Should we avoid war?

By the word war I mean war as generally understood i.e. war between nations and also  also fight among individuals for the purposes of assertion.

Every person should be interested in the ultimate results.  If good comes through peace, we should welcome peace and if good flows from war, we should welcome war.

It is not proper to talk of non-violence as the absolute rule.  Violence and non-violence, war and peace are equally welcome depending on the ultimate results it would yield. 

Very often it is our cowardice which hides behind our talk of non-violence.  We have to sincerely ask ourselves as to how many times we avoid confrontation on the ground why precipitate the matter while in reality we are afraid to face a possible bad consequence.  It is not  that bad consequences would follow when we assert.  It is the fear that bad consequence may ensue that would prevent us from asserting.  It is this cowardice that makes us avoid confrontation.

Most probably  sorry always  assertion and confrontation would give better results.  If we are on the right path, the right must be asserted even at the cost of confrontation failing which we allow incorrect things to prevail.  The question is why do we do that.

It is not enough that we are on the right path.  It is necessary that we shall continue to be on the right path inspite of opposition and if required by assertion and by confrontation.

In India except Lord Krishna no one has welcome wars.  But it does not mean that we have not fought wars.  We have fought wars for others.  We have fought war as soldiers of turks, soldier of mughals, soldiers of British and we have fought war for the sake of our alien rulers and our oppressors.  We have fought war for the sake of our slavery.  We have fought war to prolong our enslavement.  We have done everything possible to continue to be in bondage.  We have fought all these wars not because we were courageous but because we were afraid even to refuse to participate in war, even to refuse to  fight.  We got into the situation of not being able to resist war which war would have continued our slavery only because initially we yielded to them stating that there should be no violence and we told that there should be no violence to hide our cowardice.

Invariably war results in progress.  War  results in castles and hence  in very very good buildings.  War results in scientific inventions and high technology. This will help the country.  Every country which was actively involved in war has progressed.

Every man should be guided with no settled notion of what is good and what is bad.  It is not correct to say that air conditioned room with no disturbance is a place to find peace.  In the thick of the market you can find peace.  You can be at peace at the very center of the cyclone. You can show abundant love in the battle field.

There should be no war for war sake.  But war is a part of life’s game when it is to be played, it must be played. War cannot be avoid   at any cost.  War cannot be avoided at the cost of truth.  

War should  not be avoided if it results in peace being affected.  War should  not be avoided if it results in not being able to assert the right.  Strength and ability to wage a clear  and decisive war is a must if peace has to prevail and if right has to prevail.

Inspired by KRISHNA by OSHO

TROUBLE FOR WORKING MEN

Yesterday I wrote of a class of people whom I called ‘working men’.  They have lot of problems but for which probably they would achieve higher.

Hank Rearden is a character in Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand who was a great achiever and a working man as per my definition.  After heavy work in the factory he goes home and what happens there and what was his feelings is written by Ayn Rand as follows:

“He felt a dim reluctance to enter his home, which he did not want to feel.  No, he thought, not tonight; they’ll understand it, tonight.  But he did not know, he had never defined, what it was that he wanted them to understand.

Why, darling, wife said in a bright tone of amusement, isn’t it too early to come  home? Wasn’t there some slag to sweep or tuyeres to polish?

I’m sorry, he answered.  I know I’m late.

He had no capacity for the sort of conversations which were not supposed to be meant.

Have you had any dinner, Henry?  his mother asked.

Yes … No … I wasn’t hungry.

That’s the trouble I’ve always had with you.  She was not looking at him, but reciting words into space.  It’s no use trying to do things for you, you don’t appreciate it.  I could never make you eat properly.

Henry, you work too hard, said Philip.  It’s not good for you.  Rearden laughed.  I like it.

That’s what you tell yourself.  It’s a sort of neurosis, you know.  When a man drowns himself in work, it’s because he’s trying to escape from something.  You ought to have a hobby.

Oh, Phil, for Christ’s sake!  He said, and regretted the irritation in his voice.

You ought to learn to have some fun, said Philip.  Otherwise, you’ll become dull and narrow.  Single-tracked, you know.  You ought to get out of your little private shell and take a look at the world.  You don’t want to miss life, the way you’re doing.

