JOIN USThe colours of life are certainly not black and white. There are miles of shades of grey in between. Most of us fall within these brackets of life.
We are denizens of times when we do not think much before spewing white lies or shrugging away responsibility.
We pass the buck to the realms of inane when we are caught on the wrong foot. We do not hesitate to exercise our grey cells to identify scapegoats to take the blame for our faux pas. Going an extra mile to find an excuse for our tardiness, lack of integrity or disloyalty is not a novelty in contemporary times. We do not think twice about the verity of our means in our desperation to reach the end.
In other words, when we observe the world around us, it is not difficult to see that values like truth and honesty are on the decline. However, what is more disturbing is the fact that we no longer attempt to right our wrongs.
Mankind as a race is forgetting that human values do not subscribe to the philosophy of democracy.
The fact that most of us are guilty of declining moral principles does make us the majority. All the same, it does not represent to the truth, at any cost.
An episode from the Mahabharata establishes this point ever so well. It is said that the chariot of Yudhishtira would defy gravity. It would always be an inch above the ground. The gods had arranged it so, as a tribute to the soul who never swerved from the path of truth.
Yet when the Pandava prince uttered a half truth at the behest of his well wisher Krishna for salvaging his position in the Great War, his chariot wheels immediately kissed the ground.
Yudhishtira communicated the death of Ashwaththama the elephant amidst drum beats and passed it off as the news of the death of Drona’s son Ashwaththama. The valiant guru who heard the half truth from the speaker of truth trusted him implicitly. He laid down his arms and went into a state of Samadhi.
Though the incident could be variously justified as an act of salvaging the debilitating Pandava side at the behest of Lord Krishna their well wisher, the fact remains that the Pandava prince had lied.
It is universally acknowledged that truth will pervade ultimately. The process could jolt us out of our deep moral slumber or might very simply land us in an irreversible situation.
It is high time we recognise the caveat and redress the issue before we are addressed by it