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| A Dialogue On Values, Ethics, And Morality |
Swami Chinmayananda
08/06/2009
The Sanskrit word Mananam
means reflection. The Mananam Series of
books is dedicated to promoting the ageless wisdom of Vedanta, with an emphasis
on the unity of all religions. Spiritual teachers from different traditions
give us fresh, insightful answers to age-old questions so that we may apply them in a practical way to the
dilemmas we all face in life. It is published by Chinmaya Mission West, which
was founded by Swami Chinmayananda in 1975. Swami Chinmayananda pursued the
spiritual path in the Chinmaya Mission Boston is located at: Phone: 1-866-RAM-DOOT Chinmaya Mission offers weekly Bala Vihar classes and adult Satsangs at
A Dialogue on Values, Ethics, and Morality
Q. Many people today are talking about values. How would you define values?
A. A thing by itself has no value. For instance, a piece of wood lying at the roadside is worthless. But suppose a carpenter gives it some shape and makes a toy out of it, then it has value. A piece of rusting iron has no value, but if a blacksmith heats it up, shapes it and adds a wooden handle, it becomes a knife and has value. Thus, the things plus your effort gives it value. Raw materials by themselves have no value but when we use our knowledge and add effort then it becomes something valuable and useful to society.
We cannot get values by merely listening to or reading about them. We have to reflect on them, work on creating the right values and then put them into practice, just as our health will not improve by just listening to a health-expert. We must make an effort to discipline ourselves to eat properly and exercise. In the same way, unless we begin integrating the higher values of life that all the great masters, prophets, and saints have been expounding upon, nothing will happen.
When we do live the right values, such as love, tenderness, mercy, kindness, forgiveness, and so on, we are able to meet all the challenges of life. And by developing these noble virtues within us we become fearless; ready to face any challenge without being crushed or weighed down by them.
Q. What are these values based upon?
A. These values are the ethical and moral values prescribed by religion and the eternal truths of life. The world may change, but the eternal values will always remain the same. There are some fundamental things in the world that continue to exist and function in the same way, however ancient they may be. About the nineteenth century we discovered electricity; that does not mean that electricity was not there in the first century. Electricity was always there as a fundamental energy in the cosmos. The gravitational force existed, and was functioning in the same way as it is today, even before Newton discovered it.
Similarly, in human life, there are certain unquestionable fundamental values which, when lived, make us more capable of facing the world, whether it is riddled with endless tragedies or filled with joy. These values govern our inner health and are called eternal values by the scriptures.
A student who studies various religions may find that one religion emphasizes one set of ideals over another. But if one thinks about them intelligently, one discovers that the fundamental principles behind them are the same. Just as two doctors may prescribe seemingly different prescriptions to the same patient, for the same disease, and yet those who understand medicine know that they have the same effect on illness. It is only in the details that they appear different.
Similarly, the ethical and moral values tht religions prescribe are rules of conduct by which we can integrate our personality and gain inner health. It is by this method alone that we may be able to enjoy the world more and develop the strength and courage to meet all our problems in life. It is true, no doubt, that there are only a few in society who live these great values but those few grow to such a stature that they lead the world with an irresistible spiritual power. It is always such people of heroic inner personality, who have been guiding the generations and initiating a new civilization of integrated head and heart of the world.
Q. Do the values of life have intrinsic worth or do they have instrumental worth? In other words, is the value valuable in itself or is it an instrument to achieving something else that a value is valuable?
A. A value is valuable only in relationship to achievements. It is instrumental. It is not absolute. Only Brahman, the Supreme Reality, has absolute value.
Q. You mean, Brahman s the only intrinsic value?
A. Yes, Brahman is the only intrinsic value. All others are instrumental or contributory to reaching that highest intrinsic value. By pursuing negative thoughts and deeds we go away from That. By pursuing positive values we go toward That. Therefore the values to be acquired by the seeker are only to take him to that intrinsic value, the absolute value that is Brahman.
Q. Swamiji, how would you define the words ethics and morality?
A. The right and healthy values of life that we maintain in ourselves comprise ethics, while morality is manifest in our behavior concerning the outer world. There are either ethical or unethical thoughts, but immoral thoughts are not possible. There can be moral or immoral action but there is no such as thing as ethical action.
The word “ethics†is used in a subjective sense while “morality†is used in relation to the discipline of one’s behavior in the world. Therefore one speaks of ethical values and moral behavior. Unless we develop ethical values we cannot live a moral life. Ethics is something we have to cultivate in ourselves, and its expression in the world becomes morality. An ethically bad person cannot be morally good. A moral person acts from the ethical values that he has cultivated in himself.
Q. What is the highest moral truth?
A. Love is the greatest morality given to humanity and hence Love Thyself is the greatest moral injunction that scriptures and Vedanta tirelessly repeat. But unless the student is prepared to receive this grand advice, he is apt to misunderstand it as advice to love the body and to cater to all low thoughts and ideas.
Love thyself does not mean loving the body or obeying mind and intellect meekly. The body, mind, and intellect are gross matter envelopments that have come to seemingly limit the illimitable supreme Consciousness, which is the real Self in us all. Through our wrong identification with the false matter envelopments, we have projected ourselves into the outer world as a separate ego, and doubts on morality and spirituality have come to confuse us.
The shifting of our identification to the real Self is to live automatically the highest moral and spiritual life. This is accomplished through love, in love, as love. Love alone is the law and the life of the Self. Self-realization is the experience of love in its absolute nature. Raise thyself. When you have raised yourself to love your Self the most, thereafter you know nothing but love for the world. There is no greater moral truth than love.
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