PURITY IS POWER

Purity is Strength Swami Vivekananda

e want purity pure food, pure water, pure air. We long for pure surroundings. We yearn for pure heart and pure love. We prefer pure environment and pure society. We are fond of purity because purity promotes health. Impurities are injurious to health. Purity provides peace of mind. Impurities impair the mind. Both for bodily health and mental health, we need purity. We do require environmental purity for overall health. Purity of body is physical health. Purity of speech is unsullied truth. Purity of heart is unselfish love. Purity of thought is righteous reason. Purity of mind is wholesome peace. Purity of action is sincere and unselfish service. Purity of society is harmonious unity. Purity of environment is soul-elevating serenity. Purity of self is blissful spirituality formless divinity. God is hidden in all. Everyone is basically divine. All are children of immortality. Srinvantu Viswe Amritasya putra is the Upanishadic statement. We do inherit eternity, divinity and purity. But the latent divinity is eclipsed by the cloud of impurities. The more we remove the impurities, the more the divinity shines. The one of purity finds no impurity anywhere. To be totally pure is to be wholly divine. A divine person is bright with the radiance of enlightenment. H e s p r e a d s p u r i t y, s e r e n i t y, b l i s s f u l s p i r i t u a l i t y, a harmonious oneness and divinity. Evil is not resisted by the enlightened ones, since no evil is ever found by them. Their eyes are so pure that they cannot see evil. Their lips are so pure that they cannot utter evil. Their actions are so pure that they cannot harm anyone. Mahatma Gandhis life and
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message are so pure that evil has no place in his vision, expression and action. Holy Mother Saradadevi is holy on account of her inability to see evil in anyone. She is pure and divine; therefore, she has been able to see purity and divinity in everyone. All saintly personalities see only the latent divinity in everyone and by their purity cleanse the society. Blessed is the society, if it has in its midst a pure person of divine radiance. In the Mahabharata, there is an interesting episode to illustrate the nature of purity. The Pandavas and Kauravas were Dronas disciples. They were once summoned by the preceptor Drona for a test. The eldest of the Pandavas, Yudhishthira, was asked to bring one bad person from the society. The eldest of the Kauravas, Duryodhana, was asked to fetch one good person from the same society in Hasthinapura. After a thorough search, both the cousins returned empty-handed. The pure minded Yudhishthira found everyone to be pious and pure. The impure mind of Duryodhana found everyone to be evil and impure. As is the mind, so is the vision. Purity of mind makes our vision, words and deeds pure. It has also the power to purify people. Evil has no place in the presence of purity. Nor can it face purity, as darkness cannot face the sun. It only gets changed into purity. Fools who come to scoff remain to pray in the presence of purity. Villains who come to harm stand in adoration in the presence of purity. Murderers become votaries of peace in the presence of purity. During the British rule in India, there was an Englishman as Collector in Madurai. He was known for his haughtiness and indifference to the divine purity of the temples. He even made fun of the pure places of worship. Strangely, once in the presence of God, the embodiment of purity, he forgot his attitude and remained to worship the Deity.
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Sri Ramakrishnas spouse, Sri Saradadevi, was once going to her husbands place in the company of some fellowtravellers. They were passing through a thick forest. It was also getting dark. Saradadevi was a very young virgin girl of pious mind. She was innocent and devoted. She was a paragon of purity. Suddenly, they heard the footsteps of approaching dacoits. Leaving the young Saradadevi alone, the fellow-pedestrians ran away to safety. The evil-minded robbers arrived. They looked at her. She was standing alone without any fear, shining with her chaste simplicity. Her purity was blazing. The robbers were addressed by her as papa with fullness of affection. There was a change in them. Her purity purified them. They forgot their professional cruelty. They became kind. They were mysteriously metamorphosed into good people. They requested her to be their guest, take food and rest in the night. She accepted their hospitality. They treated her as their family member and the next day they sent her with all honours to her husbands place as they would send their own daughter. Pavaharibaba was a saint. He was pure and pious. He lived a very simple life. One day, when he was asleep, a thief entered his dwelling place and took away the vessel containing food. The saint woke up and saw the running thief. Immediately he picked up the remaining two vessels containing boiled vegetables and curd and ran after him. The thief stopped and the saint approached him with all purity of love and said, Child, the food is insufficient for you. You may have this also. Please sit and eat without any hurry. The thief was wonder-struck by the affectionate words of the pure soul. There was a change in him. He prostrated himself before the saint. Without being pure at heart, if anybody imitates the saint, the result would be different. The thief might only give a blow and take away the vessels. The test of genuine purity is in its metamorphosing ability.
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Angulimala was a ferocious bandit. He would not hesitate to kill anybody who resisted him. Many a mighty man was slain by him. After killing the enemy, he would cut off the victims thumb. All the thumbs so cut were gathered in a garland to bedeck his neck. His cruelty was displayed in the Angulimala (garland of thumbs). He was, therefore, a terror to all and known as Angulimala. Nobody would ever dare to pass by his cave in the woods. Once Gautama the Buddha was to travel through the same forest in which the plunderer was living. The disciples of the great Buddha requested him to go by a different route. The Buddha was of pure heart and so feared none. So there was no need to change the path. He, with his disciples, was walking near the dacoits dwelling place. When they were close, Angulimala suddenly pounced upon them with a dagger in hand. Buddha, the embodiment of love, stood still at the approaching volcanic fire in the shape of the plunderer. In the pious presence of the Buddha even the fire would not burn with anger. The robber was basically a human being and by the loving glance of the Buddha the inhuman traits disappeared and the man submitted himself willingly with devotion at the feet of the Lord. He became a follower of the pure soul, the Buddha. Later the same dacoit became a votary of peace and preached love and non-violence. Blessed are they who are pure at heart, for they shall grant purity and peace to all; for purity is peace, peace, purity. Once upon a time, one particular rishi called Gautama did tapasya to obtain certain powers. For several days, months and years he observed rigorous austerities. He did not eat and drink; he stood on a single foot; he controlled the senses; he meditated on the chosen deity. One day in the morning, he went to the river for a holy dip. On the bank of the river there was a tree. The branches of the tree were outstretching towards the river. A crane was seated among the branches. When Gautama was in neck-deep water facing
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towards the sun with an austere mind, the droppings of the crane fell on his head. He felt disturbed, annoyed. He looked at the bird with anger. The next moment, the bird fell dead. The rishi was happy because he had obtained the power to kill a bird by his very gaze. After a while, he went to the nearby village for food. He stood before a house and sought alms from the housewife. She was busy doing her domestic chores. Gautama waited for a few minutes. He was annoyed with her for the delay in responding to his call for biksha. The lady came, looked at him gently and said, Sir, I am not a crane to be killed by your stare. Sorry for the delay. I was serving my husband and feeding my children. Please accept the food. The rishi was shocked. He could not know how she was able to learn about the crane which died only a short while ago. The lady further said, Sir, dont be surprised. I am a humble housewife. If you want to know more about tapasya and the attainment of powers, please go to a particular person, whose address I shall give. Saying so, she gave him the address. Humbled and crestfallen, the rishi went as directed. It was a greater shock to him to see the particular person to be a butcher engaged in selling fish and flesh. The moment he was seen, the butcher said, Holy Sir, welcome. I know about the cranes death and that housewifes advice. Please wait a little and I shall soon take you home. Later, at home the rishi was surprised to see the butcher delaying him further. He was busily engaged in serving his parents. He did not seem to have read any scriptures, not did he observe any austerities. But he was bright with purity, purity of mind. In his presence, the rishi was completely transformed. His pride of tapasya disappeared. He turned modest. He became pure without anger, ill-will or haughtiness. He who is sincere in service, faithful in doing duties and loving without selfishness is pure. Such pure people have the power to
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change evil-minded people into good and loving ones. The power of purity is very high and priceless. The elements of nature have the ability to purify not only things but also beings as well. Man makes use of the elements to purify his body. Similarly, man has to avail himself of the Godhead or divinity, the fountainhead of purity, to purify the mind, so that he can become divine. An impure mind is incapacitated to reveal the hidden divinity. By connecting oneself with divinity through prayer, enquiry and meditation, one has to purify the mind and see the divine within. Charity begins at home. Similarly, purity is to begin with the body and the habitat. Physical hygiene is of absolute importance. A healthy body houses a healthy mind. A person of healthy body and mind will contribute to the general health of the society he lives in. Take care of the small coins, the rupees will take care of themselves. Take care of the body and the surroundings, mental and environmental purity will follow suit. The human body does produce foul stuff. It has no built-in mechanism to clean the body. It has a capacity to heal and also resist to a great extent the impurities. But that too as long as the body is strong and healthy! When it becomes weak and sick due to insufficient hygiene, it can no more resist the germs and heal itself. Also, the parts of our body are prone to produce impurities. Left to itself neither the body nor the habitat can keep itself clean without our conscious effort to keep it tidy. Effort is essential to keep ourselves and our dwelling places clean and tidy. In the night we go to bed after a refreshing bath and a mouthwash. But in the morning when we wake up, we find the body and the mouth to be foul, requiring a wash again. Similarly, our houses and surroundings need repeated cleanings. Impure areas are the breeding centers of all sorts of harmful germs and mosquitoes. Most diseases are due to lack of proper
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hygiene. Certain diseases are contagious and certain others are infectious. By coming into contact with the impure bodies, we acquire diseases which are contagious. By inhaling impure air, we acquire diseases which are infectious. Cough and sneeze spread diseases by air. Physical proximity and contact spread diseases by touch. Therefore, care must be taken to keep us clean and pure, keeping ourselves away from all infectious and contagious diseases. Nature provides us with good food. Trees produce delicious fruits. Cows yield nutritious milk. Man consumes them both, to nourish the body. While transforming the food into blood, we also produce foul materials. Sweat and dirt, phlegm and rheum, urine and excreta are the foul stuff produced and thrown out by mankind. Nature receives all that unwanted output and destroys its impurity or converts it into useful manure for the plant kingdom which in turn would produce food for mankind. In a way, we ourselves are producing the unhygienic material. If it is not properly disposed of and if the body is not cleaned, we become victims of our own folly and our own output. Physical cleanliness is hygiene. Want of physical hygiene is the cause of ill-health. Not only does an impure person spoil his health, but is a source of ill-health to others also. Therefore, in our personal interest and the interest of public weal, we have to observe meticulously the principles of personal hygiene. Normally, to keep ourselves clean, we wash the body at regular intervals. And for washing we use water, pure water. Impure water is the breeder and carrier of harmful germs. Pure water alone cleans. Dirt cannot be washed with dirt. Since pure water is used for a purifying purpose, it is precious and given a sacred status. The Ganges is supposed to be perennial and pure. So it is ever useful to keep us pure. Because of its purity and purifying ability, it is given a holy position. Ganga Devi, the Ganges, is therefore Mother
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Goddess to purify us all. Similarly, the air, the earth and the fire have purifying properties. Therefore, they are all elevated to a divine status. Whichever is a source of use, energy and of purifying ability is holy, and we worship it with grateful devotion. Subrahmanyam Siva was a great patriot from Tamilnadu. He was one of the very prominent freedom fighters in the independence struggle of India. Unfortunately, he was caught and imprisoned by the British. In the jail, he was subjected to physical suffering and humiliation. Above all, the unhygienic conditions of the jail were such that he was afflicted with the dreadful disease of leprosy. He himself describes the bad atmosphere and the reasons for his disease. Pure water was not available to quench his thirst or to keep himself clean. Want of clean water caused the dreaded disease. Nala was a great king in ancient times. He was always highly meticulous in the upkeep of his body, palace and the kingdom. The secret of his glory lay in his special attention to purity everywhere and in everything. One day, in a hurry, he could not wash his feet fully and thoroughly after an evening stroll and before entering his chamber. Kali, the evil spirit, was waiting for an opportunity to enter into him and thereby ruin his career. The moment the king was found without a proper hygiene near the feet, Kali seized the opportunity and sneaked into the person through the unwashed part of the foot. From then onwards, the king was subjected to untold misery. He lost his kingdom, was separated from his wife, lost his handsome personality and became ugly. It is all a mythological presentation of ones sufferings due to insufficient purification of body and mind. Kali is the evil germ always waiting for an opportunity to spoil the body and mind if they are impure. Had the king been a little more careful in making himself inaccessible to impurities, the harmful evil, kali, could not have crept into
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him to do havoc. Once the body is made weak by the enemy, the mind also will become weak. And gradually impurities will make inroads into the very entrails and ruin the person totally. Prevention is better than cure. Holiness and purity go hand in hand. A place becomes holy to the extent it is pure, kept pure. Holiness wanes as the impurities wax. Rivers are holy since they are pure and can purify the body. Temples too are holy, because they are pure and purify the mind. If their purity is not well maintained, they are likely to be polluted and thereby become less holy. Similarly, people will be holy if they are pure both physically and mentally. Rivers are pure if they flow perennially, if they are not stagnant. Temples are pure if there is regular worship and if they are not turned into centers of commerce and corruption. People are holy if they are austere and if they are not drawn to sense-indulgence. Purity is the prerequisite for holiness. It is not enough, if we keep ourselves and our living neat and tidy. We have to be cautious about the intake also. Especially the food and drink that we take must be pure. There are three types of food. They are, Tamasik, Rajasik , and Sattwik . The food that makes us lazy and sleepy is Tamasik . The food that rouses passions and aggressiveness is Rajasik . The food that keeps us cool, calm and tranquil is Sattwik . Both vegetarian and non-vegetarian food can be categorized into these three. Stale and spicy food and fermented drinks are alcoholic and so are of most disastrous consequences. The impure stuff poisons the mind, provokes passions, kindles the dormant beast in man to be a g g r e s s i v e l y i m m o r a l a n d v i o l e n t . T h e m o re t h e provocative stuff is prohibited, the better it is for the peaceful living of the society . Alcohol is slow poison killing the mind and the body. Mr.Dowell was a decent man. His body was healthy. His habits were good. His mind was pure and his wife was clean.
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Mr.Wrongdoer was not happy to see him pure. He wanted everybody to be bad. Therefore, he decided to tempt Mr.Dowell into evil ways. He offered him money and luxury, if only he did as directed. Mr.Dowell declined to accept every offer because the tasks assigned to him were all wrong and immoral. He was asked to rob, rape; anyone. He was moral, so he would not lust for any woman. He was human, so he would not harm anyone. When Mr.Wrongdoer failed in all his attempts of threats and temptations to drag Mr.Dowell into evil ways, he thought of a plan to trap the good man. The guileless Dowell was one day invited to dinner by the cunning Wrongdoer. At dinner, alcohol in small quantities mixed with fragrant cold drinks was given to him. Later, spicy food was served. Slowly and unconsciously, Mr.Dowell drank and ate the Tamasik and Rajasik diet. His mind became tipsy and passions were roused. Seizing the opportunity Mr.Wrongdoer repeatedly suggested evil ways to the drunken victim to become rich and enjoy life. The plan clicked. Dowell was fully under the influence or alcohol. He looked at a girl, who was alone. He rushed towards her lustfully and tried to molest her. A passer-by came to her rescue and tried to prevent the atrocity. Dowell got annoyed. In anger, he showered blows and plundered his pockets. What he hitherto had avoided as an honest man, he did under the influence of impure intake. The whole of the Yadava race, in which Sri Krishna was born, got ruined on account of their addiction to intoxicating drinks. Drugs and drinks destroy those who are addicted to them. In the outskirts of a town, on the bank of a river, under a greenwood tree, a Bikshu in yellow robes was seated on a stone platform. He had a packet in his hand. A passer-by from a nearby village saw the holy person; went close to him and said, Sir, you seem to be pious with your shaven head and yellow clothes. But you have with you a packet from which a fish is peeping out. Do you eat fish? Are you
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not a vegetarian? Or is there a specific purpose for holding the fish in a packet? Kindly let me know who you are and why you have the fish? Bikshu: My dear man, I am what I am. The packet contains not only fish but the flesh of a goat also. I take them to be cooked and eaten. Villager: Sir, is it right for people like you to eat passionprovoking food? Bikshu: My man, listen. I am helpless. I am drunk. I am hungry. Having taken alcohol, I cannot starve. I should eat mutton to match the intoxication. Then only I feel well. Villager: What? Do you drink too? I thought you are holy. Bikshu: See man, what am I to do? When a beautiful belle offers liquor with the warmth of lust, how can I say no? How can a womans son ever say no to a woman when she woos? I have accepted her offer and am now coming from her house. Villager: Oh sacrilege! Blasphemy! Do you also visit prostitutes? It is indeed a bad day. I have seen an unholy man in a holy attire. Bikshu: Why, why man, why are you upset? Take it easy. I dont visit whores every day. It is only when I get a rich booty while looting the wealthy peoples houses, I will be tempted to go to women. Villager: Oh my goodness. Do you rob the rich? You are also a robber then! Bikshu: Why are you agitated, my dear man? You seem to be very innocent. Dont be disturbed at heart. I dont rob people every day. I take to stealing only when I need some money to gamble. Villager: Oh my day! You are also a gambler. Enough, enough of my conversation with you. It is really unfortunate that I have seen you today. I thought, you were a holy man. What a bad day!
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Bikshu: Dont be upset, my man. I go to gamble only when I am idle, I take to the play of deceitful devils to win their flickering glances of grace. Villager: But, when are you normally idle? Bikshu: Almost all the time, because I have no work. I have to while away time somehow, I have to kill time; else it kills me in loneliness. Therefore, I seek diversion. Villager: You are unfit to be a Bikshu. Why, you are unfit to be a man. You deceive yourself and others. You are devil incarnate. Go, hang yourself. Having talked to you, I have to purify myself. Saying so, the villager went his way. The Bikshu only laughed at him and proceeded to his den of evils. An idle mans brain is indeed a devils workshop. Idleness is stagnation of time. Laziness is the cesspool of stagnant energy. Impure thoughts and evil ways have their birth-place in idle brains. Thorny bushes grow in uncultivated lands. Evil designs spring up in uncultured minds. All impurities are poison, slow poison. Idleness is a breeder of poisonous impurities. Therefore, one should not be idle when alone, and should not be alone, when idle. The best way to avoid loneliness and idleness is to engage oneself in useful work, a service activity and seek the company of the wise. Else, the poison born out of loneliness and idleness kills us slowly or sometimes even suddenly. In Kodaikanal there is a particular spot called suicide-point. The rock there is steep. Deep below there is a valley to bury those who slip into it. A single wrong step, even if unconsciously placed, is enough folly to kill the person instantly. Electricity will not excuse a person who by mistake touches a live wire. It does give the fatal shock. Similarly, evils and impurities are the murderous devils ready to devour the idle and unwary ones mercilessly. One has to be away at a safe distance from the suicide point, from the live wire, fire and the murderous evils such as alcohol, drugs and red light areas.
