Question: How do I know whether I am right or wrong?’ Against what benchmarks and standards do I determine whether I am right or wrong? I am confused.
Speaker: How does anybody know whether he is right or wrong? After all, you are of a particular age, you are grown up. Till this date, how have you known whether you are right or wrong? Often you have declared yourself to be ‘right’ and often you have felt that you are ‘wrong’. How have you known that? How?
Go into it and you will find that you have been told what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong’. It’s a funny thing. Our benchmarks are all borrowed ones, our sense of right and wrong, moral and immoral, ethical and unethical, all comes from the outside.
Is there anything that is absolutely right and absolutely wrong, and you have known it for yourself? Do you see firstly, that what you even call as ‘your own’ judgment or the voice of ‘your’ conscious, even that is a borrowed entity? You stick to it and you stand by it as if it is something sacred. “This is my own judgment, my heart tells me this.” But if you go closely into the matter, you will find out that this is not yours, this has come to you from somebody else.
That is the reason why, what is right in one culture is wrong in another culture. People of one culture think that it is absolutely right. They do not even know that it is because of the conditioning of this culture that they are taking this to be right. Had they been born in another culture, they would have not considered this to be right.
What is wrong in one country is right in another country. What is right in one age is wrong in another age. What is right for one individual today becomes wrong for the same individual tomorrow. Getting it?
Because all this sense of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ that we presently carry, is man-made . Man’s mind has decided that “I will call this as right and I will call this as wrong.” And man’s mind keeps changing. Even today, what is right in one religion is wrong in another religion, man’s mind. What is wrong in one house is right in another house, man’s mind. There is nothing absolute about it; there is nothing final about it. It is not the Truth, it is just somebody’s opinion. You understand the difference between ‘truth’ and ‘opinion’?
The Truth is one, and final, and absolute. Whereas opinions are fickle. They keep changing, they keep mutating, they keep evolving. Our ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ are just the opinions of others. Others tell you that you are right, and you start believing that you are right. Others tell you that you are wrong, and you start believing that you are wrong.
Killing animals is very much ‘right’ in one religion. If a kid belongs to that religion and kills on a particular day, he would be told, “You are right and you have done a greatly religious act.” There are other religions who don’t want to kill even an ant. People there do not eat after sunset so as to avoid any kind of violence. In that religion if you kill, you will be told that “you are wrong”.
Now what is absolute about these ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’? They are situational; time and place dependent. And you have borrowed them. And because you have borrowed them, you are highly confused. They are not yours’. Hence you are always looking at somebody else to ratify, to verify. Hence, there is no conviction in your life. Hence, there is no energy, because you always have to ask somebody else, “Am I right or wrong?”
If someone says forcefully that you are wrong, you start shivering, and your so-called confidence gets shattered. If ten people come and say forcefully that you are wrong, you won’t be able to stand it. This is for the simple reason that your understanding is not determining your ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. The society, the culture, the family, the education, all the influences upon you, the media, they are determining for you what is right and what is wrong. So you are always confused. And when you are confused, you cannot move with energy. When you are confused, there can be no Real movement in your life. No vigor.
But then there is another right and another wrong. What is that?
When you are really alive, when intelligence is functional, then from that the Real Right happens. Whatever happens then, is Really Right. It may not have the sanction of the society, others may not accept it. But only that will be Really Right which is coming out of your deep, unbiased understanding . Free of beliefs, free of prejudices. Only that will be really, really right. Are you getting it?
Listeners (in unison) : Yes Sir.
Speaker: Try that out! And then you won’t have to be dependent on others to ask whether you are right or not. You won’t have to ask that. And what also follows is: Anything that does not come out of your own understanding, cannot be right, even if the whole world says that it is right.
You will be in strange situation. Everybody will be telling you that you are right and will be greeting you, but within yourself, you will be feeling miserable. Because you will know that you are not sure. People will tell you that you are a successful man now, but you will not be sure within. You will ask, “Am I really successful? If everyone says that I am successful, then I must be successful.” And that is really miserable.
Do not let that happen to you. Awaken your intelligence and then see the magic.