We must not forget that what finally stays are the eternal values of goodness, honesty, fairness, justice and fair play
Dr. Jernail S. Anand
The Ideal Aspect
The greatest wish of a man and a woman is to have kids who are good. For this, they have to be good. Let us ask our sons and daughters what good they have done. And what good they could not do, although they wanted to do something.
But, in the course of our lives, I wonder if this ideal is ever kept in sight. Parents, in order to earn well, do not bother about the boundaries of decency, and goodness. What they often ignore is to draw a line between what is desirable and what is not. They do all wrong things in the name of the future of their kids. And the result is before us. The kids also follow in their footsteps. And what we get consequently is a society in which nothing offends more than the idea of being good.
In the contemporary society, all those stories which had a moral at the end, have suddenly disappeared. Rather, short takes by people of success are doing the rounds. The young children are exposed to the neo-culture of the cut-throat. Life is a race, and the hare is the emblem, not the tortoise, who seems to be a freak example, not to be emulated.
Parents are also a part of this society. How many people want a life of goodness?
Goodness stands for honesty, integrity, values, and ultimately, considered a one-way passport to poverty, deprivation, hardships and misery. Good people are often identified as those who are always thinking of God, who do not believe in evil, who want to do good and for this, who are ready to make sacrifices. Goodness is sharing your earnings, from your hard work, [not from corrupt practices] with the needy. I am reminded of Guru Nanak Dev Ji’s teachings who said:
Kirat Karo [work hard], vand chhako [Share your earning with the needy] and naam japo [remember God].
In the contemporary society, all those stories which had a moral at the end, have suddenly disappeared. Rather, short takes by people of success are doing the rounds.
It is so simple. But simplicity does not appeal to the young minds. They want the complexities of modern culture. Noise, dance, money, drugs, – these are the in-thing. Goodness has been confused with religion which modern youth does not like at all. Goodness is a state of mind, of the heart, in which a man stands in a happy relationship with others. He does not exact undue benefits from the people around him. He works for his own uplift, but takes care nobody is hurt. He wants the uplift of all related or unrelated to him. Such people are non-existent in this society, because even religious people are short of such virtues. They too are after lands, industries, prosperity of every kind, including joys which ordinary men lay claim to. The ‘babas’ are highly materialistic men, who use spirituality to turn the visions of the people blind, so that they do not see anything amiss in what they are doing. Property, politics, wealth, power – these are attributes of a worldly person. Not a saint.
I get back to parents. In a world where even godly people are after wealth, how can a man think of goodness, and God? How can they think of making their kids good, and wed them to eternal penuary? These are grave questions. We who talk of ethics are speaking against the values of this world in which success rules the roost. Money, wealth and power are the real estate of this world. In this rotten world, the talk of good is like asking for a holy quote from a devil.
Still, we must not forget that what finally stays are the eternal values of goodness, honesty, fairness, justice and fair play. The world lives by its heroes and philosophers not one of whom has ever said a word in favor of taking the rotten route. We live by our saints, our prophets, our philosophers, not by the dark forces of the consumerist society, which believe in the bitch-goddess ‘successes.
Read – Evil: Social Mores and the Evil that Lurks Behind Them
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Dr. Jernail Singh Anand, President of the International Academy of Ethics, is author of 161 books in English poetry, fiction, non-fiction, philosophy and spirituality. He was awarded Charter of Morava, the great Award by Serbian Writers Association, Belgrade and his name was engraved on the Poets’ Rock in Serbia. Recently, he was awarded Doctor of Philosophy [Honoris Causa] by the University of Engineering and Management, Jaipur. Recently, he organized an International Conference on Contemporary Ethics at Chandigarh. His most phenomenal book is Lustus: The Prince of Darkness [first epic of the Mahkaal Trilogy]. [Email: anandjs55@yahoo.com]
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