The role of Conscience

We have to always lean on our conscience else we risk condemning ourselves. Even a person who is wrong but honestly believes he is right is bound to listen to his conscience no matter how erroneous he is in reality. He commits a wrong act by doing what his conscience tells him (because he has an erroneous conscience) but suppose he does not listen to his conscience, he becomes a transgressor.


For God judges us according to how much we seek truth. While each one of us is judged according to our understanding of things, one who does not seek what his conscience tries to tell him has already condemned himself, what judgment can he expect from God if he has already damned himself. So while an erroneous conscience makes you sin, we are still bound by the erroneous conscience abandoning which, will make us transgressors.


That was just a small gist on the conscience. The other day my friend made an interesting point. she said, my conscience should have not allowed me to enter the class as I know I am late. I do not believe there exists such a puritan sense of conscience of self-condemnation. If there is, there is an order to it. I can skip an accessory that is freely available to pick, given at an event because I did not attend that event. Here, it would be right to condemn yourself for I do not merit the accessory.


My conscience is operating towards justice. But this can still be mitigated. I could ask to have it even without deserving it and leave it to the event manager to decide. Enjoying the fruit of the award has not against my conscientious judgment of justice. I have asked the event manager to offer me not by the virtue of justice but by the virtue of compassion: as a gift.


In fact there are scenarios on which your conscience should desist you from eligibility to any fruit of life. If you are applying for a teacher’s job but you aren’t a certified teacher (you don’t have to means or knowledge to teach), your conscience is going to voice: why are you applying for the job? (Unless one’s heart is so hardened that one cannot see beyond the personal desire for money)


In such a case, you should refrain from going for the interview rather than leaving it for the interviewer to discern whether to grant you the job. The reason being, one, you are doing injustice to the students who expect a teacher who will teach them. The interviewer’s compassion towards me would be shocking as he is not applying any reason: he is violating the interests of his students by offering a job to someone who does not merit the job.


The role of the conscience is to administer the truth of the matter and urge us to seek it and follow it. For deep down in our beings, we are capable of hearing the voice of the eternal and discerning the law that the eternal has inscribed in our hearts, the moral law. The conscience identifies when I depart from truth and also identifies goodness in things. But the courage to uphold good and condemn evil comes from Human Will. After the fall of Man, Original sin has scarred the human will to choose good over evil. While Man was always made for Good and Man was and is made to love, he inclined to sin due to his tainted nature.


Thus grace that comes from God aids our will tremendously to choose goodness. This does not mean we are led by God’s grace but only encouraged by it. Eventually, it is we who choose the good. But God allows his grace to shine like light over an object that was veiled in darkness (of our ignorance and weakness) and this light paves the way for the dramatic entry of our choice. If I do not choose it, I reject the grace by God. If I know it is of good and yet do not choose it, I reject the grace along with transgressing my conscience.


Another poor example is when only 20 years and above are allowed to play TT. You may skip the tournament instead of asking yourself to be excepted because you are 20 years and a month. Appearing as a candidature may compound the problems of the authorities who may now have to allow everyone because of you. Either they allow everyone over 20 years and whatsoever months, to serve justice or serve only you and become a stumbling block to their principles and force them to ask you to be quiet about it thereby amounting to dishonesty.


In the case arriving late for class, the role of conscience is already done, I have acknowledged I am late; I leave it to the teacher to decide without being hard on myself. I know I do not merit to be allowed but I plead to her mercy, not justice. If I am on time, I would be pleading to justice. None of us condemns ourselves to hell because of guilt, do we? We confess our sins.

Seeking out our own wretchedness

The prostitute lay there on the ground and the Jews picked up stones to stone her to death. And Jesus said, “Anyone who has never sinned may throw the first stone” Each one started receding beginning with the Elders


I was helping a boy through the frenzy he found himself amidst. He was running amok from table to chair making calls, threatening people. He was expecting a parcel. I had inquired on the urgency of the parcel and was told that it is required at the earliest. Another friend contradicted the explanation saying,

"The parcel isn't necessary. The parcel contains a wire. He could use the wire from anyone else to do his work. He is just trying to get attention by bringing down the house. He wants others to see how miffed he can be. He wishes that others may see how big a muddle he finds himself into and his, is not an ordinary life but one he fights for. Through all this, he wishes to show that he is a no-nonsense guy who can yell at irresponsible and errant workers and fight like a man to get his work done”


