Real and Unreal

As it has been clarified early, removal of maya is a dire necessity to enjoy ananda; we have to think of developing personal integrity. It has been a complaint made by every section in our society that those who occupy public positions are devoid of personal integrity. It is not that much easy to get a person of impeccable integrity, which has been treated as an essential qualification to a position of high social esteem. Personal integrity is nothing but to be consistent to oneself. Self-consistency can be attained when one is able to reduce the distance between deeds, words and mind. If there is rift between what is in mind and what one expresses through words, there must be an internal conflict (i.e. at such a point, a person conceals his mind and reveals something either contradictory to or absent in his own mind). Hence, it has to be concluded that a hypocrite always conceals the real and projects the unreal. This is nothing but expression of maya. And if there is a conflict between words and deeds then also the logical position would be the same because he who expresses something in words and either does something contradictory to the words or abstain to do the pregnant promises of the words, then he is committing the follies of maya. Every corrupt person is inconsistent to himself. He conceals the real and projects something unreal. This concealment and projection could be in social, political, religious and administrative contexts. So the corrupt practices can be occurred at any level when one refuses to be consistent with oneself in words, deeds and mind. What Advaita says is that there should be non-duality between mind, words and deeds. Such a state of non-duality alone will be able to guarantee a corruption free public life. Everyone thinks and demands a corruption free public life. But how is it possible to get a corruption-free public life without having personal integrity has not been discussed properly. It is not possible to have such a society without having individuals of personal integrity. The theory that a corruption-free society would be able to create corruption free individuals cannot be accepted as a concrete suggestion because the term society becomes an abstract entity in the absence of individuals. More over what is logically possible is to effect changes in one’s own life than to effect changes in the life patterns of others because what is at our direct control is our own life. As far as the lives of others are concerned, no one individual has direct control over them. So what can be done easily and practically is to effect changes in one’s own life. As Gandhiji has rightly put it “If there is numeral ‘1’, then all the zeros after it will get meaning.” So the primary condition to create a corruption-free society is to effect changes in one’s own life to keep up personal integrity by diminishing the distance between deeds and words and words and mind.