Ethical Discipline
1. ‘Atman or Self is one.
There is one common consciousness in all beings. All Jivas are reflections of
the one Supreme Soul or Paramatman. Just as one sun is reflected in all pots of
water, so also the one Supreme Being is reflected in all human beings. One
cannot become many. One appears as many. One is real. Many are illusory.
Separateness is illusory. Separateness is temporary. Unity is real. Unity is
Eternal. One life vibrates in all beings. Life is common in animals, birds and
human beings. Existence its common.’ This is the emphatic declaration of the
Upanishads. This primary truth of Religion is the foundation of ethics or
Sadachara. If you hurt another man, you hurt yourself. If you help another man,
you help yourself. On account of ignorance one man hurts another man. He thinks
that other beings are separate from himself. So he exploits others. So he is
selfish, greedy, proud and egoistic. If you are really aware that one Self
pervades, permeates all beings, that all beings are threaded on the Supreme
Self, as the row of pearls on a string, how can you hurt another man, how can
you exploit another man?
2. Who of us is really anxious
to know the Truth about God or Divine Life? We are more ready to ask ourselves:
“How much money you have got in the Imperial Bank? Who said that against me? Do
you know who I am? How are your wife and children doing?” and questions of this
sort than questions like: “Who am I? What is this Samsara? What is bondage?
What is freedom? Whence have I come? Whither shall I go? Who is Isvara? What
are the attributes of God? What is our relationship to God? How to attain
Moksha? What is the Svarupa of Moksha?”
3. The beginning of ethics is
to reflect upon ourselves, our surroundings and our actions. Before we act we
must stop to think. When a man earnestly attends to what he recognises as his
duties, he will progress and in consequence thereof his comfort and prosperity
will increase. His pleasures will be more refined; his happiness, his
enjoyments and recreations will be better and nobler. Happiness is like a
shadow; if pursued it will flee from us, but if a man does not trouble himself
about it and strictly attends to his duties, pleasures of the best and noblest
kind will crop out everywhere in his path. If he does not anxiously pursue it,
happiness will follow him.
4. The increase or rather
refinement of happiness, however, cannot be considered as the ultimate aim of
ethics, for pain and affliction increase at the same rate because man’s
irritability, his susceptibility to pain grows with the growth of his
intellectuality. The essence of all existence is evolution or a constant
realization of new ideals. Therefore the elevation of all human emotions,
whether they are painful or happy, the elevation of man’s existence, of his actions
and aspirations, is the constant aim of ethics.
5. The Socratic formula:
“Virtue is knowledge,” is found to be an adequate explanation of the moral life
of man. Knowledge of what is right, is not coincident with doing it, for man,
while knowing the right course is found deliberately choosing the wrong one.
Desire tends to run counter to the dictates of reason; and the will, perplexed
by the difficulty of reconciling two such opposite demands, tends to choose the
easier course and follow the inclination rather than to endure the pain of
refusing desire in obedience to the voice of reason. Hence mere intellectual
instruction is not sufficient to ensure right doing. There arises the further
need for chastisement or the straightening of the crooked will, in order to
ensure its cooperation with reason in assenting to what it affirms to be right,
and its refusal to give preference to desire or the irrational element in man’s
nature when such desire runs counter to the rational principle.
6. The pure reason urges a man
to what is the best. The Asuric nature of a man fights and struggles against
the man. The impulses of a man who has not undergone the ethical discipline
runs counter to his reason. All advice, all rebuke and exhortation, all
admonition testify that the irrational part is amenable to reason.
7. The basis of good manners
is self-reliance. For such reasons have the great founders and eminent teachers
of all religions repeatedly proclaimed the need for recognising the Godhead
within and for self-reliance in the last resort rather than any texts and
persons and customs. Self-reliance is the basis of behaviour.
8. Self-control is the
greatest in the man whose life is dominated by ideals and general principles of
conduct. The final end of moral discipline is self-control. The whole nature of
man must be disciplined. Each element requires its specific training.
Discipline harmonises the opposing elements of his soul. The self-control will
enable the aspirant to know the Truth, to desire the good and win the right and
thus to realise the Reality.
9. Discipline is the training
of our faculties, through instructions and through exercise, in accordance with
some settled principle of authority. You must discipline not only the intellect
but also the will and the emotions. A disciplined man will control his actions.
He is no longer at the mercy of the moment. He ceases to be a slave of his
impulses and Indriyas. Such mastery is not the result of one day’s effort. One
can acquire the power by protracted practice and daily self-discipline. You
must learn to refuse the demands of impulses. A self-controlled man will be
able to resist the wrong action to which a worldly man is most strongly
impelled.
Continue to read:
If you would like to purchase the print edition, visit:
http://www.dlshq.org/cgi-bin/store/commerce.cgi?
http://www.dlshq.org/cgi-bin/store/commerce.cgi?
If you would
like to contribute to the dissemination of spiritual knowledge please contact
the General Secretary at:
No comments:
Post a Comment