As my friend shared this, I realized that I should not have comforted the person as the person only desired attention and I was assisting and thus being an accomplice in the self-indulgence. A similar situation engulfed me before. No sooner had I comforted my little nephew than I was reproached by my aunt for patronizing and encouraging the toddler’s unacceptable behavior. There ought to be compassion but compassion too has a time and a season


The following day, I resolved to confront and corner the person. My speech was ready: You are running after a wire that you can borrow from another instead of wasting your precious time, patience, tolerance and peace that has patently left you quite disoriented and ill-disposed to speak to anyone as you continue to fix a grim and gloomy countenance. It’s not worth losing your peace, joy and cheer. You are just trying to make yourself feel better by trying to get attention and yell at others to get your work done as if to show you don't take nonsense. Deep inside you crave attention


After a few moments of peace, I realized something. I desired to spew venom on him. The reasons can all be good. I wished to cut him to size. My intolerance that such a behavior should be patronized, acceptable and witnessed was more than his desire now to procure his wire. No, I wanted to set it right that I see through his game and he can just relax.


Learn to forgive was the inspiration I received. Forgive him; it is perhaps very easy to prove them wrong. It is an adventure for him to boost his ego of getting his wire, making scores of calls and reproaching people for their lapses. It has perhaps now become an adventure for me to unveil his silliness and ‘attention-desiring’ shallow ideals. I want to tear him apart so that he knows how wretched he is and consequently, I am only going to show my own wretchedness that I judged his wretchedness. I showed no mercy but wished to make him pay for his own wretchedness.


Forgive him, it will do my soul and interior life a lot more good than his own. He may be steeped in the vice of ‘seeking attention’ that it may be difficult to break out. But if I make a sacrifice and forego the taunt, or snide remark or some badmouthing, that he wasted his two hours; my soul only is more purified. I will forgive ten others after meriting an increase of grace for accepting grace for this act.


I am not saying there should be no correction. When the urge to correct, itself is a self-indulgence; When correction is no more gentle and charitable but turned into an evil, it takes the form of hatred, spewing labels, insults, hurling taunts. Consequently, something as noble as correction becomes hatred for another’s despicable actions. Such a correction, if it may be called so, ill-disposes a soul to peace and serenity but leaves the soul in a tumult of seeking correction as if ‘if I don’t correct, the person is damned’ such an outlook often brings out our own wretchedness.

Is Passion the enemy of Reason

It is not a well kept secret that man is enslaved by his passions. We see it every day. Whether it is a man who ogles at his secretary and does not reason: but I am married or a boy, who loves his girlfriend and spends his entire father’s entrusted money on trips. Reason, again, does not prevail but passions rebel against it and the boy is unable to defend ‘My father would consider this treachery’


It seems I have given the impression that Passions are the worst enemy of Reason. Passions are movements of our sensibility. And in themselves they are neither good nor bad. They would be bad if they lead us to act against our reason, against our nature. But, on the contrary, they would be good if they lead us to act correctly.


But I would like to correct or refine myself in my portrayal or representation of Passions and Reason. You will observe a child brings down the house when he wishes for something. A child’s mind is sedated with passion. He is unable to reason his way out of a situation as we do when we deprive ourselves certain pleasures due to the loans we have to pay, due to the debts we have incurred, due to the desires we curb for our children. This is reason, this is prudence, or this is temperance, whatever you call it.


An animal will never find any reason to curb his hunger or his sleep. In our passions, Man shares this Animal nature. This animal nature we possess that departs from the essence of human life, Love, when Man is ready to destroy man for the pursuit of lust, land or wealth. These again are unbridled passion that rebel reason: I ought not harm anyone else for my own good


It is in the context above, I called Passion the enemy of Reason. Passions only rebel, they are bodily desires. They are a disorder of will due to our tainted nature that inclines us to sin. But there are often circumstances where a student is late for the lecture and reason dictates he ought not to be allowed. But any reason that is not eventually pointing to good is only going to end up autocratic. The purpose of reason is to achieve good not so that reason serves itself. Reason that serves itself will eventually serve tyranny. If more good can be done by having compassion on the student, then reason should always serve good: I ought to forgive


There are cases where the teacher may be ingratiated by a particular student who consequently takes liberties of coming late. The teacher may make exceptions but now, it is not so much the virtue of compassion being practiced but emotions that cloud her reason. She cannot look to truth, as her own love for the student has clouded her understanding of discipline, impartiality and justice. It is wrong not only to the student but a wrong against other students and certainly against herself. The teacher’s fondness for the student is not serving the student’s good but only her own ego. He makes her feel important and she reciprocates by making allowances.


