Courtesy & copyright Chinmaya Mission

The book is a conversation between Anjli Singh and Pujya Swamiji. Have reproduced excerpts from the book. A few sentences by Swamiji in the beginning of the book, ‘‘When an action becomes a habit it is time to wean oneself away by going in moderation.’ ‘Friends, how do you get rid of such persistent pursuers whose intentions are so noble?’ ‘No action is absolutely good or absolutely bad. Action itself is in a relative world; it is not in the absolute. Action is a relative manifestation of reality’. ‘In rational thinking, you are judging today with reference to your entire past experience, called wisdom, which is recorded in the memory. With reference to that we try to judge the present. The more you compromise with it, the more the conscience is ill at ease”.

“Upon Om, Atman, your Self, place your meditation. Glory unto you in your far-away journey beyond darkness”. Mundaka Upanishad. The part has three chapters –

1. General Ethics    - includes what is morality, criteria for judgment of an action, conflicting standpoints, fallacies and guidelines for judgment.
2. Religion & Morality    - includes its relationship, trusting instincts, imparting values to children, non-violence, service, duty and meditation.
3. Social Issues    - includes abortion, sati, ethical lapses during the Mahabharata war and vegetarianism.    

General Ethics       

What is Morality?
Anjli: Swamiji, how would you interpret the words ethics and morality?
Swamiji: The right and healthy values of life that you preserve in yourself comprise ethics, while morality is manifest in your behavior vis-à-vis the outer world. immoral thoughts are not possible. There are either unethical thoughts, or ethical thoughts. There is no ethical action, but moral and immoral activity. The two words are used in this sense: one is for the discipline of one’s behavior in the outer world and in one’s relationships; the other is subjective-ethical values and moral behavior. So unless you have got healthy ethical values you cannot live a healthy moral life.

Anjli: Would you say that ethics is the theoretical aspect?
Swamiji: No, the subjective. Ethics is more subjective, something you have to cultivate in yourself. Then its expression in the world outside becomes morality. A bad man ethically cannot be morally good. A moral man springs from the ethical values he preserves in himself.

The Criterion of Judging an Action
Anjli: What is the criterion that makes an action right or wrong? How do we judge its moral worth?
Swamiji: Having performed an action, its reaction in the form of agitation, disturbance, self-criticism, or an accusation shows that the action was wrong. And that action which in its perpetration brings peace, contentment, or self-congratulation to the mind is a good action. According to Hinduism, that which gives you sorrow do not give to others but do unto others as you would do to yourself. You know the saying, the same says the Bible. Therefore a morally good or morally bad act depends upon whether the action gives you regret or joy. In the case of the former it is a sin, or a morally bad action.

Motive
Anjli: Don’t motives count in the ethical worth of an action?
Swamiji: Yes. For example, a surgeon uses a knife in the operation theatre to save a patient’s life, and even though the patient may die it cannot be called a sin, whereas the act of killing somebody with the same knife for personal gain is decidedly sinful. The merit depends upon the motive of the act.

Anjli: If an action is to be judged good or bad by its motive, which of the several complex motives involved in any one action are to be taken as the main standard of judgement?
Swamiji: There can be only one motive; its branches will be the other motives. There is only one motive.
Anjli: But when I give charity I can have several motives in giving away the money.
Swamiji: Then it is not charity.
Anjli: No?
Swamiji: Giving money or signing a cheque is not charity.
Anjli: Let’s say the act of giving money, may have several motives.
Swamiji: Yes, according to the motive, it will be charity or something else.

Anjli: I may feel kindness toward somebody and give him some money. But at the same time I know that people are watching me, and at the back of my mind I feel I will get some applause. On the other hand, I may be getting some income-tax relief, or maybe I want to balance out some guilt having cheated someone earlier, or something. So there are several motives involved in giving away the money.
Swamiji: Then it will be the cumulative or the average of all these motives that will decide the result of it. That’s why the Karma Phala Data (the dispenser of the fruits of action) is Isvara, the Lord. So many factors go into the determination of the final result of an action. Even a computer may not be able to sort it out. That is why the Lord is called the Supreme Intelligence. So when you do an action and then surrender it to Him, He judges the moral worth of the action, and the results come back to you in the forms of what you meet in life.

