CHAPTER 4: GOOD AND EVIL
In our last two meetings we have put our attention and fixed our thinking, on what I could call, to a large extent, the theoretical side of this complicated and difficult problem. We have tried to understand how natural differences are born. We have tried to take possession of this sublime idea: that this world, in a simple principle, vital germ, given by God, must grow to become the image of the One from whom it has emanated. The perfection of this image cannot be achieved, as we have seen, except for the multiplicity of finite things!
Perfection consists in this multiplicity; but this same multiplicity that is offered to us, necessarily implies the limitation of each object. We have also seen that, by virtue of the law of unfolding, the evolving inner nature must present in the universe, in a single moment, all possible varieties. Having reached these different natures a different degree of evolution each, we cannot have the same requirements for all, nor expect them to fulfill the same functions. It is necessary to study morality from the point of view of the one who should practice it. When deciding what is good or bad for a given individual, the degree of development achieved by this individual should be considered.
Absolute good only exists in Ishvara. Our good and our evil depend, to a large extent, on the degree of evolution achieved by each one of us. I will try today to apply this theory to the way of life. It is worth examining whether, in the course of our study, we have obtained a reasonable and scientific idea of what morality is, in order not to share the confusing notions scattered in our day. We see well an ideal presented as having to realize it in life; but we also find that men are absolutely incapable of even taking it as their objective. We notice the most painful divergence between faith and practice. Morality does not exist, without having its laws, As the whole universe is the expression of divine thought, also morality has its conditions and its limits, This is why it is possible to see a cosmos emerge from the present moral chaos and learn practical moral lessons, which will allow India to grow, develop, become a model for the world, regain its former greatness and manifest its ancient spirituality again. In the western towns there are three moral schools. We must remember that Western thought has a great influence on India, especially on the generation that is developing and on which India's hopes are founded. It is therefore necessary to have some notions about moral schools (different for their theories and teachings) that exist in the West, if only to avoid what they have narrow and take advantage of the good they can offer.
One of these schools says that God's revelation is the basis of morality. To this their adversaries reply that there are many religions in the world and each one has its own particular revelation. This variety of sacred writings makes it difficult, they say, to affirm that a single revelation must be considered as founded on the supreme Authority. That each religion considers its own revelation as superior to the others is natural. But in these controversies, how could the researcher form an opinion? It is also said that this theory sins by its base, like all the moral codes established on a given revelation once and for all. For a moral law to be useful to the century that receives it, it is necessary that its character be appropriate to that of this century. As a nation evolves and thousands and thousands of years go through it, we see that what was convenient for this nation in its first age does not suit its virile age. Many precepts, useful first, are not today that their conditions have varied. This difficulty is recognized and its answer is found in the Indas Scriptures, if we study them, because they offer us an immense variety of moral teachings suitable for all evolving soul categories. There are precepts in them so simple, so clear, so precise, so imperative, that the younger soul can take advantage of them. But we also see that the Rishis do not consider these precepts applicable to the advancement of an already developed soul. Ancient wisdom shows us that certain teachings were given to some advanced souls; teachings that at that time were completely incomprehensible to the masses. Such teachings were reserved for an inner circle formed by souls who had reached the maturity of the human race. The Indian religion has always considered the plurality of moral schools as necessary for the development of man. But every time in a great religion, this principle is not expressed, you will find a certain theoretical moral that is not related to the growing needs of the people. It therefore has something of a chimeric and gives us the feeling that it is unreasonable to allow today what was allowed to a humanity in its infancy. On the other hand you find, scattered throughout Scripture, higher precepts, which few are able to obey, even with the intention.