We observe this phenomenon everyday and it should not be a surprise to anyone that The Greeks got it right all along.

Some objections to the understanding of Emotion

I my earlier post on Emotions, A commenter wrote in the combox that Emotion could creep in and cause immense frustration and often, depression. I have often myself undergone distress at certain scathing remarks made by people. The same remarks have driven me to offer a repartee but I have stopped short of it and held my cool. This is because, while we feel jealousy or hatred or anger, there are different degrees of it. A little bit of anger is called irritation. A little more is called rage or wrath.


The point is, the disposition of our soul, the values and the level of our virtue allows us either to choose forgiveness or let us go with emotion just as the horse riders allows himself to be guided by the horse rather than guiding it. If I allow reason to prevail (I ought to love or I ought to forgive), my emotion can be subjected to reason. This is not easy stuff. No amount of explanation of suffering or love can actually give someone the courage to act it. This is after all, grace.


But the combox made an interesting comment. I am afraid there is a misunderstanding of the role of reason. Reason is objective. As I mentioned in my earlier Post, the man at the drowning episode would fear for his own life while seeing someone drown but reason would say: Jump, he will lose his life.


Now one commenter mentioned what if like an emotion, even reason goes the other way saying, “The man dying is not your kin” This is a disorder of the will. Each person has equal dignity in the eyes of God. While I am more inclined to give a chocolate to a friend and more inclined to offer help to a friend. In the case of life and death, my inclinations and preferences have no say. Reason has to prevail.


Inclinations and passions again are what we love more than others. Again it is an emotion and the man’s will is pointing to emotion than Reason. What the commenter is trying to say is in the case of a kin, the man would have jumped much more easily than in the case of a stranger. This means that his will would point to emotion and because he loves his kin, he would jump. This is the same as a mother running into a burning house for her kid. We usually don’t see others doing it and when we do see them, we say, "you are a hero". It is simply because he has shown heroic virtue. “Don’t jump, he is not your kin” is emotion biasing reason. Life has the highest dignity and it has to be protected.


The second case the commenter mentions is, ‘this is a dangerous situation’ Now, fear is different from Prudence. Fear is an emotion, Prudence is a virtue. If someone is manhandling a lady and I have a general fear of intervening, this is could deter me from helping the lady. This is fear and reason says, “Help her” and emotion says. “Don’t get yourself involved”. Again we let emotion bias our reason[ing].


The third case the commenter mentions is, ‘Don’t try to do a superhero act’ Prudence is a virtue. If a switch is faulty, there is a fear of being electrocuted. Prudence is right reason in action. You are not going to tinker with the switch not because you lack the right implements for implement can be bought. It is not that you lack time for time can be created but that you lack knowledge and skill.


Prudence would demand that you call an electrician instead of going ahead and endangering your life. The same is the case when you know for certain that you do not know to swim and jumping in would be losing two lives. Here it is not fear (or subsequently cowardice) that stops you but Prudence, right reason in action. Prudence is the golden mean between cowardice and heroism. No prudence could make you late for a meeting when you stop on the road to watch a fight and extreme cautiousness could often make you a coward for not willing to even voice your opinion or support a group fearing Punishment


“This is not my kin” is a form of selfishness and lacks the full appreciation of Human Life. Emotion has not actually gotten better of emotion as much as a lack of knowledge of value of Human Life.


“It is a dangerous Situation” is fear that clouds a man’s reasoning. The will requires to be disposed to courage but is inclined to fear and hence disposed to cowardice. Again, it clouds reason and makes us reason erroneously justifying, that the situation is dangerous.


‘Don’t try a superhero act’ this is Prudence, different from the emotion of fear if he has judged that he is incapable of doing something by himself. But you will observe the will is still disposed to reason and not fear. It is disposed to the right reason in action. Prudence allows one to avoid being foolhardy in the case of jumping in the water without the knowledge of swimming and avoids cowardice by not fleeing the scene due to the knowledge of the value of Human Life. Reason still prevails when Prudence is applied

The classic understanding of Emotion

Often many pop spirituality authors have this tendency of ranking emotions from a higher rating (such as Love) to a lower rating (such as jealousy). There are objective goods and truths in the world but an emotion per se is not objectively good or bad. Perhaps they are objectively good or bad but not to the extent that they can be good or bad in all cases. It is not in the nature of an emotion to be good or bad

Love is good but if reason does not prevail, a fine thing as love can be corrupted by wishing to possess and impose on others, requirements, we would never wish on our selves. Our own insecurities make us pervert Love and consequently, motivate us to harrow and impose ourselves on them. What motivates our action is not Love that has ceased to exist but to be free of our insecurities and be free from our doubts and trust issues.


