Saturday, November 20, 2010

Continuation of the Ethics proposal

I want to retake the Ethics issue. The first I will do is to analyze a fundamental concept: there cannot be Ethics without a north, a star, an ideal.
In previous posts I have explained the concept of "spiritual world", calling it "spiritual" as oposite to the "material" sorld. He whom I know as my main master, Srila Prabhupada, who masterly translated the Bhagavad-Gita "as it is", in one of his books he has named this spiritual world as the "antimaterial world", because its characteristics are just opposite to those of the "material" world - this world where you, my reader, and me, are living at this very moment.

What I propose now is that you follow me to see how far it takes us to imagine this "spiritual world" as our "ideal world" or guide-star.
I have spoken before of certain attractive characteristics of the spiritual world, but today I will focus on those that we are interested in from Ethics perspective. And those characteristics have to do with the relations between persons. Ethics takes birth from the necessity of coordinating the lifes of many persons.

In the spiritual or ideal world, there rule certain fundamental principles:

1) Each person has plain consciousness of who he is, which are his likes and dislikes, which are his qualities and which are his self-assumed responsabilities.
2) Everybody do the tasks that they like, and there are persons for all the likes, so all the tasks are done.
3) Everybody without exception, they perfectly perform all their self-assumed responsabilities without fail.
4a) Everybody does it without expecting a reward. In other words: unconditionally.
4b) Everybody do it by love, pure love, again: unconditionally.
5) Of course there exist the ocium, but the way the persons face it is non-different from the way in which they do their works. In fact there is no distinction between work and ocium, because that distinction is due to our present condition where "work" means effort, something we do with total or partial dislike. In the ideal condition, each task done by each person is liked by him and also he has the necessary qualities to do it perfectly.

To give a quotidian example, in my home I have assumed certain tasks as mine: every kind of transacting like shopping, banking, etc., to wash dishes and clothes, and sometimes water plants, sweeping, and similar tasks. Oh! and cleaning everything I use, like the bath. For the rest of things I dont bother, another person does it for me. I dont expect that she do it for me, nor does she expect something from me. We do it simply because we assumed those responsabilities, but in deep we do it because we love each other.
I add that I enjoy cleaning or going to bank, I valuate it because it keeps me in phisical activity without having to pay extra gymnasium.
If we add the presence of a son or daughter, well oriental wisdom says that the love of a mother for his son is the most similar to the "ideal" love, because it is unconditional (the son cannot give you something in exchange, materially speaking).
When you analyze a wider society, the problem is you not always find reciprocity; but that is not an excuse: if we assume a responsability, we must accomplish the task. That really means we are already "mature" and responsable.
As far as more people starts being responsable, society will be more and more close to our "ideal world". And at the last instance, according to the action-reaction law or karma law, one receives what one gives, and that is infalible...
I have spoken before of the relation between consciousness, freedom and responsability, in "The mistery of freedom partially revealed". In brief: do not expect freedom if you are not responsable; you will have so much freedom as responsability assumed for your actions.

I wanted to end this post with three postulates or simply advises:

"Start by yourself. Do the first step. To change your world, you change"

"Realize your maturity. Discover who you are and which are your qualities. Decide what you like to do and which will be your responsabilities. Then accomplish them"

"If you cannot do the previous for yourself, search around you for somebody who helps you, guiding you or advising you in concrete matters. I tell you so because I have lived all the stages (until now) and so I know what I am speaking of: before I simply (believed that) I do it by myself, but then I discovered the joy and relief of being able to admit my ignorance at certain times and in certain matters, and consulting with other people that I trust. That is the easiest and best way. The other way you have to become stoic to endure many headaches that your continous erroneous actions provoke to you"

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