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ABOUT NATIONAL CONSCIENCE MONTH
“People who consult their conscience when making decisions, regularly experience more positive outcomes, find they can be happier and healthier, and have more fulfilling lives.” -Leonard Perlmutter
Created by American Meditation Institute (AMI) founders Leonard and Jenness Perlmutter in 2020, National Conscience Month was created to celebrate and raise awareness about the value of using the conscience as a guide to making better decisions.
National Conscience Month takes place each January. During Conscience Month, observers are encouraged to explore and experiment with using their conscience. Through AMI webinars and learning materials, individual research, and 31 days of personal experience challenges, participants learn about what the conscience really is, how it works, and how to access it reliably to make better choices.
Help us raise awareness about using your conscience as a guide to perennial joy throughout the United States. We invite people and organizations across the United States to contact the American Meditation Institute for partnership and promotional opportunities.
Congratulations to the 2025 National Conscience Month Contest Winner
National Conscience Month
2025 Essay Scholarship Winner Daschal James
The American Meditation Institute proudly announces that Daschal James of Missouri City, Texas, is the winner of the 6th Annual National Conscience Month Essay Contest. This year’s honoree will receive a $2,000 scholarship toward higher education and $795 scholarship for the AMI Meditation Foundation Course for describing his personal rewarding experiences of using his Conscience as his sole decision-making guide.
In his award-winning entry, high school senior at Ridge Point High School, James writes that by using his Conscience as a guiding force in moments of frustration, self-doubt, and perseverance, it has shaped his thoughts, words, and actions. “The 2025 contest theme, “Be a Light in the World,” is not just an idea; it is a challenge to live every day with purpose. Light does not need permission to shine. It shines in quiet strength, in moments of uncertainty, and in the way we uplift others even when we may feel overlooked.”
National Conscience Month, observed each January, is intended to encourage individual citizens, governments, school systems, faith leaders, non-profits, community organizations and corporations across the United States to celebrate and raise awareness about the value of consciously using your conscience as an inspired guide in making better decisions.
According to Leonard Perlmutter, founder of The American Meditation Institute, author of “Your Conscience” and originator of National Conscience Month, “Today, a new reliance on our Conscience as our guide can make it possible for each of us to access and integrate intuitive wisdom, and to establish greater personal security, creativity and peace of mind.”
Past Scholarship Contest Winners
2024 Essay Winner
Jiya Patil, Foothill High School, Pleasanton, CA
2022 Essay Winner
Mia Compton-Engle, Shaker High School, Shaker Heights, OH
2021 Essay Winner
Jasmin Palermo, Design and Architecture Senior High, Miami, FL
2020 Essay Winner
Maya Healey, Niskayuna High School, Niskayuna, NY
2020 Video Winner
Josh Geci, New Hartford Senior High School, New Hartford, NY
2020 Visual Arts Winner
Lillian Kronau, Averill Park High School, Poestenkill, NY
Why is Using Your Conscience So Important?
When we work on improving our own personal health and happiness through better personal and social decisions, we actively become a light in the world: one that illuminates a stronger and more secure society grounded in kindness, compassion, and understanding. By learning and choosing to follow our Conscience, we can fill the world with peace, civility, and joy. We can use our conscience to work together for change.
When you make choices guided by the wisdom of your Conscience, you will feel better mentally, physically and spiritually. Your conscience can help you with:
Healthy Eating – Every day you have choices to make about what, when and how you eat. When you use your Conscience to make better food choices, you strengthen your will power and resolve.
Become More Productive – Let your Conscience guide you toward work habits that increase your productivity, creativity and satisfaction.
Strengthen Relationships – Your Conscience can guide you toward making decisions that cultivate happier, healthier relationships and increase your capacity to give and receive love.
Feel Happier – When your thoughts, words and actions reflect the wisdom of your Conscience, you will experience happiness, fullness and peace of mind.
How You Can Participate
Become A National Conscience Month Partner
Are you a leader in your community, at work or at home?
We are looking for partners (organizations and individuals) who are invested in doing good and wanting to be responsible in their choices and actions.
We are in a position to influence people due to the nature of our work and beliefs. We are asking all of our partners to use their influence and voices to help spread awareness and advocate for change. In short, to help people discover how to use their Conscience as their guide.
Promote National Conscience Month on Social Media
Like, share, and retweet Conscience Month social media posts
Help Raise Awareness
Share posters, educational materials, and more. Check out our Resources and Media Kit.
Attend or Host a Conscience Month Event or Class
Use our educational materials to create your own unique program
About the American Meditation Institute
The American Meditation Institute (AMI) is a non-profit educational organization devoted to providing practical, step-by-step instruction on how to attain enlightenment. AMI’s teaching combines the best of ancient Eastern wisdom with the practicality of modern Western science. It empowers students to make conscious, discriminating, reliable choices that lead to physical, mental, and emotional well-being and spiritual awakening.
The American Meditation Institute believes that everyone has the innate capacity for Self-realization and for enhancing their physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being through the mind/body practices of meditation and Yoga Science.
PO Box 430 • Averill Park NY
(518) 674-8714
americanmeditation.org