When an appropriate commandment to an almost wild being is declared obligatory for all; when, emanating from it, they erect that the commandment given to a saint is addressed to the same men, then the feeling arises in us that it should not be and that is a disturbance in our ideas. Another school was born giving intuition as the basis of morals and saying that God speaks to each man through the voice of his conscience. He maintains, that people after people, receive revelation; but that we are not subject to any special book, conscience being the supreme arbitrator. This theory is objected that the conscience of one man has the same authority as that of another. If your conscience differs from that of another, how can you decide between them, between that of an ignorant man and that of an enlightened mystic? If, admitting the principle of evolution, you say that the highest conscience that can be found in your race must be taken by judge, intuition cannot then serve as a solid basis of morality and by the very fact of admitting variety, you destroy the rock on which you want to build. Consciousness is the voice of the inner man who remembers the lessons of the past. This experience that is lost in the night of time, allows you to judge today this or that line of conduct. The so-called intuition is the result of infinite incarnations. The evolution of a mentality depends on the number of incarnations that determines, for the present man, the quality of consciousness. An intuition of such a genre, without anything else, could not be a sufficient guide to morality. We need a voice to order and not the confusion of languages. We need the authority of the teacher and not the confusing rumor of the crowds. The third moral school is the utilitarian one. Their views, as they are generally presented, are not reasonable or satisfactory. What is the maximum of this school? Good is what contributes to the greater bliss of the greater number . Is evil what does not contribute to the greater bliss of the greater number? This maximum does not resist the analysis.
Notice the words: the greatest joy of the greatest number. Such restriction makes this maximum unacceptable for enlightened intelligence. It is not a matter of majority when humanity is at stake. A life tail is its root, one God is its end. You cannot separate the bliss of a man from the bliss of his fellow man. You cannot break the solid rock of the unit and taking the majority, grant it a bliss, leaving the minority abandoned. This system is unaware of the invisible unity of the human race and therefore, its maximum cannot serve as a basis for morality. This insufficiency results from the fact that, by the fact of unity, a man cannot be perfectly blissful if all men are not too. His bliss is incomplete as long as a single being remains isolated and miserable. God does not distinguish from units or majorities, giving a unique life to man and all creatures. The life of God is the only life in the universe and the perfect bliss of this life is the object of the universe. On the other hand, the maximum in question constitutes an insufficient mobile, because it only calls for the developed intelligence, that is, the already advanced soul. Go to the man of the ordinary world, to a selfish person and say: `` It is necessary to practice the renouncement, virtue and perfect morality, even if it costs you your life. '' What will you answer? Such a man will tell you: What does it do to do all this for the human race, for unborn men who will never see? .
If you take the maximum cited as a definition of good and evil, the martyr is the greatest minstrel that mankind has produced, because it leaves all odds of well-being without receiving Nothing instead. You cannot accept this definition, except in the case of a beautiful soul, very developed and if not completely spiritual, susceptible at least to a nascent spirituality. There are men like William Kingdon Clifford who have given the utilitarian doctrine a sublime degree of elevation. This author, in his Moral Essay, calls for the highest ideal and teaches the renunciation in the noblest terms. And he did not believe in the immortality of the soul. At the time of his next death he knew how to stand near the grave believing that this was the end of everything and preach that the highest virtue is only worthy of a true man, because He owes it to a world that has given everything to him. Few souls know how to find, in such a bleak perspective, such beautiful inspiration. We need a definition of good and evil that appeals to all men and not only to those who have less need of their sting. What arises from all these controversies? The confusion and even worse, an external acceptance of the revelation that is actually set aside.
We have, in summary, a disclosure modified by use; this is where that confusion makes us arrive. Theoretically, revelation is regarded as authority and in practice it is abstracted from it because it is quite imperfect. Absurd consequence: that which is declared authority is rejected in life and man leads, with little fortune, an illogical existence, without ton or are, without having as a basis any precise and reasonable system. Can we find in the idea of the Drama a more satisfactory basis, on which the way of life can be intelligently edified? That the individual has reached in his evolution to a little advanced or very high level, the idea of the Dharma implies the existence of an inner nature developing in the course of its growth.
We have seen that the world, as a whole, evolves (from imperfection to perfection, from the germ to the divine man), rises from level to level according to each degree of life manifested, This evolution has its cause in the divine will. God is the driving power, the guiding spirit of the whole. Such is his way of building the world, such is the method that He has adopted so that the spirits, His children, may one day present the image of their Father. Does this not imply the existence of a law? Good is that which works according to the divine will, in the evolution of the Universe, and drives this evolution in its march towards perfection. Evil is that which retards or prevents the realization of divine designs and tends to retrograde the Universe to a degree lower than that to which evolution leads. Life unfolds from the mineral to the vegetable, from the vegetable to the animal, from the latter to the animal man and from the animal man to the divine man. Good is what contributes to the evolution towards divinity; Evil is what makes it go back and slows its march. Let's examine this idea for a moment; perhaps this way we will obtain a clear notion of what the law is and we will not be disturbed again by this relative aspect of good and evil.