No one thing is good in the world, say love or patriotism. To cite another example, there are instances when a mother’s love for her own children or a man’s love for his own country (say Mamta Banerjee’s love for West Bengal which people alleged is clear in the rail budget) have to be suppressed or they will lead to unfairness towards other people’s children or countries says C.S Lewis [brackets added without italics]


The problem with this over-emphasis on emotions and making a psychology out of it is that it gives emotion too much power and gives ‘will’ and reason a lower rank. It is all about what one is feeling, what one should feel, what thoughts is being transmitted from the universe. No questions are asked such as, where are these emotions coming from? Why am I feeling jealous? Jealousy can also be good.


I see two guys being very good friends and I long to have a relationship as they do. I am jealous. Until now, the full force of jealousy has not manifested. Until now, my will is controlling my emotion, the jealousy is not overbearing for the will tends to reason and good. Because the will tends to reason, it does not allow emotion to run like a horse away from reality. Reason says (to jealousy), “Stop here, beyond this you cannot manifest because it may undermine yourself and others”. Reason prevails. Reason prevails also because the will tends towards good: I cannot be jealous for something so noble. I am jealous for I myself long for a relationship like theirs.


Plato and Classic Philosophy say that the soul is made of intellect and will. Emotions are of the body, the passions. Usually, passions take a man away from reason. It is not wrong to feel these passions but these passions are usually overbearing if reason does not keep its check and subject the passion to dominion of reason just.


If you feel hungry and wish to leave for lunch but have a project and project team stopping you, your emotions or passions can persuade you to leave. Reason has to prevail, saying,” look I cannot leave as no one else is leaving at this critical juncture” But passions may be too strong and one may cook up things like: why can’t I leave, I have finished my work? Often many people would call this lack of charity or individualism which is fine at a certain level but definitely does not help in projects.


Eventually you are going to do (action depends on will) where your will is pointing. If your will is pointing to reason (I ought to stay back), you will not go but simply control your hunger for a little while. if your will is pointing to emotions (Just leave and grab a bite, quick), the battle has already been won and you will begin to make some excuse like a phone call or that you have to visit the toilet in the pretext to leave for lunch. Deep inside, you know you ought to have waited back with your team. Nobody makes excuses for the right things but only for the wrong things.


Another thing about emotion is that people often say that we should ‘go with what your heart says (emotion) or ‘trust your feelings’ or ‘higher instinct’. They really don’t understand how emotions work. When a man is drowning, there is perhaps a will to help as everyone believes in helping but only fear, insecurity and weakness of losing one’s own life in the process, sets in as the primary emotions. In spite of this, reason demands: jump, he will lose his life. If I had to go with my emotions or with my ‘higher’ instinct, that was to flee, I would be choosing self-preservation over the highest nobility: life. Yes, prudence can be shown and self-preservation is also choosing life but it is choosing one’s own.


Man often feels emotions due to his own imperfections and often due to what society perceives is ‘sissy’, ‘pansy’, ‘girlee’, ‘dufas’ and all those stereotypes. At such times, either given in to what I ‘feel’ or command myself to adhere to reason and not emotion for emotions will always rebel against reason.


There are certain imperfections in Man. If Ben was brought up in a community where things work, an eye for an eye, there are chances, an act of virtue, of bearing up excess work in silence would be deemed by Ben as cowardice. An obedient person could be perceived by Ben as a weak person and the emotions running through Ben’s mind would be to avoid being associated with such people.


An Emotion is a horse galloping fast and Reason, the horse rider. The horse rider has to control the horse by reining it left or right and subjecting the horse to the right direction. Else we risk breaking the foundations of right and wrong by patronizing emotions and doing as we desire rather than doing what ought to be done.

Faking Love

My friend and I were at a gathering and my friend was busy asking some questions to another guy he had just met. I thought later that my friend wasn’t really interested but only faked it. I reserved my thought process for later. I do not believe now, that he faked it. He didn’t fake it but showed what perfected will, wills for. Pure Intentions perfect the will without relying on biases.



The biases and stereotypes that ‘we have to have something in common to enjoy our conversation and be friends’ are dispelled. A perfected will eventually manifests into perfected love. Fancy love is filled with fancy things: colors, cakes, juices, gifts, kisses and smiles. Not that we don’t need fancy love, it is often and in the beginning, an expression of loving someone in the first place .But true love endures. It endures lack of motivation to love.





