The War Within - Between Good and Evil by Bheemeswara Challa (e book reader online .txt) 📕

we are in, in
this life. How we perform depends on the particular part of our prarabdha karma
(the collection of past karma that influence one’s life in the present incarnation).
That might require us to be sometimes, or in relation to someone else, pleasant or
unpleasant, helpful or hateful. No relationship, intimate or casual, is an accident
and every relationship is karmic. That is why sometimes, even without our
meaning to, the worst in us comes out, not necessarily because we are bad or the
other party is bad, but only because that ‘being bad’ is necessary for both to pay
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for their prarabdha karma. The bulk of our prarabdha, which is a blend of both
good and bad, is exhausted in our present life through the web of relationships
that connect and bind us to each other, and the bulk of that is through intimate
relationships, spousal and parental partnerships. And the precise format and
nature of a particular relationship change, sometimes reverse, from life to life.
And it is through the medium of relationship that we get an opportunity either
to do immense good to others and to relieve their pain and suffering, or to cause
intense misery and unhappiness. And in everyone relationship, there is a give and
take, which itself is a part of the prarabdha, and whoever gives more and takes
less earns good karmic points. It is also useful to remember that the effect of
giving is not necessarily dependent on the size or the value of the gift. The same
gift ‘from different people giving’ signifies and symbolizes differently. A beggar
offering his only begging bowl to serve as a lamp has more value than a golden
bowl from a wealthy man.
How we do the job of living inclusive of its multiple ‘mini-jobs’ is a part
of the wider continuum. In today’s world, where everything is a ‘job’, it somehow
seems to absolve us of the moral consequences of what we do ‘professionally’. If
you are a worker in a factory that makes drones, and one of your drones is used to
kill children at school, you do not feel responsible; well, you say, “I have nothing
to do with it”, and if you are the one who actually pressed the button you will
say, “I did not intend to kill the children, I wanted to get the ‘bad’ fellow”. If
you are a worker in a factory that makes chemicals that are used to adulterate
food that maims and stunts the lives of a multitude, you are guiltless. If we work
for a Wall Street firm that heavily invests in a company that uses child labor or
animal testing, we feel no moral qualms. Given that so much of our life is spent
in making money, and at the workplace, how our brain and body are put to
use, to what purpose and with what consequences for society, must become a
major factor in the moral balance sheet of our lives. The moral masquerade we
deploy in order to do immoral, even horrible things, is ‘simply following orders’.
Although ‘following orders’ and ‘obedience and disobedience’ are associated with
the ‘working world’, they are part of life. Indeed all our troubles began, according
to the Bible, with our ‘not following orders’ and disobeying divine orders (not
to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden), and led to our
expulsion from heaven and to our conversion from immortal to the mortal. What
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science is now trying to do is to undo the expulsion, and unmake, as it were, the
Bible. In the modern world, obeying is also a part of working in order to live.
The human mind is comfortable with either giving orders or obeying orders.
Once it realizes that it is in no position to issue orders, it quickly surrenders and
tries to get maximum mileage from the situation: a pay-rise, a promotion, or a
heightened sense of security. In life, many things make us sick in the stomach just
because we are commanded by a superior, a boss; his job is to give such orders,
and he, in turn, might have been ordered to do so. And our moral defense is ‘just
doing my job’, or ‘my job requires that, and not doing that might cost me that
very job’. What is happening in contemporary human society is that millions
of ordinary people, in ‘just doing their job’, are becoming partners in terrible
destructive processes, even when they are fully aware of what their work leads
to. It would be perfectly natural to find a pacifist engaged in a job that involves
making weapons of mass destruction. In obeying orders, when it becomes clear
that such obedience can lead to disastrous consequences hidden from public
knowledge, one faces a dilemma: to continue to do one’s part, or refuse and face
punishment. Most people choose to simply go along and not risk uprooting their
whole life. Doing a job and following orders are moral evasions that allow us to
appear moral and yet evade the cost of being moral. They let us do many a wrong
without feeling any prick, to ‘make a living’ sans any guilt for any wrongdoing.
Together, they have turned us all into dogs of war, mercenaries or soldiers for
hire, while giving us a moral mask. Such moral evasions account for the biggest
chunk of evil that takes place in the world. They insure us against any guilt or
remorse and they let us get on with our immoral lives with impunity. Most of all,
we do not feel, even the best of us, any responsibility for the consequences. But
in truth, such explanations, or excuses are not entirely untrue. What we call the
‘system’ is so gigantic and is so driven by a dynamic and momentum of its own,
that everyone, even the ones perched on top of the pyramid, are unable to direct
all that happens under its aegis.
