Niranjan

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Moral Desert

What do we deserve? As individuals, as families, as nations and as humanity. Does what you do determine what you get? The karma of things. 

We define Integrity by asking people to do stuff the way they do when no one is looking. We define Morality by asking to actions be done in a socially accepted good way. The concept of doing good to benefit self is a concept of greed. Doing good in this life time to benefit in the next is extending this logic over an inadmissible timeline. 

Gita discusses this with the token tag of doing karma without expecting any benefits. Three ways inspire any act: the goodness, the evil and the ego. 

Goodness for the sake of being good and not in any expectation will lead to what we deserve? Or the knowledge of gaining what we deserve, or the knowledge of not wanting to gain what we deserve drives the actions? 

The recent series The Good Place, discusses this in a fun way. While the central character was selfish and ego centric, there are other ways to be deserving of The Bad Place. The Indecisiveness, The Benefit Seeking and non chalance. The first and last are not deserving a bad place but they dont deserve the good place either. And entitlement is as much a sin as self-centeredness. 

Vice is the sweeter. But the happiness that arises out of virtue lets us be on the right path. No one deserves a bad place forever. And no one can be in the good place forever.