Para Dravyani Lostavat -- Treat money/belongings of other as mere stones/pile of mud.
Easy to say isn’t it? And easy to preach as well. We hear many people say that they don’t touch penny of other person. Sounds reasonable but the question would they not touch if instead of a penny, if there is a million at stake? That precisely is question and is what matters.
Best quote to example is from Bharata from Ramayana. Being younger brother of Rama, Bharata had no aspirations of becoming the king. How ever, because of twist in the tale, he had got the entire Ayodhya Kingdom at his disposal. He how ever denied to rule the kingdom that belongs to Rama. That is the reason why Bharata has become an exemplary character in Ramayana.
We need to be vigilant and careful in order not to get tempted by the fortune that comes up for which we are not entitled to. Sometimes the fortune at stake tempts u to invent justification for claiming it and thus calming the conscience and world shut up. But that will not make it lawful possession.
Now we come to a tricky question of what really qualifies as lawful possession of a person and what does not? One thing is for sure, lawfully earned wages, interest, rent of land/house etc., will surely qualify. Lawfully inherited money qualifies. But money pursued from parents by pestering them obviously does not qualify. Similarly money procured by torturing the in-laws for money in form of dowry or kind does not qualify.
The lawful word has changed its meaning offlate and there are few differences between contemporary law and Vedic law. For a Brahmin money or kind procured as donation for performing yagna or other vedic karmas, for teaching etc., comprise of lawful earned money. For Kshatriya, money procured by showing one’s strength in war is lawful. For Vaishyas the money procured through trade in form of profits is lawful. For other castes, money earned by offering services to people is lawfully earned money. Also Manu Dharma shastra says the property of parent is to be inherited by male children where as contemporary law states the property to be distributed uniformly between all children.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Ethics Series2: Matruvat Para Dareshu
We are in Kali Yuga which is termed as the last yuga in the list. It is the Yuga where Dharma suffers lot and Adharma reins. Kali Purusha is said to be seen with two things in his hand, sense organs and gold. This is a symbolic representation of features of yuga where people get attached to sensual desires and riches ie., Kama and Ardha with out bothering about Dharma. It is surely not a bad thing for a Grihasthu to get sense gratification and earn riches but if only they are achieved through Dharmic means. Here I try to inspect kama aspect.
Matruvat Para Dareshu -- Treat women other than one’s wife as mother
Even though at the face of it the above statement looks like giving a lesson to men, it is applicable to women as well. They did not explicitly mention about women either because they thought if men follow it religiously it works well or at the time of formulating the above statement women were pious and chaste. But in today’s context it needs to be clearly pointed that the statement is applicable to both men and women.
ParaDara in Sanskrit means other man’s wife and the statement talks about treating her as one would treat mother. Does it mean one can do bad and illegal things with a lady who is not any man’s wife at one point in time? Really smart, isn’t it, we are at exploiting the loopholes of the rules. When we apply rules of Syllogism, the above statement translates to treat every woman/girl who is not your wife as mother. This is to ensure unmarried/widowed girls/women are covered too and thus they are not exploited.
Transformation has occurred in girls too. Even though one cannot generalize it for all, but the cultural degradation has got its worst impact on girls. In the name of love they resort all bad deeds that degrade their character. The transformation has occurred multifold right from their dressing, behavior with boys, attitude, beliefs and this gave a chance to men to exploit them at will. Now only the way we bring up our next generation girl child can save us from the catastrophe. And it is responsibility of us to protect the girl child at all stages so that cultural degradation is stopped as per Manu
Pita rakshati Kaumare, -- Father should protect when she is child
bhartta rakshati yawwane, -- Husband should protect when she is in youth
rakshati sthavire putra -- Son to protect her when she is old.
Matruvat Para Dareshu -- Treat women other than one’s wife as mother
Even though at the face of it the above statement looks like giving a lesson to men, it is applicable to women as well. They did not explicitly mention about women either because they thought if men follow it religiously it works well or at the time of formulating the above statement women were pious and chaste. But in today’s context it needs to be clearly pointed that the statement is applicable to both men and women.
ParaDara in Sanskrit means other man’s wife and the statement talks about treating her as one would treat mother. Does it mean one can do bad and illegal things with a lady who is not any man’s wife at one point in time? Really smart, isn’t it, we are at exploiting the loopholes of the rules. When we apply rules of Syllogism, the above statement translates to treat every woman/girl who is not your wife as mother. This is to ensure unmarried/widowed girls/women are covered too and thus they are not exploited.