Satya, Himsa, and Ahimsa
The time has also come for us to take a deep breath and do some soul searching
about our oft-repeated abhorrence for violence and the love of truth. The
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questions that have long troubled both sacred and secular thought are: When are
we permitted to take a life? When are we in the right even if we tell a lie? What
is truth? And then, is there any connection between morality and violence? Let
us address the last question first. Generally we think that the two are antithetical
and a moral man is a peaceful man. We think violent people are immoral,
evil, sadistic, and lack empathy. This is not always true. People who commit
violent acts such as mass murders are ‘moral’ in their mind; they think that it is
morality that compels them to do the dastardly deed. Indeed, according to some
researchers like Tage Rai, “The purpose of violence is to sustain a moral order”.26
Of course, that ‘order’ is one that is particular to the person, the violation of
which the perpetrator wants to set right. It means that it all boils down to a
personal narrative about how a person views himself or herself in relation to
the world, how, in their mind, the world should be, and what their role is in
making it happen. Put differently, morality, contrary to what we assume, is not a
hedge or hindrance to immorality or evil. Under the cover of morality, one could
commit a mass murder and feel no shame or remorse even when one is poised on
the gallows… To prevent mass murders and other extreme violence, we have to
revamp the architecture of our moral infrastructure like education, upbringing,
work ethics, and understanding of success. It means “doing everything we possibly
can to break down the current obsession with the individual ego ‘self ’ and its
petty stories and needs and create a more global perspective”.27 All scriptures
universally exclaim and extol truth. The Rig Veda says, “Truth is one; the wise
call it by different names”. All religions believe that truth alone triumphs; not
falsehood. As the Buddha said, “Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun,
the moon, and the truth”. But a host of questions crop up. What is truth? At
what level or depth must we bring it to bear, and should we include thoughts and
emotions? Is it absolute or relative? Is it ‘a transcendent fundamental or spiritual
reality’? If we do not lie or cheat and if we are faithful to a fact as perceived by our
senses, are we living in ‘truth’? One Indian scripture puts in perspective: ‘Where
speaking a lie protects people’s lives, untruth is truth, and even a truth can be
a falsehood’. We are similarly faced with questions about himsa (violence) and
ahimsa (non-violence). When are both untruth and violence morally justified?
Who are the ‘people’ whose lives are to be protected even at the cost of untruth
and violence? One way to outwit all such quibbles is to take the Wilde-line, ‘the
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truth is rarely pure and never simple’ (The Importance of Being Ernest), and drown
ourselves in a world of ‘shaded truths’ and ‘true-lies’, and tell ourselves that, as
Byron quipped, truth is stranger than fiction!
It is physical valor that we have always prized most. The spectacle of
one man overpowering and killing another person in combat excites us. That is
because deep inside, that is what we want to be. It manifests in multiple, more
subtle killings: to win every argument, to prevail in every situation, to dominate
and control others, etc. Most of our heroes are ‘war heroes’, those who have
killed total strangers because it is their dharma or duty, Even the most pious
and kind of such men never feel guilt for having done so, even when the cause
they would have fought for was unjust or downright evil. If a soldier refuses
to fight, he would be called a traitor, and if he turns his back, a coward. Our
attraction to violence goes beyond not being a coward; it goes beyond the need
to fight injustice and oppression. It is because without violence human earthly
existence is about as possible as deathless existence. But the important point is
that we are morally wrong not in being violent, but in being violent for the wrong
causes; even more in not being violent for the right reasons. Violence for fighting
injustice of any kind, economic, social, religious, is moral; and being passive and
peaceful is immoral. All killing is not always bad. Without any killing, even of
the ‘innocent’, life is impossible. We think that killing other animals, insects,
and other creepy creatures is okay because they might make our life difficult,
even if they are ‘innocent’. Only human killing, we smugly think, is bad, unless
sanctioned by the State and sanctified by war. What we don’t realize is that every
species has a niche in nature and its abrupt extinction could affect all life. Even
the lowly insects, according to biologist EO Wilson, are “the heart of life on
earth”.
Another, even more magical word that we use, most often as a snapshot
of high virtue and desirable goal of life, is ‘truth’. Being truthful is deemed to be
a critical part of morality. Our yearning for truth rages “over the troubled soul of
mankind, not refreshing and invigorating, but scorching, consuming, absorbing
the last vestiges of strength still left to the afflicted one in this gloominess of the
present time”.28 The practical problem is two-fold. We cannot codify ‘truth’, and
we cannot say that ‘not telling a lie’ is always ‘being truthful’. Nor can we say that
‘telling the truth’, that is, simply saying what we know, is not at times the highest
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evil. We must also understand that truth too is limited by what our sense organs
can perceive and comprehend, and we all know too well how finite, fallible, and
fallacious they are. But ‘truth’ has a hold on us. As a Chinese proverb goes, ‘life
is a search for the truth; but there is no truth’. Gandhi said, “Morality is the
basis of things and truth is the substance of all morality”. A popular saying in
India is that if a man speaks truth uninterruptedly for twelve years, whatever he
speaks thereafter becomes the truth. Mark Twain said, “If you tell the truth you
do not have to remember anything”. The relationship between truth, morality,
and modernity is important in a world in which lying, chatting, deviousness, and
deceit are almost deemed essential to survive, if not to be successful in life. George
Orwell wrote, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the