Place a ladder whose foot rests in this room and make it stand out above the ceiling. Suppose one of you is located on the fifth step, another on the second and a third on the floor of the gala. For the one on the fifth step, it would be to sneak down next to the one on the second step, but for the one on the floor, joining the one on the second step would be to climb. Suppose that each step represents an action; each of them will be both moral and immoral, according to the point of view in which we place ourselves. To descend from the upper to the lower step is, for the highest man, to oppose evolution. Acting like this is, therefore, immoral for him. But for the inferior man it is moral to rise to such a step, because thus he conforms to the sense of his evolution. Two people may be on the same step, but if one goes up and the other goes down, the action is moral for the first and immoral for the other. Understood this well, we will begin to develop our law.
Here are two young people. One, he is capable and intelligent, but he loves very much what is physically pleasant, the table and everything that seeks a sensual pleasure. The other presents the signs of a nascent spirituality, is alive, alert and intelligent. Suppose a third party, endowed with a very developed spiritual nature. Having these three young people, which mobile will we go to help each other's evolution? Let's start with the first, very inclined to sensual pleasure. If I say: “My son, your life should not present the slightest trace of selfishness. It is necessary to live in asceticism, ”he will shrug and leave. With this, I will not have helped you climb a single step. If I say: “My son, your pleasures give you a momentary joy, which will physically ruin you and destroy your health. Look at that man, aged early, who was dragged into a sensual life. That will be your future if you continue. Isn't it better to devote a part of your time to your intellectual culture, to your instruction, so that you can write a book, compose a poem or use your efforts in a company? You can earn money, ensure your health and celebrity and by such an attempt, satisfy your ambition. Consecrate from time to time a rupee to the acquisition of a book instead of wasting it at a dinner. Speaking like this to this young man, I will awaken ambition in him, a selfish ambition, it is true; but the power to respond to the call for renunciation does not yet exist in him.
The motive of his ambition is selfish, but it is a higher selfishness than that of the sensual pleasure that was in him and my teaching, giving the young man some intellectual end, places him above the gross, raising him to the level of the man who develops his intelligence and thus helping him to rise above the scale of evolution; My teaching is wiser than would be an impracticable personal renunciation. She presents you, not a perfect ideal, but an ideal within your reach. If I turn to the young intellectual, whose spirituality is awakened, I will present his country's service as ideal, making it his goal and his goal, a mixture of selfishness and selflessness, thus expanding his ambition and activating his evolution. And when I reach the spiritually gifted young man, I put aside all the inferior motives and invoke, on the contrary, the eternal law of renunciation, the personal consecration to the unique Life, the cult of the Great Beings and of God. I will teach you the Viveka (discernment between the real and the illusory) and the Vairagya (indifference to everything that is not real) to help the spiritual nature to develop its infinite possibilities. Understanding, then, that morality is relative, we can work with fruit. If we don't know how to help each soul, whatever its level, it is because we are inexperienced teachers. In every nation, certain specific acts are declared bad, such as murder, theft, lies, baseness. In all these things crimes are recognized.
This is the general idea, but it is not corroborated by the facts. To what extent, in practice, are these moral or immoral things recognized? Why do you admit they are bad? Because the mass of the nation, in its evolution, has reached a certain level, because most of the nation has reached substantially the same degree of development and therefore, looks at these things as bad and contrary to progress. Therefore, the minority that is below this level is considered as composed of criminals. The majority has, in their evolution, reached a higher level: and the majority make the law. Those who cannot reach even the lowest level of the majority are called criminals. Two types of criminals are presented to us. In those of the first category, we cannot make any impression, even if we appeal to their feelings of good and evil. The ignorant public treats them of hardened criminals. But this way of seeing is wrong and causes deplorable consequences.
They are nothing but ignorant, young, young souls, children in the school of life. We will not help them to rise by trampling them and persisting in mistreating them under the pretext that they are barely: they are superior to the gross. We must use all possible means, everything that our reason may suggest, to guide and instruct these souls-children and trained for a better life. Let's not treat them as hardened criminals, since they are only children in breeding.