Transformation has occurred in girls too. Even though one cannot generalize it for all, but the cultural degradation has got its worst impact on girls. In the name of love they resort all bad deeds that degrade their character. The transformation has occurred multifold right from their dressing, behavior with boys, attitude, beliefs and this gave a chance to men to exploit them at will. Now only the way we bring up our next generation girl child can save us from the catastrophe. And it is responsibility of us to protect the girl child at all stages so that cultural degradation is stopped as per Manu
Pita rakshati Kaumare, -- Father should protect when she is child
bhartta rakshati yawwane, -- Husband should protect when she is in youth
rakshati sthavire putra -- Son to protect her when she is old.
Ethics Series1: Character is Destiny:
In School days we are taught “If wealth is lost nothing is lost, If Health is lost something is lost and If Character is lost everything is lost” This is one of my favorite probably because of the simple words it contains and the rhyming associated with them. It too k me years together to realize true meaning of these simple words and how important they are for a person. Wealth surely can be recovered if one puts effort. Health is difficult to recover but not impossible. Character once lost is something that cannot be recovered in this life no matter how much one tries to. Do we really put so much “price tag” on that item called Character today? I seriously doubt.
What is character? I would say it is sum total of all the behavior that puts us in line with the rules defined for humans. Why rules are defined only for humans? VivekaChudamani says “Jantunam Nara Janma Durlabham” which means out of all animals getting life of human is difficult. So it classifies man also as an animal. Science also says humans belongs to class called mammals and thus puts us along side animals. But what is the difference between humans and animals? No difference if we do not adhere to the established rules or Dharma.
An animal does not have to perform certain actions like brushing teeth, cleaning body and puja( a process that attempts to purify the mind) before consuming food. As soon as it finds it self hungry it can eat what ever is available to it. It is said that a tiger and snake consume its own cub/egg after giving birth, if they cannot find themselves a suitable prey to sustain itself. A human on the contrary has to identify the food that is suitable to him as per the rules defined by his birth and also needs to have the food cooked before consuming. Similarly animal when it finds a mate and has the urge to mate need not refer to Dharma Shastra for mating. A human on the contrary cannot mate with any other human he encounters. He/She has to confine him/herself to the institution named marriage. These are the very things that define and differentiate a human from other animals. If these rules are not followed such a human is no different from animal.
Does character really define destiny? It is not so easy to conclude in one’s life as the destiny is more of a long term scenario and we people cannot easily understand the consequence that is spread across in time dimension over years. Also it is not easy to relate the cause and effect by intuition when we there are so many events that appear to us like the cause. A corrupt officer would have assimilated a fortune by leading a life of parasite on common people. He could not easily draw conclusion that his arrogant, worthless kid was the destiny for the character he has exhibited in his life, isn’t it? He would attribute it to his son’s bad friend who corrupted him.
Character stuff looks very complex to understand for average person, some might say. There are thumb rules that give pointers to living with character.
Matruvat Para Dareshu -- Treat women other than one’s wife as mother
Para Dravyani Lostavat -- Treat money/belongings of other as mere stones
Atma Vat Sarva Bhuteshu – Treat other person as one treats oneself
What is character? I would say it is sum total of all the behavior that puts us in line with the rules defined for humans. Why rules are defined only for humans? VivekaChudamani says “Jantunam Nara Janma Durlabham” which means out of all animals getting life of human is difficult. So it classifies man also as an animal. Science also says humans belongs to class called mammals and thus puts us along side animals. But what is the difference between humans and animals? No difference if we do not adhere to the established rules or Dharma.
An animal does not have to perform certain actions like brushing teeth, cleaning body and puja( a process that attempts to purify the mind) before consuming food. As soon as it finds it self hungry it can eat what ever is available to it. It is said that a tiger and snake consume its own cub/egg after giving birth, if they cannot find themselves a suitable prey to sustain itself. A human on the contrary has to identify the food that is suitable to him as per the rules defined by his birth and also needs to have the food cooked before consuming. Similarly animal when it finds a mate and has the urge to mate need not refer to Dharma Shastra for mating. A human on the contrary cannot mate with any other human he encounters. He/She has to confine him/herself to the institution named marriage. These are the very things that define and differentiate a human from other animals. If these rules are not followed such a human is no different from animal.
Does character really define destiny? It is not so easy to conclude in one’s life as the destiny is more of a long term scenario and we people cannot easily understand the consequence that is spread across in time dimension over years. Also it is not easy to relate the cause and effect by intuition when we there are so many events that appear to us like the cause. A corrupt officer would have assimilated a fortune by leading a life of parasite on common people. He could not easily draw conclusion that his arrogant, worthless kid was the destiny for the character he has exhibited in his life, isn’t it? He would attribute it to his son’s bad friend who corrupted him.
Character stuff looks very complex to understand for average person, some might say. There are thumb rules that give pointers to living with character.
