The GOOD Man
By Karmayogi
A good person is born good. It is
his swabhava. By a good upbringing many people remain good. When people
suddenly come into wealth, the good in them often comes to the surface. Success,
wealth, education, etc. have been known to bring out the innate good in man. A
man is GOOD if he is treated as a good man. You are how you are treated.
In Shaw’s Pygmalion, Prof. Higgins supported by Col. Pickering makes the flower
girl Eliza appear as a duchess. That was the power of phonetics and training.
On the day she successfully completed it, she broke down and quarrelled with
the Professor for the unpardonable neglect she had suffered at his hands. Higgins
protested, saying, ‘I have made you a lady’.
The illiterate Eliza replied to the learned Professor, ”One does not become a
lady learning the rules of the game. The Colonel treated me as a lady. He calls
me ‘Miss Doolittle’. He won’t take off his socks in my presence. It is he who
made me behave as a lady, and not all your phonetics.”
This is a powerful truth of life. When you see ONLY the good side of a man and
refuse to see the other side, you will witness that he begins to behave like a
good man. Persisting in your attitude, there is a good chance of his becoming a
good man. It is a great result, which may issue out of your kindly attitude
towards him. Surely, he will be good towards you. If your own innate goodness
is real, really spiritual, his changing into a good person has a greater
chance. To be good in the society is something anyone can do. It must be done.
To be innately GOOD in one’s swabhava is something one is born with.
Should such a person recognise his inner darkness and want to be good, he will
find life, our rituals, stotras, slokas, pujas, mantras, japas, etc. are
powerless to achieve it. He must take to tapas. If only his desire to change is
true, his invoking the Spirit can launch him on that path. Even here, one
strong invocation totally dissolves the evil in him. That is possible. But most
people like their previous personality. One thought is enough to call it back.
A Tamil proverb speaks of man calling back the evil being to visit him at least
once. To be GOOD and pleasant to others is a civilised privilege. We must hasten
to exercise that right.