At the very outset, I have resolved to adhere to brevity. No point in trying out other’s patience!
I tried to look at ‘provocation’ as a violent form of temptation! To use a dramatic example, I choose to take a small incident from the war & its battles of the great epic “Mahabharata”.
Despite advice from a great being, none other than Lord Krishna himself, the divine charioteer, Arjuna could not bring upon himself to aim the fatal arrows, and unleash it upon the venerable Paterfamilias, the venerable Bhishma! Bhishma’s stature & character loomed large, clouding the vision of Arjuna. This hesitation “provoked” Krishna to climb down the chariot, take up his own weapon, the sudarsana Chakra and aim it at Bhishma! A puzzling contrast is that Bhishma, who has never known defeat, nor has ever refused an offer to combat, welcomes with open arms, bare palms, to joyously get killed by Krishna! To me, here, Bhishma’s conscious choice, a seemingly logic-defying one, represents the virtue of selfishness at its peak! (Yes! Ethics and selfishness seem to be in an endless conflict when we are torn between the two, when the choosing either of them becomes imminent, due to compulsions of situation, in our day-to-day-life routine! Selfishness in a deeper sense does advocate ethics, and then there is no inner conflict. That is the secret of our ancient mystics, the spiritual Masters!)
It is this unfair advantage to Bhishma, for which Arjuna does not like to become a root cause! He once again assures Krishna, to resume his resolve ‘not to take up arms himself’. This incident repeats several times! Then ultimately, Arjuna the sole spiritual disciple of Krishna, barely manages to grasp the complex concept of this emotional conflict, and obeys to slay Bhishma!
Some ‘ethical’ prescriptions like ‘do not nurture hate for others’ etc does not really seem to work in practical life! We need to seek better reasons, to cheerfully adopt this kind of ethics. Reasons which are not flimsy, like ‘trying to appear’ like a good person in the eyes of others! Such flimsy reasons only add up to stress within, and cause untold miseries like tension, BP, and related ailments like diabetes! That reminds me of a funny incident! We were a group chatting casually during the post feast-lunch session after a ‘match-fixing’ ceremony of a bride & groom. An elder lady was asserting ‘her’ non-availability to common causes of diabetes like tension, anger, stress, BP etc, when youngsters seated around were trying to suggest a possible cause for her mild manageable level of diabetes. I suddenly blurted out “Telling lies”! Quite unexpectedly, all the youngsters shouted “YES!”!! Despite all of us knowing too well, that this is not a logical answer, the elderly lady became a bit stiff-faced, serious and got deep into thoughts! I at once realized that I had, quite inadvertently, poked at a deep wound inside! (This lady is well known to the entire group, and is deeply respected for her grand stature, blemish-less character, stout honesty, and her health has been a constant concern of all the people around her, always! So, it is not the commonly referred meaning of “telling Lies” that caused laughter to the youngsters or the ‘stiffness’ to that lovable elderly lady!) This is the problem with trying to be ‘ethical’ for superficial reasons! It ends up causing health problems, as an immediate side-effect. I lack courage to mention the other ‘karmic’ side effects! I suppose now, it would be somewhat clear, as to what kind of ‘ethical’ error-bug that Arjuna tried to avoid, and yet needed some time to grasp a ‘better’ reason to adhere to the very same ‘ethics’ while taking the crucial decision to slay Bhishma !
It is this complexity (ethics, emotions, its concepts) that I liked to ‘bring to your kind attention’ for the present!
Regards,Psn (6th November, 2009)
Showing posts with label virtue of selfishness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label virtue of selfishness. Show all posts
Friday, November 06, 2009
Thursday, June 04, 2009
No Self
No Self
Prologue:
Why not go in for an expanded version of the brief question… So I felt…..
Let me tell you a very small bed-time story. Only that, now we spend that bed-time in front of a Monitor, eyes wide open! So, the timing is still perfect.
Once upon a time, there was a carpenter….. (my father told me during my kid days…)
Though not very poor, he managed a reasonable income, sufficient to nurture his large family. Being the only ‘earning’ member and also the head of the family, he had that moral responsibility to ensure reasonable care for the family.
He regularly used to tell his wife “Please make sure that children don’t become hunger-stricken”…
She was a very obedient and humble wife. She had great trust in the carpenter’s wisdom. She took his advice a bit ‘too literally’ and made sure that none of her children went hungry. As parents, they ate what ever was left over after the children finished dining.
Over a period of time, the carpenter and his wife started ‘thinning’ into lean health. The work load became too unbearable for the carpenter with lesser and lesser ‘fuel’ for health.
He eventually died.
With no bread-winner anymore, soon the family came to know what is poverty and hunger.
It was then, the poor wife realized what he had meant when he requested her “please ENSURE that children don’t become poverty-stricken” ! The carpenter was too modest a person, and felt embarrassed to ask for ‘full-stomach’ quota while dining. He instead chose to put it very mildly, when he said “ensure that children don’t BECOME hunger-stricken” (that is, eventually …)!
(Here, the small Story is over)
This is what happens when the “concept” of self-less-ness is not properly understood!
We have those legal ‘entities’ as iconic examples. Big companies, joint-stock companies which look like a very big “SELF” without any tangible human form! We are taught to share a bit of that company, serve that company, asked to remain loyal to that company, defend, represent, and what not! Yet, there is ‘no self’ in that company, the way we experience our “selves”! Take good care of that large company and it rewards the staff, the stake-holders, its customers, the country and everybody well! But try to thrust our own ‘well-being’ right into the heart of that company as a top-priority, and we have that huge 150 year-old company collapse(like L.. B…), triggering a Global-economic-meltdown!