Matruvat Para Dareshu -- Treat women other than one’s wife as mother
Para Dravyani Lostavat -- Treat money/belongings of other as mere stones
Atma Vat Sarva Bhuteshu – Treat other person as one treats oneself
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Ethics
In an “I will do what I like” kind of world we have today, what relevance do we have to ethics? Is it really justifiable to have ethics in vogue in today’s context? Is it really true that we can do anything we want always? It reminds me of a small story I read in school
An English gentleman is walking on street waving his stick at his own will. In an unfortunate moment, the stick hit the nose of another gentleman who is coming from behind. When the second man objected, the first man replied that he has freedom to wave his stick at his own will to which second man said, “Your freedom ends where my nose begins”. He is absolutely right. It is very much applicable even when it comes to ethics.
We truly are not free to do everything we like. But let’s reserve this argument for later and assume we are. Just like the above story our freedom ends where other person’s begins. We do not have freedom to hurt or impact other person’s life by our actions/words/thoughts. Sometimes we do not realize that our actions are impacting our family, our kids, our friends and also our society. Who gives us right do so? This will bring us back to the first question “Are we really free to do everything we like, if we do not know what impact it will have on others in the long run?” Answer is big NO.
Why we need Ethics now?
The next argument that arises is “We are all taught good manners and good behavior by our parents since we are kids. Why we need discourses on Ethics again?” True most of our parents taught us what is good and what is bad when we were kids. But their biggest failure was they thought it was adequate to teach. Our earlier generation did not put into practice themselves the good things they taught their kids. That lead to our generation take easy on some of those things. Say for example a father teaches his son to be show respect to elders and the same person when he talks to his father or father like person in a harsh note, what the kid will learn from this contradiction. Say for example a mother teaches her daughter importance of chastity for a woman but what will the kid learn if the mother does not put that into practice in her own life?
By far our ethics have condensed to the level of what is convenient for us. And for every rule broken comes a justification. It looks very appropriate at the moment and justification very apt, if we overlook long term consequences of the situation. A simplest example is a boy and girl fall in love and disobeys traditional caste system to get married. Little will they realize that their marriage can create problems for rest of their family and even their kids!
What are Ethics anyways?
It would be over confidence if I consider myself as an expert in this field and start my discourses on the subject. Frankly speaking, I am trying to put some of the things I know into a organized manner. Not that I know everything, but I have gotten a chance to witness few things in the world by the way of my own deeds (right as well as wrong), by way of spectator to few deeds done by other and also a victim of deeds others committed for their own selfish gains. I would also add a disclaimer that some of the places you may find myself carried away a bit by the emotion and I seek your advance forgiveness. There starts a series of articles on ethics.
An English gentleman is walking on street waving his stick at his own will. In an unfortunate moment, the stick hit the nose of another gentleman who is coming from behind. When the second man objected, the first man replied that he has freedom to wave his stick at his own will to which second man said, “Your freedom ends where my nose begins”. He is absolutely right. It is very much applicable even when it comes to ethics.
We truly are not free to do everything we like. But let’s reserve this argument for later and assume we are. Just like the above story our freedom ends where other person’s begins. We do not have freedom to hurt or impact other person’s life by our actions/words/thoughts. Sometimes we do not realize that our actions are impacting our family, our kids, our friends and also our society. Who gives us right do so? This will bring us back to the first question “Are we really free to do everything we like, if we do not know what impact it will have on others in the long run?” Answer is big NO.
Why we need Ethics now?
The next argument that arises is “We are all taught good manners and good behavior by our parents since we are kids. Why we need discourses on Ethics again?” True most of our parents taught us what is good and what is bad when we were kids. But their biggest failure was they thought it was adequate to teach. Our earlier generation did not put into practice themselves the good things they taught their kids. That lead to our generation take easy on some of those things. Say for example a father teaches his son to be show respect to elders and the same person when he talks to his father or father like person in a harsh note, what the kid will learn from this contradiction. Say for example a mother teaches her daughter importance of chastity for a woman but what will the kid learn if the mother does not put that into practice in her own life?
By far our ethics have condensed to the level of what is convenient for us. And for every rule broken comes a justification. It looks very appropriate at the moment and justification very apt, if we overlook long term consequences of the situation. A simplest example is a boy and girl fall in love and disobeys traditional caste system to get married. Little will they realize that their marriage can create problems for rest of their family and even their kids!
What are Ethics anyways?
It would be over confidence if I consider myself as an expert in this field and start my discourses on the subject. Frankly speaking, I am trying to put some of the things I know into a organized manner. Not that I know everything, but I have gotten a chance to witness few things in the world by the way of my own deeds (right as well as wrong), by way of spectator to few deeds done by other and also a victim of deeds others committed for their own selfish gains. I would also add a disclaimer that some of the places you may find myself carried away a bit by the emotion and I seek your advance forgiveness. There starts a series of articles on ethics.
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