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Right and Wrong

We make decisions and make choices based on our understanding of right and wrong almost every moment. Parents keep guiding their kids about the rights and wrongs. The entire society also keeps judging the actions of people in terms of rights and wrongs. However, rights and wrongs vary so widely that it is very difficult to understand what is right or wrong. 

Probably the entire debate of right and wrong is contextual. It all depends upon the "center of the judgment". For example, when parents talk about right and wrong, it may be in the context of the potential for the worldly growth of the child. In that case what is good for the growth of the kid will be right such as healthy food, activities for the physical and mental development, and so on. Similarly, what is not conducive to the growth will be bad such as staying awake till late at night, getting addicted to screens, and so on. There may be another "center of the judgment" where spiritual growth is the center. In that case, rights and wrongs will be altogether different. Living life in a meditative state and with awareness will be right and running after worldly desires will be wrong. Similarly, some parents may have another "center of the judgment" being their own social validation. In that case, if the children do anything that is not validated by their society is wrong. Such parents hold the actions of their kids wrong when they marry in communities not acceptable to them.

All of us keep judging ourselves as well as others almost 24*7. However, we forget that all these judgments are in the domain of the mind. Mind is always limited by its experiences. What we hold wrong today may appear to be right after some time and vice versa. Our "center of the judgment" keeps shifting with experiences. As we grow old, some of us become wider with experience. We start with a narrow community having a strong identification with the traditions and viewpoints. As we grow, we come into contact with people from diverse cultures and traditions, and that changes our "center of judgment". On the other hand, most people become narrower with age. They choose the company of friends and relatives who are as narrow as they are. Slowly their narrowness becomes thicker and the "center of the judgment" becomes more fixed. In social gatherings, such people just talk about others and pass comments and slowly become prisoners of their own narrowness. 

There is no doubt that exposure helps us understand different perspectives. However, there is a limitation of the thought itself. Thought can never understand the reality. Thought is like data in a laptop and whatever the laptop does, it can not store the data of the entire world. There can be only one possibility where the laptop removes all the firewalls connects to the broadband of the divine and gets access to the entire data. Only then it can appreciate all the viewpoints and the "center of the judgment" may become as wide as the universe. However, all of us have fears and insecurities. The more fearful we are the more we like to control and the less we allow access to the divine. We keep strengthening our firewalls so as to avoid any viewpoint that challenges our mindset. The divine has benevolently allowed the control over the firewall settings to the individual. Sometimes, He takes over the control and we call that destruction and disaster failing to realize that it is the beginning of new life. Almost all of us keep holding on to these firewalls unable to realize that holding on to the firewalls is the play of Maya using our thoughts as its tool. Spiritual growth demands that we see our thoughts from a distance and that requires complete turning off of the firewalls. However, I am not sure how we gather the courage to turn off the firewalls completely while being in the domain of mind. It's not easy for the mind to surrender and it's not easy for us to move away from the grip of the mind. 


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