Tuesday, March 06, 2007

is selfishness a virtue?

Selfishness is based on a very strong power of discriminating self with the whole world. I always think in terms of me and distinguish myself from others and I am called selfish. Out of selfishness I always try to benefit myself and don't care about others.

Now imagine that I really discipline myself in attaining more selfishness. I become so selfish that I just indulge in myself and forget everything. The more selfish I become the more I forget others. A time would come when I loose that discriminating power just because it is all about me. I see myself everywhere, everything would be me and I would be everything!

Is it possible that there comes a time when it is all me and nothing else? Isn't it the ultimate realization as per non-dualistic Vedanta?

3 comments:

Siddharth said...

He he nice post...here's my attempt to decipher it based on the end point of happiness...

When I (font size=+infinity) have everything what is there to satiate my Infinite Selfishness? And I have the fear of losing whatever my greed has brought ME. I am not happy. This path has no end point...nothing eternal

The diametrically opposite way is of i(font size=-infinity) in which i have dissolved my ego and selfishness and there is an end point...enlightenment

What say?

disha said...

it shows how much u love urself. but not that u hate others. do u know the definition of selfish. Selfish is the person who don't let others live their life and not the one who live his/her life on his own and according to his/her own terms. And ofcourse u'll be selfish if u try to have control on the life of others and not just on ur life. And definitely u must have read the philosophy of vedanta but how about my philosophy of life?

Hari said...

Hey dude, just happened on your blog. I think its just the opposite. The attainment of enlightenment, and the theory of non-duality, is that you see yourself in everything else in the world around you. Hence, it does not matter whether it is about you or the next person, because you and the next person are part of the same creation. So it doesn't matter if you have 100 bucks or your enemy, because both of you are the same.

Hence, i would say that selflessness is the path to nirvana . That is, of course tempered by Dharma - you do what you have to do - even if it is selfish or evil. That's just my take :)