I have been a bit confused lately. Last
week I read the first two books of the Shiva Trilogy, Immortals of
Meluha and Secret of the Nagas. First of all , excellent books, perhaps the best I have read since Harry Potter, do read. In the book Lord Shiva has come to
destroy the evil, quite simple for the Mahadev except for one little
detail, he does not know what is evil. His definition keeps changing
with the people around him. This whole thing was causing a bit of a
turbulence in my head and what really hit the nail hard was when we
were asked in my class to classify some qualities into virtue and vice and I
realized that the definition of virtue and vice varies a lot from
person to person. So how does one decide? How does one define evil?
And more importantly how does one know which of the many definitions
of evil is true. Evil is anything that we believe is wrong or
immoral, but what happens when that belief itself changes. Does the
concept of evil change or we ourself go over to the evil side? Is the
concept of what is evil fixed and same since time immemorial or is it
dynamic, changing with the changing circumstances? Ravan is
considered evil but we all know that he was a great scholar,
Parshuram is not considered evil even though he was violent, is it
because Ravan went against Lord Ram who for us is an epitome of an
ideal man and Parshuram bowed down in front of Lord Shiva. Is here
our definition of evil not affected by what we consider not evil?
Evil is relative. What might be evil for me might not be evil for
you, so how does one say in absoluteness what is evil. How does one
classify what is virtue and what is vice. I don't think there is any
universal answer for all these questions, the only thing that we can
do is keep our minds and hearts open. Let the changing circumstances
change our beliefs if they can and most importantly not let our
definitions be changed by others. There is no black and white in this
world, there is only grey. So go ahead find your own shade and the truth about evil.
