The War Within - Between Good and Evil, Bheemeswara Challa [books for 7th graders txt] 📗

adopt the same
brand in our behavior; we can do that because our mind protests: ‘What can I
do; it is systemic!’ We remain trapped in our mind and in our behavior. We must
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436
become better before we can behave better, and we cannot become better unless
we behave better. The silver lining is that there is also a worldwide yearning —
cutting across continents, political or ideological leaning, and social and cultural
identities—for a new, less materialistic, more moral mode of life that revolves
around compassion.
Monetary Affordability and Moral Accountability
Another emerging money–versus–morality factor with far-reaching implications
is our ability to afford things which we could not afford before. Technological
advances have drastically curtailed the costs of manufacture and we now need
less money to acquire things we dreamt about before. The downside of these
advances is the boost to consumer culture and to an economic system that relies
on and encourages selfishness and runaway consumption; which has also meant
a mad rush on earth’s finite resources, particularly fossil fuels. With less money
being needed, more people are travelling more often across the globe—we are
even told that many of us might be able to buy a round trip ticket to the moon
in twenty odd years! And, more people are buying more needless things more
often. We are no longer satisfied with local produce or food; we want to taste the
cuisine of distant lands. Goods and services produced in one part of the world are
increasingly available in all parts of the world. We are no longer content to read or
hear about them; we want to experience them ourselves. Some even argue that the
accumulation of capital is the accumulation of environmental degradation. The
root of the problem lies in our mode of production. Capitalism is an economic
system that is impelled to pursue never-ending growth, which requires the use
of ever-greater quantities of resources. It is not simply, as we might assume, a
question of our having enough money, legally or illegally, earned or inherited in
any economic activity. It has ecological, environmental, and intergenerational
implications on a cosmic scale. Although we cannot altogether desist from
acquiring or travelling, it is important, however, to bear in mind that it might
well have an effect on the depletion of nonrenewable resources—such as oil, iron
ore, bauxite, zinc, and the rare earths (used in many electronic gadgets, including
smart phones as well as smart bombs). It is not merely a matter between ‘me’ and
‘my’ money—the third party is the world at large and its future sustainability. In
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fact, whether there can be any such thing as ‘mine’ is itself questionable. The fact
is that not only does money not grow on trees but also, there is no correlation
between division of labor and distribution of dividends. There is always someone
else, more than one in most cases, involved in any activity through which we
earn money, and what we think of as ‘my money’ comes out of common labor.
How can we ever be sure that that money is not actually stolen from the rightful
share of another person? For example, every luxury purchase is tantamount to
taking food away from the mouths of thousands. For every year, it is estimated,
10 million people die due to hunger-related causes, and every few seconds a
child dies due to starvation. Both from the environmental perspective and moral
point of view, all expenditure, save what is necessary for meeting basic needs, is
‘theft’. Careful examination on such lines should be an input into every decisionmaking
process.
The seductive shadow of money also falls on spirituality. Generally money
is viewed as unspiritual, tainting, and dirty. Jesus said “For what shall it profit
a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” We have seen
how corrupting money has been in the world of fake gurus and pseudo-sadhus,
but even with serious spiritual seekers. Money is still a means for survival, but it
somehow is more corrosive and muddying in the earthly spiritual world. It starts
slowly but soon it backstops and overshadows everything they do. The need
for money increases even as these ‘spiritual godmen’ get more and more money
from more and more ‘moneyed’ men of marginal integrity, and money-flow and
money management become their main preoccupation, sidelining their spiritual
quest and teaching. At the same time, the scope for more money in the hands
of truly spiritual masters is enormous. Although spiritualism is not immune to
the corrupting influence of money, there is one redeeming feature. Many of the
rich and ultra-rich, who are normally tight-fisted and are far from philanthropic
(barring some honorable exceptions), are generous when it comes to donations
to public places of worship, and religious, spiritual, and humanitarian causes.
Whatever might be the motives, money, even if ill-gotten, then gets sanitized and
sanctified and flows in the right direction. It serves one of the most important
imperatives in public policy today: to shift money being spent for ostentatious
living, to satiate consumerist appetite and military purposes, towards helping
the needy, disadvantaged, marginalized, and for spiritual growth, which then
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becomes better behavior. The human predisposition is never to be satisfied with
satiation. As the Buddha once said, even if it rained gold coins we wouldn’t have
enough to satisfy people’s desire for sensual pleasures. Still, we should be wary
of excessive backlash. Undue fear of today’s pseudo-spirituality—about which
Hindu scriptures warned of in the context of moral decline in our current Kali
Yuga—could also turn out to be throwing the baby out with the bath water.
We cannot turn away from the spiritual path but we must bear in mind that
the path is to find the way within. According to the Dalai Lama, “Spirituality is
food for the mind, and different religions are very necessary for different mental
dispositions”. Spiritual advancement is not necessarily an unworldly, esoteric
objective. It could, by making us more balanced, also empower us to use that
which distinguishes modern civilization from its predecessors—technological,
or ‘mechanical power’—even more efficiently and in the right direction. The
essence of spirituality is simplicity, service, and living in harmony. It is closer to
the psychic than the purely physical. It is to ‘have’ without owning or possessing,
‘doing’ without expectation, ‘leading’ without seeking to control. It must serve
social priorities and alter our condescending, if not contemptuous, attitude
towards nature.
