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MIRA AND MAHAVIR
23
KRISHNA--Not at all. But suppose you had no personal
interest whatever in the affair and yet had put forth
your best, would you still feel sorry if you failed ? MAHAVIR--(After a pause) Perhaps not. But is an
action, without any self-interest whatever, possible ? If it is conscious, deliberate and with a will, if its motive is something good, you cannot exclude the
self: can you ? KRISHNA--By self-interest I mean interest peculiar to
your own self only, to the exclusion of everyone dlse. If you have done something which is meant for thic benefit of others too-say of all, including yourself ---but no more than others and if somehow
that action fails, would you still be unhappy ? MAHAVIR~Not particularly, I think. I should feel the
same as others, for they are cqually interested or not interested in the result. But I do not know if such an action, entirely without self-interest, is possible.
It is at least not human, and I cannot think of it. KRISHNA-Suppose it were possible? You have read
Mathematics: Can you think of zero absolutely ? MAHAVIR-No indeed. It is, correctly speaking, an idea,
-only approximately, not absolutely, possible. KRISHNA- And yet you build your mathematical theories
on it: don't you? You can imagine persons witlı more or with less self-interest: can't you? Now imaginc a Being who has reduced his self-interest to zero; who