The other type of criminals includes those who feel remorse to some extent and regret after committing the crime, knowing that they have done wrong. These are at a higher level than the previous ones and are susceptible of being helped in the future and of resisting evil, thanks to the same suffering that human law imposes on them. I have said that all the experiences were necessary to make possible to the soul the distinction between good and evil, until the moment we came to distinguish it, but no longer. From the moment the two modes of action seem different to you, you know that one is good and the other is bad. So, if you choose the wrong path, you sin, you violate the law that you already know and admit. A man who comes to this point sins, because his desires are imperative and drive him to choose the wrong path. He suffers and with justice, if he obeys such desires. From the moment you have knowledge of evil, giving in to desire is a voluntary degradation. The experience of evil is necessary only before evil is recognized as such and in order that it may be. When two men appear before a man who do not seem different, he can take either one or the other without doing wrong. But if an action is recognized as bad, it is a betrayal of ourselves to allow the brute who is in us to overcome the God who is in us.
This is really what sin is; This is the condition of most men (I do not say of all) who commit evil today. This exposed let's examine some faults a little more closely. Let's take the murder. We see that the common sense of our society distinguishes between killing and killing. An angry man arms himself with a knife and stabs his enemy and the law describes him as murder and causes him to hang. Thousands of men arm and kill thousands and this way of killing is called war. Glory and not punishment awaits the one who kills in this way. The same crowd that vilified the murderer of an enemy alone, cheers men who kill thousands of enemies, why is this strange anomaly? How to explain it? What is here to justify the decision of society? Is there a distinction between the two facts, justifying the difference in appreciation? Yes, war is something that increasingly raises the protests of public consciousness and this proves to us that public consciousness unfolds. But, while we must do everything possible to prevent war, extend peace and educate our children in the love of peace, that is why there is no real distinction between the behavior of a man who kills for personal perversity and the way of killing that war uses.
The difference is so deep that I will extend something about it. In the first case, it is a personal grudge of the engine and a personal satisfaction is felt; Only a personal end is seen and only one advantage is sought. In the second case, if men kill each other, it is due to obedience to the orders of their superiors, children responsible for the legitimacy of war. No less do I recognize that only military discipline has extremely important advantages for men undergoing their school. What does the soldier learn? Learn obedience, activity, accuracy, quick action, to voluntarily endure physical tests without complaining or muttering. Learn to risk your life already sacrificed for an ideal cause. Isn't this a school that has its place in the evolution of the soul? Won't something win the soul in this school? When the patriotic ideal inflames the heart, when by it, grounded, common and uneducated men make the sacrifice of life, even if they are unsuccessful, he saw Slow, lacking temperance, that is why they do not stop going through a school that in future stocks will make them better and higher men.
Here is an expression used by an Englishman of rare talent, Rudyard Kipling. He tells the soldiers that they want to fight for the widow in Windsor. Such a phrase may seem somewhat rough, but for the starving man, who is mutilated on the battlefield, it is good to keep in mind the image of his Queen-Empress, mother of millions of men and give him his life, thus learning. For the first time the beauty of fidelity, courage and self-denial. Here is the difference that, very obscurely felt by the masses, distinguishes the murder committed for a personal reason and that of war. In the first case the mobile is selfish, in the second it comes from a broader self, the national self. In considering these moral issues we are frequently, in our actions, far from reality. There are many robberies, lies and murders that human laws do not punish, but which Karmica law takes note of and makes them fall to their authors. Many robberies are hidden under the name of business, many violence is disguised with the name of commerce, many well-presented falsehoods are called diplomacy.
Crime reappears in surprising, disguised and hidden ways and men must learn life after life, to purify themselves. Here, before we come to define the essence of evil, another point that cannot happen in silence is presented: that of thought and action. Certain actions that we see carry out are inevitable. You do not know: what you do when you let your thoughts follow a bad direction. You want the foreign gold in thought; incessantly you extend intellectual hands towards what does not belong to you and thus you prepare a thief Dharma.