We must bridge the gap between a responsible and responsive social life
and a spiritual life. If one’s way of living is socially irrelevant or injurious, then
that person cannot qualify as a truly spiritual person, however deeply religious
or ‘good’ he might be. That is what the scriptures themselves proclaim. It is
said that ‘they serve God well who serve His creatures’. Mother Teresa, in our
own time, had put this to practice. One of the oft-quoted Indian aphorisms is
Manava seve madhava seva—service to man is service to God. Gandhi wrote,
“I am endeavoring to see God through service of humanity; for I know that
God is neither in heaven, nor down below, but in everyone”. All these are noble
thoughts, but we all know that most people find it much easier to serve God
than man. We find it less wrenching to give to a place of God than to a school,
or a hospital, or orphanage, or an old-age home. It does not matter that the very
man we don’t ‘trust’ stands between divine ‘donation’ and its earthly use. That
is partly because deep inside we do not trust our fellow humans. If we are not
‘giving’ to God, our mind suddenly throws up questions: is it a genuine cause?
How can I be sure that my money will be well spent, for the dedicated purpose?
Towards a New Vocabulary of Morality
439
Money can be very spiritual in its essence—everything is. It is up to each of us
to cleanse our intentions and motivations surrounding money. We may profit
financially if our intention is to add to the prosperity of the world. In this way,
making a profit can actually be beautiful and moving—we can touch and heal
others, and in turn we can equally be reciprocated. When we have more money,
we may be able to do more to increase the global sharing of prosperity—not just
for ourselves and our immediate families, but for everyone in our town, our city,
our country, our continent, and perhaps even the entire world. We could build
hospitals and schools, provide medicines to the poor, fund important research,
or simply be able to give more products and services away for free to those who
have less money than us. The possibilities are limitless.
The spirituality the world needs calls us to connect, to commit, to live
life fully, to charm and make sacred every activity, in the understanding that
there is nothing that can exist away from the governing principle of the ‘Great
Ground’. The spiritual in our life is not only defined by the kind of action we
take but by the mindset with which we do it. It is about living each moment
completely, mentally, emotionally, and physically, giving of ourselves and turning
our attention and innate power to each action, giving this quality even to the
most routine and minutest things. Everyone and everything is connected, and
springs from and finally merges into the ‘Great Ground’, variously described as
the Divine, Nature, Universe or Cosmos. The direction and goal of human effort
have been derailed by the paralyzing asymmetry and the deep divide between our
material mastery and spiritual malnourishment, and what we might call inclusive
ambivalence about the sacred and the secular. We have among us many who
believe in what is called superstition and the supernatural, but who also call
themselves modern and scientific; and there are scientists who believe in things
they cannot prove. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, we must realize that “enlarged
material powers spell enlarged peril if there is not proportionate growth of the
soul”.58 And that sacredness does not lie in any out-of-the-world or religious
experience but in the chasteness and purity in everything we do in this very
world. Any act can be either sacred or secular, or profane, depending on what it
is meant for. As King said, “When the ‘without’ of man’s nature subjugates the
‘within’, dark storm clouds begin to form in the world”. We have to work from
both directions, without and within. Although both the worlds, the one within
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and the one outside, are intertwined, the headwaters clearly are within. As the
Arbinger Institute’s book The Anatomy of Peace puts it, “So if we are going to find
lasting solutions to difficult conflicts or external wars we find ourselves in, we first
need to find our way out of the internal wars that are poisoning our thoughts,
feelings, and attitudes toward others. If we can’t put an end to the violence within
us, there is no hope for putting an end to the violence without”.59 Man’s longing
for peace (shanti in Sanskrit) is timeless and it will remain so. The fact is we
will never have a state of permanent peace outside unless there is peace within.
For, “ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in
ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more
peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world”.60 To
have more peace in us we need to find ways to go within and help contain and
combat the evil that lies there.
As the book The Anatomy of Peace says, “Seeing an equal person as an
inferior object is an act of violence”. We have to rein in the demands of the material
world; we have to awaken our spiritual side. With relentless bombardment from
so many different distracting sources, we have become dysfunctional. Our ability
to focus is severely impaired and our ‘attitudinal skills are fundamentally under
siege’. We are, despite our delusions of glory and grandeur, ‘brainy weaklings’, or
in Colin Wilson’s words, ‘thinking pigmies’. Isaac Newton rued that we are like
children amusing themselves playing with pebbles on the beach while the great
ocean of truth lies all undiscovered before us. And that is so because it is supposed
to be so. Whether we are a ‘fallen god’ or ‘god in the becoming’ in the words
of theosophist and founder of anthroposophy (the wisdom of human beings),
Rudolf Steiner, we have no way of knowing. Truth be told, with all the weight
and might of scriptural thought, the uncommon ability to distance ourselves
from our selves and to objectively look back at what man has wrought on earth
since his debut days of descent from an earlier creature