I had a pretty good time today, Phil, he answered, smiling—and wondered why Philip did not ask him what it was.

He wished one of them would ask him.

It took the whole of his sense of consideration to force himself to answer evenly, ‘I’m sorry if I disappointed you, Mother.’

‘You’re not sorry.  You could’ve been here if you’d made the effort.  But when did you ever make an effort for anybody but yourself?  You’re not interested in any of us or in anything we do.  You think if you pay the bills, that’s enough, don’t you?  Money! That’s all you know.  And all you give us is money.  Have you ever given us anytime?’

If this meant that she missed him, he thought, then it meant affection, and if it meant affection, then he was unjust to experience a heavy, murky feeling which kept him silent lest his voice betray that the feeling was disgust.

Wife knew that his feeling for her was her only weapon.

If she trusted him, he thought, if her feeling for him was still alive, then he would match her trust.”

Every working man undergoes this kind of humiliation.  But what for?  Why can’t people understand that one can enjoy work and such people are not in shell, they are not narrow, single-tracked and that they don’t miss life?  Why can’t people allow them to live the way they want.

That government  is best which governs least.  It is best not to interfere with other’s work and allow everyone to live the way he or she wants.  Even working men need   not and should not find fault with those who enjoy life without work even if it means ruination of the idle person.  Everyone has a right to live the way he or she wants and such right would include right to ruin himself.

Wisdom is to know what to overlook and when to overlook.

Invariably among my friends also there are good number of working men.  I am afraid that they would also have identical problems.  I wish that those who are associated with these working friends of mine would understand and change their approach to see that my working friends would have no problem, so that they can achieve better.

It is a pleasure to give.   

Any person who is competent and capable would find pleasure in working to achieve and for him achievement or no achievement is of no consequence.  We shall call these people ‘working men’.   The moment you concentrate on your work you will have no time for small pleasures.  You will have no time to live up to the expectations of the society consisting of your relatives, friends and so on.  You can’t remember their birthdays to wish and give presents.  Immediately you are called selfish.  They hold that you are not ready to give and hence you are selfish.

Working men find happiness in their work and contribution to the society.  They may be authors giving an extraordinarily good book for the mankind.  They may be scientists giving a great contribution to the world and society at large.

Merely because they can’t remember birthdays and   they would miss all small, trivial matters,  they can never be called selfish. 

For most people these trivial matters are the only matters of concern.  They constitute majority, they would call  the working men as selfish.

It can never be said that working men don’t give.  They are givers.  They find happiness in giving.

What is to be remembered is that the working men never ask anyone for anything.  He is not eager to ask for your time or ask for your concern.  He is busy in his attempt to contribute to the society and to the world and he concentrates to give and he is not in need of anything from you.  These working men are givers.  They are very happy people.  Their slogan is what Ayn Rand said namely

“I owe nothing to my brothers, nor do I gather debts from them. I ask none to live for me, nor do I live for any others. I cover no man’s soul, nor is my soul theirs to cover.

I am neither foe nor friend to my brothers, but such as each of them shall deserve of me. And to earn my love, my brothers must do more than to have been born. I do not grant my love without reason, nor to any chance passer-by who may wish to claim it. I honor men with my love. But honor is a thing to be earned.

I shall choose my friends among men, but neither slaves nor masters. And I shall choose only such as please me, and them I shall love and respect, but neither command nor obey. And we shall join our hands when we wish, or walk alone when we so desire. For in the temple of his spirit, each man is alone. Let each man keep his temple untouched and undefiled. Then let him join hands with others if he wishes, but only beyond his holy threshold.

What is my joy if all hands, even the unclean, can reach into it? What is my wisdom, if even the fools can dictate to me? What is my freedom, if all creatures, even the botched and the impotent, are my masters? What is my life, if I am but to bow, to agree and to obey?

If you give up that clause of working men we are left with others who constitute majority.

As far as this clause of people is concerned, it is essential that they should give what little they can give.   They are governed by different rules compared to the working men.  They have to give their time, their resources to the friends and relatives for whom such time and resources are useful.