Anjli: Should the totality of motives be taken into account?
Swamiji: The totality of motives must play into it, but then for your practical purpose you should only think in terms of how far am I? By giving this am I trying to gain joy and a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction or is it going to disturb me? Suppose your main motive was only the applause, which you did not get, your action will bring you only disappointment. Then it is not a morally good one. It is not charity. You with that amount are showing off and this way you are trying to purchase something to further your vanity.

Anjli: That means the result of your action is directly related to the totality of motive, the motive with which you give.
Swamiji: Yes, naturally! That is why I said every action, even in secular law is calculated by means of the motive behind it.
Anjli: An action may be prompted by dual or complex motives which may be mixed in being both lofty and base at the same time, for example, money given out of kindness as well as for recognition. If the action is to be judged not by one motive but by the totality of motives, then no action is absolutely good or absolutely bad, it can only be predominantly good or predominantly bad.
Swamiji: Yes, that is true. Really speaking, an action itself is neither good nor bad. And you cannot say it is absolutely bad or absolutely good. It is relative. Action itself is in the relative world it is not in the absolute.

Anjli: Krishna also says in the Bhagavad Gita that all actions are riddled with imperfection. Is it a fact that there can be no absolutely good action?
Swamiji: Action itself is a relative manifestation of reality, a delusion. So in that action how can there be an absolutely good action?

Happiness as the Standard
Anjli: Which is more valuable-present or future happiness in this life-and why? Which should be given precedence?
Swamiji: The present is the womb of the future. A greater future happiness can be had only by investing the present correctly. Look after the present and the future will look after itself.
Anjli: Can you clarify the difference between the types of happiness?
Swamiji: Happiness that arises from constant effort and inner self-control can yield a greater beauty and a larger sense of fulfillment. In the beginning its practice may be painful and arduous, but a person who has the necessary courage and heroism, to walk the precipitous path of self-purification, creativity, and inward balance comes to enjoy the subtlest happiness and the all-fulfilling sense of inner peace. The flimsy happiness that is gained through sense indulgence and sense gratification is a joy that is fleeting, vanishing as quickly as it comes, and after its onslaught there is a terrific undercurrent that upsets our equilibrium and drags us into ill-reputed dissipation. This happiness lasts only so long as the sense organs are actually in contact with sense objects.

Anjli: Why then are most of us tempted by this fleeting happiness?
Swamiji: Because its results are immediate. There is no waiting period and not much effort required.
Anjli: From where does happiness arise?
Swamiji: There is no intrinsic happiness in objects. The same objects do not please everybody. We associate happiness with the objects we desire. Happiness is the nature of the real Self of man, which expresses and functions through his body, mind and intellect. This Self, expressing through a mind agitated with desires, throws shades of sorrow. The Self-expressing through a mind unagitated, because of desires satisfied or stilled, throws its own light of joy. Happiness lies within one’s Self, as the Self and not in the objects outside.

Anjli: Which is more important-happiness of another or happiness of oneself?
Swamiji: Certainly of another. This is the crux of any religion. Aiming at happiness for oneself is selfish. Every animal does that.
Anjli: In choosing between happiness of another and happiness of myself, why should I give precedence to the other? I am speaking of the pursuit of happiness as akin to the pursuit of individual perfection.
Swamiji: If the word “happiness” is used in that sense of the term, your happiness comes first, because you are realizing the Self, the very source, the goal.
Anjli: If I use the word happiness in the other sense, still, why must I aim at another’s happiness and not my own? The Upanisads state that man does act only for his own happiness so then what is the significance of saying he ought to seek another’s happiness? A mother denying herself for the sake of the child is really so for her own happiness, for it would give her more pleasure to see her child happy. It would seem it is not possible to act only for the happiness of another!
Swamiji: You know the real happiness that man seeks for himself, but the word “self” of “himself” is misunderstood as “I” the physical, the mental, the intellectual entity. So to avoid or end that jivatva bhavana the feeling of limitation, that I am only the body, mind and intellect, we liquidate ourselves by taking interest in others. My actions are motivated not for my happiness, but for giving happiness to others. By thus working with the Karma Yoga spirit, the ego gets sublimated at which stage your state of mental poise takes you ultimately to your own satisfaction. When the ego is eliminated or sublimated or your viewpoint is uplifted, in the services of giving happiness to others, extraordinary changes take place within.... The mind within becomes quieter, a contemplative mood arises, and you ultimately come to experience absolute happiness. So there is no contradiction. The contradiction is only because of the misunderstanding of the word “self,” from which we are calling upon you to wake up. Therefore it only appears there is a contradiction. Actually there is none.