The inner, inner nature is what constitutes the Dharma and if you compose this inner nature with bad thoughts, you will be reborn with a Dharma that will lead you to vice . You commit this evil thoughtlessly. Do you know the thoughts that exist in you that are ready to cause an action? You can channel the water and prevent it from following a certain direction; but if an opening is made in the dike, the water, contained until then, will be spilled through this passage and will pass the dike. The same goes for thinking and action. Thought builds up slowly behind the dam of failed occasions. You think, you always think and this wave of thought grows, grows incessantly behind the barrier of circumstances. In another life this barrier yields and the action takes place without any new thoughts having time to be born. Such are the inevitable crimes that sometimes ruin a beautiful existence, at the moment when the thoughts of other times bear fruit in the present and when the Karma of accumulated thought manifests itself in action. If, when the occasion arises, you have time to reflect and say: "What am I going to do?" Is that action is not inevitable for you.
The moment of reflection means that you can put your thought on the opposite side and thus reinforce the barrier. Here there is no excuse for committing an action recognized as bad. These actions are only impossible to avoid when committed without prior reflection. In this case, thought belongs to the past and action to the present. We now come to the capital issue, Separativity. This is where the essence of evil really lies. The great stream of divine life has been subdivided, multiplied, which was necessary for possible individual and conscious centers. While a center needs to grow in strength, separativity is necessary to progress. Souls, at any given time, need to be selfish. They cannot do without selfishness at the beginning of their development. But then the law of progressive life requires the most advanced to leave separativity and try to realize unity. We are now on the path that leads to unity; we get closer and closer to each other. We need to unite to make new progress. The final object is the same, although the method has changed in the course of evolution through the ages. Public conscience begins to recognize that it is not separativity, but unity, that allows the true development of a nation. We try to have arbitration replace war, cooperation with competition, the protection of the weak against the brutalities they have had to suffer and all this because the march of evolution is directed to unity and not to separativity. This symbolizes the descent in matter and the unification the rise to the spirit.
The world is in the ascending arc, despite the thousands of retarding souls. Today the ideal is sought in peace, cooperation, protection, fraternity, mutual aid. Evil today has its origin in separativity. But this idea leads us to submit our behavior to a new exam. Does our present action aim at a personal advantage or the general good? Is our life useless and withdrawn in itself, or does it help humanity? If our life is selfish, it is evil, guilty and prevents the progress of the world. If you are one of those who have seen how beautiful the ideal of unity is and understood all the perfection of divine humanity, you must erase this heresy of separativity from you. Studying many of the ancient teachings and examining the behavior of the Sages, some matters that are sometimes quite embarrassing are presented from the moral point of view.
I make this observation here because I can suggest a way of reasoning that allows you to defend the Shastras against a tricky criticism and study its teachings with fruit without experiencing embarrassment in your ideas. A great Sage does not give with his conduct an example that the ordinary man should be obliged to always follow. I understand by a great Sage a man in which all personal desire is dead, who feels no attraction to any earthly object, for whom life is nothing but obedience to the divine will, which, finally, offers himself to serve as a channel to the divine force and pour waves of relief on the world. In this way, it fills the functions of a God and the functions of the Gods are different from human functions. Earth abounds in catastrophes of all kinds: wars, earthquakes, famines, epidemics and pests, what is the cause of this? The only cause in the universe of God is God himself. These scourges that seem so terrible, so inadmissible, so cruel, are His way of instructing us when we do wrong. The plague takes thousands of men in a nation. A formidable war covers the battlefields of thousands of corpses. Why? Because this nation is not adapted to the divine law of its evolution and that it is necessary for it to receive from the suffering the lesson it did not want to learn by reason. The plague is a consequence of the disregard of hygiene rules. God is very merciful to allow a law to be despised by the whims, fantasies and feelings of man, so late to evolve, without making him feel the offense committed. These catastrophes are produced by the Gods, by the agents of Ishvara, who are invisible to the world, enforce the divine law as a magistrate enforces human laws.
Precisely because they fill these functions and act in an impersonal manner, their actions are not examples to follow them, just as the action of a judge who imprisons a criminal in prison cannot be invoked as an argument for a simple citizen to take venganza de su enemigo. Ved, por ejemplo, al gran sabio Narada. Le vemos provocar la guerra cuando dos naciones han llegado a un punto en que no pueden progresar más que por una lucha encarnizada y por la conquista de la una por la otra. Los cuerpos perecen y nada hay más útil para los hombres que mueren en esta forma, que la rápida supresión de sus cuerpos. Así ellos pueden, en nuevos cuerpos, encontrar condiciones más favorables para su desenvolvimiento.