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Ajameela was the pious son of a devotee. Every day the young Ajameela would collect flowers, fruits and all the required articles for the worship of the deity by his father. One day as he was returning home after gathering the flowers, he found on the way in the roadside grove, a young couple indulging in carnal pleasures. They both were drunk and tipsy. The woman was beautiful with half closed eyes, youthful curves and slipping clothes. The young Ajameela could not but slow down his walk to see the obscene and attractive act. The woman was gradually devoid of garments. The nakedness of passion was irresistible to the upsurging youth in Ajameela. He tried to check himself. He could not. The figure of the woman was persisting in his mind. Her features demanded a total possession of his thoughts. Mechanically he handed over the flowers to his father; with no involvement, participated in the worship; and with his mind fully occupied by that woman, he tried to while away time. But he could not. She and the passion for her were irresistible. Unable to control lust, he proceeded to the woman, offered his all and became a slave, a slave of desires burying thereby his purity in the engulfing passions. Vulgar sights are capable of spoiling the purity. It is therefore a social responsibility to arrest the display of obscenity in public. Many a promising youth is a prey to temptation. It would be better if there is a positive direction offered to the youth by the society through the mass media. Parrots speak, if trained. They can imitate human speech. Two parrots were brought up by two people: one was a hunter, the other a scholar. They both trained their pets in speech. The first parrot brought up by the hunter, spoke words of harshness. Its expressions were crude, rude and uncivilized. The second bird had acquired softness in speech. It spoke with refinement and culture. The first one learnt the vulgar slang of the cruel hunter and his customers. The latter was quick in repeating the kind words of affectionate
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welcome and farewell in the scholars house. Both the parrots were brothers born to the same mother bird. But on account of the bringing up and the atmosphere available around, their expressions and behaviour differed very greatly. It is not enough, if we are born pure. We should also be brought up in a pure atmosphere, among the cultured people. Else, the inborn purity will wither away or will get eclipsed by the contaminating time and place of impure environment. Nature is one. Nurture is another. The inborn trait is Nature. The cultivated quality is through nurture. The former is inherited, the latter is imbibed. It is through training that the latent talent becomes patent, bright and purposeful. Very often, for want of proper and pure environment many a gem remains hidden in sands, and many a flower withers away unseen in thorns. Sometimes insufficient and improper training spoils inborn traits of virtue. Even if the inborn nature is a little impure, we can purify it and make it perfect through nurture. Dogs in the street are dirty with dirty habits. But a well brought up dog is not only clean, but behaves very methodically and decently. Man does inherit the traits of animals. But through training he becomes man. Through samskaras and Nature, the impure legacy from the animals is washed off and the latent purity in man is made to shine. Each soul is potentially divine. Swami Vivekananda. Birds and beasts are subhuman species. They are governed by instinct. Man is human; he is blessed with intellect. Using the intellect, he has to rise further and become superhuman. It is also left to him to revert to be subhuman or divert himself to be inhuman. Insufficient training may make him subhuman, impure training may make him inhuman. Both are disadvantageous to man. Very often, we come across such statements as man is a rational animal, social animal, etc. The indication is that he has to shed the animal in him
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and remain pure. While the subhuman species have no free will, man is gifted with free will and intellect to shed all impurities and grow in purity. He will then become superhuman and divine. To be divine, one has to be mentally pure. The more the mirror is clean, the more the reflection is clear. The more the mind is pure, the more the divinity within reveals itself. To be divine is to reflect divinity. And everybody has divinity within. All our efforts are therefore only to cleanse the mind of its impurities. As there are certain impurities at the physical level, there are some impurities at the mental level. Unconsciously, man manufactures certain impurities instinctively at the mental level, as he does at physical level. For the purification of the body, a conscious effort is to be made through washing and cleaning. Similarly, a deliberate attempt is to be made to purify the mind. The mind is pure, when the impurities are purged out. The mind remains pure when the impurities are not allowed to enter it. A pure mind is peaceful and heavenly. An impure mind is perturbed and devilish. Hell and heaven have their abode in human mind. To the extent the mind is pure, it makes heaven. To the extent it is impure, it makes hell. Purity promotes virtues, righteousness and calmness. Impurities prompt the mind to be vicious, unrighteous and turbulent. When the mind is calm and serene, it reveals the inner divinity. Because the impure mind is disturbed with improper thoughts, it conceals divinity beneath its waves. Both holy thoughts and unholy thoughts occupy the mind. To be free from them both is total and transcendental purity. Freedom from vain thoughts is bliss. Unholy thoughts darken the mind totally, concealing the God within. Holy thoughts are like the coloured transparencies revealing the God with a form and colour. But a thought-free mind is like the lake of crystal clear water without waves, showing the God residing in the heart as He is. The mind is pure to
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the extent it is devoid of diversions. When the thought waves recede, the mind becomes still. When the mind is still, it can be calm and concentrated. The concentrated mind can meditate well. Through meditation, the mind is transcended and there is oneness with God. In other words, the mind merges with the Almighty. Purity merges with purity. God is pure. Therefore only a pure mind can see Him or be one with Him. Manasa Sarovar is a beautiful lake with crystal clear water. It is in the Himalayan region. People of India make it a point to visit the lake as a part of their pilgrimage. The significance of the visit is that the pilgrims should emulate the purity of the lake and try to have a similar mind of purity. Manasa Sarovar literally means mind-lake. Manasa is mind. Sarovar is lake. The lake there is so calm, transparent and pure that anything at the bottom is clearly seen from the surface. Our ancients called it Manasa Sarovar because, it resembled a pure mind bereft of thoughts. And they made it a pilgrim center because they wanted us to see a model mind in the waveless lake to reveal the God within. The impurity of the mind is due to two reasons: passionate desires and wavering thoughts. The former spoil the mind as dirt spoils water. And the latter disturb the mind as the waves deprive the water of its quietude and clear transparence. The first attempt therefore is to remove the dirt from the mind and then strive to quieten it. The dirty passions spoiling the mind are six in number. They are lust and greed; anger and envy; attachment and haughtiness. These are demoniac traits that tarnish and torment the mind. Mostly these traits are inherited by man from animals. Instead of instinctively forstering these qualities to devilish proportions, man is expected to exercise restraint and overcome them in the long run to become divine. Animals indulge indiscriminately in sense-pleasure prodded by lust. If man also does the same, he is not only subhuman
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but inhuman. He is expected to regulate the instinctive lust through righteous self-control and finally conquer it. Marriage is societys sanction to channelise the instinct. Strictly speaking, wedlock is not a licence to lust but an opportunity for a righteous regulation to overcome it gradually. Marriage indeed is a sacred trust reposed in the conquerors of lust to provide the society with citizens of sterling character. Swami Vivekananda, while defining Aryans and non-Aryans say that the lust-born bolies are beastly and they are non-Aryans; those who are prayer-born are human and they are Aryans worthy of becoming divine, since they inherit purity and not lust, austerity and not indulgence. It is love which is pure. Love blossoms into devotion. Devotion leads us to divinity. But unfortunately love when polluted by sex-instinct becomes lust. The sooner the lust is burnt, the sooner divinity shines. Pure love flows in single-minded devotion, which purifies the mind to total serenity, thereby enabling it to see and merge all impurities. The way to remove the impurities is to clear it or cleanse it with pure love. Care should be taken to see that love itself does not get polluted in the process. For, love becomes poisonous lust when polluted by the desires for sensepleasures through sense-objects. Love becomes repulsive miserliness, when passionate possessiveness penetrates into it. Love becomes blind in the dark cell of passions, if fettered by attachments to kith and kin. Love becomes the demon of haughtiness, if passions flare up ego. Love becomes the green-eyed monster, jealousy, when its looks are limited to ego and routed through ego. When every type of adulteration is avoided, love shines making the mind pure enough to reflect God, and ethical excellence paves the way to total purity wherein the mind is wafted to infinity, to merge with the infinite God. To keep ourselves physically pure, we follow hygienic principles and use pure water for purifying our bodies. But,
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for mental purity, a dip in the Ganges is not enough. Neither germicides nor perfumes can purify the mind. While the body and surroundings are pure, the mind may remain impure for want of effective internal purification. A dog in the street is lustful and therefore runs after the opposite sex and shamelessly indulges in sense-pleasures. Ravana the king is no better. He is on the other hand worse than the beast because he is beastly without being in the form of a beast. He is endowed with intellect which he has abused. Therefore, instead of calling him a man, we call him a demon. All the qualities such as strength, courage and perseverance are present in angels and devils. But it is purity that makes those qualities divine in the former and it is impurity which makes the same qualities devilish in the latter. If the demon is mighty, God is almighty. Purity makes the difference. Nature has many beautiful objects. It has many delightful times and has many areas of scenic beauty with many a sweet sound and fragrance. There are many attractive persons as well. We can enjoy nature and her bounty without disturbing any of them. The moment the grabbing tendency creeps into the mind, the enjoyment to that extent is reduced and polluted. A pure mind is one with the beauty of Nature without ever disturbing itself or Nature. To own, to possess, to grab and to reduce the enjoyment to the level of sense organs in the body are indicative of lust, which is the expression of impure love or polluted love. At the highest level of pure love, there will be no expression of admiration even. Lover, love and the loved object become one beyond ownership, experience and expression. Happiness and love are not pure and complete, if they admit duality. The experiencer, experience and the experienced merge into one at the height of ecstatic love. Love seeks no possession, knows no rivalry, and shines in unselfish sacrifice of all including its own self.
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Contrary to the code of pure love, Ravana sought to own the object of his love, abducted and decided to kill the person he loved, if she was unwilling to gratify his lust. There are people who pluck flowers as an expression of love for them. They are incapable of admiring them without owning them. To own is to spoil. To that extent the love is impure. It is a type of vandalism. To gaze at beautiful objects is also a type of subtle vandalism. Tathagatha the Buddha and his disciple Ananda were walking in an evening. The sun was setting behind the golden peaks of the western hills. An aspirant joined them silently. There was total silence, but for the sounds of the rustling dry leaves and the twittering birds. Breaking the serenity of the stillness, the newly joined aspirant said, Oh, how enjoyable is the evening! Enthralling is the sunset; beautiful are the birds. Nature is really splendid now. Tathagatha looked at the man, paused and proceeded. He felt disturbed. He felt, Nature was polluted by his speech. Ananda understood the Master and gestured to the intruder to desist from vandalism. Tathagatha is one with nature and cannot bear to be separated even for a second in any way. Prema is pure love. Kama is contaminated love. As we practise pure love, we find love alone everywhere; purity alone everywhere; God alone everywhere. Gradually we too become one with purity; one with love and one with divinity. That is why, we find in the lives of devotees total absorption in God. They find no evil. So there is no question of resisting the evil. Blessed are they who are pure at heart, for they see purity everywhere. Radha sees Krishna everywhere and in herself too. Hanuman sees Sri Rama everywhere and in himself too. Jesus Christ has no need to resist evil, since he sees purity in all. Greed it is to accumulate wealth by grabbing it by all means fair and foul at the cost of purity and peace of mind. Duryodhana is known for his greed. He resorted to foul
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ways to own the wealth of the Pandavas. Whoever converts white money into black money is impure and greedy. To be content with what is earned lawfully is gentlemanly. Black money spoils the purity of money and heart. It darkens the currency and reputation. It mars our progress. It makes us mean. Beautifully it is said in Christianity: A camel may pass through the eye of a needle but never can a rich man enter the gates of heaven. You cannot serve two masters, namely, God and Mammon (money). To be pure, keep off from greed. All men of peace and purity anywhere in the world are invariably unknown to greed. Love sparkles in service which is giving away wealth. It is dark when frozen by greed in accumulation of wealth. We call it black money when it is hoarded or earned with greed through corruption. The wonder is, wealth grows when in charity it is given away with love. But the short-sighted ones cannot see the truth. The more you draw from a spring, the more it springs up. A loving giver never comes to grief, for he is unselfish. Anger is obstructed desire. Desire is a deformity of mind. Desires are many; deformities also are many defiling the purity of mind. When one desire is fulfilled another crops up perpetuating the deformity. If it is not fulfilled, it causes annoyance and anger totally darkening the mind. Then it fails to perceive clearly; discriminate rightly; conceive correctly and decide wisely. A lady had a two-year old baby. Her husband asked her to be ready by five in the evening to go to a film with him. In the evening, she got the baby ready in a beautiful gown, well dressed hair, a necklace, powder and eye-tex. Leaving the child in the drawing room she went in to get herself ready. Only for a few minutes the child was left alone. Meanwhile the baby felt uneasy in the hair, so pulled the hair-pin and the hair got dishevelled; felt prickly in the neck, so removed the necklace forcibly; felt irritation in the eyes, so rubbed them spreading the eye-tex all over the cheeks. When the mother came out, she found the child
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ugly. She got annoyed and gave her a thrash, which was but a negative reaction of affection for the offspring. The desire that the baby should look beautiful is obstructed. Anger makes us inhuman. It totally eclipses reason and man temporarily becomes insane. The more we are free from anger, the more peaceful we are. Our blessings and best wishes are often from the lips. But our contempt and curses are from the depth of the heart. Very rarely do our eyes shine when others are well and happy. Very quickly they become red with anger and green with jealousy involuntarily unable to be happy when others are happy. A cultured man is one who is cured of envy. It is the legacy of the animal instinct that man has to overcome deliberately through training in human love. More dangerous than lust, greed and anger is envy. It is psychic cancer. It eats away the mind where it is born. This dreadful disease of the mind is caused by the virus called comparison. The more we compare, the more envious we become. Once we are infected with this envy, we become suspicious. We cannot appreciate anybody. We become sarcastic in speech. We take delight in speaking ill of others. We wax in a conversation criticizing somebody. We derive a strange pleasure, when others are unwell and unfortunate. We enjoy, if someone fails. It is a consolation, if others have greater suffering than we. Envy is generally the trait of slaves. They suffer and want everyone of their tribe to suffer. A few pilgrims were on their way to a temple. On the way they found a huge idol of Vinayaka. The belly was large and the navel deep. A curious pilgrim inserted his finger into the deep navel. Immediately he took it out and put it in the mouth saying it was very sweet. Every one of the pilgrims repeated the same. It was only when everybody had experienced the strange sweetness that they began to weep together because they all had the scorpion sting! One
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student went home running jubilantly declaring that he had failed only in one paper whereas his neighbour had failed in two. Envy can see success in failure and failure in success. It is not enough if one is successful; he wants others to fail. Most problems, wars and politics are because of envy at the national level, institutional level, family and individual levels. Unless one overcomes envy with love, one cannot gain purity and the resultant peace of mind. It is time we examined ourselves thoroughly to annihilate envy. Let us be pure and thereby enjoy the power of purity through unselfish love. Attachment is due to ignorance and haughtiness is due to self-love. The former makes us blind to truth and the latter drives us to be indifferent to truth. It is disastrous when we do not see, or wrongly see. The more the vision is clear, the better we make progress. Dhritarashtra was blind and Duryodhana was haughty. They could not see the divinity in the righteous people. Their actions were selfish and unholy. Parasurama was proud and Vali was conceited. Until the impurities were removed by Sri Rama in them both, they could not realise the greatness and divinity in Sri Rama of pure love. Selfishness is at the root of all ill-will, envy, lust and greed, anger and hatred. The more we grow in pure love, the more we become unselfish. The more unselfish we are, the more loving and lovable we become. We gain thereby a new power, a force, an attraction that nobody can fail to acknowledge. Buddha and Jesus, Gandhi and a host of sadhus have been able to win the love and admiration of all because of their purity through unselfish love.

