How can One show High Moral Standards???

This post is about what are the diverging and converging points between the thoughts of greatest moral thinkers - Socrates , Plato and Aristotle about Morality.

                                Socrates believed that greatest pursuit for men is "Virtue"- showing high moral standards. He related virtue with knowledge and further with happiness. He believed that only knowledge is needed to make all men virtuous and virtue is sufficient for happiness in life. If someone acts wrongly it is due to his ignorance or lack of knowledge. His disciple Plato followed the same doctrine that identifies virtue with knowledge. Plato went on to preach that virtue is teachable. Morality is not gift of nature and can be inculcated through education. He further makes fourfold division of morals i.e . Wisdom, Valour, Temperance and Justice.

                               On the other hand, Plato's disciple Aristotle placed the morals in more humanistic framework. Aristotle believed that Virtue consists of both knowledge and passion. According to Socratic views, if a man has the knowledge of correct moral course of action then he will be virtuous always. However, Aristotle believed that such a man may also take unethical route due to unruly human emotions. "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" sums up this situation. Further he stated that this passion can be disciplined only by constant exercise of self control. Habit is of great importance in morality.

                               Now that i know what these great thinker preached about morality or being virtuous, i am in a position to understand that first it is important to have the knowledge to take morally correct decisions. Then whenever one's emotions hinder, in him being virtuous he has to self discipline himself.With practice virtuous conduct becomes a habit. Further, along with Wisdom, he has to be courageous (Valour) and show Temperance to be able to pursue "Virtue".

What exactly is Dharma??? & How should I practice it??

Another chapter of GurCharan Das's book "The difficulty of being Good", brings another question to my mind....What exactly is Dharma??? and How should I practise it???


Yudhishthira(nick name Yudhi) believed that it is his dharma to keep his promise and spend life in forest according to the agreement. It is only then that he should go back and ask for his kingdom. For him it is in his nature to behold dharma. On the other hand, Draupadi was more pragmatic and she would favour consequentialist ethics to get Pandavas to wage a war( in the middle of the exile period) instead of siting in forest facing hardships. This brings us to the question of Consequentialist vs Yudhisthira's dharma???
     
                                   Lets take an example, imagine that to bring peace and happiness to the World, the only way is to give unacceptable torture and sufferings to a little child. Yudhi, who believes in honest and moral means to achieve his goal would say no to such act. But consequentialists, who derive the moral worth of a action on its consequences would be ready to give sufferings to the child. Thus this dilemma between consequences and means - that makes dharma subtle. I am not choosing one over other, but one of the criticism of consequentialist ethics is that it ignores the justice in distribution of goods. It is indifferent to the needs of the poor as long as the overall satisfaction of the society at large is maximised.

                                  Keeping this tussle aside, lets again focus on Yudhi's dharma. Draupadi always wondered what is the need for Yudhi to be good?? Why should he behold his dharma in this wicked world???
Lets compare this situation with a primary school teacher. A teacher, who has bicycled 30kms each day for the past twenty years without missing a single day of school, when asked the reason for this hardship, replied " Teaching is my dharma." Now compare this with present schooling system in India, wherein one in four teachers in our govt schools is absent and one in four, although present, is not teaching. The epic Mahabharata has offered a number of reasons to these school teachers to be good. First, it is one's duty. Second, good acts produces good consequences. Third, social order will collapse if people will not keep their commitments. Fourth,virtue dharma i.e. one who neglects his capabilities will fail to achieve life's purpose.

                                  Although i understood that it is neccessary to be "Good",but i am not sure what is true dharma??? Here comes GurCharan Das for to rescue. Our epics tell us that there are plural ends to life - dharma (righteousness), artha (material well being) and kama(desire). Hence in life one faces situations where they come in conflict with each other. What is the most difficult of the situations is when dharma sets limits on the pursuit of pleasure and wealth. It is then Mr. Das says one maximises pleasure as long as it doesn't  diminish another's. Thus i am truly able to understand the idea of dharma and how to practice it.