Mrs. Dolores, whose son is the scout captain in college shows off her son as her trophy. Everywhere she goes people talk about her son. She loves her son and because of this new found pride, she is motivated to love him more.





Passions(sensibilities or senses that arise out of our sensitive appetite of our Soul) play a prominent role in our love. Everyone enjoys a funny movie but not so much a history movie. Love has to be cultivated for a history movie. It has to be appreciated that history aids our understanding of the perspective of the times and the very journey of the lives of men. History records the journey of the ordinary days, audacities and atrocities in time. This phenomenon is not an emotion per se such as fear, thrill or anxiety that we can relate to as in any other horror movie.





The appreciation of why history is essential can make history fascinating and studying the complex lives of men, a form of love. But it’s not all jokes and pranks. Our will has to point to appreciation than to enjoyment. It is very easy to see why you are not enjoying a history movie and call it boring (if the movie is genuinely not boring). Perhaps your will points to your senses and your senses expect a tickle, a prank, a fight, an adrenaline rush, a surprise or a sexual overture. The same reason we don’t enjoy academic books on philosophy as opposed to bestsellers and cheap watered down cosmetic imitations of the same. (Read: All of the self-helps books today are cheap imitations of the teachings of Classic Philosophy and Christian Philosophy and Stoicism)





This is the same reason we don't visit the sick. We visit Disney land, for why should we be alone at home when it’s so much fun on the rides? Nobody desires living alone or loneliness. We don't visit the sick, for how can we enjoy visiting old, clumsy, uncouth dregs? But they are essentially alone and lonely. All they want often is just someone's company. Nobody visits them in years. Imagine if you sat next to one and the thought running through her minds is: someone has come leaving Disney lands, clubs, pubs, and come here to visit me. Someone cares. I do exist for him. I am a person. I am wanted.





Now to actually swim the tide and really make it to the old age home, your will has to point not to your emotions but point to a part of you that identifies with loneliness and being alone. This is part in you called reason. It does not ask what one feels but what one ought to do or what is right. This identification may be personal(first type) of having known what loneliness feels like and never willing that anyone else undergo the same(compassion) or the identification(second type which is knowledge: empirical or rational) that certain things are good like sharing and caring and certain things, the absence of good(bad) like conceit and deceit regardless of having undergone it .





If you think of an old woman and your will points to emotions, perhaps usually, only ‘dirty’, ‘smelly’, ‘old’, ‘ragged’ and ‘morbid’ will come to your mind. These are the same as a ‘rancid food’, ‘animal waste’, ‘crow shit’, ‘feces’ and ‘stench of sewage’ that makes us run away from it just as strawberry, vanilla and chocolate lure us towards itself.





There is an objective resistance to suffering, to what our passions dislike. Anything that involves sweat, tears, pain and hardship is rebelled by the passions in spite of their ends being good. Anything that involves ease, comfort, gratification convenience is invited by our passions even if the ends are bad. This is due to the fall of Man. We are but fallen creatures.





Man is reason and passions. Passions are overbearing. They often take man away from reason. This is at the center of the doctrine of selfishness. What do I choose? What does my heart will? does my heart will that I visit a sick lady? Deep inside all of us will to bear good fruit. But again we wish to do enjoyable good, something our passions invite and not rebel. Again, passions get the better of us. We talk ourselves into thinking, "hey I am a nice guy. I like to befriend people" and then we befriend a guy who either roots for the same football club as we do or who loves mark twain as we do, who plays tennis as we do or who listens to Metallica and has a stash of new age rock. Again our passions play a dominant role. We go with what we enjoy. We call it love.





Now when you really begin to make an effort to actually walk across the classroom and say hello to a puny little guy wearing spectacles scribbling algebraic expression and say: what are you doing? He answers, I am doing the homework. You are aware that no one is going to do it for another week. You ask him what he likes and he says mathematics and Electronics. You were expecting he would say formula one and Liverpool.





I begin to wonder now what would make me interested in walking across to a person and introduce myself to another reluctant and a less interesting prospect as this nerd. The object behind this action is either some deep seated interest or extra ordinary love. There is no other. The visit to an old lady, to make another person feel the same dignity that has been bestowed equally by God on each of us, is either driven by extra ordinary love or a certificate of having accomplished social work.





Watching a history movie can either be grooming a special love for appreciating history or stalking an astonishingly pretty girl who watches such movies and wishing to cross her ways in the pretext of love for history. The action of going against your passions, of what you don't enjoy has only two motives: conceit or caritas i.e. love. There is no other.





