The Crane Questionnaire 5 : Do you Virtue Signal?

The mystical Crane sends another web of questions down Yudhishthira’s way to test his mettle.

Crane asks — Where does religion reside, where does Fame, where does Happiness take refuge and where does Heaven?

Yudhishthira answers — Religion resides where there is liberality, Fame stays if there is Charity, Happiness remains if there’s Good behavior and where is Truth there is Heaven.

Liberal from the mind, not for Political Correctness

The 1st question regarding religion is not about the Religion we understand. In a meta sense, our religion is a big brother of rituals and practices which again is nothing but behaviors and patterns. True liberalism supports these behaviors even when it is in a nascent state. When I say true liberalism it means or leans more towards empirical than a social media political correct way. Where there is true liberalism, a minority never feels like a minority and a diversity count of even 1 percent also gets their fair share of value. That’s how modern Religions should be, liberal and empirical.

Virtue signaling is our commonest Vice

This line from JBP’s 12 Rules for Life sums up virtue signaling quite well. JBP talks about Aristotle’s Nicomachean ethics which defines virtue as the “behavior that are most conducive to life”. Yudhishthira talks about exact same thing. Charity, Good behavior enable Happiness & Positive momentum. However as 1 droplet of oil screws up the whole glass of water there is a fine line between Good behavior and that Good behavior becoming Poison(through boasting or not done anonymously/selflessly)

Absolute Truth vs Mundane Truth

Vedic philosophy puts Truth on a high pedestal. There are different layers to it. Dr. David Frawley writes about these in his article Satya and the Eternal Truth. There is a mundane day to day truth which is needed for the functioning of the world. However there is an eternal truth. It trumps logic, science, history, philosophy etc. and many-a-times alarms people and makes them awkward. However that’s the only constant and wherever there is Truth there is Heaven.

So Heaven is Here on Earth. Not in some imaginary post death unicorn land. We need to create our own heaven in this world.