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HONESTY AND INTEGRITY

Honesty is the best policy. e want everybody to be honest. We dont like anybody to tell lies. We expect faithfulness in all. Never do we want to be deceived by anybody. It is honesty when we do not tell lies and when we dont cheat anyone. To cheat is to tell lies and trap the victim into willing submission. Trickery is worse than robbery for it is treachery to exploit the innocent and the unwary by playing foul. We may be guarded against robbers by building strong walls etc. but not against cheats, since they make us believe them before deceiving us. Only the good and the innocent are often the victims of these evil doers. Lies are their fragrant flowers to entice the bees of innocence. Pretension is their palace of foul play into which the ignorant are lured only to be ruined. Satan deceived Eve in the guise of a snake. Ravana deceived Sita in the guise of a saint. Deceit and demon are synonymous. Devils take delight in troubling the innocent and good people. It is a pleasure for them to see their victims weep. Why should we be honest? We should be honest because we are not devils and because we want others to be honest towards us. And life is after all a social contract with mutual give and take relationship. For a peaceful co-existence of all of us, honesty among us all is a precondition. It is like nutritious milk for our overall health in society. If only we tasted the happiness of being honest, never could we resort to dishonesty. Honesty is strength. Honesty commands respect. Honesty is honour. Honesty triumphs ultimately. Honesty is but the health of society. To be honest is to be trustworthy. Honesty is credibility. With confidence we can rely on men of honesty. Honesty is for psychic health. It is the only wealth to accompany us

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even after death. Blessed is the society where honest people are in plenty. Dishonesty is a psychic weakness. It is mental ill-health. It is a disastrous disease which harms others, before harming the owner. It is more dreadful than cancer, because cancer kills one but dishonesty kills many. All rules and laws whether traditional or legal are meant to check dishonesty even if they sometimes cause inconvenience to honest people. If dishonesty becomes extinct, there will be no need for police, courts and lawyers. The essential quality of a leader is honesty. Even thieves will abide by the decisions of their leader, if only he is honest. Although their profession is dishonest, there is honesty binding the thieves together. They see justice in injustice. Unless one in honest, one cannot thrive for long. Life is full of sectors such as individual sector, global sector and universal sector. Some sectors intersect each other. Some are found within the others. No individual can afford to be dishonest in all the sectors. Everyone is guided by the honesty of one sector or another. The nucleus in honesty. Most people resort to dishonesty with the firm faith that they are dishonest because of certain honest compulsions. Nobody is born dishonest. It is the circumstances that make him dishonest. Therefore, right thinking people are positive in approach. They analyse the reasons behind the deceitful behaviour and try to create a favourable environment for the restoration and growth of honesty. Mr.Ganesan is a good and hard-working student. He is prompt and punctual, sincere and systematic, methodical and meticulous in his dealings and daily routine. His promptness is confined to reading the days lessons in the allotted time during the night. His punctuality in adhering to the days work and habits is laudable. He is faithful to parents, teachers and elders. He does very sincerely what he is asked to do. He keeps his days engagements very
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systematically as prescribed by tradition such as waking up at half past four followed by prayer, exercise, etc, till half past ten when after prayer he would retire. He keeps his belongings in the respective places so meticulously that even in darkness, he would find out the required article with least strain. Never does he tell a lie. Never does he disrespect elders. Never does he deceive anybody. He is indeed a paragon of virtues. One day, it so happened that he was late to the class because the bus broke down on the way. In spite of himself, he was unpunctual. He felt sorry for it. Another day, he was confronted with another strange situation. His teacher asked him to help his classmate in the examination hall by showing his own answer scripts. He was on the horns of a dilemma. He preferred to defy the teachers instruction and therefore did not do what was unjust. Later on, the teacher himself told the answers to the student in want. A question now entered, What is the use of my being honest? I cannot stop it. I can only practise it with difficulty. Later on, when he joined as an employee in a public sector undertaking, he was shocked to see the virtues written on the running waters. Punctuality was not observed by the clocks themselves. Methodicalness was observed more in the breach than in practice. People were perfect only on paper. Their presence was registered only in the attendance register, not in the work place. Sick leave was a matter of course. To obtain the doctors certificate was like receiving the weight card from a weighing machine by inserting coin. Should he now continue to be honest? rather can he continue to be honest? Does the world require honesty? Can we thrive by honest means? Merit is not recognized anywhere. Unable to be dishonest, Ganesan became almost silent. Everywhere he was exploited. In the office and even at home, cent percent honesty was not available. He was being laughed at by his brothers, colleagues and friends. He was becoming a misfit in the
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world. It is because he expects total honesty in all the sectors. In society we come across people who are honest at home but not in the profession. Another may be honest in the office but dishonest to wife. An honest father may not be an honest officer. A loyal son may not be a faithful husband. It is hard to find a person who is honest in every field and at all times. He who can be honest in all the sectors is a man of integrity. While honest people expect honesty in everyone, the one of integrity has no expectations of any type. Integrity itself is a reward. It is not enough if one is honest, one should cultivate integrity, too. Abstaining from deceit and lies is honesty. But positively integrating all the sectors of activity, speech and thought towards harmonious oneness of Truth is integrity. Unmindful of returns, recognition or reward, the one of integrity is not only honest but happy. Honesty is a passive virtue, integrity a progressive virtue. Honesty leads sometimes to negativism, escapism and withdrawal, if not supported by integrity, internal growth. The world is always a mixture of good and evil. Both honesty and dishonesty are ever in existence. A happy world without sorrow is as impossible as hot ice and sky-lotus. Our effort is only to go beyond the pairs of opposites and establish ourselves in a state of tranquil equanimity. When the path is full of thorns, we may not succeed in removing them all. Therefore, it is better to use footwear. Similarly, by being honest in the society we may not have a thorn-free sojourn on earth. We have to cultivate internal integrity as well to make our progress trouble-free. Honesty seeks the right path; integrity lays the right path. Honesty follows the virtuous way, integrity paves the righteous road. Honesty seeks light and protection on the way, integrity makes and offers them both. We are likely to be agitated when we come across dishonesty in others. But if we are
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firmly established in integrity, we do maintain our sobriety even amidst a host of dishonest people. To be harmless to others is good. But to be helpful to others is better. To desist from vices and evils is good. But to cultivate virtues and righteousness is better. Not to fail in the examination is good. But to get a distinction is better. Not to err is good; but to be ever right is better. Inanimate objects do not commit mistakes, nor do they perform anything righteous and worthwhile. To be honest is good, but to be of integrity is better. The former is a withdrawal from evil, the latter not only resists and transcends evils, but promotes a harmonious virtue. While honesty is moral, integrity has a spiritual dimension as well. According to Websters Dictionary honesty is fairness and straightforwardness of conduct; chastity; adherence to the facts; sincerity. Honesty, honour, integrity and probity are synonyms to mean uprightness of character or action. Honesty implies a refusal to lie, steal or deceive in any way. Honour suggests an active or anxious regard for the standards of ones profession, calling or position; Integrity implies trustworthiness and incorruptibility to a degree that one is incapable of being false to a trust, responsibility or pledge; Probity implies tried and proven honesty or integrity. Honesty is no doubt a virtue; but is not enough virtue. It is to lead us to probity, through honour and integrity. It is not enough if we dont tell lies. The least that a virtuous person can do is to keep off from evil. It is a negative help to society and to oneself. Positively as well, we should be integrated both individually and socially. Then we become honourable. Progressively and harmoniously we should strive for an integrated oneness of body, mind and soul. Trees and walls, birds and animals do not tell lies. They remain what they are without any progress. They cannot grow to be human. But human beings have the opportunity
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to become divine by being virtuous. Therefore, they should not be content with remaining human. They should grow to be superhuman by expanding their virtues from honesty to probity, from negative virtues to progressive virtues through positive virtues. There are people who do not harm, who do not cheat and who do not inconvenience others. They withdraw themselves into inactive goodness. They neither hinder nor promote virtues positively. Their existence is like that of the inert trees and the gentle animals. They are better than devils and wild animals, since they do not harm people. Honesty out of cowardice and laziness is only a negative virtue. It becomes a positive virtue of honour if we, in spite of hardships and hard work, cultivate virtues for the healthy growth of both the individual and the society. Every person has a position in society. Each position has a specific responsibility. To discharge the duties and social obligations of the responsible position, it is not enough if one is negatively virtuous. Sometimes we may have to be positively and aggressively virtuous to discharge our duties. Then we have the honour to be responsible sons, friends and citizens, etc. in a society. When we integrate the acquired honour in all the individual, social and spiritual sectors, we become people of probity. It is then that our thoughts, words and deeds will be positively progressive, honest and flawless for the welfare of all. All law-abiding citizens are honest. But sometimes when the law is unable to render justice, when villains under the protection and guise of law do injustice, it is no honesty to meekly submit to the unjust law. To keep the honour, to be just and to render justice, one may have to be assertive, militant and aggressive. Else, honesty will be construed as weakness and evil will reign supreme. Only a person of integrity then will be in a position to arrest the onslaught of evil. Yudhishthira is very honest. He refuses to tell a lie, nor does he resort to cheating. But
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Sri Krishna, the person of integrity, has the responsibility to keep the honour of his position as a saviour of the righteous. Therefore, he has at a particular point of time during the Mahabharata war, when honesty is not to the advantage of the good and dharmic, resorted to doing something foul and asked the honest Yudhishthira to play foul and utter a lie. Only those who have attained an integrated state of total honesty in every sector including the spiritual and in being unselfish can be called people of probity. Such people have the responsibility to transcend unjust law and harmful honesty. What they do then is just and honest since they are one with the cosmic law which does justice to all. Sri Ramakrishna says that our words will come true if we desist from telling lies and if we speak only truth for full twelve years. Man, after long tapasya of honesty and integrity, transcends the negative and positive aspects by ardently practicing truthfulness. He will then become truthful in thought, word and deed. What Sri Krishna says and does is true and just. What Sri Ramakrishna says or does is true and just for, they have ever been on the rails of truth for years. While the honest people are likely to be upset by the unceremonial prevalence and outrageous encroachment of evil, the people of integrity are unperturbed and they, unlike the ordinary ones, do not resort to seclusion. On the other hand, not only do they maintain sobriety of mind but positively proceed to teach evil a lesson, sometimes even by ignorning the caution of honesty. More honesty may not be a smart weapon to outdo evil. Sakuni in the Mahabharata was dishonest while playing the game of dice. The victim of the foul play was the honest Yudhishthira. When Yudhishthira refused to tell a lie later, on the battlefield, he continued to be an honest person without a simultaneous and substantial growth in integrating
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the honest forces. It was only Sri Krishna of probity, the full grown person of integrity, that prompted Yudhishthira to outgrow passive honesty. Else, Yudhishthira would have continued to be a silent sufferer in spite of all his honesty. Individuals and nations will be strong and perfect, if only they are honest with the spiritual strength of integrity which is a harmonious oneness of body, heart and mind; deeds, words and thoughts; actions, emotions and intellect; with the awareness of the self or soul within and without. When we are established in probity, we never err. Our expression and life will ever be in tune with honesty and righteouness. Even if there is an error, it will only be apparent, not real. Sri Rama and Sri Krishna have never erred nor have they failed in any move. Both of them are ever established in spirituality. Even their so-called wrong actions are only apparently unrigheous. They are ever just and render justice always. Our inability to put up with transitory inconvenience and impatience to wait for the fruits of merit often are the root of dishonesty. We can avoid dishonesty, if only we are a little considerate to others. That means, honesty is in direct proportion to ones humanness. By foul ways when we rise or gain in life, we deprive someone else of the legitimate rise, despite his merit. If only we have concern for others we dont resort to dishonest ways to come up. By bribing, we manufacture black money in addition to inconveniencing and thwarting the progress of the deserving. Thereby, we smother merit and strangle honesty in society. A dishonest person will be caught at one stage or other and will be made to pay for the hoarded up dishonest dealings. Once upon a time a king wanted the poor people to be fed. He asked the rich men to donate at least ten liters of rice and one liter of milk for the purpose. The mass feeding was an annual affair. One Mr.Foulaw was deceiving the king every year. He was only carrying an empty bag and empty
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vessel and pretending to be pouring the contents the rice and milk containers kept in the hall for receiving the donations. For about four or five years, the fellow had successfully deceived the public. One day when he was about to empty the empty vessel in the milk container, his hand trembled and the vessel fell on the floor. And the king himself happened to be there to detect the fraud. The culprit was caught redhanded. The punishment according to the law of the land was left to the deceivers option to choose one of the following: 1) to drink five litres of rotten ghee, 2) to receive five hundred whip-thrashes from the strongest muscle-man, 3) to pay five kgs. of gold to the government as penalty. The miserly Foulaw opted for the first. Accordingly, rotten ghee was brought and placed in front. The smell was unbearable. It was nauseating. Still he began to drink. With utmost difficulty, he was able to drink only about two litres. Not a drop more would go in. He was sure to vomit, unable to bear the rottenness. Since he had not been in a position to drink the required quota of ghee, he had to opt for either of the remaining two punishments. Being a miser, he could not think of paying gold. Therefore, he opted for the blows. Muscle-men with whips arrived. Their very presence was frightening. Somehow he tried to remain firm, closing his eyes. In torrents, the thrashes were falling on his back, front and around the body. He began to bleed profusely. About two hundred blows he received. A single blow more, he would die. He pleaded to stop the blows offering to pay the required gold. Had he opted for it in the beginning itself, he would not have been beaten, and he would not have had to drink the rotten ghee. No punishment would ever have been there, if only he had contributed his donation properly. For years he had cheated successfully. When he was caught, he had to pay for all the deceit and fraud with compound interest. In life, if only one introspects, one would certainly find that sufferings do
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not come of their own; we welcome them through dishonesty. We have to pay for what we eat and enjoy before or after, sooner or later. In Japan, once there was shortage of sugar. The government wanted the people in possession of surplus sugar to return the same so that there could be a resupply of the same among the consumers. Next day, there were long queues of honest people to return the extra sugar in their hold. The collective honesty is the basis for mutual help and national unity. Honesty in every sector leads to saintlihood. Very rarely do we come across a person who is honest in all the sectors. Each in proportion to his intellectual attainment understands honesty and accordingly practices it. Stealing is dishonest. But the dishonestly acquired money is honestly handed over to the leader of the profession or the wife at home to look after the family. Rob the rich to feed the poor, rob Peter to pay Paul, are but a combination of dishonesty and honesty. Small people of petty thinking are honest in daily dealings but dishonest in national matters. Honesty at all levels is hard to find. Our dealings with others call for honesty. When nobody is directly involved, if we are honest to ourselves then it is integrity. A man of integrity is bound to be honest, whereas, a man of honesty may not be a man integrity. While walking in the verandah, if I see a five rupee note, in the presence of others, I feel it is my duty to give it to the authorities, since it is not mine. I pick it up and give it to the warden or principal or police officer requesting him to see that it is handed over to the owner. I am honest in the eyes of all. But in the evening in the absence of everybody, when I am enjoying a lonely stroll along the railway track, if I find a rupee coin, I pick it up and put it in the pocket. My action is watched by none. But if it is seen, I would not pocket it. Or I go to a temple and drop the coin in the hundi. If I can resist the temptation and disown the coin even when I am
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not seen by anybody, then I am a man of integrity. It is honesty to ones conscience at all levels that is integrity. Honesty on certain occasions for the sake of society is insufficient integrity or partial integrity. Selfishness is common. Our thoughts, talks and actions are prompted by selfishness although we often try to conceal it. The very attempt to hide it is an indication that it is something unholy to be selfish. Honesty is the royal path for making the unholy upright and moral. An honest man lives by rightful means. Therefore, with his head held erect, he can walk without any complex in any society. Nala was a handsome king. He was in love with Damayanthi, a beautiful princess. She too having come to know about his noble qualities fell in love with him. In her forthcoming Swayamvara, she had decided to choose him as her husband by garlanding him. A day before, a few celestials such as Indra, Agni, Vayu, Varuna and Kubera arrived in the court hall of Nala with a request to be fulfilled by him. After obtaining the promise that he would do their bidding, they said that Nala should be their love messenger to Damayanthi. Using his persuasive art, Nala should make her choose one of them as her husband. Nala agreed, and with the help of their mystic powers, was able to arrive in the private chamber of Damayanthi the night before the Swayamvara. There was none to interrupt the lovers. Yet the king, faithful to his promise, to the celestials, pleaded with the princess to select one of the suitors and forget his claims as a lover. He was no more a lover but a messenger then. Damayanthi was not willing to comply with his request. Having tried his best, the king returned and the next morning along with the celestials arrived in the hall of Swayamvara. With the garland in hand, the bride walked in front of the prospective bridegrooms seated in special chairs. Suddenly to her surprise she found six people exactly like Nala, since the five celestial suitors assumed the form
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of Nala. She was unable to distinguish her chosen lord from among the six. All looked alike in every respect. She closed her eyes and prayed, saying if my lovers integrity was genuine when he pleaded for the celestials as their messenger yesternight, the celestials would deign to reveal their identity thereby projecting Nala. The next moment the mystic powers of the celestials failed and their disguise disappeared. Nala Damayanthi marriage took place. No power on earth or heaven can ever face the man of integrity. Integrity is a power by itself. Latha was a young college student. She was aspiring to go to medical college the next year. However much she tried, she was unable to score good marks in her prefinal examination. She was sure of her inability to obtain the required percentage of marks in the qualifying examination. Therefore, she pretended to love her neighbour, Babu, her brilliant classmate. He fell a prey to her charms, she pleaded with him to write her register number on his answer sheets and she would write his register number on her answer sheets. He agreed. They did as planned. She went to the medical college and he joined an arts college to do his B.A. Now that she got what she wanted, she ignored Babu. He was able to understand the trick played on him. He regretted his weakness and the consequent folly. She completed her M.B.B.S. after years of repeat examinations. And Babu after his M.A. sat for the I.A.S. and joined the civil service. Shamelessly Latha began to woo him again. He was no fool to fall a prey once again. She could not win him. Nor could she be a successful doctor. Her professional career and family life were not at all happy. Her dishonest entry into the medical college began to haunt her night and day. Dishonesty destroys peace of mind. Honesty is the outcome of strength and fearlessness. It does not seek laurels through dishonest means. It does not enjoy what it does not earn for itself. It is self reliance and self
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respect that prompt us to be honest. As a boy, Mahatma Gandhi was in school. When an educational officer asked him a question during his inspection, the boy Gandhi preferred to remain silent since he was ignorant of the answer. He did not want to win the false mark of success by giving the reply prompted to him by the teacher. The teacher hinted at the answer, and he refused to take the cue and reply. He is what he is. There is no need to strut in borrowed feathers. The more we practise honesty, the more we become self-reliant and nonchalant. We may even defy death and reign supreme. It is chiefly to promote honesty and the underlying strength of mind with the resultant peace of mind that Christianity has given importance to confession before the Cross. In spite of oneself or under pressure of circumstances, a person may err or act dishonestly. But, soon he overcomes the lapse, regrets the folly, regains the strength and confesses to his hearts unburdening and enjoys peace. Else, the thorn pricks persistently throughout. Confession loses its purpose, if the lapse is remembered again and again or repeated. No religion either directly encourages any type of dishonesty. It is the heart of honesty that is the seat of God. Cowardice is at the bottom of dacoity, although it appears to be a brave deed. Unable to put in hard work, unable to face the truth, unable to accept the fruits of honesty, unable to resist temptations, a coward runs to take refuge in dishonesty. It is like Dr.Faustus seeking short-cuts for enjoyment through the help of Mephistophiles, who helps and also takes away the soul for ever. Satan himself is a coward. Unable to face God in a fair battle, he resorted to foul ways. How can the cowardly Satan grant peace and happiness? All temptations are his making to lead us astray from the ideal. For want of an ideal, we are likely to be drawn and bound to the body and its sensual demands.
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Honesty in family life keeps husband and wife absolutely happy. Secrecy between the man and his wife is dishonesty, causing gloom. Privacy is a necessity and is permissible, but secrecy is sin. The more they are honest to each other, the more they will be bound to each other in oneness of happiness. Else, suspicion creeps in and there will be a note of discord. Credibility will soon be lost. Each doubts the other and family life will be a hell. Children born in such a family are sure to be a menace to society with their acts of inherited deceit and dishonesty. Similarly, no friendship will ever be worth its name without honesty. Mutual deception is detrimental to both. Honesty in speech is faithfulness to thoughts and deeds. Honesty in action is faithfulness to words and thoughts. Honesty is social obligation. Integrity is a spiritual obligation to ones own self, to ones own spirit within, which is godly. He who is not faithful to thought, word and deed is no human being; nor is he social. Honesty is the bridge between the individual and society. Dishonesty is the marsh to drown people who are unwary. It is instinctive to be honest. It is only the selfish intellect that cultivates and fosters dishonesty. Children very rarely are dishonest. They do speak the truth. It is only by bad example and training that they learn to be dishonest. Left to themselves they are truthful and expect people to be truthful. Adults only spoil them, adulterate honesty. A child was at the entrance playing. A visitor had arrived. Looking at the baby at the threshold, he enquired, child, is dad at home? Babe: Yes. Visitor: Is mummy at home? Babe: Yes Visitor: Whats dad doing? Babe: He is in the kitchen, cooking.