A visit to a friend when he is not well, a glass of water to your father, a word of solace to a troubled relative, a few rupees to your servant at the time of his daughter’s marriage, a kind word when your maid servant spills the milk, a days paid holiday when your staff is not well, a line of guidance to a dull boy of next house are things which you can give.

You will find pleasure in giving.

BELIEF AND EXPERIENCE

Theory and practice are different.  Theoretical aspect must be known to put it into practice.  But mere knowledge of theory is not sufficient. 

A good life has to be experienced.  Any amount of knowledge as to what good life is would not make one’s life good.  It has to be experienced for which one has to transform himself and his attitudes. 

Your knowledge is futile if it does not result in experience.  Your knowledge becomes a deception.  You think you know it.  It is not true.  In reality that knowledge is no knowledge unless you experience. It would be a knowledge without you knowing it. 

Experiencing a good life requires participation for which your outlook, temperament and attitude is of great consequence.  For that you must know what attitude would help.  Some guidelines may be as follows. 

On one side of the razor edge, success and good life lies and on the other side lies failure and bad life.  If you intend changing yourself or your attitude, by traveling step by step and gradually, you are never transformed.  At the most you are modified, refined a little change here and there.  May be you are better looking, your ugliness is hidden inside, you have colored yourself.  But you remain the same. You must be strong, you must have the courage, energy and conviction to jump and change yourself and your attitudes. 

To achieve experience there should be no guilt feeling.  You should not condemn yourself.  You must know that you are not a sinner.  You must not reject yourself.  You must not be your enemy.  Love yourself.  Accept yourself.  You may be in error, you might have committed wrong, that does not make you a sinner.  That is no ground for you to dislike yourself and reject yourself.   It is only your mistake which has to be condemned and not yourself. 

Only strong people can experience.  Weak people can only have belief.  Your strength grows with your experience and not with your belief. 

You must have clarity that by seeking you may get wealth, power, prestige.  All these are outworldly.  Inworldly the only thing that matters is experience.  To have experience you don’t need wealth, power, money, prestige.  What you need is attitude to experience life. 

There cannot be any universal rule that people with wealth, power, money and prestige experience live and others do not.  In fact experiencing life is totally independent of wealth, money, power and prestige.  A wrong concept that without money, life cannot be lived well or experienced would be wrong and such concept should be avoided.

For living you must live in the present. 

Desire and seeking relates to future.  To live well you must experience the present. 

To search experience there should be no hurry and no impatience.  Greater the patience, easier is the search. 

I had written earlier that achievement is a future and what you are concerned is your effort of today. 

You have a goal.  That is not at all important.  You should never give importance to the goal you have.  But you should give maximum importance to the effort to achieve your goal.  For you the effort to the goal is everything.  Once you develop this attitude, you are never disappointed and with this attitude reaching goal is much easier although it is not of much consequence. 

I had  such heavy work in the last few days, it had become impossible to write.  I thought atleast let us see how a human being should think of himself.  In this regard I thought I would quote from Ayn Rand.

From Fountainhead by Ayn Rand from page 349 & 355 I intend quoting.  Howard Roark was asked to construct a temple.  He was an Architect.  He constructed the temple.  He was given full liberty to design the same.  He was sued for a bad job meaning it did not have any semblance of a temple.  In the said case two persons were examined.  Their evidence is extracted.

 Elsworth M Toohey gave his evidence as follows.

  “Two essential conceptions of a temple are a sense of awe and a sense of man’s humility.  We have noted the gigantic proportions of religious edifices, the soaring lines, the horrible grotesques of monster-like gods, or, later, gargoyles.  All of it tends to impress upon man his essential insignificance, to crush him by sheer magnitude, to imbue him with that sacred terror which leads to the meekness of virtue.  The Stoddard Temple is a brazen denial of our entire past, an insolent ‘No’ flung in the face of history.  I may venture a guess as to the reason why this case has aroused such public interest.  All of us have recognized instinctively that it involves a moral issue much beyond its legal aspects.  This building is a monument to a profound hatred of humanity.  It is one man’s ego defying the most sacred impulses of all mankind, of every man on the street, of every man in this courtroom!”. 

The other person examined was Ms. Francon Dominique.  She gave evidence as  follows.

