Tough Questions....

Unusual choice of photo! But a view from my hotel apartment
where I would stand and stare out pondering over such questions.

A lot of times in the life we are confronted with tough questions which don't necessarily seem to have easy answers. We will try to explore some of these questions and see if we can get some answers:

Question 1: Why should I do the right thing when I see that everyone around me is doing wrong things and while still prospering?
Thoughts:
This is probably a very common situation that most of us run into every now and then. When I come across people who are dishonest, who lie, cheat at almost every opportunity they get and seem to have no ethics or moral values, and top of everything are prospering, I ask myself the question- Why should I be good? Why should I still be sticking to my principle and values though I am not getting any immediate benefit out of them? Should I do the right thing hoping that wrong doers will be punished and I will be rewarded in some form, be it at a later stage? Or should I too give up my values for immediate gain and no apparent harm? Of course the opporutunity is lucrative. Here it gets extremely challenging to hold on to things that you consider are right.
Now we all know that we should still do the right thing. But why??
Well, my opinion on this is that we are all human beings, we all live in a society. Anything and everything we do as individuals will have an impact on society, no matter how big or small. If we all do the wrong things, keep on doing the wrong things, never care about what is right or wrong, the society would eventually be inhabitable. The social order would simply collapse and no one will be able to live in such a society. Imagine living in a society where you feel that you are unsafe at home for fear of being burgled, unsafe on road for fear of being run over and unsafe while shopping for fear of being ripped off. Imagine being unsafe everywhere and all the times. Such will be the state of society if we as individuals don't stop doing the wrong thing.
Moreover as humans, we don't achieve our happiness merely by means of fulfilling our desires. We have a strong desire to maintain a certain balance and live our lives according to a belief system (not necessarily religious and it could radically differ from person to person). Ultimately we need our desires to be coherent with our belief system to be able to experience happiness in fulfilment of our desires.
So these I think are some of the reasons why should we do the right thing.

The next question immediately pops up. What difference it makes if just I do the right thing? It won't make any difference. Agreed. It won't probably make an immediate impact. But only at first. Gradually and eventually the goodness will get noticed. People who despised you or ignored you will soon start following you. All you need is the conviction to carry on.

  

Question 2: Now, what is the right thing? Something that is right for one person, might be wrong for the other person. If I am a soldier and fighting for my country, I am doing the right thing but still killing someone (be it the enemy) is not the right thing. So what is the right thing here?
Thoughts:
Now this is where the things will start to get tricky. Let's say in 90% of the cases its pretty evident so as what is the right thing. Its the remaining 10% bit which is usually tricky.
To understand what is The Right Thing, we will explore the concept of Dharma from Hindu mythology. According to Hinduism, there are four aims of human life. These are:

1. Kama
2. Artha
3. Dharma
4. Moksha

In broad terms, Kama refers to the desire in all of us, Artha to the material well-being, Dharma to the righteousness and Moksha to the salvation and liberation. Now the human life should strive to fulfill all these 4 aims in balanced proportions and imbalance occurs when one or two are pursued while ignoring others. I think most of us would have ample understanding about pursuing our pleasures (kama) and material goals (arth). I think we will spare Moksha for some other time as none of us probably ready to renounce our lives and pursue salvation. While we are still living a material life, Dharma, which is all about doing The Right Thing, gets most neglected of all these four tenets and hence causing a critical imbalance in the overall society.
Now coming back to our original question: What is The Right Thing. If Dharma is the one that educates us about righteousness, is Dharma documented somewhere? Is there an authoritative text on Dharma? Are there any practical guidelines that we can follow in our day to day lives?
Well as one would expect, we turn to our religions looking for an answer so as what is Dharma. But as it turns out, our world is already in a dismal state because of religious conflicts. Sacred texts from different religions and even within the same religion are often contradictory. Its really hard to find a single authoritative text that is compatible with our rational thinking. Moreover, I personally think that since the times during when the religious texts were written, things have moved on. A lot of things which were probably right according to those times would seem totally ridiculous in today's world.
So now if our mind is unable to decide and religion too is unable to offer a satisfactory answer, what do we do.
I think a viable solution is look into your conscience. Even in the most difficult of situations if we get in touch with our conscience and pick the option in which our conscience is not burdened, I think we will land in the right spot. Now be it picking up the lesser of two evil alternatives or looking at the net result of goodness that our actions will bear, the decision picked up by our conscience will ultimately help us achieve the satisfaction of the mind and hence not cause any ongoing unrest.
Unfortunately we don't live in a perfect world and many a times we are faced with decisions that will bring about unhappiness to at least some people. As long as we are aware of our actions and take accountability for the results, our conscience will remain clear and that will be the right thing!!