From IIM Ahmedabad To Happiness

Author(s): Vijay K Jain
Publisher: Vikalp Printers

Page 68

FROM IIM-AHMEDABAD TO HAPPINESS
rage. So, the idea of giving up is not that will make you feel miserable, but the process itself is full of exhilaration and joy.
Morality in religion means a God-like attitude of purity and love towards all beings. It means the purification of the inner as well as the outer nature. Let no thought which is not pure and Godlike ever enter the heart; let the mind dwell on nothing but what is good, and true, and beautiful. Of all the religions in the world there is none in which perjury, theft, murder, adultery and all other offences are not condemned in strong terms. They differ, however, in degree. In some, for instance, non-killing is enjoined in respect of mankind alone; while in some it is to be practised in respect of all living beings, as far as possible. Every religion teaches the virtues of love and compassion. But there are situations when we seem to define morality in our own ways, depending on what suits our dispositions. A bandit who gives a part of his booty to poor villagers and fellow-dwellers, perhaps with the underlying idea of strengthening his own paraphernalia of protection from the law, might be known to the world as a 'Messiah of the poor'! A
jehādi', for some, is a terrorist who mercilessly kills innocent people, but for some others he might be a crusader against the perpetrators of crime against Islam.
There is, thus, no uniform code of morality for the entire humanity but, as individuals, we need to be clear about our own value-system and points of morality that we would like to adhere to, and then be honest about them. How is it that many followers of even such religions which strictly forbid, in plain and simple-tounderstand language, animal food, have taken to eating such food? It is because they have become slaves of their senses and the question of morality comes into being only when they are in public view or when a calamity falls upon them. Hypocrite's way is not the way of religion and it is high time that those who are under the impression that spiritual merit consists in the testimony of one's
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