If I was talking to the guy, I was either feeling he doesn’t share our academic field, does not share passion for books, for discussing a city, and perhaps feels left out and unwanted. At this moment he is not very different from the old lady who is left unwanted. The only difference being he can close himself in his own world of materials believing that he doesn't need friends. He feels perhaps he has his bike, his oil rig job or his cigarette. Materialism will soon wipe out any traces of ‘unwantedness’. He will have a world within himself. Soon, feeling unwanted which materialism allowed him to obliterate will slowly turn into feeling of hatred: who needs these bookish people who only talk about books





He is not different from the old lady except that the old lady has nothing to call her own. She cannot hide behind materials. When the person is very introvert and doesn’t feel the desire to talk or be candid and yet you take an interest in knowing his job, his company, the clientele, it is either because you wish to have a referral in the Oil Rig or you want him to feel wanted, to feel that people do want him to talk about his job, to talk about his love for his bike. It is not ‘faking’ but pointing your will from emotions (what makes me happy) to reason (I ought to make another happy)





I call this selfless becomes one has no vested interests in it. Your objective is to make another happy. You do it for love. You may not like to know about Oil Rigs but learn to love it. Love teaches, if your will can be commanded to point to good and not to emotion. A mother does not like to stay awake all night to care for her sick child. It’s not her hobby. She doesn't wait for the child to fall sick in order that she can stay up all night. She learns to stay awake and sacrifice for the good of her child. She longs to sleep too.





But she points her will to goodness rather than emotions. Her emotions of deprived sleep and her longing for a comfortable bed is not very different from what we feel when we have to befriend someone less enjoyable, eat something that is not cooked well, visit the sick, watch good cinema as opposed to popular cinema that may be boring initially because of our overbearing reliance on sensation (comedy,horror ect).





But a mother’s love is pure and hence her will is perfected in order to choose good over what her passions desire. It would be very rare to hear of a mother with an impure intention of suffering for a child because someday her child will be rich and take care of her. At that moment, she only wishes her child to be well and be freed from the sickness. It would be rare to hear of a wife who wishes her husband wake up from a coma so that he would have just enough strength to sign all of his wealth in her name. At that time, she only wishes her husband to come alive for her need to be loved.





Impure intentions destroy the dignity of the person. If the mother does suffer for her child in order that one day she will have her rewards, her child ceases to be a person and becomes an investment just as Mrs. Dolores, perhaps overjoyed in her self-indulgence, began to perceive her scout son as a trophy. The comatose husband is the wife’s insurance package in an event if her intentions are impure. To love is to will good, to have pure intentions.





Love is the toughest teacher. It makes us a man from an animal. It purifies. Love commands the will to seek not enjoyment but what is good. To will, that another not be left out of a game is choosing a good. Often that would mean playing with a novice and turning a novice yourself, which may not be challenging or enjoyable, just so that he could enjoy the game than shudder away at your mastery and attribute it to the difficulty of the game. Love seeks that he be able to appreciate the game as much as you. A father plays like a child and suppresses his own pursuit of challenges and thrills in order that, one day the child will play like the father. Omnia Vincit Amor

Goodness is contagious

My friend presented a strategy and I adopted it. The strategy was appealing because it was good. I had been influenced by it. Goodness is contagious. How it is then that, evil is more influential? Because Goodness is noble and worthy of all praise, it is hard and hence the absence of good, that is evil, flourishes much easily than good.



We learn about machine and inventions that were made for good but are much easier to be used for something else. In life too, our weakness makes us do something else. Our weakness often even does not allow us to recognize goodness. How Goodness is then is contagious?



Because the greatest power of love can break barriers of the strongest forms of evil. Jesus taught the same. He said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”. In that sense, the best way to humiliate your enemies is to love them.



Evil cannot be overcome by a greater evil as in a war which is a game of one-upmanship. But the clutches of evil is broken free by the overbearing of love. That is why in life, you do not have to try hard to change someone’s will. Try loving them for a change and they will humbly submit.



What will make them submit is their own goodness. But I wished to change them because they were evil in the first place? That was the whole point, wasn’t it? But they recognize your goodness when you love. No one can recognize goodness without himself being good. My goodness has established goodness in others. Goodness is contagious.