Actually, for me at least it appears thus: managing that ‘self’ getting inflated too much is not that big a problem in the present day situation. We are centered around just the money, more than anything else. We forgot to respect knowledge, virtues, etc. There is hardly any jealousy when somebody becomes wise, knowledgeable, skilled etc unless that person is also “stinking-rich” …. !!So, it is a bit easy too, to just keep that ‘tab’ on money, or it’s getting too much into our head.
(End of prologue).
(This is what I had started off with, before I squeezed in that prologue, given above):
There is that virtue of selfishness too.
We people are often confused with these contradicting terms. There is also that ‘self-less-ness’ being extolled as a virtue.
Quite natural that somebody does ask its day-to-day use, lest one may miss the ‘practical’ utility, waiting(wasting) life-long for that clarity.
For me, it looked as simple as playing the ‘given’ role.
I wonder if our Malayalee friends had managed to look a bit deeper, when they so casually use these words to even respectfully address others as “ Ad-dheyham” (Aa = that, dheham = body, symbolizing in a deeper sense, the omnipresent spark of divinity, presently manifesting through “that” body !!!!!).
Psn (4th June, 2009)
http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090602043211AAijcqW
The question:
How does the concept of "no self" help us in our day to day lives?
My reply:
Aha..
When you say "concept", then we have to look a bit deeper.
'No self' helps us to recognise the 'inter-dependence' of human beings, mutually as also with everything around. Out of this understanding, we evolve, and then move towards a 'no-help-seeking' attitude. When people start giving out more than what they receive or 'expect' to receive, then this 'no-self' affords merging with everything around. It resolves most life-problems, especially those that we created like this economic meltdown, recession etc!
Prologue:
Why not go in for an expanded version of the brief question… So I felt…..
Let me tell you a very small bed-time story. Only that, now we spend that bed-time in front of a Monitor, eyes wide open! So, the timing is still perfect.
Once upon a time, there was a carpenter….. (my father told me during my kid days…)
Though not very poor, he managed a reasonable income, sufficient to nurture his large family. Being the only ‘earning’ member and also the head of the family, he had that moral responsibility to ensure reasonable care for the family.
He regularly used to tell his wife “Please make sure that children don’t become hunger-stricken”…
She was a very obedient and humble wife. She had great trust in the carpenter’s wisdom. She took his advice a bit ‘too literally’ and made sure that none of her children went hungry. As parents, they ate what ever was left over after the children finished dining.
Over a period of time, the carpenter and his wife started ‘thinning’ into lean health. The work load became too unbearable for the carpenter with lesser and lesser ‘fuel’ for health.
He eventually died.
With no bread-winner anymore, soon the family came to know what is poverty and hunger.
It was then, the poor wife realized what he had meant when he requested her “please ENSURE that children don’t become poverty-stricken” ! The carpenter was too modest a person, and felt embarrassed to ask for ‘full-stomach’ quota while dining. He instead chose to put it very mildly, when he said “ensure that children don’t BECOME hunger-stricken” (that is, eventually …)!
(Here, the small Story is over)
This is what happens when the “concept” of self-less-ness is not properly understood!
We have those legal ‘entities’ as iconic examples. Big companies, joint-stock companies which look like a very big “SELF” without any tangible human form! We are taught to share a bit of that company, serve that company, asked to remain loyal to that company, defend, represent, and what not! Yet, there is ‘no self’ in that company, the way we experience our “selves”! Take good care of that large company and it rewards the staff, the stake-holders, its customers, the country and everybody well! But try to thrust our own ‘well-being’ right into the heart of that company as a top-priority, and we have that huge 150 year-old company collapse(like L.. B…), triggering a Global-economic-meltdown!
Actually, for me at least it appears thus: managing that ‘self’ getting inflated too much is not that big a problem in the present day situation. We are centered around just the money, more than anything else. We forgot to respect knowledge, virtues, etc. There is hardly any jealousy when somebody becomes wise, knowledgeable, skilled etc unless that person is also “stinking-rich” …. !!So, it is a bit easy too, to just keep that ‘tab’ on money, or it’s getting too much into our head.
(End of prologue).
(This is what I had started off with, before I squeezed in that prologue, given above):
There is that virtue of selfishness too.
We people are often confused with these contradicting terms. There is also that ‘self-less-ness’ being extolled as a virtue.
Quite natural that somebody does ask its day-to-day use, lest one may miss the ‘practical’ utility, waiting(wasting) life-long for that clarity.
For me, it looked as simple as playing the ‘given’ role.
I wonder if our Malayalee friends had managed to look a bit deeper, when they so casually use these words to even respectfully address others as “ Ad-dheyham” (Aa = that, dheham = body, symbolizing in a deeper sense, the omnipresent spark of divinity, presently manifesting through “that” body !!!!!).
Psn (4th June, 2009)
http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090602043211AAijcqW
The question:
How does the concept of "no self" help us in our day to day lives?
My reply:
Aha..
When you say "concept", then we have to look a bit deeper.
'No self' helps us to recognise the 'inter-dependence' of human beings, mutually as also with everything around. Out of this understanding, we evolve, and then move towards a 'no-help-seeking' attitude. When people start giving out more than what they receive or 'expect' to receive, then this 'no-self' affords merging with everything around. It resolves most life-problems, especially those that we created like this economic meltdown, recession etc!
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