Conflicting Standpoints
Anjli: In the 2nd chapter of the Bhagawad Gita Krishna explains that it was morally correct for Arjuna at that time to fight the battle. He considered the action from various standpoints and gave arguments in support of this. He first started from the highest philosophical standpoint (stanzas 11 to 25) then from the standpoint of glimmering consciousness in stanza 26. He further explains the materialistic standpoint in stanza 28, the sociological view in stanza 31, the standpoint of result (heaven) in stanza 32, of one’s duty and station in life in stanza 33, and lastly from the standpoint of society’s opinion. The question is, what if these standpoints happened to conflict? Supposing it were correct from one point and not from the other, should one still undertake the action? To which standpoint would one give precedence and how would one judge the greater value of one over the other?
Swamiji: The rule is simple: Sacrifice the individual benefit and take the larger interest into consideration. Personal sacrifice for the sake of the majority is the principle of ethics. Selfishness is unethical. The spring of unethical activity is selfishness. So in the case of conflict, always choose that which is beneficial to the largest number. If the contradiction is between you, your personal interest and the others, follow the example of Sri Ramachandraji. His father would have been happy had he remained in Ayodhya. The vast population would have been happy too. But in the long run interest of humanity, history would have recorded that, and we would have done likewise. The entire society would have suffered as a result. Therefore, for the sake of the entire world, lokasangrah, Rama maintained the idea of dharma. The standpoint of the world is greater than one’s community. Your community is greater than you caste, your caste is greater than your family, your family is greater than you, yourself.

My Station and its Duties
Anjli: Depending on one’s evolutionary stage, would it be more advisable to follow a standpoint of lesser values as advised in the Bhagwad Gita, “Do one’s duty according to the station in life.” Any comment?
Swamiji: Yes. The varnas and asramas are psychological evaluations. For whatever you are fit, depending on your temperament, and your constitution, likewise will be your duties. By following one’s station in life one can serve the society more without inner conflicts. One may have rajoguna but he has tamas too, therefore he is a vaisya. As a vaisya he does agriculture and trade. There he will gain more mental peace and a sense of fulfillment than if he were to be in a kshatriya’s state or doing a Brahmin’s dharma. So these varnas and asramas are very careful psychological classifications. The way of life or what should be one’s way of life is all prescribed according to the psychological texture of the individual. So, your question depending upon evolutionary stages, yes! Depending upon the evolution of the mind is the varna, caste, category and in the varna also there are the stages, asramas: brahmacharya, grhastha, vanaprastha sannyasa.

Anjli: Supposing there is a choice involved. Should you choose according to your station in life or should you choose keeping in mind the larger viewpoint? Supposing there was a conflict?
Swamiji: Choose from one’s station in life. The war may be coming, but the Brahmin who takes up the gun will confuse matters. Let him stay where he is stationed in life and proceed according to the karma, work, that is allotted to him, the duties enjoined on him, according to his qualification, according to his psychological nature, his dharma. Doing his dharma he will be supporting or helping the war efforts.

The Goal
Anjli: Is one dharma better than the other?
Swamiji: No, at a given level each one is right. By being loyal to our own level of feelings and ideas, to our development of consciousness, we can evolve into higher states of self-unfoldment.
Anjli: Which level is higher?
Swamiji: The highest level is where in you are nearer to the Atman, the Self, the concept that the whole universe is me, myself. To recognize yourself with the One, with the whole universe, feeling that I will not bring even a little to anyone, and I am in harmony with the entire universe is the highest state. Living then becomes effortless and creative. When one goes beyond the action-reaction stage, beyond good and evil and cause and effect then life becomes a recreation and a means of expressing the inner joy.
Anjli: From the level of the vaisya can you reach the Supreme Self directly or will you have to go up by stages?
Swamiji: Without sattva you can never reach the Supreme. The rest is only various degrees of rajas and tamas.

