This dilemma we face in our life on a daily basis. We don’t know how to differentiate between good or bad. To make it easy, our ancestors came up with the idea of morals and ethics. The set of rules and regulations we have to follow in our life. This set of rules will make us a good person in our society. If we do not follow them or go against them, we will become evil or bad people. If you observe a little bit or calculate a little bit you’ll find Woah! We are doing this since our childhood! We are following these made-up rules throughout our life. Let’s take the education system as an example. In our humane world, you’ll find the same set of rules in any school of any country. Discipline, being righteous, knowledge is a ladder of success, listening to elders, and offering a service to our society. These are some basic ethics or morals we can see in schools. We follow this (try to I mean) and we become morally good people in society. But does following ethics and morals will make us a good person?
In my last post, I talked about life lessons and how stories can change our life. The core of these stories is nothing but telling the importance of ethics in our life. But as I questioned earlier, does following ethics and morals will make us a good person? Partially no! Now you’ll ask why?
Because these morals and ethics are also made by humans and humans are not always right! To be a good person we need to see through the person not how he/she/them follow ethics or not. Even if the person is wrong ethically but his mind is pure then he’ll consider as a good person because his intention is not bad. So here comes the “rules are meant to be broken” kind of thing. Ethics are broken but the person’s intentions are pure so just because he broke his ethics doesn’t mean he is a totally bad person.
Now we will take another example, a person who follows ethics obediently, to follow it, he doesn’t compromise in the situation and chooses ethics over anything. Is he a good person? Partially, no. Because sometimes before considering our ethics; we need to consider others. Following ethics is good but if it is having an inverse reaction to others then it is wrong!
First thing first: The Core
Your mind or your inner thoughts are considered as your core. The core or we can say your mind is the most important thing which can differentiate between good or bad. It may have overpowered by emotions but it has this ‘gut feeling’. The ‘gut feeling’ is so strong that we can’t deny its presence. It helps us to differentiate between good and bad. Let me tell you a story.
Once upon a time, there was a boy. He was a student from a well-known institute of Taxila. His family had a good reputation also. But due to his intellectuality, his friends and fellow classmates got jealous. And to damage his reputation they corrupt their mentor’s mind. Due to this, the mentor asked that student to give him one thousand right-hand little fingers as ‘GuruDakshina’ (type of fees) to him. The boy was set on a journey to collect fingers. He tried to pursue people to give it willingly but no one was willing. So he started to cut their fingers forcefully. The rumors spread like fire. The boy soon to be known as ‘Angulimala’. He tied those fingers in a necklace. Once a brilliant boy is now a feared bandit/ goon. People feared him and terrified of him. One day Gautam Buddha crosses his path. The bandit was now near his one thousand fingers target. He had nine hundred and ninety-nine fingers. He just has to collect one then his task will be accomplished. The bandit Angulimala tried to chase Buddha but he failed miserably. He tried to catch up with Gautam Buddha’s pace but he was too fast to his liking. He got exhausted and stopped. He called Buddha. Buddha stopped and looked back. Buddha asked Anuglimala to stop killing and harming people. Something struck inside that goon. His weapons, the finger necklace slipped from his hand like water. And peace bloomed in his heart. And he found his redemption.
One day, the righteous king of the country came to arrest Angulimala because of the local people’s plea. He found out Buddha was staying in the forest. To give him respect, he stopped near Buddha’s abode. He saw there some scholars. He met Buddha and asked about Angulimala. Buddha told him that he (Angulimala) now one of his students. The king was astonished by seeing him. Once a cold-hearted murderer is, now a Buddhist monk. The king bowed to Buddha and said what our weapons failed to do; you did it with your words. Following your words, the bandit has found enlightenment in his life. He lost all his greed in front of you. And the king left the place with peace.
Well, the story of Angulimala ends here. But what we learn from this story is Angulimala was corrupted because of his mentor’s wish. He originally was never evil. Buddha knew this that’s why he gave him a chance of redemption. Angulimala’s core was not evil. He was never evil but due to circumstances he slowly became an evil person.
So our first story completes here. If the core is not evil then the person is bad either. He surely deserves a chance.
Yes. I can sense that this is not a reason to differentiate between good and bad but it’s an aspect. We see good people doing bad things in our surroundings due to circumstances and blaming it on them (sometimes we also do), but what you choose afterward also matters. Did you take a chance for redemption or accept your bad deeds? Then you are a good person or deserve a second chance! But if no then your core is evil and there is no backing down, there is only downhill of your actions. This is where our core matters. I have written specifically the word ‘Core’ for our inner self.
Second Thing: The actions
Now there is this second thing and this is popular in modern society is ‘Karma’ means actions.
“Every action has its consequences”
Even if a person is good at heart or core, that person’s actions or Karma will decide the consequences. He may get a chance or not, he can’t choose the consequences but he can choose his decisions and actions. I will tell you a short story about a character of a world-famous Epic. You can take a guess! This person suffered from partiality in his life. He was good at heart, righteous but ended up suffering the most.
Yes! The name is ‘Karna’. According to Mahabharata, Karna was righteous and deserved to be on top yet he was the one who suffered most. He chose his friendship and loyalty over anything else and he died for it too. He knew his decision would cost him death but to him, friend’s loyalty mattered the most.
This character taught me one thing, if you are going to choose one then don’t be afraid of consequences or accept the consequences as they are. Karna didn’t get a second chance in his life but yet he remembered by all of us.
His actions cost him consequences that he was unable to bear. Today, our decisions too cost us consequences we can’t bear. You can take an everyday example for it. … like waking up late cost us delay in every work, sleeping late cost us health issues, procrastination cost us panicking at the end moment and so on.
So if we have a good core then we should take a little bit of effort to improve our actions. If you are telling too many lies then starts with being honest with you. If you are doing something bad (for any reason) think about the long-term effects. (In successful people’s word ‘Think Big’).
These two things make us who we are and what we are. Not for others or in eyes of society but for us. If you want to expect something good will happen to you then first be a good person (at least 0.001 %). Even if bad things are happening to you, even if life trials are happening with you, even if you are in a dilemma of what is good what is bad, choose to be good.
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