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Need For Morality
If a man can be a success in business without any education, with corrupt
morals, with questionable ethics, I don't see why he should not be successful
in yoga where none of these qualities are necessary. We don't need cunning
in yoga, we don't need intelligence in yoga, we don't need auditors, we
don't need solicitors, we don't need lawyers. All that we need is a heart
which says, "I want to go home. Show me the way."
Today even black-marketeers say, you know, "I have done no harm,
Sir! Why does this thing come to me?" I don't know what exactly they
mean by 'doing no harm' when a man sells rice at twenty five rupees a
kilo in times of famine, and considers it 'no harm', but genuine and legitimate
profit, - you see we have perverted even the idea of morality that "when
I do something with my money and it earns me a profit, however high, it
is legitimate!" So we have twisted our ideas of morality, to suit
our morals. We are not living by moral principles! We have twisted moral
principles to suit the standard of life that we are living.
Is there any connection between moral degradation, loss of the heart in
a spiritual or emotional sense, and its physical degradation? I remember
that when I was young, I rarely heard of heart attacks or heart failures.
Why today all of a sudden, you know, in frightening proportions? Also
the same thing with cancer. Why? Why are these diseases suddenly coming
into human beings? And if you want to know the answer, which you know
but you are frightened to say, I am not afraid to say it - morality! And
the latest manifestation of our immoral living is AIDS.
Please remember that all the great civilizations of the past, whether
it was that of the Middle East or Greece or Rome or Babylon, they all
fell when human beings became devils and morality disappeared from the
scene. It is perhaps in this sense that you have the Christian tradition
of the fall by temptation. It is supposed to have been the first immoral
act. I do not know whether it is right or wrong, true or not true, but
it is significant, significant enough for you to think over it because
society has always fallen because of this.
Now this may look quite negative to Western people, that we have to live
without power and knowledge and wealth. But that was not the intention
of the yogis or of my teacher, of my Master. All that yogic practice demands
of us is that we remove our attachment of these things. And instead of
living for knowledge, or for wealth, or for power, we begin to live for
ourselves and try to improve our inner substance, our inner condition,
our inner quality, so that a moral stage of perfection can soon be reached
when for such a person, all these things become instruments. Now he is
able to use wealth, not for himself but for general good, power for the
peoples' elevation, for their evolution, for their good, and education
also for their good. So the self-centredness of the human being becomes
now, a concern for humanity at large. That is why, in the Eastern traditions
power is entrusted only to the morally perfect person.
It is very difficult to advocate anything. You see, you have to change
the heart of the human being. Ethics and morality cannot be enforced.
The more you enforce, the more there is reaction. It has to come out of
an inner awakening. So we believe spiritual practice is the only possible
way of changing the heart in such a way that there is a lasting change
in human character. And by changing individuals only, we can change society.
Master has clearly, and in unambiguous language,
emphasized that there cannot be, and must not be, an artificial
divorce of morality and ethics from the other dimensions of
life. Morality is the cornerstone of the edifice of human
existence. Where it is lacking, that existence is one of
fraud, of deceit, and of a selfish preying on society. Such
a life has to be changed. Morality must not only be accepted
as being essential, it has to be made the foundation for one's
existence. To the extent that abhyasis anywhere are able to
achieve this, to that extent will they be able to draw Master
to themselves.
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