Anjli: Would you have to go sequentially through the stages sudra, vaisya, ksatriya, and brahmin dharmas to reach the Supreme Self, the reality?
Swamiji: Wherever you are, in whatever station, form there you have to reach sattva in varying degrees because tamas will be reduced only when the mind’s agitations, viksepa, are quietened. As agitations quieten, sattva increase slowly.
Anjli: So, ethics is evolutionary? One has to work towards creating sattva in order to reach the ultimate goal of finding one’s Self.
Swamiji: Yes.
Anjli: Conclusively, it is to the standpoint of one’s dharma, in whatever evolutionary stage one is, to which precedence, should be given maintaining that the final goal is to reach a state beyond good and evil.
Swamiji: Yes!

Some Fallacies Counteracted

Regress ad infinitum
Anjli: If the goodness of an action is to be judged by the goodness of the motive, how would you judge the goodness of the motive? This could lead to regress ad infinitum.
Swamiji: No, all goodness is measured in terms of our identification with the Absolute. With reference to the Supreme alone we say an act is good or bad. You can put Righteousness or Goodness in place of the concept of God. He is the Absolute Good. It is with reference to Him that we say something is good or bad. That’s why the Absolute Good, Absolute Kindness, Absolute Mercy, Absolute Power, these are the concepts of God. Why should we have a God? Without Him, moral values are not possible. What is the standard of comparison by which we can judge anything? The standard is-God, the Absolute. So there is no question of regress ad infinitum!

Time Fallacy
Anjli: Even if the two criteria, that is, motive and psychological result, are interconnected, still, if result is to be taken into account there would arise a time fallacy. One would never really know before the action whether it was good or bad till the psychological result sets in after the action.
Swamiji: No, why shouldn’t one? That is what I told you earlier that you can train yourself to develop a “sixth” sense and come to know how you would react. That is why it is also said that you should renounce your anxiety for the fruits, the results thereof. Fruit can be in the future only. When the challenge came, you were discriminating and deciding how to react. And at the point where the reaction comes, those who had eliminated the ego will react beautifully. The grey areas are those where you are not sure what to do. There you take the help of the Lord, surrender to Him, and do what comes in the mind. Because it is a grey area. “Well, it can be this way or that way, both could be right.”
Ramachandraji’s renunciation of Sita, was it right or wrong? One way it is right, another way it is wrong. Then has he been ethically good? Yes, because he renounced his personal happiness for the sake of the public, and therefore ethically he is right.

Conscience
Anjli: A man’s conscience may be the “conscience of an ass” (Ruskin) or a man may act conscientiously but in accordance with some defective standard, for example, a fanatic. Can you throw some light on this, especially as in these cases there is no angle of deviation from what one knows to be right and what one does and conscience would then be an inexplicable faculty.
Swamiji: Inexplicable? Conscience is with reference to what you already know. When I know a thing is wrong and then I do it, there is a contradiction between what I know and that I do. That is called conscience.
Anjli: If there is a certain rational judgment being formed in the mind then one should say it is a kind of a rational faculty that is working within and not a kind of an intuitive conscience.
Swamiji: In rational thinking you are only judging the thing that is happening today with reference to your entire past experience, called wisdom, which is recorded in the memory. With reference to that we try to judge the present. And the more you compromise with it the more the conscience is ill at ease.
Anjli: Conscience is nothing but the intellect then?
Swamiji: It’s total memory. But it is not memory only. Memory is accumulated knowledge. The conscience is not intellect alone.
Anjli: This intellect judges according to the wisdom that it acquires.
Swamiji: Yes, exactly. Your own action. Not somebody’s action.

