Why is there so much envy in India?
According to Gurcharan Das, the well known author, the cause of envy in India is socialism. According to him in his book, The Difficulty of Being Good, If greed is the sin of capitalism then envy is the vice of socialism. When I was young Indira Gandhi was in power and socialism was all the rage in India. The liberalization and opening of the economy brought about by Narsimha Rao and Dr Manmohan Singh was still a couple of decades away.
Gurcharan Das in the above book analyses the ethics of the Mahabharata and starts the book with Duryodhana’s envy. Quoting from the Mahabharata here is Duryodhana’s frank and open statement of his beliefs:
For what man of mettle in this world will have patience when he sees his rivals prosper and himself decline … When I see their fortune and their splendid hall and the mockery of the guards, I burn as if with fire.
You must have guessed that Duryodhana is comparing himself with his more accomplished and virtuous cousins the Pandavas.
Like Thrasymachus in Plato’s The Republic Duryodhana sees morality as a clever way to advance the interests of the strong. There are other points of view in the Mahabharata. Yudhishthira sees morality differently. According to him Dharma is universal to all and based on non-violence, truth, righteousness and concern for others.
I have myself suffered from envy as I hinted in an earlier article and I can testify to the spiritual damage that is caused by being subject to the ill will of others. I have also seen something of the behaviour of the elite in India who rule the country. All this has to some extent embittered me and made me cynical.
But I still believe that Yudhishthira’s conception of Dharma is what we should adopt and that too for the purest of selfish reasons.
I forget where I came across the following concept but it goes as follows: It is best to lead an ordinary life. I think that the movie Kung Fu Hustle exemplified this idea. I am very sure that this concept is related to Chinese philosophy.
And it is easiest to follow Dharma when you are leading an ordinary life and have none of the pressures that torment the rich, the famous and the powerful.
I have two basic premises when advocating that you choose Yudhishthira’s definition of Dharma. Firstly you have to live with yourself and your conscience for the whole of your life. Shakespeare says in the Hamlet: To thine own self be true and then it follows as the night the day that thou cannot be false to any man.
As we judge ourselves, so we will judge others. As we treat ourselves so we will treat others. And if we are knowingly false to any man then the time will come when we will judge ourselves by the same standards.
Which leads me to the last concept in this article. According to the Tibetan Book of the Dead there is a stage post the death of the physical body called the Intermediate Bardo of Becoming. In this bardo we will experience our entire lives as we have lived them. And we will not only experience things from our own point of view but we will also experience all that we have made our fellow sentient beings enjoy or suffer. At the end of reliving our entire lives in this manner we will be called upon to judge our own behaviour and our future rebirths will be based upon this judgment.
I am not sure if I have explained this concept clearly enough. If you are unclear please get in touch with me or better still read the Tibetan Book of the Dead. If that is a bit heavy for you a better alternative is The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche.
Let me put it this way: We will decide the circumstances of our own future rebirth (in the Intermediate Bardo of Becoming) based on how we impacted the lives of others in the life that has just ended. And so on and on unto eternity until we attain enlightenment.
So it makes sense to lead a righteous life with emphasis on truth, non-violence and a concern for others. That is the way to ensure favourable rebirths.
I’ll end here. Please explore this site for more articles on Self Help, Spirituality and Politics. If you wish to contact me the link is below.
Find this handy. Buy me a coffee