Vivekananda Mailing List-11/8/02

[Guest guest]

So it is with duty. The idea of duty varies much among different

nations. In one country, if a man does not do certain things, people

will say he has acted wrongly; while if he does those very things in

another country, people will say that he did not act rightly — and yet

we know that there must be some universal idea of duty. In the same

way, one class of society thinks that certain things are among its

duty, while another class thinks quite the opposite and would be

horrified if it had to do those things. Two ways are left open to us —

the way of the ignorant, who think that there is only one way to truth

and that all the rest are wrong, and the way of the wise, who admit

that, according to our mental constitution or the different planes of

existence in which we are, duty and morality may vary. The important

thing is to know that there are gradations of duty and of morality —

that the duty of one state of life, in one set of circumstances, will

not and cannot be that of another.