The Ideal Judgment
Anjli: Can we say, the ideal action is that which is judged by the intellect together with its past experience in the mood of sattva and only here conscience could be called intuition?
Swamiji: Sattva means being able to quieten the agitations. That’s why I said the person who can pause the mind more, whose judgement is without prejudice or favor, as in the case of Jesus, is correct. When the judgement is serene and calm you won’t make any mistake.
Look at the judgment of Jesus when Mary Magdalene was brought on serious charges. According to the Old Testament, she should be stoned to death. Jesus did not revolt against the rule. Yes, it should be done, that is what is said in the Scriptures. You must do it. But who has the birthright to do so? Only the individual who had never sinned could throw the first stone. And Jesus walked away. What a precise, beautiful, discriminative judgment. Nobody dared touch a stone.
Anjli: Quite right. He did not say, “Don’t punish.”
Swamiji: No, but who were to punish? Had they the right to punish? Yes, provided they had never done anything wrong. The woman walked behind the Lord and became his great follower. so, you can say, right judgment is intuitional because Jesus had neither prejudice against nor in favor of that woman or the act. Therefore the judgment turned out to be perfect.

Reason and Goodness
Anjli: If that which is pure good is also that which is pure reason, then will the completely rational man be the absolutely good one? “The spiritual qualification of a philosopher is a condition for his philosophizing properly”. I read this in a book on ethics.
Swamiji: It all depends on the quality of the reasoning. If one is sattvic then his reasoning will be good. If he is rajasic or tamasic, he may be rational, no doubt. Ravana was rational. But the quality in him was predominantly rajasic. Therefore, he rationalized everything that is immoral. Duryodhan also did the same. “I know what is right but I have not an inclination to do it. I know what is wrong but I cannot keep away from it. I act impelled by some power lodged in my heart; as he directs so I act”.
Both men were highly intelligent, they had their own rational arguments. So he has his own rational conclusion as to why he is there. But the quality of his performance depended upon the quality of the reason he had. Your statement is true if the condition of the intellect is purely sattvic.

Guidelines for Judgment
Anjli: Would Swamiji advise a rajasic or tamasic man to be guided by the moral judgment of a sattvic person or should the person evaluate his actions according to his own judgment, even though imperfect?
Swamiji: Yes, that is what the Bhagavad Gita says. Even though imperfect, you should continue to do your duties, according to your station in life.
Anjli: No, but this is a little different. The choice is between the judgment arrived at by himself which he thinks are right or the judgment of sattvic people or the Scriptures.
Swamiji: It is better to follow his own judgment, though imperfect, as to what is right. If he lives somebody else’s dharma, Bhagavad Gita says the judgment is very frightening and terrible because he is not says exhausting his vasanas, nor is he able to live somebody else’s judgment correctly, fully. To work in the field ordered by one’s own vasanas, the innate tendencies in the subconscious, is better, because in that case there is a chance of exhausting the existing vasanas. When an individual strives a field contrary to his existing tendencies, he not only fails to exhaust his vasanas, but he also creates a new load of vasanas in his temperament. One should follow the subjective tendencies even if they be defective.  But at the same time we must try to courageously renounce all the demands that the objective world makes upon us from within. If there be an influx of wrong vasanas within, the earlier we exhaust them though Karma Yoga action without any ego or egocentric desire to enjoy its fruit-the quicker shall the load of existing vasanas be lifted from our personality. When the load of vasanas is reduced, our judgment will be become purer and more in tune with the higher principles.

Free Will
Anjli: At every turn of our life we are faced with a choice, at any moment we could make a wrong judgment and the whole responsibility of its consequences is on our shoulders. Sometimes one feels we are impelled to choose in a particular direction. Is the choice really ours? How free are we?
Swamiji: Man alone is the one animal who can, at each challenge in life, discriminate between the path of good and evil. When man of his own accord refuses the blessings of the power of discrimination that his intellect is capable of, he is deliberately flouting his privilege as a human being. When one has thus of his own free will chosen to be only an animal, certainly nature will bless him only with the sorrows and Limitations of the animal. It depends on how we cultivate and train the mind and intellect. If we tune them to the lower impermanent values of negativity, we become insensitive animals. Train them to think and act in terms of higher and permanent values of love, tolerance and mercy, we become cultured and perfected architects of our future.

