Falsehood Prospers
By Karmayogi
There are people who exclaim, “God is great. He has never left me
unprotected. I cannot survive without such divine protection. At the
time of inspection, 70 p.c. of my work was unfinished. I would have been
undone if the inspecting officers had ever come my way. The point is
none of them came to my section.” These people go scot-free and they
gloat over it. There are others who leave 1 p.c. of their work half
finished. Their experience is different. They say, “I don’t know what it
is. Any inspecting authority never fails to visit my section. He goes
straight to the file left unfinished, and every time I am the
inescapable victim. It is my fate.”
Life is neutral. It progresses through good as well as evil, says Sri
Aurobindo. A common saying is that when quarrels end, justice emerges.
Good is a shining part, but it is a part. Life is bigger than good or
evil. Life is a whole. It needs good as well as evil for it to be
complete. If water supply is essential, the sewage system is equally
essential. One completes the other. We like the good part, not the bad
one. Life will not be complete in the absence of evil or falsehood. That
is the character of human life. When it is complete, it ceases to be
human life. It becomes higher life. The fine play that is performed on
stage is made possible by the green room that is clumsy and disorderly
behind, which cannot be exhibited.
The progress of an honest man lies in his honest work being perfect.
That is why life picks at his imperfections. If a false man prospers, he
prospers in falsehood at its level. Such false people are often
enormously successful at a low level of life, such as a vakil’s clerk, a
lorry broker, etc. His own compeers who have shunned falsehood rise high
in life, inconceivable to the low successful man. V. P. Menon, the
architect of united India, the right hand man of Sardar Patel, was known
as a ‘fourth form graduate’. Lord Mounbatten said of him, “Menon has
never misled me.” He was virtually on the streets and started his life
with Rs. 15 lent by a generous unknown man. Such is the progress that is
in store for TRUTH. He is meant to progress in truth. If one’s being
still needs the experience of falsehood, falsehood protects him from
being caught. It is a matter of choice. India is passing through a phase
where FALSEHOOD rules. Her leaders are keeping India at the 134th level
in the scale of national prosperity.