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Main Index
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| | | Book Name: The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 10 | Previous Next | |
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phenomenon. According to Immanuel Kant, brahmacharya is immoral -- more immoral than stealing, more immoral than dishonesty, more immoral than breaking your promise, more immoral than anything.
And I agree with Immanuel Kant, rather than with the whole Indian tradition. The criterion is this: you should think what will be the result if the principle is followed by everybody. It will be suicidal -- it will be global suicide. There will be nobody left to be celibate anymore.
And the same is true about the so-called old escapist sannyas -- renunciation; that too is immoral. If everybody follows the escapist idea and drops out and escapes to the Himalayas, the whole humanity will die.
In fact, your so-called mahatmas and saints live because you are in the world and you go on supporting them. If you are not in the world -- if you are also in the Himalayas, following your saints and mahatmas -- they will be at a loss. Who will feed them? Who will support them? They will have to commit suicide with their followers -- and the Himalayas is a really beautiful site if you want to commit suicide, the best place in the world. If you could not live beautifully, at least you can die in a beautiful place. Your mahatmas are supported by the worldly people -- and still they go on condemning the world. It is an immoral act. Escapism is an immoral act.
I agree with Immanuel Kant; his criterion has something really valuable about it.
Pleasure means either the pleasure of the tongue, food -- which is very childish -- or the pleasure of sex, which is also very childish because you are not just the body, you are more than that.
Rise from pleasures to happiness. Happiness is psychological, pleasure is physiological. Listening to great music or reading great poetry or watching a sunset or just enjoying a morning walk and the wind passing through the pines and the music that it creates, the sound of running water -- it thrills you. Although it comes through the body, it reaches deeper -- deeper than food or sex. It is more fulfilling. But that, too, is not the end because anything that is psychological is bound to be momentary.
Beyond happiness
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