“Howard Roark built a temple to the human spirit.  He saw man as strong, proud, clean, wise and fearless.  He saw man as a heroic being.  And he built a temple to that.  A temple is a place where man is to experience exaltation.  He thought that exaltation comes from the consciousness of being guiltless, of seeing the truth and achieving it, of living up to one’s highest possibility, of knowing no shame and having no cause for shame, of being able to stand naked in full sunlight.  He thought that exaltation means joy and that joy is man’s birthright. He thought that a place built as a setting for man is a sacred place.  That is what Howard Roark thought of man and of exaltation.”

In this case Toohey had instigated the suit to be filed.  At one place he tells about how to destroy a good Architect as follows.

  “It is difficult enough to acquire fame.  It is impossible to change its nature once you’ve acquired it.  No, you can never ruin an architect by proving that he’s a bad architect.  But you can ruin him because he’s an atheist, or because somebody sued him, or because he slept with some woman, or because he pulls wings off bottleflies.  You’ll say it doesn’t make sense?  Of course it doesn’t.  That’s why it works.  Reason can be fought with reason.  How are you going to fight the unreasonable?  The trouble with you, my dear, and with most people, is that you don’t have sufficient respect for the senseless.  The senseless is the major factor in our lives.  You have no chance if it is your enemy.”   

To speak of myself good reputation is one of the many annoyances to which I have never been subjected to.  This is what was written by Oscar Wilde in his book ‘A woman of no importance’.

This is what I have throughout been canvassing viz. live by yourself and there is no need to assess yourself through the eyes of others.

  Reputation is  nothing  other than how you are assessed by the public at large.  The day you stop bothering about looking at yourself through the eyes of others, reputation will have no meaning.

Identically people would say that you have to develop a personality.  Developing a personality is to project yourself in a manner that the outside world would assess you in a particular manner.  Developing personality has an innate meaning of putting forth efforts to go up in the eyes of the society and others.

As long as you want happiness through the assessment of others, you are a beggar.  You have to please some one.  You want a gift from some one.  You want some one else to give you happiness.

The only way by which you can be sure of being successful is not to bother about how you are assessed by the public.

If you assess yourself to be the best, that is the best that can happen to you.  No one can dispute the omni potency of the mind.  If you think you are the best, it is final as far as you are concerned.

But to be honestly the best in your eyes is difficult.  You have to live only in the white not in the black or grey.   

In reality if you find that you are the best, your mental outlook will be such that your confidence will be very great.  I don’t think I need to write about the effect of confidence.  If you feel confident you would succeed in anything you do.

--

By now all of you must be knowing that I am the greatest fan of Oscar Wilde.  I will quote two sentences from him.

 1. About advise: People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves.  It is what I call the depths of generosity. 

2. To sit next to a man who has spent his life trying to educate others! What a dreadful experience that is!  How appalling is that ignorance which is the inevitable result of imparting opinions!

My question is did he write that thinking of me.

WHY DEPRESSION

“You are not the doer.  You are not the enjoyer.  You are an observer. You are different.  Your body is different.”

This is the highest philosophy advocated by Upanishads.  I have derived great benefit by reading Upanishads,  although my understanding is not great.

But it is very difficult to treat myself and my body to be different.  Our mythology speaks of Jadabaratha who when beaten could laugh and say that it is his   body it is beaten and not himself.  This is too great a philosophy for me to  understand, accept  and  to  live.

When the body is sick the mind refuses to work properly.  Mind could get into sickness and man may develop depression. I can appreciate this. As I cant yet say that I am different and body is different I accept depression of bodily sick person. Let us speak of those who are bodily healthy.

Depression is a mental disease.  I do not understand as to why any person should have depression when he is bodily healthy.

We have no right to call ourselves healthy if we get into depressions.

Most often we get into depression for no obvious cause.  If we analyse the reasons for getting into depression often we can’t find any reason,  let alone a good reason.

Sorry, there can be no good reason to get into depression at all.  There can be no reason to get into depression.

Depression is caused for any one of the following reasons:

a.      You have come down in the eyes of others.

b.      You have financial problems.

c.      You are not happy with the situation of your loved one.

d.      You yourself is not happy with your achievements.

e.      You feel lonely not wanted by any one having no company.