Los Dioses provocan una batalla donde mueren millares de hombres. En nosotros sería culpable imitarlos, porque sería un pecado provocar la guerra por motivos de conquistas, ganancias, ambiciones, o por una razón de carácter personal. Pero en el caso de Narada no es así, porque los Devarshis, como él, ayudan la marcha del mundo en el camino de la evolución destruyendo los obstáculos. Tendréis una noción de las maravillas de los misterios del Universo cuando sepáis que lo que parece mal, visto desde el lado de la forma, es bien, visto desde el lado de la vida. Todo lo que viene es para el mayor bien del mundo. Si, “hay una divinidad que decide nuestros destinos”. La religión tiene razón al decir que los Dioses gobiernan el mundo y guían las naciones y las traen de grado o por fuerza al camino recto cuando ellas se desvían. Un hombre absorbido por la personalidad, atraído por los objetos de deseos y de quien el yo es solamente Kama, efectuando una acción instigada por Kama, comete un crimen. Y esta misma e idéntica acción efectuada por un alma liberada, exenta de todo deseo, en cumplimiento de una orden divina, es buena. Dado que los hombres han perdido toda creencia en la intervención de los Dioses, estas palabras pueden parecer extrañas, pero no existe energía en la naturaleza que no sea la manifestación física de un Dios ejecutando la voluntad del Supremo. He aquí la verdadera manera de considerar la naturaleza.
Nosotros vemos del lado de la forma y cegados por Maya le llamamos mal, pero los Dioses rompiendo las formas, suprimen todos los obstáculos en el camino de la evolución. Ahora podemos comprender uno o dos de estos otros problemas que nos presentan frecuentemente los espíritus superficiales. Supongamos que un hombre que desea cometer un pecado no lo puede efectuar solamente por falta de oportunidad y que su deseo es cada vez más fuerte. ¿Qué es lo mejor que puede ocurrirle? La ocasión de llevar su deseo a la práctica, ¡Cómo! ¡Cometer un crimen! Sí. Un crimen es menos pernicioso para el alma que la idea fija continua, que el desarrollo de un cáncer en el centro de la vida. Una vez cometido, ha muerto la acción y el sufrimiento que la sigue, enseña la lección necesaria.
El pensamiento, por el contrario, se propaga y vive [1], ¿Comprendéis esto? Yes? Entonces comprendéis también porqué en las Escrituras, encontráis un Dios colocando al paso del hombre, la ocasión de cometer un crimen al que aspira y que realmente cometía ya en su corazón. El deberá expirar su pecado, pero el sufrimiento que le espera le instruirá. Si nada hubiese impedido crecer este mal pensamiento en su corazón, habría gradualmente arruinado la naturaleza moral del hombre. Es como un cáncer, cuya rápida supresión es lo único que impide el contagio de todo el cuerpo. Es preferible para tal hombre pecar y sufrir en seguida, que desear pecar y no encontrar más obstáculo que la falta de ocasión, preparándose así una degradación inevitable en vidas futuras. Lo mismo es cuando un hombre progresa rápidamente y subsiste en él una debilidad oculta, o el Karma pasado no ha sido extinguido, o no se haya expiado una mala acción. Este hombre no será liberado mientras el Karma no se haya extinguido o la deuda no sea pagada. ¿ Cuál es el partido más misericordioso que se puede tomar? Es el de ayudar a este hombre a pagar su deuda, en la angustia y en la humillación para que el sufrimiento consiguiente a la falta pueda extinguir el Karma del pasado.