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Visitor: Then what is your mummy doing? Babe: Shes in the office room reading a novel. Meanwhile the childs father arrived on the scene; talked to the visitor and after his departure the training to the baby started by the parent: Child, whenever anybody comes, you should not immediately tell that mummy and daddy are at home. You should first ascertain who the visitor is. Then only you should come and tell mummy about the visitor. Then mummy tells you what the answer should be. Even then you should say that dad is in the office room and mummy is in the kitchen. The child is very honest and faithfully learns to repeat what the parents say. Honesty is needed even to learn to be dishonest. The child is too young to discriminate or resist dishonesty. The world will change its very face if only the bringing up changes for the better. Let not parents pass on untruth and dishonesty to the next generation. Children trained in honesty, will grow strong without searching for short-cuts to success. The fruits of honesty are selfconfidence, self-reliance and self-restraint. Balu was a boy. He was in the elementary school. One day, in the classroom someone had left a ballpoint pen on the desk. He picked it up; took it home; showed it to his mother and she appreciated the pen and her son. A few days later another pen was brought and given to the mother. She repeated her admiration. He wanted to please her. He went to the neighbours garden stealthily, ate a few fruits and brought a few more to the mother. She enjoyed the fruit and admired the boy. Later one evening, the boy came home fully drenched in rain. The mother was angry since the boy was sneezing and might fall ill. When she was about to scold, he gave her a bunch of beautiful flowers, precious flowers, s t o l e n f r o m t h e n e i g h b o u r s b a c k y a r d . H e r a n g e r disappeared. She smiled. The boy took the cue that the mother would not scold him, if only he gave her something
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as a gift. Nor would she ask the source of the gift. He grew up giving her gifts stolen from others. He become a thief. One day he was caught by the police. Before sending the man to jail, the Judge asked if he wanted to say anything to anybody. He expressed his desire to talk to his mother. The mother was called and he told her. Mother, had you warned me when I gave you the ballpoint pen or the flowers, there would have been no need to go to prison now. It is weakness to accept anything free as a gift from anybody. It makes us small and indebted to the giver. And no wonder, the giver seeks something in return, often out of the way, involving dishonesty. It needs strength to decline the offers of gift from any quarter. Nothing without earning by the sweat of the brow should be accepted from anybody. He expressed his desire to talk to his mother. The mother was called and he told her: Mother, had you warned me when I gave you the ballpoint pen or the flowers, there would have been no need to go to prison now. It is weakness to accept anything free as a gift from anybody. It makes us small and indebted to the giver. And no wonder, the giver seeks something in return, often out of the way, involving dishonesty. It needs strength to decline the offers of gift from any quarter. Nothing without earning by the sweat of the brow should be accepted from anybody. Bribery is born of gift-making. Initially, it is a harmless social courtesy but later it becomes a social evil, corruption. If we cannot resist the temptation of accepting a gift, we may receive it and soon at the earliest opportunity repay the debt in the form of a different gift, if possible of greater value. Never should anybody remain indebted to anybody. Alfred was a kind-hearted lad. He helped anybody and everybody in distress. It is indeed a good quality. One day in the examination hall, his bench mate, Vincent was found copying. After the copying was over, he found it difficult to dispose of the foul material. If the chit of malpractice
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was found, the culprit would be given a good beating. He looked at the kind-hearted Alfred and thrust it in his pocket. When the teacher was searching the boys in hall, Alfred was caught and beaten for no fault of his. But he had only the satisfaction of having saved his friend, Vincent. Over the years, Vincent became a Magistrate and Alfred turned out to be a thief under certain circumstances. The case of the thief was tried by Vincent who was once saved by Alfred. Now there is a dilemma: to punish or not to punish the culprit. The gratefulness of Vincent prompted him to save Alfred for the help he had received from him when he was a boy. He resolved to save and he did save as a personal obligation and indebtedness, going out of the way. This is how society perpetuates dishonesty spoiling the social fabric. Gratefulness at the cost of honesty is more a crime then courtesy. Dishonesty should be nipped in the bud. Next to parents, teachers are indirectly responsible for the evil. Dishonesty in schools and colleges has its birth and growth in the examination halls. Teachers on account of various reasons dont take the trouble of going round the hall with vigilance. They sit in a chair reading. To the teacher, invigilation is boring and tedious because of his age and the monotony of supervision. But to the student, examination is a very significant experience. For want of vigilance on the part of the teacher, the students get tempted to find short-cuts to success. They resort to malpractice. The sin goes partly to the teacher not only for his indifference to duty, but for breeding dishonesty in the next generation. If people do their duty sincerely as parents and teachers, the evil will not spread. In the absence of a foolproof system where selfdiscipline is effectively cultivated, vigilance is essential. Karna was a skilled archer. His urge for recognition was at every stage snubbed and stifled by elders. When there was a function meant for exhibiting the individual talents in
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archery, Karna very much longed to show his skill. But Drona, the chief Acharya, objected to his participation since he was not a Kshatriya. When the man stood frustrated, Duryodhana came forward with the offer of a crown and throne making him the king of Angadesa. Karna was grateful to Duryodhana for the gift. Now he had to repay the debt. Duryodhanas stand with regard to the Pandavas was wrong. Yet Karna had to fight on his side bound by gratefulness to an unrighteous man. He was wrong in accepting the gift, though his quality of gratefulness to a friend is good. But since the good had the origin in the bad, it turned out to be bad to him and his friend. Never accept a gift at the cost of dharma. For, though it appears harmless in the beginning, the initial gratefulness grows through dishonesty and culminates in total unrighteousness. You had better nip it in the bud. Unless earned by the sweat of the brow, never should anything be received from anybody at any time. Karnas fall is due to his initial weakness in accepting the gift. All his honesty only fostered it to work out his ruin. Society bears testimony to ones honesty. Introspection reveals ones integrity. Honesty is seen in dealings among people. Integrity is visible within oneself between thought, word and deed. Integrity percolated into society is honesty. Honesty individualized is integrity. For fear of ill-reputation many are honest. But very few are of integrity since it is a moral and spiritual discipline for oneself. Faithfulness to conscience is integrity. Faithfulness to society is honesty. Sometimes a person of integrity is likely to be dishonest from the societys standpoint. But that is harmless. Sri Krishna in the Mahabharata is accused of dishonesty on many an occasion. He made Yudhisthira tell a lie; he made Arjuna shoot when Karna was struggling to lift the chariotwheel. None of the so-called actions of Sri Krishna is dishonest since there is a higher justice, faithfulness to ones
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conscience. Similarly, when the intentions are foul, honesty does not save. Shylock wanted to take a pound of flesh from the body of Antonio in faithfulness to the bond executed by the latter. Though it appears to be honest to execute the bond, it is indeed cruel as the intention is bad. It is not of integrity. In Shakespeares Othello, Iago is called honest by everybody. The villainy is revealed only at the end. His is motiveless malignity. He has no integrity; it is rotten. Man is first and foremost a person with a human heart. To be human is to be kind. Integrity lies in being loyal to the humanness of the heart. Neither Shylock nor Iago is loyal to the human heart. Sri Krishna is kind, so he has the duty to protect the righteous Pandavas. If the practice of honesty is hard, the practice of integrity is harder. Integrity is exemplary. Honesty is more preached than practised by many. Once a Reverend Father got into a city bus. He paid the conductor Rs.10 to get the ticket. The fare was only Rs.1.50. The conductor was to pay back a change of only Rs.8.50. But he gave a rupee more. The Father received it; put it into the pocket and moved forward to the front part of the bus. There was the conscience now working in him. To give or not to give back the excess one rupee to the conductor was the question. He ought to have returned it as soon as he received it. Now it was delayed. What would the conductor think now, if he returned it? What would he think if he did not? Poor man, he should have to pay that one rupee from his pocket. After a long struggle for more than half an hour, the Father slowly came back to the conductor and gave him back that excess one rupee saying, Brother, by mistake you paid a little more. Please take it back. The conductor replied, Sir, I know I gave you one rupee more. I did it deliberately. Yesterday in the Church I was present listening to your preaching. Eloquently you spoke on the virtues especially of honesty and integrity.
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I was very much thrilled and wanted to test whether the preacher would practise what he preached. I expected you to return that excess amount then and there. For a man of your stature, it took such a long time to resist the temptation of one rupee. How about greater temptations in life that confront us when we are all alone? And how about temptations for ordinary weak people? Virtues like honesty are precious since they are hard to practise. Besides, the examples are also rare. In a college there was an NSS programme officer, who was basically a lecturer. He proposed to organize a student camp in the nearby village for a service activity. To educate the villagers in social values such as honesty, truthfulness and so on, he wanted a nearby Father to preside over and address the villagers. To fix the guest speaker he wanted to meet him. His place was about eight Kms. from the college. Without handling the days classes, he asked one of the good students to bring the bicycle. The boy was asked to ride the total of 16 km. distance to and fro. And the lecturer sat on the pillion. In the hot sun the boy rode the vehicle. The guest speaker was met and invited for the purpose. The programme was arranged. The teacher did not spend a paisa from his pocket. Nor did he himself ride the bicycle. The cycle too was not his own. From the NSS funds he claimed and drew a taxi fare of Rs.50/- for the programme-fixing trip. The student saw it. What! Where is honesty? True, it is becoming dear. Let us not allow the country to grow from bad to worse. Let us practise honesty and integrity. They do pay the dividends. Even amidst the so-called rottenness, there are people of proven integrity. An auto driver in Madras won recognition for his honesty in returning a cash bag to the owner. A servant-maid in the home is remarkable for her faithfulness to the master in keeping the misplaced jewels in order. Let us remember Gandhi and Harischandra. Let us be remarkable through our integrity.
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Honesty is a human obligation. Integrity is a divine obligation. The persistent selfishness is purified in honesty. Purified self is divinised in integrity. And in probity, godliness is unfolded.

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MORALITY AND ETHICS

e learn so that we may live well. Learning is a continuous process. All learning is to make us wise. We grow wise so that we may live a peaceful life. Every incident in life is a lesson for us to learn. But instead of waiting for the lessons through life, we can learn from the experiences of our elders, predecessors, parents and the ancients. Out of love for us they give us their experiences in the form of moral lessons so that we need not have to learn everything through our personal experience. We were warned by the parents in our childhood not to go near fire because it burns. We need not have to wait for an experience of our own through burning to learn the lesson. Our parents love us. They want us to be free from difficulties and dangers. Therefore, they say anything only for our good. And we believe what they say. Similarly, teachers, elders and ancients have preserved the lessons they had received from their predecessors and passed them on to us for our welfare. Such lessons given to us by them are the moral lessons. We cannot afford to ignore them. Nor can we doubt their usefulness in life. Many a story is narrated at home and in the class by parents and teachers, so that we are well equipped with knowledge to take necessary precautions for making our lives comfortable. The first and foremost lesson is that we should look after our health well. Health is wealth. Unless we are physically healthy, nothing can be achieved; nothing can be enjoyed even. Health is necessary to eat well, to sleep well, to play well and to enjoy anything well. Physical strength is necessary for all pursuits. Only a strong body houses a strong mind. Saying so through many stories, episodes, comparative examples, we are told to be physically healthy and strong. Gradually, they introduce moral stories
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conducive to successful life. Man is a social animal. He cannot afford to live in isolation. He requires the help and co-operation of others for his happy life. Therefore, he has to be friendly with others. Then only others will be friendly with us. And then who are real friends? Only those who are of help to us in times of necessity are real friends. Therefore, carefully choose your friends. A false friend is more dangerous than an open enemy. Many an empire is ruined because of false friends. They make us believe them and finally deceive us. Therefore, we have to be on our guard. In all the countries and in all the languages there are stories and histories describing good friends through many episodes. Antonio in the Merchant of Veince is a good friend of Bassanio. Karna in the Mahabharata is a good friend of Duryodhana. Iago in Othello is bad. What is the mark or indication for a good friend? Unselfishness. When will it be known? Only in a crisis. Does he or she come in a crisis to our rescue? So, very often the moral lesson is subject to our verification and experience in friendship. Most moral lessons are left to our prudence and judgement to accept, implement in toto or with modification according to requirement. For example, we have the story of the tortoise and rabbit in a running race. The rabbit was overconfident of winning the race, for it knew the weakness of the other contestant and so slept off on the way. The other aware of its lesser abilities, proceeded with all perseverance and won in the contest. The rabbit, haughty of its speed, slept and lost the race. And the lesson to be drawn is, Slow and steady wins the race. Let us look at the other side: the game is won not only because of the steadiness of the tortoise but because of the haughtiness and the consequent laziness of the rabbit. Only to make us know the value of steadiness as opposed to rashness the moral is important. Even so, if we are slow, we lose. In the case of Hamlet, all disaster is due to his slowness in deciding. Had he rushed
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to action, several deaths would have been prevented. Every moral lesson highlights a particular point to be taken notice of for the appropriate occasion. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, emphasises the need for caution in every enterprise and to be secure. But unless there is some risk there is no adventure. Nor is there any rise. And without adventure there is no flight in life, there is no thrill in life. Risk offers not only rise, but involves also fall. Security, too, is sometimes an impediment to progress. One has to choose between risk and thrill of adventure. Very rarely can we have risk-free rise in our adventure. Similarly, we have proverbs like: A rolling stone gathers no moss; Stagnant waters smell foul and Familiarity breeds contempt. One has to use the maxims discreetly according to ones aptitude and advantage. Depending upon the temperament of the individual, the moral lessons in the proverbs have appeal. For example, Speech is silver; Silence is golden may not be true and applicable always. Sometimes we gain gold through speech and we may lose everything due to silence. Almost every happening in life, every scene in Nature, and most stories and legends do carry a moral. What is needed is keen observation to draw the required lesson. Society is full with moral stories. Yet their impact is little since each is interpreted in the required form for the advantage of the individual. There are certain other morals which are meant to console us in times of distress and guide us. For example, Dont cry over the spilt milk, is good to make us forget the past and proceed to future as men of action. There is nothing that we gain by brooding over the past. Dont kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, makes us prudent to enjoy a steady income. It also prevents us from being greedy. United we stand, divided we fall, is good for driving home the point of strength in unity. Indians were enslaved by the foreigners mainly because of disunity among the kings. Each
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was fighting with the other and the enemy took advantage of their mutual quarrels. Unfortunately, the human tendency is to fight with the neighbour and befriend a foreigner. And the foreigner at the opportune moment enslaves them both and it will be a late realization for the contestants. Despite the moral lesson, we continue to remain divided. The reason is well-known. We cant compromise with our own ego. It drives us to assert our superiority among our fellow dwellers. And to rise above them, we seek an outsiders help, which very often proves to be ruinous. Two cats once got a large loaf of bread. They wanted to have two equal shares. They approached a monkey requesting it to distribute it equally between them. In the process the monkey ate most of the bread. People unable to solve the disputes among themselves go to courts and feed the lawyers. Quit India, was the slogan of Gandhi. Cut and quit India, was the slogan of Jinna. The British divided and ruled India; divided and left India. Any partition is for mutual loss. Though convinced of the value of morals we fail to implement them due to weakness, due to egoism, due to ignorance. The lessons from morals depend upon the persons ability to derive the meaning appropriate to the need. They help us discriminate between right and wrong, good and bad, advantages and disadvantages. They caution us well in advance. Sinners too are teachers in disguise. Very often we appeal to morals when we have no legal weapon to set right people. Any number of laws cannot make people live a lawful life, if they have no moral sense. Evils such as bribery and bride-burning, dowry and adultery, corruption and copying in the examination halls, ragging and kidnapping are taking place in society in spite of police, laws and courts. Any number of rules cannot eradicate them unless people feel the moral compulsions from within. The more the enforcement of law, the more the immoral people
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resort to secret ways to fulfil their evil desires and designs. Reformation of the mind is not possible through legislation. A strong and affectionate appeal to the conscience alone will bring in the needed adherence to moral codes of conduct. Any number of memos, warning and punishments will fail, if there is no simultaneous appeal to the humanness of the heart for a positive progress in ethics. No husband can be a watchdog throughout his life to check the evil ways of his wife. So also, no woman can physically prevent her husband from doing bad all her life. No society with all its legal machinery can enforce right conduct. It has to educate people by setting up worthy models. Parents, teachers, elders and police therefore have a heavy responsibility to be of exemplary morals and conduct. Not only do we not fully succeed in bringing moral awareness through legislation and force, but sometimes we are likely to have adverse effect, if we directly try to stop the evils by force. For example, the dowry evil is growing every day in spite of the Governments measures to stop it. Since the future of a girl is involved, both the giver and receiver of dowry will never complain or confess about it. Same is also the case with bribery. Neither of the parties would ever come to the open to speak about it. Hence, the evil is of perpetual growth and menace. Social evils grow doubly strong if attacked from the front by law and force. Vali in the Ramayana acquires additional strength, if anybody attacks him directly. He is a symbol of social evils. Anybody will lose his strength, if he attacks Vali face to face. Rama is no exception. Government also has to accept defeat if it attacks social evils through enforcement of law. The only way therefore is to attack them from behind by moral force. Vali was killed by Rama from behind. So also should social evils be slain from behind, sitting in the heart of people, appealing to their moral sense,
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ethical humanness. Else, the efforts would only rebound adversely. Kishore and Kumar were neighbours. Kumar was addicted to drinking. Every day he returned home late in the night. He picked up some quarrel with his wife. He demanded money from her. He asked her to get money from her parents. He scolded her and rained blows on her. Kishore and his wife listened to the cruel scenes of wife-beating almost everyday. Unable to remain a mute neighbour to the suffering wife of Kumar, one day Kishore made bold to accost the drunken husband. He scolded him and asked him to be kind to the wife. If he did not improve, he said, he would inform the police. Kumar now got doubly wild. He turned the tables and accused Kishore adultery. Not only did Kishore fail in his attempts, but he was accused of illegitimate relationship with Kumars wife. The problem only got complicated. The sufferings of Kumars wife were only increased. This is what is symbolized in Valis success, if anybody attacked him face to face. No social evil can be removed by force. So, we appeal to moral sense. Laws may successfully separate people but not bring them together. It is the moral bond that unites wife and husband. When that bond is broken, no legal steps can make them live together happily. Therefore, the significance of morals in any society is immense. The clerk in the booking counter is bound by the moral code to issue the ticket and give the remaining change. If he breaks that code, no government can deploy police to make every clerk work at the bayonet point. Nor can the police be duty-bound without a moral commitment. Every society is bound by moral laws. And the laws are framed by the elders with great concern for the harmonious life of the society. These morals are likely to change from age to age depending upon the varying geographical and economic conditions of the people. Polygamy was moral in a particular society at a particular
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point of time. But when it is no more a contributory force for harmonious living, it should be done away with. Polyandry is now outmoded. In one community the maternal uncles daugther is a prospective bride. The same in another community is considered to be a mere cousin. While the paternal uncles daughter is considered as the wife in one community, the same is a cousin in another community. With the advent of the science of genes, it is advised to avoid consanguineous marriages. The moral laws vary in their respective communities due to certain historical, economic and geographic compulsions. Therefore, most moral laws are not universal and eternal. What is moral in a particular country may not be moral in another country. While drinking is a vice and moral depravity in one part of the world, it is not considered to be so in another part of the world. But there are a few moral laws which are of universal significance at all times. When a moral acquires such stature, it becomes ethics. Killing is wrong. But the same is right and approved when done on the battlefield. Dos and donts are prescribed by the wise people of the age for a harmonious living of society. Sometimes, certain dos should not be followed and certain donts have to be observed. That discretion is based on human ethics. Mercy killing is ethical, though apparently it is wrong, according to the moral codes. By carefully observing the morals, one evolves to be ethical. The actions then are ethical, despite their being apparently not moral. Every age has problems pertaining to it. The problems of one age may no more be the problems of another age. To prevent and solve the problems of the particular age, the wise people of the time would formulate certain moral codes of conduct. Social customs and codified conduct of the various professions are then the outcome. They can also be called the Yuga Dharma or the law of the age. As the years roll by, changes do take place economically, socially and
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even geographically. Then the same laws become outmoded and irrelevant to the particular period. Those who hold on to the old traditions are called conservatives and those who seek to change the laws according to the changing times are moderners. Despite every effort of the conservatives, the changes in society and law do take place as a matter of course. Reluctantly or willingly, people submit to the unavoidable flood of varying times. Amidst all the changes, there are certain basic values, human values which remain constant. They remain as the nucleus of the morals of the age. And that nucleus is ethics, human ethics. All laws are meant to render justice. All ragas are meant to keep the song melodious and effective in one way or another. All musicals instruments are meant to abide by the Shruti. Similarly, all moral codes of conduct are meant to make man abide by the human ethics. The instruments and their sounds may change but not the Shruti. So also laws may change but not justice. Protection to the good and punishment to the bad are justice. How to do justice is worked out by law. How to keep to Shruti is left to the regulated musical instruments. All moral codes for conduct are to strive for ethical excellence which is eternal. Ethics is inevitable to humanity to evolve further. All codes of conduct prescribed by morality are to help humanity to evolve high ethically, so that they may become superhuman and divine. Man is basically human because he has a kind heart. Else, he is inhuman. He has intelligence, so is rational. Else, he is subhuman. This rational human being draws ethics for the welfare of humanity all over the globe. They are human rights, human responsibilities meant for observance by all. Websters dictionary suggests different shades of meaning to the synonyms: moral, ethical, virtuous, righteous and noble. They all basically mean conforming to a standard of what is right and good. MORAL implies conformity to
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established and sanctioned codes of accepted notions of right and wrong. ETHICAL may suggest the involvement or more difficult or subtle questions of rightness, fairness o r e q u i t y. V I RT U O U S i m p l i e s t h e p o s s e s s i o n o r m a n i f e s t a t i o n o f m o r a l e x c e l l e n c e i n c h a r a c t e r. RIGHTEOUS stresses guiltlessness or blamelessness and often suggests sanctimonious; NOBLE implies moral eminence and freedom from anything petty, mean or dubious in conduct and character. In matters pertaining to woman, morality plays a significant role. A moral man will be faithful to his wife. So is she faithful to him. Mutual faithfulness binds them in being moral. It is wrong on the part of them both to have extramarital relationship with anyone. It is then immoral. One may be perfect in the sense that he has no physical relationship with any woman. He is no doubt moral. But psychologically he may not be pure. He now and then may think of other women. Although his morality is beyond question, he is ethically not very pure. Cent percent purity in mind and body is ethical excellence. The epic hero, Sri Rama, is of ethical excellence. Never did his mind trespass into foul or immoral thoughts even involuntarily. That is why Rama is called Narottama. Once a minister of Ravana advised the ten-headed king: Sir, you are mad after Sita and she does not even look at you. You are capable of assuming any form. Why dont you don the appearance of Rama and woo her. She will surely fall a prey to you then. Why cant you try. Ravana replied: Thank you for the advice. The moment I hear Ramas name, I feel a strange purity and the resultant tranquillity. If I take his guise, I become so pure that all foulness of thought disappears. Rama and lust cannot co-exist. His ethical excellence is so powerful that like the jasmine and its fragrance, his ethical purity is associated inextricably with his form and name.