The best movie of all times

You were not made for comforts. You were made for greatness

-Pope Benedict XI



We all know how winning a football world cup feels like. We don’t have to be the players on the field. The team is received with roaring adulation and jubilation. In another scene, Imagine yourself walking out of an airport in a foreign country and scores of unfamiliar people take hold of you, greet you, cover you with the choicest bouquets exalting your books



Now imagine a bee line of a thousand people thronging for a movie ticket. You already have a pass by the virtue of sharing the same name as the title of the movie. You find that strange and yet oblige to watch it after their persuasion. When you enter, they are watching a show you are quite familiar with; the scenes feel as if they have been experienced. The melodies are also your favorite songs. The dialogues are what once you have expressed, delivered and dispensed. It all seems like you have met the characters and perhaps been the very protagonist of this movie. And then it dawns on you: they are screening the movie of your life. Today they are showing your life as a movie. And theatre is packed till the last seat.



Angels are trying to force themselves in from the windows. St. Peter and St. Paul are buying pop corn and finding their seats quickly much to the discomfort of those who are being hindered by the constant noise. St. Thomas Aquinas has bought along another secretary with a quill in case he finds some inspiration to pen down a psalm. St. Monica has come along with her son. Some of them are sitting on the floor lucky just to get in to see your life? What is so enigmatic in the movie?



They say this man lived a life of honor. He loved the church. He let his faith radiate into his life. He was a man who modeled his love for God on King David, of whom God said, “is a man after my own heart”. A man who found in others something to love and like Christ tried to wash each other's feet and bore his cross to enter his own Glory. A man who tried to share the good news with others.



They have all come from far away to see the flame he held within, a flame never to be extinguished until his last breath. They have come to watch that flame, incandescent, burn into a thousand different experiences on the screen today. Do our lives burn with such vigor that someday the same saints we pray to, would be making a beeline for the tickets to watch a movie, a movie of how you go about life with cheerfulness and a touch of grace?

The Classic Understanding of Emotion

Often many pop spirituality authors have this tendency of ranking emotions from a higher rating (such as Love) to a lower rating (such as jealousy). There are objective goods and truths in the world but an emotion per se is not objectively good or bad. Perhaps they are objectively good or bad but not to the extent that they can be good or bad in all cases. It is not in the nature of an emotion to be good or bad.



Love is good but if reason does not prevail, a fine thing as love can be corrupted by wishing to possess and impose on others, requirements, we would never wish on our selves. Our own insecurities make us pervert Love and consequently, motivate us to harrow and impose ourselves on them. What motivates our action is not Love that has ceased to exist but to be free of our insecurities and be free from our doubts and trust issues.



No one thing is good in the world, say love or patriotism. To cite another example, there are instances when a mother’s love for her own children or a man’s love for his own country (say Mamta Banerjee’s love for West Bengal which people alleged is clear in the rail budget) have to be suppressed or they will lead to unfairness towards other people’s children or countries says C.S Lewis [brackets added without italics]



The problem with this over-emphasis on emotions and making a psychology out of it is that it gives emotion too much power and gives ‘will’ and reason a lower rank. It is all about what one is feeling, what one should feel, what thoughts is being transmitted from the universe. No questions are asked such as, where are these emotions coming from? Why am I feeling jealous? Jealousy can also be good.



I see two guys being very good friends and I long to have a relationship as they do. I am jealous. Until now, the full force of jealousy has not manifested. Until now, my will is controlling my emotion, the jealousy is not overbearing for the will tends to reason and good. Because the will tends to reason, it does not allow emotion to run like a horse away from reality. Reason says (to jealousy), “Stop here, beyond this you cannot manifest because it may undermine yourself and others”. Reason prevails. Reason prevails also because the will tends towards good: I cannot be jealous for something so noble. I am jealous for I myself long for a relationship like theirs.



Plato and Classic Philosophy say that the soul is made of intellect and will. Emotions are of the body, the passions. Usually, passions take a man away from reason. It is not wrong to feel these passions but these passions are usually overbearing if reason does not keep its check and subject the passion to dominion of reason just.



If you feel hungry and wish to leave for lunch but have a project and project team stopping you, your emotions or passions can persuade you to leave. Reason has to prevail, saying,” look I cannot leave as no one else is leaving at this critical juncture” But passions may be too strong and one may cook up things like: why can’t I leave, I have finished my work? Often many people would call this lack of charity or individualism which is fine at a certain level but definitely does not help in projects.



Eventually you are going to do (action depends on will) where your will is pointing. If your will is pointing to reason (I ought to stay back), you will not go but simply control your hunger for a little while. if your will is pointing to emotions (Just leave and grab a bite, quick), the battle has already been won and you will begin to make some excuse like a phone call or that you have to visit the toilet in the pretext to leave for lunch. Deep inside, you know you ought to have waited back with your team. Nobody makes excuses for the right things but only for the wrong things.