You can’t get depression for the first reason because it is improper for you to evaluate yourself through the media of others.  You have to evaluate yourself by yourself.  You are the ultimate judge of yourself.  You must live that life where you respect yourself.  When you respect yourself what others think of you is of no value or concern to you.  It is the society which with ulterior objects has developed this concept of you having to be respected by others.  I am not advocating that you should live a life where no one respects you.  What I am telling is when you live well, others would automatically respect you and it is of no concern of yours even to know whether others respect you or not.  To get depressed for the first reason is meaningless.  The day you understand that your judgment of yourself is the ultimate, you would live a good life.

Coming to financial problems.  Here also more than the problems created by want of finance, the real problem is,   you estimate yourself in comparison to others who have better finances.  The society would look at you depending on your financial capacity and when you are not financially well, you are looked down.  The real reason for which you get hurt for want of finance is not want of finance but your worry as to how you are looked upon in the society and your own estimation of yourself depending upon finance.  The real impact of the difficulties for want of finance is much lower compared to the social value of the finance. Again the day you realize that you are not  to be estimated by others, the problem to the extent of social image would automatically get solved.  The extent to which you are hurt for want of finance is not very great.  Whether you have a two wheeler or a maruti car or BMW would make no difference to your living.  Whether you wear branded clothes, shoes and watch or normal ones do not make any difference.  Whether you live in a most artistically built sophisticated house or in a normal house makes no difference.  It would make difference if you do not have money to have two square meals.  Once you have basic minimum things, finance will not make any difference.  Hence to get depressed for financial strength is only  due to you having  misguided   yourselves and it is caused more for social stigma rather than a person being really affected.  The day you learn that what others thinks of you is no consequence to you, finance would not cause depression.  

The third reason is again a mental outlook.  Whenever a problem comes we ask question “why to me”.  When problem comes to others we don’t ask “why not to me”.  In this world future is uncertain.  We live in a chance world, things go right, things go wrong.  We as well as our loved ones are equally liable for great misfortunes and are equally entitled to great fortunes.  Our mind should be trained to look at good and bad with equanimity.  This is what I had said earlier viz. “renouncing is having or parting without the idea of having or parting”.  If we can look at life objectively, accepting the reality and true colour of nature,  hurt to ourselves or to our loved ones, should not result in depression.  We must learn the concept of renunciation meaning not to jump with joy on the happening of good and not to get bogged down when things go wrong.

With respect to the fourth reason.  In the previous blog I wrote “Your concentration is on the efforts of today with a passing thought of the efforts  giving fruits on a future day”.  As long as you live in the present, neither in the past nor in the future you can have no depression on the ground of achievement. Achievement is past.  It is over.  Non-achievement is also past.  It is over.  Your achievement or non-achievement is of no consequence because you are not worried about what others think of you and you are judging yourself by yourself. Once you have this outlook whether you have achieved or not achieved even according to you is of no consequence because your concentration is on efforts of today and neither on what you have reached or achieved nor  on  what you are going to get in future.  The concept of achievement divorced from the concept of you being judged by others has no meaning.

The fifth reason is probably the main reason for which most people get depressed.  The problem arises due to not knowing that loneliness is different from aloneness.  When you are alone, there is no need to feel lonely.  We are all social human beings.  All of us want society.  All of us want friends.  It is wonderful to have good friends and to be with them, spend time with them.  This does not mean that aloneness is bad.  Only when you are alone, you have time to think, you have time to evolve, you have time to assess, you have time to develop art, you have time to look inside you, you have time to apply your mind to find what action in the present is good.  Aloneness is a great gift of God.  Only thing is you must learn to use aloneness.  The day you are able to appreciate aloneness, you will never get depressed for want of company.  I am very clear that I am not advocating that you should not meet friends and you should not have company, I am only telling aloneness has great features if you enjoy being alone and using alones to its full extent not only you would not feel lonely but also when you are in company you would enjoy better.

Wife  and   children who are not given freedom, who are kept under rigorous rules feel depressed.  This cause I did not list earlier because this requires a very special treatment.

