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brahman
30 May 2012, 01:25 AM
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Every man at every time makes effort in every way

Aiming at his self-happiness; therefore in this world

Know faith as one; understanding thus,

Shunning evil, the inner self into calmness merge.








If we should look at men anywhere in the world, as they pass their lives in their normal activities, and observe them for any length of time, examining their actions in relation to their life-motives, we shall be able to make an over-all generalization which may be said to be the master-motive regulating human conduct in the most general terms.

No one will be seen to be doing anything with pain or unhappiness as the object in view. Even in austerities that may appear in the form of self-inflected suffering, the regulating motive-principle will be Happiness, as perhaps distinct from mere pleasure. All humanity in this sense can be said to seek the supreme felicity implied in Happiness with a capital ‘H’.

If this generalization is correct, we arrive at the notion that Happiness of oneself, as the basic motive force of all human striving hereunder, for all time and anywhere. Happiness, in other words, refers to a supreme human value in whose light all other motives are only secondary considerations or particular instances. Happiness as the aim of man gives unity to human purpose and brings all religions, faiths or creeds under its single sway.

If this verity should become properly understood by followers of different religions, we would be able to arrive at one single value common to all faiths or religions whatsoever, past, present, or possible in the future, in any part of the world. Such a view must imply also its most important corollary that would exclude any possibility of saying that one religion differs fundamentally from another.

The ”one faith” or “One Religion” that is the dear dream of every religionist to see established in this world, can thus become easy of realization when approached in the way of the wise. Thus, much bloodshed in the name of religious rivalry could be avoided at least in the future.

The Guru, not only presents here the happy prospect of “One religion” for all mankind in a scientific or public sense, but, more pointedly than that, asks each man to adopt this attitude so that he could find peace of mind for himself and attain the goal of happiness. The “One Religion” of mankind would thus follow as night the day, or as a natural corollary to the common human goal of Happiness as the highest of unitive human values.



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Guru Nataraj interpreting the 49th verse of ‘One Hundred Verses of Self Instruction’, originally written by Naryana Guru as ‘Atmopadesha Shatakam-’

ZarryT
30 May 2012, 04:05 AM
the argument presented here is most similar to Aristotle's argument for Eudaimonia as the ultimate good.


For Aristotle, there must be one chief good toward which all other goods aim. He identifies this chief good with Eudaimonia.

He further identifies Eudaimonia with divine contemplation; an activity of philosophical thought which surpasses notions of right and wrong, good and evil - since good and evil are concerning virtue, and virtue is not necessary nor sufficient for divine contemplation.


You might enjoy reading the Nicomachean ethics if you haven't already done so.

brahman
30 May 2012, 06:35 AM
the argument presented here is most similar to Aristotle's argument for Eudaimonia as the ultimate good.

You might enjoy reading the Nicomachean ethics if you haven't already done so.






Dear ZarryT, you Identified it very well.

same author writes in another instance :

......This way of confronting the evil which otherwise puzzles theologians and philosophers equally, is the prerogative of the dialectical, as against the merely rational approach. Steeped in scientific and unilateral rationalism, modern philosophers in the west have forfeited their more ancient heritage of wisdom. In what has been called Nicomachean ethics of Aristotle (named after Nicomachus, father of classical philosophers of Greece), the west had beginning of this way looking at moral problems. Rationalism, as with Voltaire, found no explanation for evil, and suggested no remedy that took man beyond good and evil. Theologies retained God who could punish and excuse sin thus help man to transcend evil, but the roots of theology in the reasoning faculty of man were over covered by myth or by pseudo-science. The identification of one’s own best interest (Termed Self- Happiness in the OP) with that of one’s neighbour, who, in principle, represents one’s own dialectical counterpart among human beings, with whom one comes into daily relationships, is the secret and time-honoured way of peace on earth and good-will to all mankind. This is the philosophical basis of human ethics as directly derived from wisdom through self-realization. The fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man contain the same ethical law. Guru Nataraj.

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