritual peaks. Although this achievement itself is still at an early stage, the peak of the spiritual ascent is never-ending, as it only lies in the grave.
Therefore, the spiritual journey becomes more exciting when one has an awareness and a small understanding of the necessity and importance of the spiritual dimension as part of one’s life and living to draw closer to God.
So, spirituality can only be achieved on a foundation of good ethics, morals, and character. Like a ladder, ethics can be considered the first step to the next step—morals—until one reaches the noble moral platform, as humans are blessed by God as khalifatullah (vicegerents) on earth. The subsequent stages will depend largely on the individual’s efforts and persistence in continuing to walk the same path, drawing closer to God, so that they can do their best for their fellow humans, nature, and the Almighty Creator.
This means that the spiritual journey is essentially not merely an “inner journey” or “ritual,” but rather a path of life that requires a pure heart, honesty, and total sincerity to accept all forms of hardship, whether successful or unsuccessful. Because sincerity and surrender do not mean defeat or surrender, but are based on the awareness and understanding that human power is very limited. The rest is part of the power and secret of God’s greatness.
Ethics itself is not built through traditions, customs, traditions, and culture within the environment surrounding the individual. Therefore, thee phenomenon of the decline or collapse of ethics, morals, and ethics can be seen in today’s human behavior, which no longer embodies politeness and manners. Language is vulgar and rude, as reflected in communication via social media. This ranges from the use of spoken language to the etiquette of using social media, which can seem sarcastic and disgusting, including attempts to impose one’s views on others in unethical ways.
This decline in ethics, morals, and ethics can be traced back to schools and colleges, where the focus is solely on graduation, rather than the quality and merit of the learning and training undertaken. This gives the impression of simply seeking legality. Therefore, fake diplomas and degrees have become a trend, despite lacking the substance and substance of the diplomas and degrees obtained through unfair means, such as bribery or relatively high prices.
From this reality, what is actually happening in society are falsehoods intended to deceive others or the wider community, even though the actual content is nonexistent, like empty promises. A further consequence of this culture of falsehood is the tendency to deceive and trick others by making false promises without ever feeling guilty, let alone admitting one’s sinfulness.
The addiction to deception resulting from this culture of falsehood seems to have spread to political, economic, social, cultural, and even religious spheres, becoming targets for the plunder of corruptors, fraudsters, and con artists. Even the existence of God is considered null and unimportant, with the exception of law enforcement officials who refuse to be bribed. Yet, in reality—such as the phenomenon of collective corruption—law enforcement officials are dominant and aggressive in their involvement in demanding a small share of the proceeds of the increasingly rampant corruption in this country.
That’s why the movement to awaken spiritual awareness and understanding is increasingly relevant to be continuously proclaimed by GMRI (Indonesian Moral Reconciliation Movement), because to fix the political, economic, cultural and religious decay cannot be done by the agency or institution alone — such as the National Police’s attempt to reform the National Police — it is impossible to succeed, because the root of the problem lies in the spiritual realm, namely ethics, morals and morality. So what is needed is a leader those who possess spiritual intelligence and character, are aware and understand that everything cannot be turned away from or ignored in the divine dimension.**
Banten, November 15, 2025
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