When you are helpless under the clutches of persons in authority may be husband or father, you would naturally feel depressed.  There is very little one can do to avoid depression in this circumstance.  The remedy here is in removing the cause and for that you have to become strong.  It cannot be dealt with in this blog.  We shall look into it some time.

--

WHO IS LIVING & WHO IS EXISTING

It is difficult to state what is living and what is existing.  It is equally difficult to say when living starts and mere existence stops or when living stops and mere existence starts.

Living ,  the way I understand is to be bubbling with enthusiasm every minute.  Living is to find passion in life and in all activities of life.  A person who lives will never gets bored.

The major factor which prevents us from living is the fear.  Fear of insecurity or fear of loosing the loved one or fear of loss of reputation or fear of one kind or the other.

You do not want to eat to your satisfaction due to the fear that you would put on weight.  You do not want to express your views because of fear of rejection of your views and yourself.  To do anything you have to calculate, take a concious decision and such decision is invariably influenced by one kind of fear or the other.

Invariably children live, may be upto the age of 5 years.  They live in the present.  They have no concept of future.  When you don’t think of future, fear would not influence you.  Your fears are mostly as to what would happen in future consequent upon your present actions.

Added to this major problem to live with inbuilt fears, society also trains you not to live but to exist.  Society tells you contentment is very good.  Be content and happy.  Neither contentment nor happiness gives you enthusiasm.  Both would kill your enthusiasm.  Both would contribute to remove the aspect of living and introduce the aspect of existing.

As and when your age advances the extent of your living reduces and extent of mere existence increases.  This is principally because you live on  fears of future having absolutely no enthusiasm.

About 5 years back I met a lady may be about 65 years.  She was expressing unhappiness about her age.  I asked her to become young.  She asked me how.  I told ‘repeat the mistakes you did when you were young’.  Believe me, she shook my hands for about  5 minutes with so much of happiness radiating in her face.  I am sure that she remembered all her previous follies during that 5 minutes and she enjoyed.  For those 5 minutes she lived.  She remembered her follies with enthusiasm and pleasure. Fear of future did not trouble her for 5 minutes. I am trying to say that your fears can be overcome.

Youth was one thing worthy having and living.  I am using past tense.  Days have changed.  There is so much of exposure to the present day youth that they see a lot more than what they can achieve and they live in the fear of not being able to achieve.   When we were young, when there was no TV, we only knew that one should get a job and earn a few thousands and thought it to be the purpose of life.  We lived with enthusiasm of seeking small pleasures.  The pleasure to have a Dosa, to meet a good friend.

Youth, more than a physical stage, is an art.  “No great artist ever sees things as they really are.  If he did, he would cease to be an artist” so said Oscar Wilde.  Hence in youth which is an art, you have imagination, you have novelty and if only you can live in the present, you can live.  If only you do not worry about   future, there is no fear and you can live.

At any rate that man who has enthusiasm, who looks forward for passion, pleasure, achievement lives.  That man who lives in fear exists.

If you want to live, live in the present.   If you are living with ideas of future, it is so uncertain and you are so much filled with fears, you cannot have enthusiasm. 

You would certainly ask me that when I advocate achievements, it is a process to be achieved in future and as such my contentions contradict each other.  If I ask you to achieve, it means I am asking you to live with ideas of future.

Achievement does not require traveling of miles and miles.  Life is a razor’s edge.  Your idea of achieving is in the present.  It is this idea which gives you enthusiasm and which makes life worthy living.  The moment you get the idea you are on the other side of the razor’s edge and you already successful.  The results you expect on achievement may be of a future day.  But your concentration is not on the results of your efforts.  Your concentration is on the efforts of today with a passing thought  that  the efforts may give  fruits on a future day.  Your concentration is not on the fruits but on the efforts of today.  This is what Bhagawad Gita also says. 

If only you can live in the present, you can live without fear.  You would be living the life.  You would not merely be existing.

Any person who has passion, passion for pleasure, enthusiasm would be living and others would be existing.

My Blog ‘Worst enemy of man kind – Readiness to compromise’ was not very intelligible, I suppose.

I was not trying to canvass a point of view that any person is bound by the moral views or moral standards set up by some one else.  My endeavour was to state that every one should have his own moral code and should live up to that.