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Morality is often a general code of conduct prescribed to people in various walks of life. For instance, a student should obey his acharya; a wife should be subservient to her husband; man during his tutelage as a brahmacharin should under no circumstances see or touch a woman. It may not be wise to abide by this code always rigidly. We may have to transcend those codes to be human, wise and ethical under certain special circumstances. For example, once a disciple and his master were walking on the bank of a river. Suddenly, they found a drowning person crying for help. The disciple jumped into the river and saved the victim without even knowing who the unfortunate person was. The master found the rescued person to be a young woman and therefore shouted at the disciple for having violated the moral code of conduct. The action of the disciple is right for it is in tune with human ethics that he should save the person in distress. While the moral code prevents him to touch the woman, ethical ideal drives him to save the person, even if it is a woman. Every person is gifted with a talent. It is the responsibility of the individual to discover the latent talent and develop it to perfection. The perfectly developed talent is to be then used for the welfare of all. And to avoid extinction of the talent, the right people of aptitude are to be identified and the talent imparted to them so that the uninterrupted use of knowledge is ensured to society. Nobody should conceal knowledge from the genuine seekers. Nor should anybody stop its growth. Misuse of talent or knowledge is a crime. Seeking nothing as reward, the people in possession of wealth spiritual, intellectual, emotional and physical should use the same for the public weal. The moment they trade in it, the wealth slowly fades away from them. Very soon the talent disappears in them. However, since they have to make a living, society has the responsibility to look after their needs. Professional ethics are the codes of conduct
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prescribed to see that no commercialism ever creeps into the profession. Money mars the purity of profession. However, money pours in, victory comes unto those who are committed to the professional ethics. Recognition, remuneration and reward are only by-products. A devoted doctor does not think of the fees he gets from the patients. He does not sell his knowledge. He uses the knowledge to serve humanity. And for that he always strives to improve his skills and knowledge. Professional ethics therefore would mean excellence in the field of knowledge, for the welfare of mankind. Ethics and commercialism can never co-exist. Profiteering and black-marketing smother all human ethics, more so professional ethics. Income tax and sales tax rules cannot prevent, arrest or eradicate corruption if people are not inspired to be committed to professional ethics. It is by appealing frequently to the humanness of mankind, that we may succeed in establishing professional ethics. Professional ethics is for each of the professions. For example, Sahadeva was good at Astrology. The professional ethics of the astrologer is such that they predict with all sincerity, without any preference or prejudice, irrespective of the seekers intentions and the consequences. Nor do they sell their knowledge. Once Duryodhana came to Sahadeva and requested him to tell him the auspicious time for the commencement of war with the worship of the deity. Sahadeva readily responded and told him the right time for the purpose, though it would mean his own and his brothers defeat. Of course, later Sri Krishna circumvented the situation by his divine strategy. Similarly, a scholars ethics is to admire the scholarship of others irrespective of their mutual relationship, good or bad. Viswamitra did great damage to Vasistha. Still once when the Rishi was reading Viswamitras treatise, Vasisthas wife requested him to come out of the hut and enjoy the moon-light. Vasistha said:
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Ten thousand times more enjoyable is Viswamitras work. I am happy reading here. Without any prejudice, the Rishi had the good heart to admire the foe. Renuka is the wife of Maharishi Jamadagni. Everyday she goes to the river and after bathing in the river collects the sand on the bank and with that makes a pot. And in that pot of sand she gathers water. That water is brought to the husbands use in the holy rituals of the day. It is a test to the ethical standards in India for a womans faithfulness to the husband. Equally faithful should the husband be to his wife. There should not be the slightest shade of unfaithfulness in mind, word and deed. No thought of passion also should ever cross the mind of the couple in the absence of the life-partner. One day, it so happened that a Gandharva king was enjoying amorous water sports in the company of his spouse. Renuka bathing in the river looked at the couple from a distance. Her mind involuntarily was lost in passions for a while. She came to the bank and collected the sand as was her wont. But she was shocked to find the sand granules not sticking cohesively for making a pot. She tried and tried in vain. There was a lapse on her part. Her ethical purity was a little polluted by a shade of passion. There was nothing wrong in her moral life. But in ethical excellence she was a shade less than the perfect standards. Even now people of ethical excellence do command a special status and respect. They are aweinspiring personalities. Sri Ramakrishna is known for his God-intoxication. Very often he would go into trance. He considered woman as mother and God. No passion for woman would ever cross his mind. Some of his friends mistook his divine ecstasies for fits of madness. They thought it was but a psychic perversity. They wanted to set him right by providing him with a female companion so that he might have an outlet for his violent passions. They took him to a woman in the
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red light area. The moment the lady was seen, he became unaware of the mundane world. He went into an ecstasy of worship to the Mother. Looking at him, the woman felt ashamed of herself and scolded the people who brought such a saint with a foul intention. Men of ethical purity would spread ethical environment. In their presence nothing unethical will ever take place. If the head of the family is ethically excellent, the other members of the family will either follow him or at least hesitate to be unethical. Ethical purity of the society is like a fort without walls for the fearless and secure life of virtuous people. It is the responsibility of every individual in society to abide by the moral codes of conduct, so that there will be an aura of ethical excellence in the social environment to guide and protect all. In gestures and words, is art and architecture, in rituals and customs, care is to be taken to avoid blasphemy. Every part, aspect and expression of life is to be oriented towards the healthy and harmonious advancement of the society, so that each of the individuals is free and fearless to blossom to be divine. Ethical excellence is not only the highest of human attainment, but an intrinsic commitment of mankind of the welfare of all. Be and make, is possible for one who is ethically excellent. Amidst people of purity, love and human ethics, it is not possible for an evil-minded individual to survive, much less to come up. Amidst the divinities of heaven, Satan had no place. He was unable to conquer God, unable to live among the pious and was therefore thrown out into hell. Devils have an empire in the ale-houses and dens of adultery not in the holy areas of ethical atmosphere. They cannot thrive there. Even if they make an attempt to encroach into the holy places, they are sure to face defeat sooner or later, for Truth only triumphs sooner or later. Greed and envy, lust and pride, treachery and exploitation are all unethical and so are sure to perish in the war that man wages in his ascent
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to eternity though now and then he loses a few battles in their favour. Moral codes of conduct are the weapons with which man fights against the evil forces and wins the war so that he can eternally be established in ethical excellence to spread divinity, to shower purity, to offer fearlessness, to live righteously and to keep the devil at bay. Sri Ramas weapon is ethical excellence to do away with Ravana. The head of every institution, organisation, nation and family should be a paragon of ethical excellence to do good to the people around him, dependent on him. Moral and ethical values can be seen in the individuals and the society in their adherence to truthfulness in word and deed; their observance of codified conduct in public and in private lives. Very often these values are beyond the check of the laws of the land. It is improper to disobey teachers. It is a moral obligation to look after old parents. It is unethical to expect reward in return for the help rendered. It is immoral to be jealous of others. All these things cannot be enforced legally. They are only to be inculcated and instilled in the human hearts. It is certainly unethical to insult and humiliate the wife who has not been able to bring dowry or bear children. No law can remove the social evil. It is only by setting up sound moral standards through certain exemplary characters that people will be inspired to be moral and ethical. Mahatma Gandhi felt, it was improper and unethical on his part to wear an upper garment when so many people in India have but only a loin cloth. In Madurai, looking at the dark bodies of the people in the burning sun listening to his speech, he felt guilty. He did not want to be unethical and so threw away his upper cloth. Since then he never wore an upper garment. On 11 th September 1893, when Swami Vivekananda rose to be a global figure on account of his historic address in Chicago, he wept in the night unable to sleep. He felt it was unethical on his part to have delicious and full meal when many Indians at home
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did not have even one square meal a day. Similarly, he felt it improper and unethical to sleep in cushions when his brethren at home rested on hard stone in the shade of a tree after the days labour. A teacher with conscience would feel it unethical to receive salary for the month when he had not taught. A Judge will consider it unethical if he is to hear a case pertaining to his relatives. He would voluntarily withdraw. Jesus Christ one day visited the house of a devotee. Many good citizens arrived there to see him and worship him. They felt, they were privileged to offer him welcome and worship because they were all morally upright. Jesus did appreciate their moral standards and received them all with the love and affection due to pious people. Suddenly, there arrived a woman of bad ways. She was known for her immoral life. She felt sorry for her ignoble life. She repented and desired to confess her sins before Christ and hoped to have his mercy. But her presence in the midst of the moral people, that too into the hall in front of the divine person Jesus, was detested by them all except Jesus. She went straight to his presence, kneeled before him and washed his feet with her tears. She repented and desired to confess her sins before Christ and hoped to have his mercy. She wept profusely begging him to save her. The so-called men of morality requested Jesus to drive her away, for she would spoil the serenity of the atmosphere. She did not deserve to be allowed near the great soul, Jesus. They were shouting at her to get out. Jesus smiled and said: My friends, I know you are all of sound morality. But I request you to be ethical, as well. Is it not unethical to scold or curse one who repents of her sins and begs for mercy? It is but human ethics verging on divinity to bless and protect one who seeks pardon and protection at you feet. Let us not despise those who seek our help.
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Once Swami Vivekananda was a guest in the royal house of a king. He was looked after well by the king. One day in the court hall of the king there was a dance performance by a dance-girl. The Swami was invited. But the Swami declined the invitation because it was not proper on the part of a sannyasin to watch a dance. He was leaving the hall. Then the dancer sang in an appealing tone and tune conveying the significance of ethics. Mortals, ordinary mortals, may be bound by man-made morals. But those who have shattered all worldly shackles have only divinity in their view. There is then no more the distinction or discrimination such as low and high, bad and good. In divine love everything is transcended. Swamiji felt the meaning and appeal of a devoted heart in the song. He broke the moral code prescribed to his tribe and watch the performance realizing the significance of human ethics. Mother Saradadevi did welcome all the devotees and sinners as well to her ashram. Swami Vivekananda too in the later part of his life did not discriminate. He kept the doors of the monastery open to all seekers. Where can the sinners go, if they are rejected entry by all? It is ethics to elevate all to divinity. When Sri Rama was camping with his vanara sena on the outskirts of Lanka just before the commencement of war with Ravana, Vibhishana arrived seeking refuge at the feet of Sri Rama. Angada, Surgeeva, Neela, Jambavan and Lakshmana did not very much appreciate Vibhishana, the brother of Ramas enemy, going to Sri Rama at that juncture. They have directly and indirectly expressed their disapproval of his desire to be taken into the camp of Sri Rama. Hanuman who was almost an alter ego of Sri Rama could understand the ethical excellence and compassion of Sri Rama. Therefore, he said, Rama would deem it unethical on his part to desert one who sought refuge at his feet.
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Sri Rama was known for his excellent ethics. Just for the sake of a word from his father through Mother Kaikeyi he left the capital and was in the forest. His human ethics are such that he loved Guha of a low caste as his own brother. As a loyal son, he performed the obsequies to Jatayu and enhanced his ethical excellence. Now, by offering protection to Vibhishana, the enemys brother, he has become the very embodiment of ethical excellence. In the legendary history of India, there was a great king, Harishchandra. He was reputed for his moral excellence. When Viswamitra ordered him to marry two of his adopted girls, the king refused saying it was immoral to wed another when he had his wife, Chandramati. In lieu of that the Rishi commanded him to part with his kingdom. And to uphold the moral standards, the king gladly gave away his entire wealth. Then the Rishi reminded him of the gift he had received sometime ago which he asked the king to keep in his custody till he would require it. Now he demanded it. The king was unable to pay him, for he had already given away all the wealth. The Rishi said, Raja, good! You have stood for your moral supremacy by being faithful to your wife. I admire you for giving up your empire. Say a word, sorry and disown your word and debt of the past. I shall go away. The king replied, Maharishi, it is unethical on my part to say that I dont repay. The Rishi said, Simply say, no. I go away. There is no evidence to your promise to me in the past. You only know and I know. I shall forget all about it without pressing for it. I shall not bring disrepute to you. Simply say, no. I go away. The king said, No, it is unethical to go back on ones word, whether there is evidence or not, court or not. I have a conscience and I must be true to it. And that is ethics. Please bear with me and give me time. I shall pay you in full what I owe you. And that is ethical excellence.
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There was a Tamil saint, Appar. He had a sister. Her name was Tilakavathi. She was offered by her parents to a bridegroom. Even before the marriage could take place, the bridegroom passed away. No formal ceremony uniting them in wedlock did ever take place. Still the great lady felt she was widowed and remained a widow till death. She was perfect in moral standards. Her friends, parents and elders requested her not to don a widows garb since she was never married. If she did not want to marry somebody else, she might remain a virgin but there was no moral compulsion for her to become a widow. Her own reply was widowhood. There may not be a moral obligation, but there is an ethical impulse in her to make her embrace widowhood. Once her parents desired to get her married to a particular person. She was that very day wedded to him mentally. She was from that very day his wife. It is immaterial whether death takes place before or after the formal ceremony. That is ethical excellence. In the Mahabharata, by the close of the epic, Yudhishthira with his brothers and wife decided to go to the final abode leaving the kingdom. They were all proceeding and a dog followed them. On the way one after another everybody dropped dead. Finally there was only one following Yudhishthira, and that was the dog. At the final stage, a celestial chariot arrived and the celestial messenger said, Sir, I am from heaven. Indra, the Lord of heaven sent me with the chariot to bring you to him. Kindly get in and lets go. Yudhishthira looked at the dog wagging his tail faithfully with devotion looking at him. He said, Let him also come. The messenger said: No, dogs have no place in heaven. Yudhishthira replied: Then I too shall not come. Then the messenger said, Sir you are invited to heaven because of your moral supremacy. You have won the recognition of the whole world for your morality. Therefore, Indra has sent this aerial chariot and me to escort
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you to the coveted home of the celestials. Please get in. Let the dog be left here. It has no place there. Yudhishthira said, Thank you. It is improper on my part to desert a dependent. The dog has been very faithful. I cant discard him; you may go. I dont need that heaven. At that decision the gods were thrilled. The dog suddenly disappeared and in his place stood the Lord of Dharma, Yama. And the messenger became Lord Indra himself. They declared in one voice: We admire your ethical excellence. We wanted to test whether you would forget the human ethics at the prospect of heaven. Fine, you have won. It is not enough if we are moral, we should also be ethical. None would ever lose anything by being moral or ethical. Properly do people get the reward. Yudhisthira was led to heaven, having been successful in the test. In life we do need the help of all, for we are gregarious creatures. We cannot afford to forget those who help us. We should not leave them in the lurch. Let us not let down anybody. Two friends were going in a forest. Suddenly, there came a bear chasing them. One of the friends rushed to a nearby tree and climbed up to safety. The other was not able to run. Nor could he climb any tree. Forsaken by the friend in need, he had no alternative except to fall flat on the floor. The bear went to him close, smelt him all over the body, felt his nose and ears to be numb, mistook him for a corpse and went its way. The selfish friend from the top of the tree was observing all. He was surprised to see his friend left unharmed by the bear. He came down and asked his friend about the bear, what it was telling him in his ears. The friend replied, My friend, the bear was telling me that animals have better ethics than human beings. They never leave their friends in the lurch. It is better we call ourselves only beings, not human beings because human means kindness which we lack. To be human we should be kind. To be kind is to help. And that is ethics.
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Having been born as human beings, let us not be unethical. Every profession has certain ethics. Under no circumstances should we violate the professional ethics. A teacher is unethical if he does not teach with affection when a student approaches him or her to learn. A doctor is unethical if he or she does not treat the patient on account of insufficient money or fees. A lawyer is unethical if he uses his brain power to defend crime and presents his arguments to get acquittal for a criminal. So are the various professional ethics. Above all, is the human ethics. To be unconcerned to the societys needs, if a person enjoys luxury, he is the most unethical. So does Swami Vivekananda rightly say: Him I call a traitor who having been educated at the cost of the millions of poor and innocent people enjoys the luxuries without paying any attention to improve their lot. Let every man shine as an ethically excellent one.

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SIMPLICITY IS DIVINE
implicity is simply splendid, sweet and serene. Very often it is the simple that is most beautiful. All our search is for the simple truth behind Life, Science, Nature and Philosophy. Beauty is truth, Truth beauty. All the evils, ills and inconveniences are due to our distance from simplicity, simple truth. In spite of our love for simplicity, we conceal it in complexes. Having confused ourselves with a host of complexities, we try to search for peace, simple peace. After the days labour we resort to simple sleep. It is the same for the rich and the poor. It is the only resort of peace to one and all. Whatever may be the shape of bed and atmosphere, everything is lost in the cosy course of sleep. The highest truth is naked and simple, which is also most beautiful. Silence is the simplicity of speech. Modesty is the simplicity of success. Contentment is the simplicity of conduct. And in simplicity lies the sweetness of life, peacefulness of life, beauty of truth. It is the sound and fury of life that prompt us to know the preciousness of silence in solitude. Less luggage, more comfortMake travel a pleasure, is the maxim for happy travel. It is also the ideal maxim of simplicity for making the journey of life sweet and enjoyable. Enough unto the day is evil thereof, is Christs caution to us in our life to make it easy and comfortable, sweet and peaceful. When Wordsworth says, The world is too much with us, he is referring to the need to return to the simplicity of Nature. Far away from the madding crowd of complexities, we feel like taking rest. It is in withdrawal and detachment, we enjoy the peacefulness and simplicity. Greatness lies in maintaining the simplicity of life amidst temptations and forces which drag us into the den of difficulties, but difficult
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to come out. We make our lives miserable by confusing ourselves. Abhimanyu can only enter the Padmavyuha, but cannot come out. There was a saint. He was very simple. He had only a pair of loin cloths. One he wore, while the other was washed and dried. One day the spare piece of cloth was taken away by a rat. His attempts to keep it beyond the reach of the rat failed. He, therefore, wanted to bring up a cat to scare away the rat. A cat was bought and brought up. But it required milk. He found it difficult to procure milk every day for the cat. He therefore decided to keep a cow and calf for the purpose. But a new problem arose. There should be someone to look after the cow and milk it. Therefore, he brought a boy for the purpose. But the problem was to feed the cowboy. To feed him, he brought a woman. She wanted clothes, jewels and therefore he acquired land to be tilled. There was cultivation. With that grew the number of employees. There were godowns, bungalows, servants, accounts, sales, purchases, profits, losses, balance sheets, management skills, and so on. To save a loin cloth from the rat, the man gave up his simplicity and welcomed all botherations. Worldly people, like Abhimanyu in the Mahabharata, enter into the Padmavyuha of lifes complexities and get caught. They dont know how to withdraw, how to come out of the confusion. Thoreau and Emerson felt the necessity to live with Nature in simplicity. We hope to make life comfortable through science and technology. In the name of scientific advancement, we are drowning ourselves in the evils of pollution. We keep ourselves busy physically and mentally depriving ourselves of the simple peace. There is no time to eat, to sleep, to enjoy and to love. Should the whole life be spent in bus, train and air travelling? Should we be always in haste? Cant we sit and rest awhile? Lets be simple to enjoy the purity of Nature,
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simplicity of Nature, beauty of Nature, sweetness of Nature. Right from the flowers and their fragrance to love and romance, we feel constrained to enjoy only artificiality. To be simple we have to detach ourselves. And for detachment, keep a place for everything and everything in its place. Else, we will be lost in the wilderness of things, in the cobweb of space and time. The days requirements may be reduced to the barest minimum to enjoy simplicity. A millionaire in America went to a distant seashore to bathe in the sea and bask on the shore. Leaving his car on the road, removing his clothes and shoes, with only a bathing loin cloth, he rushed into the sea, swam for a long time, came to the shore, basked in the sun and again went into the sea and swam. When he got tired, he basked. The fishermen nearby approached and offered him simple food consisting of fish and salt with pure water to drink. He ate the food and drank the water, swam in the sea, rolled on sand. It was a real thrill to be so enjoying Nature day in and day out. He called the fisher-folk and asked them, My friends, what is your profession? They replied, Sir, we go to the sea for fishing. We sell the booty and earn our livelihood. How much do you earn? We earn enough to meet our needs. Why dont you catch more fish? Then Sir? You will earn more. Then? You can build a bungalow. Then? Now and then you can sneak away from your tight schedule and enjoy Nature like me swimming in the sea and basking in the sun.