Our whole future is based on how we act today. Life is a series of challenges. Moment to moment we are faced with decisions to do or not to do. Our intellect is called upon at each moment to evaluate independently and come to a judgment. Hence, no choice is the same as any other. With reference to this ever-changing pattern we are called upon moment to make independent decisions to ascertain and maintain our relationship with the external world. The wise and discriminating people at each juncture gently judge the various challenges that they face and determine never to swerve from the path of the good. The ignorant people on the other hand, live like mules following the crowed and choosing the path of least resistance, motivated by the animal urges to satisfy the demands of the senses. Self-development is through self-effort. Man has been given the freedom to be good or to be vicious in his moment to-moment contact with the external world. certainly man does not have a complete and unlimited freedom over external circumstances. These external circumstances or environments in which he finds himself are the result of his choices. Man has been preparing bit by bit a blueprint of his life by his choice of action. The edifice of external environment and inner impulses in which he finds himself is of his own making. And his present choice is within the limitation of that edifice.

Anjli: Which is more powerful then-purusartha, free will, or prarabdha, destiny? Can we break away from a deterministic philosphy?
Swamiji: People misunderstand real meaning of prarabdha when they take the word to mean all the failure, impotence, and weakness in them. If we are to be guided by this meaning there would be no room for self-improvement through self-effort. This is a defeatist mentality. That we have been given a limited freedom is the truth. For example, we cannot bend a piece of rail as it is, but supposing this rail-piece is beaten and made into a chain, the same rail becomes easily pliable. Similarly, when a cow is tied to a rope in the centre of a pasture, she is not free to graze the entire, but she can move freely within the circle described by the rope.

At each moment of our life we are not only reaping the fruits of our past actions, but we are also creating the fruits of tomorrow. The past modified in the present alone is the future. There is no slavery, nor is there full freedom. There is limited freedom which if intelligently used can redeem us from all enslavement. What we meet in life is prarabdha-how we meet it is purusartha.

Meera: If according to the Law of Karma my freedom is limited, then is not my moral responsibility equally limited?
Swamiji: Yes, it is equally limited.
Meera: Could you elaborate?
Swamiji: The responsibility of a child is less than an adult’s because his knowledge is less. As he grows up he comes to say “my responsibility is increased.” Your responsibility becomes greater as you grow. As you become more and more grown up in knowledge, in your influence in the world, your moral responsibility becomes more. So moral responsibilities quantitatively increase.
Meera: When your freedom is limited by your own past actions, which you don’t have control over now, and you find yourself in circumstances outsides your entire control, then how morally responsible are you?
Swamiji: When you enter spiritual life, you are following yoga in order to exhaust your vasanas. To the extent you unload them and get free within your moral responsibility increases. Just as a brahmin has more moral responsibility than a sudra, a sattvic man’s responsibility is more than a rajasic or a tamasic man’s

A Summing up
Anjli: In summing up all your answers upto now, would you say that though we do not refer every action to an ultimate standard because the stage of evolution varies from individual to individual, we do act in general with reference to immediate standards? These standards are set up by our station in life and constituted by the degree of mental purity in each one of us, and these help to lifts us nearer to the final goal, which is identity with the Absolute. All immediate terms of reference like “motive,” “means,” psychological reaction,” and the standard of “happiness” that a man employs to judge an action to be right or wrong are interrelated and do not contradict one another. Since the final goal to be reached by man is a total sense of fulfillment or absolute happiness, any action that brings in its sum total reaction a sense of happiness, any action that brings in its sum total reaction a sense of peace, fulfillment, and self satisfaction and leads us one step up the ladder of spiritual evolution is to be considered good.

The basic of ethics is action within the law of cause and effect; therefore we are the authors of our own destiny. The limitation of the environment in which we find ourselves is made by us by our past actions. Our present actions within that limitation will determine our future environment. The choice in the present is ours. The aim is to get out of the empirical hold of this law and onto the seat of the Absolute. No laws of action bind a man who has reached the final goal, the Summum Bonum, the absolute, intrinsic Good. Ethics ceases to be applicable only at this transcendental level where a person has found his identity with his real Self.

Swamiji: Yes. Perfect. But why are you breaking your head on this?!