When I was referring to white, black and grey I was trying to communicate that you have to follow what is white according to you.  You cannot say that every one makes mistakes, mistake is natural in every human being, people do good and bad and as such grey area is acceptable.  You cannot say that you would be happy to be in grey area doing what is good according to you as well as what is bad according to you.  You must do only what is correct and good in your perception.

When I said no moral code is infalliable I was only trying to communicate that your own concept of right and wrong could undergo change as time lapses.  Every man is dynamic.  No one is static.  As such the views would go on changing.  It is better to keep our mind active, open to corrections and being not rigid.  But at any given point of time we have to follow what is right according to us as on that date.

I insisted that when we accept a friend’s or husband’s or wife’s irrationality by giving into it and thus encouraging it to grow, we compromise.  By this I was not trying to say that your husband, wife or friend is bound by your moral code.  He is bound by his own code.  I was not trying to say that you should enforce your moral code on some one else.  I was only at the point of irrationality.  I was only trying to say that there can be no moral code in yourself to accept irrationality.

The question of you accepting or not accepting your friend would arise ,  when you are affected by the irrationality of another person.  There is no need for any one in search of irrationality of others and protest.  But if irrationality of another person affects you, you cannot accept and such acceptance would amount to compromise which is bad according to me.

One of the definitions of compromise is finding the middle ground.  I was trying to say you can’t find middle ground i.e. accept greyness or blackness.

It was certainly not my intention to ask you to expect others to be bound by your moral code or that you should be fanatic about your moral values.

I had already quoted  Oscar Wilde’s  statement wherein dominant moral sense was said to be not good.  I am very sure that people who have dominant moral sense are always cruel.  My endeavour was only to tell that every one should strictly abide by what is right according to him and every one should certainly not tolerate irrationality of others, when such irrationality affects the person.

Just to remind what Oscar Wilde has stated, I quote it again.

“I never come across anyone in whom the moral sense was dominant who was not heartless, cruel, vindictive, log-stupid, and entirely lacking in the smallest sense of humanity.  Moral people, as they are termed, are simple beasts.  I would sooner have fifty unnatural vices than one unnatural virtue”

That government is best which governs least.  The best way to live is not to interfere with others ideas, life and outlook as long as it does not bother us. 

 ‘WORST ENEMY OF MAN KIND – READINESS TO COMPROMISE’

Among various pleasures a man can think of the greatest is pride arising out of one’s own achievement.  To have that pleasure one must achieve and one must develop a character.

But everyone does not have the same concept of pleasure. There are people who get pleasure in getting some material benefit with whatever means be that.  They can get pleasure out of cheating, stealing and what not.

When we live in society we come across both types of people viz. those who find pleasure in pride and character and those who find pleasure in anything that gives them material benefit.

The strength of our character depends upon what is it that we tolerate and what is it that we fight. 

If we have to lead a rational life we are bound to pronounce moral judgment.  We are bound to say and we should have the conviction to say as to what is right and what is wrong and stand by what is right.  When we don’t do that, when we accept a friend’s or husband’s or wife’s irrationality by giving into it and thus encouraging it to grow, we compromise.  In every compromise you are allowing the evil to grow and suppressing the morality.  In every compromise you are not correcting the evil doer.

Ask a question to yourself.  ‘Are you telling your friend, husband or wife as the case may be that he/she is wrong when you think so.  Are you showing your moral conviction by telling that you would not tolerate from your friend or husband or wife what you think is wrong.  If the answer is no, you are compromising.  When you compromise you are not living to standards expressed by you.  You would go down in your eyes.  You would judge that your judgment is not upto the mark.  What respect you will have for yourself.  How can you live a good life if you don’t respect yourself.

All people who compromise would like to know themselves through the media of others.  They would value themselves from what others think of them than what they think of themselves.

It is better that you are great in your view rather than the view of the world.

The readiness to compromise arises from moral bankruptcy contending that there are no blacks and whites and there are only greys, meaning that there is nothing good and bad and that everything is mixture.

No proper moral code can demand infallibility.  But based on a statement that nobody is perfect in this world, to state that no moral concepts are applicable to any one would be wrong.

The man who does not value himself and lives thinking humility is virtue cannot value anything or any one.