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Sir, to swim and bask, should we strain ourselves so much? Every day we enjoy the simple pleasures of life with our kith and kin. We are glad, at least after a long labour, you have realised the value of simple Nature. To enjoy Nature, one has to be simple. One should also keep Nature as it is, simple and pure. Nature is not mans enemy. She is his friend, philosopher and guide. It is only by living with Nature in natural environment, man enjoys a natural life of equanimity. Man in his anxiety to protect himself from the occasional outbursts of Nature through flood, cyclone and earthquake, develops science and technology. He may advance in science but cannot conquer nature. He will only spoil Nature, its naked dignity, simple sweetness, in his attempt to conquer Nature. The labour is detrimental to daily sweetness without any success at the end. The more he tries to outwit Nature, the more he is outwitted by her. Despite his failure, man has become only greedy to secure safety at any cost. And that is the evil causing a chain of evils. Ultimately it chains him in unnatural and anti-natural activities. Therefore, has Jesus despised mans greed. Influenced by him did Francis of Assissi give up wealth. He longed to be simple and pure. He wanted to be in harmony with Nature. He was as the Buddha who renounced all possessions and the kingdom. He gave up the luxury of the palace and went into Nature to find out the truth of Nature, the beauty of Nature. It is high time the technological explosion was stopped and Nature kept pure and simple. If man is interested in himself, he should stop this global pollution. He should learn to return to simple Nature. A crow was living with its spouse in a nest on a tree-top. At the foot of the tree was a huge ant-hill, the habitat of a king-cobra. Occasionally, the reptile would go up and swallow the eggs laid by the birds. The crows were unable to protect their offspring. They were afraid of the poisonous
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enemy. The crow thought, thought and thought. At a far away place in a hole was a mongoose living. The crow went to it and narrated its problem. The mongoose offered to kill the cobra if only the needed bait was sumptuously given to it. The crow agreed. It went to a pond and caught many a fish. In a row the fish were dropped from the place of the mangoose to the habitat of the cobra. The mongoose enjoying the fish one after the other reached the cobras hideout. As soon as the snake came out, the mongoose caught it and killed it. The crow was happy. But the greedy mongoose did not stop at that. It climbed up the tree and swallowed the eggs of all the birds. In the past the cobra was only occasionally causing menace. But the new friend of the crow turned out to be a devastating enemy. Natural calamities do come now and then. We can learn to live with them. But the menace of science is enormous and continuous. Man lives in constant dread of danger and death caught in the cosy clutches of science. Right from the domestic appliances and transport vehicles to the nuclear weapons, the use of everything involves great risk. We have played into the hands of science so much that we cannot come out, nor can we live peacefully. We have only invited death to our door-steps. To be free from encumbrances is to be simple. Simplicity provides free mobility at will. If there are encumbrances, free movement will be restricted. Both in time and space, it is better we are free from burden. Time is burdensome if we are full with anxiety. Anxiety is due to attachment, which in turn is due to a feeling of insecurity, which is the offspring of the needless fear of Nature. Men of spirituality are ever simple. The ancient Rishis, the Buddha, Jesus, Chaitanya Prabhu, Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Ramana have all lived a simple life for it is in simplicity that God is revealed, and in sophistication He is concealed. Amidst all sophistication, man longs for simplicity, simple
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love. He has to uncover the artificiality to see the simple sweetness of Nature. There is none who is not drawn to children. The attraction is in the simplicity of the child. Innocence is its simplicity. As it develops ego and its angularities, its attraction gets reduced and limited. So is artificiality opposed to simple Nature. To the extent artificiality is reduced, simplicity is allowed to shine. To be simple is to be natural. We are all blessed with love, a divine gift. To spoil it with ego is a crime. Methodical is Nature. So is man to be methodical, to be in tune with simple Nature. The wheel of time moves precisely. The sun rises and sets as per schedule. The earth revolves round itself and the sun, making day and night quite methodically. Trees flower and yield fruit as per the seasons. Seasons come one after another in a specific time schedule. Man is a product of Nature. It is only through Nature that he can evolve. If he deviates, it is detrimental to his progress. It is through nature, we transcend Nature, not by obstructing or suppressing Nature. The more we obstruct, the most cruel and poisonous Nature becomes, making us more and more insecure and miserable. The synthetic waste, the chemicals and the poisonous gases emitted by the factories, machines and transport vehicles have already started to interfere with the quiet functions of Nature. To overcome the adverse consequences, man is searching in science. Better it is for him to take refuge at the feet of Nature, Mother Nature. Food, water and air provided by Nature are pure and simple. But the same are getting polluted because of the technological explosion. The natural system is good for man to live and progress. Shortsighted, he interferes with Nature only to his disadvantage. It is high time man realised his folly and returned to Nature. Born of Nature, mankind should be brought up by Mother Nature. Artificial food is no good to babies. Only orphans are fed
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by bottle milk. Mankind is orphaned if it is fed by the bottle milk of science which is but a paid nurse, unlike the Mother Nature of true affection. Even if Nature frowns, it is for our good, because she is our Mother. Let us be the disciplined children of Mother Nature and be simple and methodical. Methodicalness is chiefly in the physical and mental planes with reference to space and time. We use very many objects in our daily life. Let us reduce them to the barest minimum avoiding as far as possible artificial products. Allot a place to each one of them and waste no time and energy in searching for them when they are required. Even in darkness we should be in a position to find them without any strain. Let not any time be lost in searching for an object. Similarly, let there be time alloted to the daily activities so that we are in tune with the methodicalness of Nature. Right from waking up in the early hours of the morning till we retire to bed at night, let us be meticulously methodical for both mental and physical health. The mind is a large palace with innumerable rooms. Let them be allotted to various items of knowledge. Let not the thought of food disturb us when it is the allotted time for sleep. Let not the worldly thoughts of money spoil our mind when it is time for us to enjoy music. Let not the examinations cause anxiety when it is time for physical exercise. Let not anything crop up in the mind when it is not time for it to open its room. As the foot-wear has a specific place in the room and the dining hall has a specific place in the building, let there be specific time and space allotted to people and thoughts in the mind. Unless their time comes, they cannot open their rooms and seek our attention. By doing so we enjoy the peace of simplicity in methodicalness. Our simplicity gets polluted and burdened by unnecessary possessions. As the body throws away the undigested stuff, we should be in a position to throw away the unwanted
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stuff from our dwelling places. When the old chappal is torn and useless, we buy a new one. But we have the temptation to keep the old ones also burdening the room and thereby spoiling the simplicity of the clean room. Nor should we be tempted to keep the empty tins, packets, wrappers and containers. It is only a momentary attachment that prompts us to keep them. They only cause nuisance by their very presence. We have to take care to dispose of them properly. However much we may love a person, we dont keep his body when he is dead. We dispose it of in a proper way. Similarly, the various articles after their purpose is served, we should dispose them of. Old calendars, invitations, letters, papers, powder tins, torn chappals, outmoded clothes and a host of them are a veritable nuisance and cause for confusion and annoyance if not disposed of at the right moment. Simplicity lies in keeping the body and the dwelling place as neat and tidy as possible without any unnecessary things. Additional clothes, unused medicines, bottles and the containers should be disposed of. If they are to be of use, let them be placed systematically in an allotted place. So is forgetfulness a necessity. Let us not dump the mind with matters worthy of disposal through forgetfulness. Else, the simplicity of the mind will be lost depriving us of the resultant peace of mind. In our interest to enjoy the sweetness of life, let us be simple in the use of time and space, belongings and mind. After the eighteen days of the Mahabharata war, Sri Krishna came out of the chariot and asked Arjuna also to alight. As soon as the two heroes were away, the chariot caught fire and was reduced to ashes. Arjuna was astounded at the happening and requested Sri Krishna to tell him the reason. Sri Krishna explained to him the significance of the incident. Everything in the world has a purpose. So also every individual has a purpose in life. As soon as the work is accomplished, the instruments and the individuals
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automatically withdraw. Unnecessarily one should not prolong the stay in the world. The chariot had fulfilled its mission. It did its job to the best of its ability and the war had ended. During the war, the chariot had resisted innumerable weapons successfully. Now that its purpose was over, it allowed itself to be burnt to ashes. This withdrawl is voluntary and disinterested. And in so giving up oneself there is detachment. In detachment there is the strength of simplicity. As long as the body and mind are burdened, they are not simple. Unless one is simple and strong, one cannot be free, fearless and detached. The more the limitations are shattered, the more the botherations and burdens are removed. And that is through simple strength. We are born simple, small and naked. We grow big, make our lives complex and burden ourselves with accumulated desires, possessions, anxieties and attachments. Whether we get rid of them or not, we are forced to extricate ourselves from them all by the God of Death. Giving up everything, we return to Nature to merge with the elements. The more the mind is kept simple without the burdensome desires, the more the withdrawl at the time of death becomes simple, easy and thereby sweet. Even during the period of life, we enjoy our sojourn on earth if only we are simple without any burdens on the body and in the mind. We can fly freely and happily through life and death if only we are simple in body and mind. Peace and happiness are ever available in the minds of those who are simple without any luggage physically and mentally. Ornamentation is artificial and therefore it obstructs the beauty of Nature, the simple sweetness of Nature. No amount of artificiality will be equal to Nature. Nature basically is simple. It is in search of the bare simplicity of Nature, man strives to use science. Why should we struggle to see an imitation when the original is available in its native simplicity? We do not require a reflecting glass to see our
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open palms. When Goddess Parvathi in bridal garments proceeded to the presence of Siva to wed Him, he only opened his third eye to make her go back and reapproach Him through simple prayer of devotion. It is simple love and devotion that God seeks in us, not pomp and ostentation in worship. So is the husband fond of his wife or vice-versa on account of the simple love. Sri Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita says, it is enough if with simple and pure love the devotees offer Him a leaf, flower fruit, or water. What is given is not important. How it is given is of importance. Love is natural and simple; it abhors artificiality and ornamentation. To be simple is to be natural, to be in tune with Nature. To be unnatural is to be awkward and ugly. Unnatural ornamentation is an impediment to natural beauty. Imitation of Nature through science and technology is detrimental to the natural health of body and mind. Artificiality is an affectation affecting the natural and spontaneous unfoldment of the divinity within. Uncover the latent and unfold the spirit. Resorting to short-cuts and technological devices to hasten the natural processes would have adverse reaction somewhere in some other shape. Similarly, obstructing simple nature is to welcome trouble in some other way. Science curbs creativity to a great extent. Very often we are forced to enjoy ready-made pleasures. There is more happiness in enjoying the fruits of our efforts than those offered by science. Our effort is but a labour of love. The doll I make is more dear and enjoyable than the doll bought in the market. Sweets prepared by our hands are more satisfying than those bought in a shop. The more we depend upon the tailor-made entertainment such as the video and cinema, the more we lose our ability to entertain ourselves in their absence. On the other hand we become lazy and develop unhealthy addiction to ready-mades.
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By mechanically producing large quantities of common goods, we deprive many people of their work and employment. The buyers become lazy and the others grow frustrated for want of money. Unless people are trained to enjoy leisure righteously and peacefully, the advantages of science are more harmful than helpful. Nature has a built-in system to balance itself and provide smooth and peaceful simplicity to all to evolve to the higher levels without clinging to anything at any stage. After all, the plan of nature is to make us go higher and become divine, and to merge in the source. It is all cyclic, rhythmic and systematic. If at any stage any twist, diversion, friction, stagnation or suppression is worked out by science, the natural course gets affected to the disaster of all animate and inanimate ones. Mans intelligence is meant to understand Nature, admire Nature and willingly merge with nature; not to obstruct it. Modern science, on the contrary, interferes with the working of Nature and thereby causes new problem. In agriculture, in physical culture, and in various other fields science has interfered with the natural processes and welcomed new troubles. Deforestation, birthcontrol measures, synthetic products, inorganic chemicals, pesticides and a host of scientific inventions have done great damage to the simple and sweet life of not only humanity but to other species as well. The major problems today are overpopulation, congestion and environmental pollution. The five pure elements of Nature, air, water, fire land and space are no more pure and available in plenty. Everyone of them is contaminated and made dear and costly. They are not allowed to be natural and healthy. They are polluted and poisoned. Air is injurious with poisonous fumes breathed out by machines, factories and vehicles. Water is polluted with the synthetic waste thrown into it. The polythene or plastic wrappers and containers are inorganic and cannot be merged with the soil.
