OUR universe consists of two different aspects: the physical or material and the spiritual or metaphysical. Had man been only physical or material entity, he would not have felt concerned with the moral or spiritual values. In that case, he would have behaved like a machine. We find that almost all types of man's actions-whether they are political, social, economic, filial, conjugal, ritualistic- are adjudged by the society from the moral point of view also. The Watergate Scandal, which led to the exit of President Nixon from the White House and to the launching of prosecution against his top aides, is an historical illustration, the memory of which is still fresh in the minds of the people all over the world. It clearly shows that even if a person has reached the apex of political and executive machinery by means of an unprecedented popular vote and is strongly set in the highest echelons of power and is granted by conventions or the political constitution of his country, certain privileges, prerogatives and immunities, the society looks at his actions from the moral point of view also.
Moral dimension
This instance from recent history bears eloquent testimony to the fact that human actions do not only have the space and time dimensions but they have a moral dimension also. These have not to be measured in terms of horse power but their moral strength or weakness has also to be measured. Man's actions have not to be seen as motor actions but we have also to see the motive behind his actions. There is a psychology and an ethics behind his actions and one can overlook these at one's own peril.
Can we neglect moral values?
Let it be known to those who do not know or who pretend not to know that there is no human being, born even at a place far removed from the citadels of civilisation, who does not have even an iota of moral sense. Ever since the world had its first sunrise in the Time Cycle, life had its moral aspect too. All laws, all traditions, all ecology, all professional acts, even all branches of learning have their roots in morality; they have some ethics guiding them. Even the aim of all these is, at least partially if not wholly, to set some norms or some code which should guide or govern the relation between man and his family or man and the society or man and his environment, even between man and his ownself. So to deny or defy the omnipresent moral and spiritual laws is to befool one's ownself and to act against one's own wishes and to defeat one's own object of life.
The Lesson
Let it be known to all that each one's life will be judged on the touch-stone of morality, i.e., whether he did good to himself and to those around or he was a source of nuisance and a cause of fear and harm to others. The scale of moral and spiritual values will sensitively and accurately weigh all his actions, from the most insignificant to the most significant one. His advisers, prompters, seducers and abetters will not be able to rescue him but will also stand as co-accomplices and each one will be punished or rewarded according to his own acts.
The standard to judge what is right and what is wrong or what is virtue and what is vice has been varying from Age to Age, from country to country and from one community to another community. So, one comes across many ethical theories, connected with the names of various religions known as Hindu Ethics, Christian Ethics, etc., or associated with the names of various thinkers and philosophers, such as Immanuel Kant, Jeremy Benthem, John Stuart Mill, Charles Darwin, Friedrich Nietzsche or Aristotle and Plato.
We take this opportunity to emphasise it on the basis of our own experience that the highest moral laws are those which are universal and are enunciated and taught by God through Brahma, also known as Adam, to reestablish the Golden-aged divine social order and to guide man to self-realization and virtuous living. So, the principle, underlying His moral teachings is the aphorism: "Act in this world as a holy angel or a Golden-aged deity or a Raja Yogi or as a holy son of Brahma should act."
In this book, we have not dealt with moral values and virtues separately nor have we discussed morality under separate heads, such as personal morality, social morality, business ethics, etc. We have delineated only a small part of the spiritual ethics taught by God through Brahma, as one would discuss the topics of inculcation of divine virtues or eradication of vices.
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