Another thing about emotion is that people often say that we should ‘go with what your heart says (emotion) or ‘trust your feelings’ or ‘higher instinct’. They really don’t understand how emotions work. When a man is drowning, there is perhaps a will to help as everyone believes in helping but only fear, insecurity and weakness of losing one’s own life in the process, sets in as the primary emotions. In spite of this, reason demands: jump, he will lose his life. If I had to go with my emotions or with my ‘higher’ instinct, that was to flee, I would be choosing self-preservation over the highest nobility: life. Yes, prudence can be shown and self-preservation is also choosing life but it is choosing one’s own.



Man often feels emotions due to his own imperfections and often due to what society perceives is ‘sissy’, ‘pansy’, ‘girlee’, ‘dufas’ and all those stereotypes. At such times, either given in to what I ‘feel’ or command myself to adhere to reason and not emotion for emotions will always rebel against reason.



There are certain imperfections in Man. If Ben was brought up in a community where things work, an eye for an eye, there are chances, an act of virtue, of bearing up excess work in silence would be deemed by Ben as cowardice. An obedient person could be perceived by Ben as a weak person and the emotions running through Ben’s mind would be to avoid being associated with such people.



An Emotion is a horse galloping fast and Reason, the horse rider. The horse rider has to control the horse by reining it left or right and subjecting the horse to the right direction. Else we risk breaking the foundations of right and wrong by patronizing emotions and doing as we desire rather than doing what ought to be done.

The bare minimum

Today we talk about not an uncommon nature of man. In my school days, we had an organization that visited our school to garner funds for their NGO. They gave out forms for all students and we had to go, usually, door-to-door to collect money. This was a huge hit in the Nineties. Seventy-Five rupees was the minimum to earn a certificate and there were other rewards for those who surpassed 1000 and above. I never knew what those rewards were simply because I never ever reached there. I do not know who reached there as I was surrounded by hundred others who were content with the certificate.

There is a danger to interpret the notion I am slowly trying to form as a ‘lack of pursuit of excellence’. I am trying to elucidate a behaviour not a lack thereof. If I was trying to talk about a pursuit that man has none of, I am trying to talk about something wanting. No, I will stick to what man does not what he does not or cannot.

The behaviour of Man (that you may observe in yourself as I observe in myself) is that of the ‘bare minimum’. His will is not inclined to goodness but rather to ‘not being called an evil person’ To explain, it is like a banker whose only objective ought to be to maximize his money but according to bare minimum, the banker would only strive to avoid going bankrupt. His motto isn’t ‘how can I maximize profits’ rather it is ‘how can I surely not become bankrupt’

You will observe this ubiquituous phenomenon whenever there are choices to be made between good and evil. Man, in such a case doesn’t really will to do good but he is conscious that he ought to choose good for he tries never to be deemed ‘evil’. He continues his life satifsying the bare minimum. He doesn’t wish to dress with modesty or chastity. No, he doesn’t choose that but he asks questions such as: what bare minimum requires to be fulfilled in order that these clothes are not called obscene?. What minimum can I contribute in a fundraiser or to a beggar or in Church inorder that I am not called a miser?

Our hearts don’t will for virtue but only to satisfy the bare minimum in order to not be called sinners or defilers. A woman may hope that her outfit is not obscene. Deep inside, she has an inkling she may have crossed the line which means she will feel immensely peaceful if she has just made it within the line. She will not choose chastity through her outfit rather stay within ‘limits’ to not qualify as ‘obscenity’.

We don’t choose to vie for goodness.we are happy doing just enough to not be called a sinner. Such a ‘pursuit’ (I switch now from behaviour to the why the behaviour is allowed) is the virtueless waste. For it chooses to value the fear of turning into a sinner than choosing the joy and prudence of being a saint. An excellent student who returns home from school everyday oblivious to the distress of his fellow students at their inability could guiltlessly say, “Well, I have not disturbed, distracted, hidden or misled them in any way in order to be evil” Yes, but they need help and you haven’t done anything noble either.

It reminds me of this Catholic Prayer:

I confess to Almighty God, and to you my brothers and sisters that I have sinned through my own faults, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and what I have failed to do…

So perhaps you, a product of the ‘bare minimum’, of the virtueless waste think, what I have done? Nothing at all, I stayed within limits, what do I have to confess? And then meditate on what you have failed to do...Often, that is all the difference between a sinner and a saint.