                                  This conclusion might have popped up a question in your mind, whether Yudhi was correct in beholding his definition of dharma??? Well there is a turning point in his idea of dharma as well. When he decides to wage war on Kauravas (which an idealistic Yudhi,who stands for absolute moral standards, wouldn't have waged), he understand the limitations of his dharma. His new dharma is grounded in self-interest but without being amoral. In a single word, it is 'reciprocal altrusim': adopt a friendly face to the world but don't allow yourself to be exploited.

                                  Now without lengthening my post, i would like to state that YES Dharma can be Taught!!! A person's character is not something that one is born with. It is constantly evolving repeated actions and when I repeat certain actions, I accumulate karma of certain kind which builds a certain kind of character and predisposes me to act in a certain way.

Is it good to "Envy" other person???

While browsing through the shelves of my local library, I came across a book with a rather unique name. It instantly caught my attention and I was curious to sift through the pages. The book was called 'The Difficulty of being Good by Gurucharan Das'.(Before I dive into the deep end of the pool, I must let you know that this is an excellent book and I would recommend it to people who like thought provoking and insightful pros with a flavor of Indian mythology.)

                               Envy is a normal human feeling. It has a universal appeal, there is nobody who doesn't suffer from envy. Some hide it and others show it openly.  And 'hypocritical envy' is considered more dangerous than open and honest envy. So, how do you go about dealing with such a raw, intense emotion you may ask?Well the world is not devoid of inequalities and it is these inequalities that causes the feeling and emotions of envy in a human being. And in most cases envy is an evil that consumes us and blinds us from rationality and makes us attack and be mean to people around us. So in this uneven world what is the best way to deal with envy?

                                   Ancient Greeks had a very unique way to deal with envy. They believed that people who are more prosperous, high in popularity or successful in anything which could cause envy in others needs to be ostracized – banished or excluded by popular vote. Indians also had a way to deal with envy. Indians believed that nobody will be envious of worldly success if you renounce it. And hope for compensation in another world. Buddha was greatest example of this. Chinese dealt with it by being excessively and hypocritically modest and sought to disparage their achievements.

                                        Despite giving envy a negative tag up till now, there is a positive side to it as well. It all lies on how one perceives it. One can either be envious to other people and create eternal sickness or foster healthy competitive spirit.
Duryodhana choose the earlier. He should have bettered himself without having the malicious desire to deprive the Pandavas of their possession.  This form of envy is called graciousness or benign envy. On the other hand, Dronacharyya exploited envy between the Pandavas & Kauravas to raise the level of their performance. If one recalls the holocaust of jews by Hitler, it is a classic example of bad envy. Jews became the victim of general envy by the unsuccessful Germans and Austrians. They envied the success of the tiny population of Jewish community. There are number of examples of both kinds of envy in the world.  The real question is how to avoid it ???

                                     Before diving right into this, I would like to talk about an Indian origin story – The Ambani Brothers. After their father’s death,  envious tendencies crept between the brothers. And it was the perfect intervention by their mother which saved the massive empire. Otherwise the envy would have engulfed the whole empire of Dhirubhai Ambani. After the empire was divided equally between the brothers, it was 'benign envy' that led to competitiveness between the two and today both feature in the top 10 billionaires in the World. However, the point to be noted here is that apart from specific cases like this,there are general envious tendencies that exist in society. How to deal with it?

                        

                                  The best way to deal with envy is to inculcate a habit of giving back. When I say giving back, I mean when the rich and flamboyant help and aid the lesser off sections of the community, the rift with lessen and envy will slowly fade away. For eg. The Ambanis are less envied till the time they are creating more and more jobs and paying taxes.

                                Before I end this post on “Envy”, I would like to talk about socialism. It is a wide spread notion that socialism forces equality in society and hence it lessens envy. However, I believe it is simply the opposite in reality. What Socialism does is lessens the differences among people. The fewer the differences results in fewer standards to measure one against.  Thus there are more chances of people at same level to compare themselves with each other and getting envious over small things.  Hence Envy is the vice of socialism.

This is just single chapter in this book which focused on envy. Go grab the book and you will be encounter many such thought provoking excerpts within the book.