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Leaves, earthen pots and pulp-paper become one with the earth. Unable to assimilate the unwanted stuff, the land is under strain to yield the required food. And to boost the yield we use chemical fertilizers. So is light artificially produced affecting the sight. Space is full with all contamination. Nature is unable to immune any longer. Nor is man able to resist and remain immune to the hazardous influences of science. Diseases are getting multiplied, tensions are mounting up, peace is becoming scarce, pollution is suffocating, purity is being smothered and simplicity is in distress crying for existence. It is better we realise the crying need of the day and return to simple living, peaceful living, with our heads on the lap of Mother Nature. Let us be fed by Mother Nature and not the paid nurse, science. It is love, pure and simple that we get from mother not science. Let us not be orphaned and adopted by science. Orphans may have everything in the orphanage except mother s love. It is mother s love and care, not mere comforts that are conducive to a healthy growth. Love is pure and simple. It is divine. Let us not be alienated from our mother, Mother Nature who is loving, simple and divine. Simplicity lies in being self-reliant. The more we depend upon the machine, the more we lose our freedom and innate abilities. It is unfortunate, with the advent of the computer, we have lost the ability to add and subtract simple figures. For each and every calculation, we depend upon the machine. Dependence is always dangerous and disastrous. So also in the field of medicine we depend more on chemicals than on Mother Nature who offers full health if only we can lead a simple life. Agriculturists use pesticides to kill pests of plants; use fungicides to eradicate fungal diseases; use herbicides to arrest the growth of weeds; use chemical fertilizers to boost the yield of plants and trees. But these chemicals and salts when they percolate, reach the subsoil water or the river
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water. The small plant and animal organisms called phyto zooplanktons living in hat medium consume the contaminated water. The waters containing the injurious chemicals and salts are integrated into the planktons at ppm (parts per million) level. Small insects feed on these planktons. Such insects are the prey to fish which in turn are used by man. By eating them or drinking the polluted water man runs the danger of acquiring diseases leading to pre-mature old age and death. He is likely to suffer from deformities and abnormalities in growth. Biological germicides and contrivances of science, if used extensively and indiscriminately, hamper the life of all at all levels. The development and use of science has its own adverse effects. Urbanization and simplicity do not go together. The former pollutes and the latter promotes purity. Mahatma Gandhi and Vinoba Bhave wanted the purity of the villages to be maintained for it is in the simplicity of Nature that we find the divine radiance more. It is for this reason that we find people resorting to hill-stations, seashores and woods. For peace and happiness, we wish to go to the villages. Home is sweet home because of the simplicity of pure love available there. Despite all comforts, a lodge is only a lodge, it is never a simple home. It is only in a simple natural habitat that we live and grow well. Art and poetry are possible only in natural environment of simple life, not in the breakneck speed of city life. Macaulay is right when he says: As civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily declines. Almost all the beautiful literatures in the world are born in simple unsophisticated areas of Nature. Aesthetics and spiritual unfoldment are possible more in the serene atmosphere of simplicity than in the polluted life of a metropolis. There is, unfortunately, because of urbanization, an overall degeneration and decline in human values. Even in art and literature we find a sort of deterioration and there is more of mechanization and commercialism
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everywhere. All this is due to mans madness, for want of simple sweetness. The simple villagers are less prone to crime and corruption that the so-called civilised people in the cities. India is known for its spirituality and simple serenity. Many a foreigner comes to India to find that spiritual solace. But now unfortunately there are no spiritual men to offer the needed solace to the society. It is mainly because we have drifted away from the simple life of natural environment. Sri Ramakrishnas and Sri Ramanas are no more available because the society is going away from simplicity. That is why spirituality is also on the decline. Simple is that which causes no confusion. Simple expression is easy to understand. When we are simple, it is easy to face and solve any problem and easy to live well. Simplicity is bare fact, open mind, innocent and without evil. To be plain and guileless is to be simple. Without ornaments, without additional embellishments, it is better to be shining in simple natural dignity as the sun shines, unpretending and artless, without ostentation and affectation, to be natural is to be simple. And to be simple is to be sincere. We do want everybody to be sincere and honest. Before expecting them in others, let us practise them in our life of simplicity. We make money and become slaves to it. Man has discovered electricity, and invented electrical appliances. He is now their slave. He goes mad if the supply of electricity fails for a while. Transportation has been made comfortable and fast, increasing proportionately the accident risk. We invent more and more devices to become slaves to what we make. So much so, we are at the mercy of mechanical devices for everything. We are ultimately governed by the mindless machines. To become their slaves, we have to pay money and buy them. And to earn that money we search for short-cuts. We resort to corruption and evil
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practices. Social evils such as dowry therefore are now on the increase. Self-reliance and self-help are looked down upon. The result is dehumanization. Having evolved to the level of human beings we shamelessly submit ourselves to be the slaves to science. Slaves have no individuality. No prestige can be there, if we lose our identity and individuality in our servitude to science. We are reduced to breathing robots, live dolls in the hands of science. All this is due to our inability to be simple, to be self-reliant and content with ourselves and our natural companion, friend, philosopher, mother, guide and GodNature. If Nature is God, science is mammon. We cannot be faithful to them both. Money is not needed to love and enjoy God. But the luxuries of science are very costly. Many of the social evils like bribery are due to the absence of simplicity. More and more money is sought through corruption only to lead us to servitude and smother us in the smoke of science. The devil of addiction to science is driving us astray from the simplicity of life. The more we develop a genuine love for simple life, the more the social evils will disappear from the society. In management studies, it is the simplicity of the top man that wins the co-operation of all employees. If the top man is to sit in an ivory tower always lost in pomp and luxury, he invites the evil eye of all. Modesty and humility are supposed to be the key words for success in management. Simpler the procedures, greater the quality and efficiency in administration and output of agriculture and industry. The complex system in management only causes red-tapism and corruption, tension and confusion, evils and annoyance. Blessed are the simple for they are pure at heart to enjoy Nature around them, to love Nature around them, to worship Nature and to see God in Nature. They see a soul elevating splendour in sunrise, all-pervading Self in the space, unifying embrace of love in the bracing breeze,
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boundless knowledge in the vast ocean and the bounteous and affectionate mother in the earth. With reverence they approach them for a life of serene sweetness. The dance of the daffodils, the majesty of the peacock, the snow-white softness of the swan, the twinkling eyes of the deer, the sweetness of the snow peaks, the beauty of the valleys overflowing with fragrant hues of the jasmine and rose, and a host of scintillating scenes are more precious than all the currency notes of the world. Tons of wealth cannot equal the scenic beauty of simplicity. All our effort and endeavour, all our acquisition of wealth and all our tireless striving is finally to enjoy the simple sweetness of sleep, simple sweetness of loving smile, the simple sweetness of the unfolding self. Why should we not see the simplicity, enjoy simplicity always in life? Blessed are they who are fond of simplicity, for they enjoy the sublimity of the soul, rather a revelation. Friendship flourishes if it is free from guile and is strong with simple sincerity. Marriages are of heavenly bliss if only there is no secret between the couple and if they have simple and unselfish love for each other in the hearts. Children are endearing on account of their simplicity of innocence. Home is sweet, if it is full with the simplicity of affection. In the simple worship of Kannappan, Siva found the purity of devotion. In the simple gift of Kuchela, Sri Krishna found abiding friendship. In the guileless hearts of the Gopis and cowherds, Sri Krishna found genuine love. In the simple hearts of purity, God has His lotus seat. Unless one becomes childlike in simplicity, unfoldment of the self or Godrealisation is not possible. All the saints and sages all over the globe are simple, pure and serene. Vyasa and Valmiki, Narada and Markandeya, Buddha and Francis, Yogi Vemana and Narayana Guru, Chaitanya and Meera, Lazarus and Theresa, Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Ramana, Emerson and Thoreau, Wordsworth and Bharathi and a host of thinkers,
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devotees, seers, spiritual stalwarts and poets have been of simple life with a simple heart to reveal the God within. Blessed are they who are simple, for they know the preciousness of simplicity, which is divine. Simple living and high thinking are prescribed for those who want to enjoy the cosmic beauty, cosmic form, cosmic love and cosmic truth. Ma is the simple sound for love. AUM is the simple sound of spiritual truth for the Brahman, which is the origin, continuation and culmination of all. God is the simple word for Generating, Ordaining and Dissolving all. With the simple words, Sisters and Brothers, Vivekananda won the West. With the simple word, Mara, the rustic thief became Rishi Valmiki. Great and eternal truths are expressed in simple statements such as Love is God and Truth is God. If only we are simple at heart, simple in life, we find the significance of simplicity to be divine. Man is simple but makes himself complex out of ignorance. He allows himself to be caught in the cobweb of diverse complexities. His thoughts are many and incessant. He is of diverse views and relationships. Everyone is a son or daughter, brother or sister, husband or wife, father or mother, of someone. The view also changes according to the relationship. Wife or husband is looked at with one bent of mind; sister or brother is seen with another bent of mind. Similarly, the bents of mind change when they are father or mother, son or daughter. To be of simple view is to look at all as divine. It is here that simplicity is godly in attitudes. When love is simple and spontaneous, it flows in the natural melody of devotion. Elaborate rituals and ostentatious decoration do not have a place in the flood of hearts worship of the ideal. Procedures and formalities are done away within the flight of love. Sabari in the Ramayana had become totally forgetful of all etiquette when she offered the fruit to her Lord Sri Rama. Her love was such that she
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wanted to taste the fruits before offering them to him. Viduras wife in the Mahabharata grew so unconscious in the overwhelming flow of devotion, that she offered the peels instead of the fruits to Sri Krishna. Kannappan carried water in his mouth to bathe Siva, since his hands were full with fruits and flowers. God is bound by the simple love of his devotees. He sees the simple heart of purity in devotion. Rituals only delay the union. Ornaments only impede the embrace. Ostentation grows the wall of egoism in between. Faith, love and devotion shine most, reach God fast when they are pure, steadfast and simple. Gopala is a young boy. Every day he has to travel a long distance passing through a thick forest to go to school. Sometimes it is frightening to walk in the dark when the clouds are thick in the sky. One day he told his mother about the fears he had experienced on the way to and from the school. The widowed mother wept and said: My boy, be not afraid. You have a brother who lives in the woods. His name also is Gopala. Next time when you are in the forest on your way to school, you just call out for him. He will rush to you, give you company and help you in every way. The boy Gopala believed his mother. When he was in the forest, he shouted, Gopala Gopala, please come and give me company, I am afraid. Surprisingly, his call was responded to. Lord Krishna with his crown of peacock feathers and flute arrived. They both played and danced their way through the dense forest. Since then, every day Sri Krishna was his companion. One day in the school, the teacher asked the boys to bring each a pot full with curd for a feast to be served on the school day. Boy Gopala accordingly asked his mother for a pot of curd. The poor mother was sorry for her inability to provide the same. But she was quick to suggest that the boy could get whatever he wanted from his brother-companion Sri Krishna. The boy therefore requested Sri Krishna, who readily gave him a
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pot full with curd. Since the boy was too young to carry a big vessel, Sri Krishna gave him only a small pot. The boy was asked not to worry about the size of the pot since the curd in it was inexhaustible. The student carried it and the teacher was angry with the smallness of the pot and the quantity of the curd. The boy, faithful to the words of Sri Krishna, told the teacher about the inexhaustible vessel. The teacher only laughed at him and tried to empty it himself to test. The more the vessel was emptied, the more it was full to the brim again. The teacher was wonderstruck at the miracle. He enquired how the boy got it and from whom. Having come to know about Sri Krishna, the companion of the boy Gopala, he longed to see the God, the cow-herd Krishna. He begged the boy Gopala to show him the Lord. The boy took the teacher to the woods and shouted, shouted and shouted in vain to Gopala, the God-companion to come. The invisible voice of Sri Krishna was heard, My brother Gopala, I revealed unto you for you are simple and steadfast in your love and faith. Your teacher is neither simple nor strong in devotion. He is caught in cumbersome rituals and his knowledge is so complex that it has concealed his heart in its meshes. Unless he returns to childlike simplicity, he cannot see me. Let him purify himself; let his veils of knowledge be dropped; let his heart flow naturally and spontaneously with simple love towards me to enable him to see me. He has to wait until he gets rid of every impeding thought. Let there be no thought except me in his mind. Let him be full with the simple love of God.

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STRENGTH IS THE REMEDY

trength is health. Health is wealth. To be strong is to be manly and youthful in spirit, fearless and rational in intellect, fair and truthful in speech, just and impartial in reasoning, dynamic and dutiful in action, pious and steadfast in devotion. It is strength when we are moral and upright in dealings, when we are ethical and endearing to all, and when we are detached and advancing in spirituality. It is, in short, a harmonious advancement of hand, heart and head for the unfoldment of self. A sound body houses a sound mind. Unless one is gifted with a strong body, one cannot make any worthwhile progress. The weak in body are unfit for any useful and exemplary pursuit. Nayamatma balaheenena labhyah , declare the Upanishads. Wealings cannot aspire for selfrealisation, nor can they enjoy any sense-pleasure. They are unfit for the world here and hereafter. The first and foremost pre-requisite for any plan and pursuit is physical strength. Nutritious food and regular exercises keep the body strong. Swami Vivekananda says, You will be nearer to Heaven through football than through the study of the Gita. You will understand the Gita better with your biceps, your muscles a little stronger. You will understand the mighty genius and the mighty strength of Sri Krishna better with a little of strong blood in you. You will understand the Upanishads better and the glory of the Atman when your body stands firm upon your feet and you feel yourself as man. Very often we do come across a common and strange experience. We do think of strength, speak of strength but fail to be strong in feeling and action. What we think, we are not strong enough in feeling and action. What we think, we are not strong enough to admit. What we say we are not
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strong enough to do. Actions are not faithful to words and words are not faithful to thoughts. The cause for all this inconsistency is weakness. We are like parrots repeating great maxims and ideals, but run away like rabbits when it is time to put them into practice. Our inability to translate anything worthwhile into action is due to physical and psychological weakness. Strength is the only remedy to make the ideals work out into actions, words into deeds. If the will is weak, it cannot resolve firmly and wisely. If the feelings are weak, they cannot be genuine and intense. If the bodies are weak, they cannot do anything worthwhile and heroic. Therefore, the first thing to be done is to strengthen ourselves at every level. After the twelve years of forest life, the Pandavas went to the kingdom of Virat to spend their final year of exile, incognito. Duryodhana was making frantic efforts to locate them and expose them, so that the Pandavas would have to repeat the whole thirteen year period of exile as per the conditions of the dice play. He requested therefore, the grandfather Bheeshma, to tell him their whereabouts. Bheeshma expressed his ignornance about their dwelling place. Duryodhana requested him to give him at least the clues or indications of the place in which the Pandavas were likely to be living. The old Acharya Bheeshma said, Child, really I do not know where they are. But since you beseech, I can give you some of the indiciations. Since the Pandavas are very righteous, the place where they live will be free from natural calamities such a floods, cyclones, earthquakes and forest-fires. There will be no famine, and rains will not fail. People will live in peace and prosperity. Only the cruel and villainous will die a premature and mysterious death, if not earlier punished by the king of the land. Duryodhana was glad to hear the clues from the grandfather. Now all those indications could be very well seen in the kingdom of Virata. He was sure that the Pandavas were living there
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concealing their identity. Therefore, he should without further delay, invade the land to expose them. He asked his friend Susarma to attack the capital from one side so that the whole army of Virata would be pressed into service. In defence, the grateful Pandavas would certainly come out. If they did not, they were sure to be exposed when they were surrounded by the Kuru forces a little later from another side. The idea was implemented. Except Arjuna, the four brothers went to fight for the king along with the army against Susarmas forces. When there was no army available in the capital, Duryodhanas forces proceeded to occupy the land. The message of their invasion reached the capital. The only man available was the prince Uttarakumara, the son of Virat. He did react very bravely in front of the women in the palace. He stood before them and spoke with heroism, This Duryodhana thinks that there is none to resist him. Perhaps he does not know the valour of the prince of this land. I pity his ignorance. The Kuru army is sure to be reduced to ashes when I just stare at it. The enemies will be routed out by my matchless arrows of fire. The Pandavas need not have to face them in future because I shall kill all the Kurus today itself . He was thus bragging about himself, his weapons and valour. Finally, he was sorry because all his promised exploits could not materialize for want of a fitting charioteer. Suddenly, Draupadi, who was listening to him in the guise of Sairandhri stood up and said, Oh prince, in times of crisis, we have to make use of the available personnel. Brihannala does have some experience in driving the chariot. You may kindly summon him to be your charioteer. The prince reluctantly agreed and Brihannala (Arjuna in disguise) donned the armour and with the whip in hand sat as a driver in the war-car. The prince with all enthusiasm and valour stood in the chariot. He was anxious to face the Kurus with bow and arrows ready for the fight. The chariot dashed off
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and at a little distance was seen the ocean of the Kuru army. At its very sight, the prince got unnerved. He dropped the bow and arrows. He told Arjuna, Please turn the chariot back. Let us go home. I want to live. I do not want to die at their hands. All his words of bravery and valour turned out to be false for want of strength at every level. Arjuna had to reveal his identity to keep him secure and composed. In the nineteen-sixties, India had to face wars on the northern borders. The neighbour countries were aggressive and India was trying to defend herself. The whole country was agitated. Everybody in India wanted to contribute to the might of the Motherland. Young men in colleges and universities came out of the class rooms, raised slogans, went in processions condemning the enemies, declaring their unflinching support to Mother Bharat to maintain national integrity. They all in single voice shouted slogans of strength, selflessness and solidarity. The Government of India was happy to hear the slogans of courage and valour. Encouraged by them, army recruiting centers were opened all over the country to take into the army, able bodied men of willingness and valour. The flood of valour in the songs and slogans displayed in the processions was surprisingly and conspicuously absent at the army recruiting offices. While many lacked the strength of will to translate their slogans into action, most of the willing youths lacked the required physical strength to join the army. As a nation we have become weak in will, in feeling and in body, observed Swami Vivekananda. Therefore, the Swamis thrust was on strength, manliness and courage. Abhih: be fearless is the Upanishadic exhortation. Be not a coward, be manly is Sri Krishnas exhortation to Arjuna. And in tune with them the Swami forcefully exhorted, Arise, Awake, and stop not till the goal is reached. Be manly. Arjuna, the Pandava hero, arrived on the battlefield determined to do away with the Kurus. But suddenly at the
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sight of the kith and kin arrayed as the opponents, he got unnerved. A strange feebleness crept into him. His feet failed to support his frame. His limbs lost their muscular vigour and became weak. He was no more strong or willing to wage the war. He dropped the bow and arrows, unable to hold them; sat in the chariot unable to stand. He felt feverish. He offered to withdraw from the battlefield, unable to overcome attachments. Despondent and dispirited, he sought direction from Sri Krishna regarding his course of action. He felt it was improper to kill his own relatives to regain the crown and throne. Sri Krishnas immediate reaction was to reprimand Arjuna. What, what do you say? Are you not a warrior? Man, dont be a coward. Weakness is unbecoming of man. Come on, stand up. Be manly kshudram hridaya daurbalyam tyaktvothishta paramtapa . How is it, the erstwhile manliness has disappeared in You? Shed this feebleness of heart, since it is mean for a man to be meek. Wake up, get up and be manly. By speaking so of manliness and strength Sri Krishna was only echoing the Upanishadic message of strength. Arjunas inaction was due to a psychic weakness. He was overcome by unmanly attachment. Caught in the questions of propriety to kill the close relatives, he offered to withdraw from fight. In Shakespears Hamlet, there was a prolonged inaction. Hamlet was unable to be decisive, unable to act with resolve. He was lost in the deadly dilemma, to be or not to be. He went on delaying the action of revenge of justice. Procrastination proved to be fatal in his life. It was also a type of psychic weakness, because of which there occurred many avoidable and unnecessary deaths. Swami Vivekananda was fond of strength and courage so much that he went to the extent of admiring Miltons Satan for his immeasurable strength, indomitable will and unconquerable courage. It is indeed miserable to be weak
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doing or dying. Even if you sin, sin like a man, Swamiji shouted. His hatred for weakness was so much that he even went to the extent of advising an inactive and lethargic aspirant to tell a lie if he wanted to progress. Goodness out of weakness is not a virtue. It is like the vow of celibacy by the impotent, vow of silence by the dumb and vow of fasting by the beggar. Tolerance becomes a sin if it is born of weakness. Anything that makes us strong is a virtue. And that which weakens us is sin. Strength is life; weakness is death. Weakness at every level and in every form has to be eradicated. All our suffering is due to our weakness. The epic hero, Sri Rama, is an embodiment of manliness; therefore, he is a model man. Sri Krishna is not only fearless but has preached fearless manliness through his Gita. In line with them Swami Vivekananda gave his rousing call to the sleeping citizens of India to wake up and be men. Arise, Awake and stop not till the goal is reached. Narottama is Sri Rama for he is best among men due to his fearlessness. Purushotham in Sri Krishna because he is the best of mankind on account of his extraordinary manliness. Narendra is Swami Vivekananda, because he is courageous. Vivekananda and vigour go together. Vivekananda and weakness are opposed to each other. Similarly, whoever wants to be a man must be strong and courageous, not cowardly and feeble. Only strong men can develop selfconfidence. Without self-confidence, man is a simple zero. Swami Vivekananda on account of his self-confidence was able to go round the world twice like a prince. Mahatma Gandhis self-confidence was able to win independence. A man of self-confidence can have real faith in God and His grace. Therefore, Swami Vivekananda says that an atheist is one who has no faith in himself, whereas a theist is one who has confidence in himself. It is strength that prompts one to be confident of himself.
