Means vs. Ends 4

By Shantanu -
At the same time Mahabharata tells us one simple thing - the course of virtue is not so straight forward as some people think. There are many twists and turns. It narrates a story about a certain Brahmana called Kaushik who was extremely foolish but wanted to stay on the course of truth. While he was resting by the roadside, a few persons came running in fear for their lives and hid behind a bush. Shortly a gang of robbers came with the intention of killing those innocent victims and demanded the information from Kaushik about their whereabouts. The foolish Brahmana, knowing the great perils that these innocent guys face, gave away the information to stick to his vow of truthfulness.

Now truthfulness is considered as a great virtue, but what do you think happened to those guys? They were all butchered. And what do you think happened to Kaushik? Despite being truthful he was sunk into the deepest hell. So what would the moralists say? Obviously neither the ends, nor the means were justified here, despite the perpetrator being on the “right” side.

Therefore what is virtuous and righteous is not always discernable easily. This was also the response of Yudhisthira to a question put to him by the Yaksha. Yudhisthira said that there is a lot of debate among wise men for identifying the right path under various circumstances, but no one is certain. There he, being very wise, also specifies the way out for ordinary folks. Since we cannot easily discern between right and wrong and good and evil, we should do the simple thing, follow the great men.

Now who are these great men whom we should follow? Suffice to say that the great men are those who through their selfless acts and sacrifices have only worked for the welfare of people. They may be great teachers, prophets and avatars who have spent considerable effort in guiding people on the path of virtue. Whatever means that they have adopted for that purpose need not always be virtuous from the standpoint of morality, but the ends are always so, and therefore they are imitable. Even in Bhagavat Gita Lord Krishna says that whatever great men do, ordinary folks follow them and therefore there lies a great burden on these universal teachers to lead a way of life that can be emulated by many in years to come. That’s what Rama, Krishna, Jesus, Budhha, Sri Chaitanya, Ramakrishna, Shankar, Vivekananda and many other great saints and souls have done and continue to do.

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