Es decir, que un obstáculo que impedía su liberación se ha alzado en su camino. Dios trae la tentación para derribar la última barrera. Me falta tiempo para desarrollar en sus detalles tan importante idea, pero os encargo que la desarrolléis vosotros mismos. Sí después, de haberla asimilado leéis un libro como el Mahabharata, comprenderéis la acción de los Dioses trabajando en el huracán y en el rayo de Sol, en la guerra y en la paz y veréis que todo va bien, suceda lo que quiera para el hombre o la nación, porque la más alta sabiduría y el más tierno amor los gu an al fin que les est asignado. Todav a una palabra, una palabra que me atreva a deciros a vosotros, que parcialmente me hab is seguido en el estudio de un asunto tan dif cil y abstruso. Nosotros podemos subir m s alto a n. Sabed que existe un fin supremo. Los ltimos pasos que nos conducen a l no son los que Dharma pueda guiar. He aqu las admirables palabras del gran Instructor Shri Krishna.
Veamos como en su ense anza final, 1 menciona lo que sobrepasa en sublimidad a todo lo que nos hemos atrevido a bosquejar. Ved su mensaje de paz: Escuchad todav a Mi palabra suprema, la m s secreta de todas. T eres mi bien amado; tu coraz n es firme; as te hablar, Yo, por tu bien. Que t Manas se pierda en M . Cons grate a M . Ofr ceme tus sacrificios. Post rnate ante M yt vendr s hasta M . Abandonando todos los Dharmas, ven a M como tu nico refugio. No te aflijas. Ya te librar de todo pecado. (Bhagavad Gita, XVIII, 64 66). Mis ltimas palabras se dirigen a aquellos cuya vida se resume en un ardiente deseo de sacrificarse por l. Ellas tienen derecho a estas ltimas palabras de esperanza y de paz. El Dharma llega a su fin. El hombre no tiene m s que un deseo: el Se or. Cuando el alma ha lle gado a este grado de evoluci n en que nada pide al mundo y se da por completo a Dios, cuando ninguna llamada del deseo tiene acci n sobre l, cuando el coraz n, por el amor, ha ga nado la libertad, cuando todo el ser se lanza a los pies del Se or, entonces, dejad todos los Dharmas, no son para vosotros. No es para vosotros la ley del desenvolvi miento, ni la necesidad de equilibrar los de beres, ni el examen severo de la conducta. Os hab is entregado al Se or y nada hay en vosotros que no sea divino.
Qu Dharma po dr a corresponderos todav a? Unidos a El, no ten is existencia separada, vuestra vida est en El. Su vida es la vuestra. Pod is vivir en el mundo, pero solo sois Sus instrumentos. Est is en El por entero. Vuestra vida es la de Ishvara y el Dharma no puede hacer presa en vosotros. Vuestra devoci n os ha liberado, porque vues tra vida est en Dios Tal es la palabra del Maestro. Tal es el pensamiento que yo deseo dejaros al terminar. Y ahora, hermanos, adi s. Nuestro trabajo en com n ha terminado. Despu s de haber ex puesto imperfectamente un asunto tan inmenso, dejadme pediros que escuch is el pensamiento que est en el mensaje y no las palabras del mensajero, que abr is vuestros, corazones a la idea y olvid is los labios que imperfectamente la han presentado. Recordad que, en nuestro ascenso hacia Dios, es necesario ensayar, a n que sea de modo imperfecto, trasmitir a nues tros hermanos algo de esa vida que tratamos de alcanzar. Olvidad la que os habla, pero recordad la ense anza. Olvidad las imperfecciones; son del mensajero, no del mensaje. Adorad al Dios, cuyas ense anzas hab is estudiado y perdonad, en vuestra caridad, las faltas que Su servidora ha podido cometer al present roslas. Paz a todos los seres!
FIN
[1] Esto no significa que un hombre deba cometer un pecado en lugar de luchar contra l. Tanto como lu che, es mejor para ly adquiere fuerzas, El caso de que se trata es aquel en que no hay lucha y en que el hom bre s lo deja de cometer el crimen. Por falta de ocasi n. En este caso, cuanto mas pronto se presente la ocasi n. tanto mejor para el hombre. El deseo acumulado rompe sus diques, el deseo realizado trae el sufrimiento; el hombre aprende una lecci n necesaria y se encuentra purgado de un veneno moral que aumentaba incesantemente.
Extracto del libro: Dharma “Filosofia de La Conducta” de Annie Besant. CAPITULO 4: EL BIEN Y EL MAL
Dharma “Filosofia de La Conducta” de Annie Besant