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It is not enough if we are good and virtuous. We should also be bold and strong to assert and establish righteousness. Otherwise, villainy and wickedness will gain the upper hand. They will occupy the throne of justice by force. And good people will be subjected to hardship and humiliation. In India, for several centuries, goodness is weakness. The result is, India was enslaved by the foreigners and Indians had almost forgotten their latent strength and energy. They have become lethargic, insensitive to servitude and a strange weakness, making them sleep in secure slavishness, has crept into their erstwhile strong hearts. In the name of goodness, kindness and tolerance they have become cowards. They have become complacent mistaking it to be contentment. Even the young men of the land have been languishing without ambition and youthful exertion. Their only ambition was to be a big slave. Swamiji, therefore, with disgust shouted at them saying: You the young men of India, what are you doing now, promenading the seashores with books in your hands repeating undigested stray bits of European brain work, and the whole mind bent upon getting a thirty rupee clerkship, or at best becoming a lawyerthe highest of a young mans ambition and every student with a brood of hungry children crackling at his heels and asking for bread. Is there not water enough in the sea to drown your gowns, university diplomas? Ambition precedes effort. Energy unfolds itself in proportion to effort. And effort is in direct proportion to the ambition and its intensity. Young men without high ambition run after low callings and petty jobs. To rouse the man in us, an ideal is to be instilled. Once the ideal is strongly instilled, there will be the required effort and pursuit to realise the ideal. Youth and ambition go together. But if the hearts are weak, there will be no aspiration. They only drag on the life. The immediate duty, therefore, is to
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have lofty ideals. And then for the attainment of the same they strive with all strength, vigour and vitality. We should never be oblivious of our talents and energies. We should somehow be kindled to make ourselves men of achievements. Anjaneya is known for his energy, strength and courage. But the pity is, he is not aware of his abilities. Indians in general, and Indian youth in particular, are like Anjaneyas unaware of their hidden potentialities. In their search for Sita, the vanaras arrived on the southern seashore of India. Their progress was barred by the sea. They could not return to their homes because their King, Sugreeva, would not allow them. They were between the devil and the deep sea. They became weak. Unable to know what was to be done next, they were agitated. Suddenly to their pleasant surprise, Sampathi, the brother of Jatayu, came and told them the imprisonment of Sita in Lanka. Now the problem was that they should fly across the sea and see her there. All the vanara warriors were making an estimate of their abilities for the purpose. Now the problem was that they should fly across the sea and see her there. Angada said that he could go only half the distance. Neela said he could go a little farther. Jambavan, the oldest of the party, said that he could go there in a single leap. But he would not be in a position to return. While each was thus assessing his capacities, Anjaneya remained quiet. He seemed to be totally unaware of his energy. He was lost in a state of self-pity. He knew the seriousness of the problem. He knew the purpose for which he and his friends were commissioned. Somehow in spite of the gravity of the situation he was unable to rise to the occasion. Then Jambavan approached him and said, What, what Anjaneya, why are you quiet? Are you not aware of the problem? Sita is in distress, imprisoned. Rama is there languishing due to separation from his spouse. All of us are
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on toes to solve the situation. How is it, you are able to be quiet? This is not the time for self-pity. This is the time for action. Come on, get up. Are you not the son of Anjanadevi, who is known for her rigorous austerities and Tapasya? Are you not the son of the wind-god, known for his tempestuous impetuosity? Are you not the same Anjaneya, who, when but a boy flew to the sun to swallow him mistaking him for a red fruit? Remember, who you are, what you are made of. Come, rise up and proceed. While Jambavan was thus speaking, Anjaneya was growing in size. Without looking back, he took a giant leap towards Lanka and shot into airlike a meteor. Most men, especially the young in India, are unaware of their strength, like Anjaneya. Though capable of rising to the occasion, they simply sit and brood over regretting their helplessness. Therefore, Swami Vivekananda asks us to remember strength to become strong. He exhorts us to be strong and manly. Mere physical strength may not bring victory. Often even the strongest ones are found to lose battles, not because of insufficient strength, but because of insufficient courage. At one stage, they become victims of fear and success slips away. In most cases of death due to drowning, it is fear rather than water that kills the victim. Kamsa was a tyrant king. Despite his strength and demoniac body, he was easily killed by the boy, Sri Krishna. In fact, fear of death crept into the tyrants heart right on the day it was foretold that he would be killed by his sisters eighth child. Every day he was gradually being killed by fear. The final stoke of death for the dying devil came when Sri Krishna was physically seen. Sometimes the strongest in body would have the most cowardly heart. Still worse, those who fear not even a legion on the battlefield may be scared of a silly creature like a cockroach in the kitchen. Fear, after all, is ones own making, killing the maker every minute. No amount of
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physical strength, wealth or scholarship can save a person of cowardice. A coward dies a thousand deaths before he dies, whereas a brave man dies only once that too in defiance of death, not out of fear. Weakness of heart is cowardice, which is a psychic cancer. And it is at the root of all misery. The sure remedy is courage. One should cultivate boldness to face the brute, the brute of tyranny, the brute of ignorance. Evil and terror, misery and tyranny will frighten us more if we flee from them, and they take to heels if only we face them boldly. Once in Benaras, Swami Vivekananda was followed by a host of huge monkeys. He began to run. The faster he ran, the more vigorously the monkeys chased him. The moment he stopped, stood and stared at them, they retreated. Therefore, the Swami, in tune with the Upanishadic exhortation Abhih , wanted the youth to be fearless. Only a man of character, purity and integrity can be free, fearless and frank. Money is not power; scholarship is not power; character is power, for it is free from fear. By preaching fearlessness, the Swami asks the youth to be free from every shade of blemish in character. While enumerating the divine qualities, Sri Krishna places Abhayam at the top of the list in the Gita. Love and fear cannot co-exist. Love knows no fear. Its very existence dispels all fear, as light dispels darkness. Devotion is but extreme love. In a heart filled with love, there is no place for fear. Therefore, there is no fear of God in a heart full with the love of God. The knower of Truth is never afraid. It is the shadow, it is the illusion, it is the unreal that frightens the ignorant. God is within us. Atman is one without a second and each one of us is That. It is therefore foolish to be afraid of ourselves. Since everyone is of the same SELF or Atman or God, it is meaningless to be afraid of anybody. Only ignorance of Truth causes fear. It is ignorance of the truth about the oneness of Atman that
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causes separation and the resultant fear. A child is fearless in the secure arms of the mother, but is afraid when separated. Similarly, the knower of Atman, of Truth, is never afraid. To be fearless therefore is to be of pure love and be a knower of Truth. The spirit of the Swamis exhortation, the very breath of his speech and the matchless melody of his message is fearless manliness, which is strength of body, strength of heart, strength of intellect. The triple strength is the indication of the wholesome man in whom the unfoldment of perfection is certain as in the Swami, the model man. Weakness causes fear and fosters pessimism which in turn prompts escapism. Spinelessly, then, the weaklings resort to the game of passing on the baby in times of crises. Success has too many parents, but failure unfortunately is an orphan. Only the bold at heart own the responsibility even for the failures and follies. Victory we run to own; failure we rush to disown. It is strength to own the foul and the fair, failure and success with the equanimity of mind. It is only strength that takes us above the pairs of opposites and establishes us in a state of serene stillness as that of a sthitapragna . Weakness is the dark tunnel of daily death. Strength is the glorious road to perfection. This world is not for cowards, as heaven is not for sinners. Therefore, the Swami exhorts: Dont try to fly. Look not for success or failure. Be manly. Ascend without clinging to the steps. Dont linger in the past with a longing look. Go ahead. March forward to eternity unmindful of the awards, good and bad. Brooding over weakness is additional weakness. Remembrance of strength, of Truth, of Atman, of the source-self is the sure step to be strong. Anything that weakens man is sin and that which strengthens is virtue. In human religion, cowardice is abominable and it has no place since it weakens man. We despise sin and therefore we shun cowardice, the cause for sin. We do not
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want to suffer; therefore we should not allow weakness, the cause of suffering, to creep into us. The weak yield to temptations and suffer the consequences. Freedom to senses is weakness. It is unmanliness. Freedom from senses is strength, manliness. Explaining Sri Krishnas exhortation to Arjuna the Swami says: Yield not to unmanliness, O son of Pritha. There is in the world neither sin nor misery, neither disease nor grief. If there is anything in the world which can be called sin, it is this fear. Know that any work which brings out the latent power in thee is punya (virtue); and that which makes the body and mind weak is v e r i l y s i n . S h a k e o ff t h i s w e a k n e s s , t h e f a i n t heartednessThou art a hero, a vira; this is unbecoming of thee. What is said to Arjuna, is in different words said by the Swami to make us all young, happy and heroic. He says: Be not afraid of anything. You will do marvellous work. The moment you fear, you are nobody. It is fear that is the great cause of misery in the world. It is fear that is the cause of our woes and it is fearlessness that brings heaven in a moment. Therefore Arise, Awake, and stop not till the goal is reached! At the physical level, it is the strong body that never suffers from sickness. It fights the harmful germs with sure success and retains health. For all physical ailments and ills, strength is the sure remedy. Therefore, the need of the hour is muscles of iron and nerves of steel, physical culture, if neglected, may weaken the human structure and end up in feebleness of heart. A feeble heart is full with fear, which in turn affects not only the body but weakens the intellect as well. Infected with fear, the physical and intellectual activities lose their righteous path of openness of action and fairness of reason. Secrecy in deeds and thoughts will then be the result. Only a weak mind resorts to secrecy and hypocrisy. Strong ones alone can rise from the state of inertia and attain enlightenment through action, devotion
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and reason. Enlightenment is the outcome of strength at all levels. It is parasitic to feed and thrive on others labour. It is beastly to bark and snarl at each other in cut-throat competition for a piece of bone. It is mediocre to enter into mutual benefit schemes through compromise and cooperation. It is manly self-reliance and strength to stand on ones own feet for the unfoldment of the self. Self-sacrifice and self-dedication it is to direct ones strength for the service of the needy. At the emotional level, it is due to feebleness of heart that one yields to temptation and becomes a slave of senses. Sense-indulgence at the cost of health, wealth and progress is then the result. It is beastly to indulge indiscriminately in sense-pleasure. It is hypocrisy to soar in sweet dreams and suppress the senses in a puritanic self-control. It is mediocre to enter into an agreement with senses and sense-pleasures in a regulated indulgence. It is manly strength and courage to command senses and desires. It is unfaltering devotion to the ideal that the strong heart displays at the emotional plane. At the intellectual level, it is weakness to allow the ego to divert the clear stream of reason into the cesspool of sensepleasures. It is but intellectual frailty to get caught in the muddle of hair-splitting arguments over trifles. It is superstition, when the intellect is in sickly slumber. It is lawful injustice, when crime is defended by a paralysed intellect. It is cleverness, when follies are projected as fairness by a contaminated reasoning. It is politics, when reason is reduced to a play doll in the hands of selfishness. And selfishness is but the brain-child of ignorance, the dark counterpart of enlightenment. Intellect, weak and bedridden is ignorance and the same when blossoms in healthy growth is enlightenment. It is sub-human to confine the intellect to the senses. It is mischievous to employ reason as the handmaid of ego. It is mediocre to listen to reason
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when it is advantageous. And it is manliness to keep reason ever clear and free from the contaminating ego and its preferences and prejudices. The strong intellect of freedom sparkles in impartial discrimination, overcomes superstition, transcends temptations, annihilates egoism and finally paves the way for enlightenment in the unfoldment of the self. Thus it is strength that manifests as self-reliance, sensecontrol, and discrimination leading to self-dedication, sensesublimation and self-realisation through action, emotion and intellect. About all, there is the spiritual strength making us strong at every level. Spirituality is the sap-root, bed-rock, and the very breath of everything within and without. Spirituality is religion of the self, love of the self, and knowledge of the self for the unfoldment of the self. It is the only Truth, the knowledge of which is enlightenment. As long as we dont attain it, we have to suffer. Therefore, Swami Vivekananda exhorts us to shed weakness and be manly: We have wept long enough; no more weeping, but stand on your feet and be men. It is a man-making religion that we want. It is man-making theories that we want. It is manmaking education all round that we want and here is the test of truthanything that makes you weak physically, intellectually and spiritually reject as poison; there is no life in it; it cannot be true. Truth is strengthening; Truth is purity; Truth is all-knowledge; Truth must be strengthening, must be enlightening, must be invigorating. Let us be manly. As man evolves, his thrust and reliance on strength move and increase or shift from the physical to the spiritual, from the brute strength of the body to the subtle strength of the spirit within, from the massiveness of the physical force to the expansiveness of the spiritual force, since it is always the subtle that governs the gross. Mere physical strength may not be enough to ensure success at all levels of human
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requirement. Nor is the bodily strength always sure of victory in every enterprise. Bakasura and Hidimbasura, Kichaka and Jarasandha in the Mahabharata, and Vali and Kumbhakarna in the Ramayana are known for their immeasurable strength as that of Satan in the Old Testament. But they are all vanquished since their strength is not supported by moral and spiritual strength. Animals such as elephants, tigers and lions are only physically strong. Their strength is not supported by the intellectual energy. Therefore, they are not victorious always. Man with his brain power tames them and uses them to please his whim. Mighty heroes, in spite of all their physical and intellectual strength, have yielded and admitted defeat, unable to resist the power of emotional impulses and appeals. Bheeshma in the Mahabharata has dropped the weapons when Sikhandin is placed in front of him. Drona drops the weapons unable to bear the grief when he hears about his sons fall. Ashoka resolves to give up war because of his love for humanity. Brahmanayaka surrenders because of his unwillingness to fight against a woman. And only the spiritual strength is all comprehensive to resist and vanquish every mundane power. Sri Rama and Sri Krishna are incarnations of the spiritual strength come on earth to be ever successful. Mahatma Gandhi had the needed spiritual force and moral strength to undo the physical strength and brain power of the British. Viswamitra was originally a mighty king. With all his strength, valour, weapons and warriors he was unable to vanquish Vasistha of spiritual strength. After years of penance and repeated trials, Viswamitra was able to acquire spiritual powers. Sri Rama and Sri Krishna on account of their spiritual strength which includes every type of other strength were able to vanquish all opponents. Physical strength becomes stronger when supported by intellectual strength. The former is body power and the latter is brain power. When they both are together, they become
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more invincible. Duryodhana had them both with the support of Dussasana, Karna and Sakuni. Yet he was defeated because he did not have the moral strength. Karna and Arjuna were equally dexterous in archery. Perhaps, Karna was a whit better. But he lost because he was lacking in moral force. The cause for which he was fighting was not just. Hence the defeat. Indrajit in the Ramayana had both strength and skill but lacked the moral purity. Therefore, he was killed by Lakshmana who was endowed with moral a n d s p i r i t u a l s t r e n g t h . Yu d h i s h t h i r a h a d i m m e n s e righteousness to overcome any amount of physical force and brainpower. Sakuni was the very embodiment of scheming power of the brain. He was not inferior to Sri Krishna in scheming and strategy. Yet, he failed miserably because he lacked Sri Krishnas spiritual power. If the devils are mighty, Gods are almighty. The difference between them is in ethical and spiritual energy which the former are devoid of and the latter are endowed with in abundance. Even the mystic power will have no impact on people who are conquerors of the senses, more so on men of spiritual fire. What could not be achieved by arms and armies, Mahatma Gandhi was able to achieve through non-violence charged with the strength of Truth. Skill is the steering counterpart of strength for energising each other. Courage makes them more blazing and invincible as a propelling force from within. And if that courage is prompted by ethical excellence and purity of character, the results are bound to be remarkable. And the same will be unfailing just, and propitious to society if charged with spiritual dynamo. From physical strength to spiritual power, it is all varied expressions of strength which we have to foster to perfect unfoldment and use through Yoga, which is but the science of strength at all levels of positiveness. Sri Rama and Lakshmana are taught by Viswamitra this yoga shastra , so that they could be invincible always.
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Atibala and Mahabala are but the superior strength and great strength that have been imparted to them by the sage. The whole of Bhagavadgita is meant to make Arjuna a fullfledged Yogi so that he becomes Vijaya , the ever victorious. It is a Yogi or the person of strength in all its aspects that is ever serene and successful. The Lord of Yoga is Yogeswara, Sri Krishna. Stress and strain are the major diseases of the modern times of haste, pressures and break-neck speed. Yogic strength is the remedy. The one of strength has no strain of work. Nor does he feel the stress. Swami Vivekanand narrates beautifully the bull-parable to drive home the point: Mr.Bull was enjoying a happy nap after a sumptuous feast. Mr.Mosquito came as a guest and apologetically asked Mr.Bull, if he was causing any strain or stress when he sat on one of his horns. Mr.Bull replied, Oh, strain! I never knew what it is. You may bring your whole tribe and have your abode on my back. That will be the attitude of a strong person of Yoga to the pressures of the world. It is all but a sport for a Yogi. Let us be strong and make life serene and an enjoyable sojourn on earth. Laziness is weakness of will. Cowardice is due to absence of will power. They cause pessimism and escapism. Accordingly, the intellect plays second fiddle providing sufficient and convincing logic to their procrastination and complacence. Vedanta in their hands is reduced to inertia and indifference to work. Ambition and effort will be absent in them. Gradually, poverty and ignorance creep in to drown them in despair and frustration. The remedy, therefore, is strength. Hope is in the future. Fear is also about the future. Both are born out of minds imagination. Unable to be quiet and composed, constructive and positive, rational and probing, man often loses himself in utopian flights of happiness or agonizing frenzies of baseless fears. Both are born out of
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lethargy. Hopes are likely to dope us, so are fears likely to be false. Still we submit to them and enjoy hopes and suffer fears. It is the simple reason of a sound intellect that can overcome and avoid them both and therein remain tranquil. It is the strength of mind that can transcend all psychic polarities. Corruption and cruelty, cunningness and tyranny are all due to cowardice. It is fear that causes diffidence and frustration; and it is faith that causes confidence and conviction. Most people are haunted invariably by fears due to feebleness of heart. Fears are innumerable. The most common of them all is about the future. To ensure safe and sound future, people do not hesitate to resort to all sorts of foul ways. The strong ones are not scared of the future. They do accept it with a smile. Whatever may be the future fruit of actions, they are strong enough to keep themselves unperturbed. Tyranny and slavery are the obverse and the reverse of the same coin, cowardice. Neither the tyrant nor the slave has self-confidence. The former is ever in fear of revolution and removal; the latter is always afraid of punishment and dismissal. Indirectly both of them are scared of the future. It is all due to ignorance. The remedy is strength at every level. The knower of truth is ever strong and confident. As the sea is calm at the bottom, he is ever unruffled at heart. He who is thorough in the subject goes to the examination hall without any fear. He whose heart is pure without malice, ill-will, etc. is upright and fearless. A weak body is prone to diseases. So is a weak nation prone to defeats, setbacks and sufferings. To make the nation strong, its blood should be pure. There should be healthy blood in our bodies. The life-blood of our nation is spirituality. Unless we are strong spiritually, we cannot revive our cultural heritage. Swami Vivekananda, therefore, says about the strengthening of our spirituality. If it flows
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clear, if it flows strong and pure and vigorous, everything is right; political, social, any other material defects, even the poverty of the land, will be cured if that blood is pure.It is when the national body is weak, that all sorts of disease germs in the political state of the race or in its social state, in its educational and intellectual state would enter into the system and produce disease. To remedy, therefore, we must go to the root of this disease and cleanse the blood of all impurities. The one tendency will be to strengthen the man to make the blood pure, the body vigorous so that it will be able to resist and throw all external poisons. Again, as Swamiji repeatedly exhorts: Strength therefore is the thing needful. Strength is the medicine for the worlds disease. Strength is the medicine which the poor must have when tyrannized over by the rich. Strength is the medicine that the ignorant must have when oppressed by the learned; and it is the medicine that sinners must have when tyrannized over by the other sinners; and nothing gives such strength as this idea of monism. India was subjected to foreign rule, chiefly due to the weakness of the local rulers. It was because of their weakness that they yielded to temptations or submitted to threats. Some were tempted by foreign goods and liquors, while some others were frightened by their arms and ammunition. Petty rivalries are the additional weakness which worked out to the advantage of the Westerners. The result was loss of independence. The lost independence was regained by the moral and spiritual strength of patriots under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. Strength and youth often go hand in hand. But it is the youthfulness that is of greater strength. While young men may not feel strong and youthful, old people may feel young and energetic because of their youthfulness of spirit. Blessed are they who are endowed with youthfulness of spirit and
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strength all through life to enjoy the equanimity of the mind. Almost all the gods and goddesses are portrayed as young and fearless. Rather, it is their fearlessness and offer of fearlessness that have been their godliness. And all our prayers are for attaining a state of fearlessness which is strength of mind.

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VIVEKANANDA KENDRA
Swami Vivekananda, with intense love in his heart for the Motherland undertook wanderings all over India. He came to Kanyakumari and sat on 25 th, 26 th and 27th December 1892 on the mid-sea rock meditating on Indias past, present and future. It was on this rock that he discovered the mission for a glorious India and later shook the world by Indias spirituality. On this sanctified place Late Mananeeya Eknathji Ranade, with the participation of millions of people of India constructed the Vivekananda Rock Memorial, which symbolises the glorious mission of India as seen by Swami Vivekananda in his meditation. Millions of people visit this monument, and the two permanent Exhibitions at Kanyakumari Arise Awake and The Wandring Monk based on the Life and Message of Swami Vivekananda, and get inspired to work for the nation. Along with this Memorial, Sri Eknathji Ranade founded the Vivekananda Kendra, a spiritually oriented service mission which reflects Swami Vivekanandas vision of a glorious India in action. Vivekananda Kendra calls upon those youth who can dedicate their life for serving the nation. For actualising this vision, the Kendra has 203 branch centres spread over 17 states of India to work for all strata of the society to rebuild the nation. To achieve this, Lifeworkers, Whole-time Workers and the local workers of the Kendra, carry out various service activities through Yoga, Rural Development, Education, Development of Natural Resources, Organising Youth and Women, and Publications based on the life and message of Swami Vivekananda. The Kendra urges all to join in this task of national regeneration.

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