Saturday, June 15, 2013

Change begins from Within

Some moments create confusions and some others are void and simple, inspiring and enlightening. Right now feeling much of these in a mix. Life has multiplicity of choices, yet one hardly has a choice than to live life. But do we really live life or just pretend to do it on pretext of Falsity.

Adi Shankaracharya said-

 ''ब्रह्मसत्यं जगत् मिथ्या, जीवो ब्रह्मेव नापर:| '' 

i.e. Brahm is ONLY absolute reality but then it is also anirvachaniya (cannot be described). But Jagat sure is mithya (neither real nor unreal) i.e. false appearance of Brahm. Brahm is absolute truth, goodness-in-itself. Jagat is not really so. Even if there is really no Brahm, yet this concept does give an insight of what ought to be. What is moral and ethical and what is practised ostensibly. Jagat is full of false appearances because of inherent material disposition in it. May be matter-in-itself is nothing bad, but ownership of matter is an evil and it propagates further evil.  In some way, Communism is not all wrong. What is Ethics? What is Morality? What is Right? These are too difficult questions to answer, but whole life depends on it. So they seek an answer since the day mankind are on earth. Reason tries to search for an answer to these questions, but are they really worth a quest of reason at all?

Reason can only apply to reasonable fields which are empirical in nature i.e. based upon observations and experiments. What can’t ever be experienced, can’t ever be truly rationalised. But this does not answer our questions. Philosophy has been, since time immemorial a quest in search of answers to these questions. We can keep on finding facts, principles, laws of nature and improve upon our scientific pursuit; but what will a scientific society do without moral individuals. Morality needs a definition. To be true to it, Morality is beyond definition and any definition of morality limits it and hence is incomplete. Yet for the sake of defining it, it must be defined. So the quest went on... Here I am not going to enlist those definitions. 
But I have a question-
Have you ever defined Morality for yourself? Think again, Have you defined morality or have you defined limitations to it? Well, Defining Morality is as important as practising it. And if you claim to be a moral individual, define morality for yourself. Why? May be once you do, you will find answers to certain questions like why individuals turn immoral when they do? Why we do what we never meant to?

Now one might doubt, and a reasonable one, that an individual definition of morality won’t go far in best interests of society. Yes, it won’t but it will certainly reach somewhere and once it reaches where it will; the path ahead would be easier than as it is today. It is easy for a state to regulate it’s citizens by rules and procedures prescribed by it but is it not breach of freedom of will of an individual? Solution lies in the question.

A state is made up of it’s citizens and if we, as citizens,  choose to be moral, it would be far easier to abandon inhuman regulatory acts which breach our freedom of will. No point begging the question all time regarding conflictual situations of all types – individual, social, political, religious or economic. It’s time we should justify our stand one-by-one, one step at a time. Justice has long been delayed to many of us. It is our due to them, it should be our ultimate concern. God will not come on earth to give them their due. The earth has well been ours for exploitation of resources, it is equally ours to make a fine balance and to do justice towards all.

To conclude, There is a Doha by Kabir-

हद चले सो मानवा, बेहद चले सो साध|
हद-बेहद दोऊ तजै, ताकर मता अगाध||”

(Ordinary men follow the limited, the saints follow the unlimited. But the deeper minds go beyond both of them.)