This article was written by Scr, a regular contributor to the e-ostadelahi website. It gives an account of what ethical practice can be like for those who seek to progress on the path of perfection. The two everyday scenarios presented here help provide insight into our actions and thoughts. Whether we share the author’s conclusions or not, his approach is in our opinion worthy of interest; it is an introspective self-analysis that results in an awareness of one’s emotions—a stepping stone toward ethical readjustments of our thoughts and behaviour.

Scene 1

I was on the subway heading to work, as on any other day—a part of my daily routine that is on the whole not unpleasant. A couple of teenagers got on the train. They were a bit noisy but nothing to get alarmed about. They were obviously not from a posh neighborhood, quite the opposite. After an initial gut reaction of what I hate to admit was fear, I found myself overwhelmed with a feeling of contempt towards them. How did this happen? I am not a racist. I know we are all human beings made of the same substance, brought forth from the same source. Then what? How did these feelings sneak up on me?

The first factor was fear, then a reaction that could easily be attributed to the alpha male in me—I compared myself to them and then felt contempt, heightened by the prevailing prejudices against this youth in society and the media. Such prejudices have become so commonplace that they can contaminate you without you even noticing. Of course, on that morning, these kids’ behaviour was rather obnoxious. One of them set the volume so high on his cell phone that everyone in that car had to hear his music. Another bragged about being able to beat someone up… Could this justify the contempt I felt? Of course not. My contempt was a form of violence directed to those it targeted and was poison for my soul. What was I to do?

Maybe I should have started by mentally separating the actions and the persons, by remembering the inherent dignity of all human beings, the divine spark within each and every one of them. Then there was also context. Obviously listening to music on the subway can be disrupting, but it isn’t particularly threatening—teenagers will be teenagers. Bragging about being able to intimidate someone with threats of violence isn’t particularly nice either. But again, all it was, was a teenager showing off in front of his friends. As for my fear, it was not legitimate. There was no real danger. And even if there had been—I am in the hands of God. Generalisations are dangerous. These kids were like any others, like myself at their age. How could I forget so fast? And how many of these kids have admirable qualities that I could actually learn from?

Are we even aware of the pain we can inflict when we glance at someone with contempt? A friend once told me about an experience that marked him when he was young. He was hanging around a luxury department store with some friends, inadvertently upsetting the sales people. One of them called the manager who addressed the teenage boys with such contempt that my friend felt hurt and angry for years thereafter. The indignation he felt that day led him to commit a number of more or less serious offences for the next ten years.

Scene 2

This experience dates back to when I was a PhD student working on my thesis. I had started off feeling relatively at ease, but as years passed, due to pressure and stress, I had become more high strung and more inclined to negative emotions. I did my undergraduate studies at a state college, while others in my program went to ivy-league schools. One day, two fellow PhD students from one of those ivy-league universities, both younger than myself, were talking about their work. From what I heard they were referring to theoretical tools that I had never had the opportunity to use. A negative emotion not unlike jealousy or resentment crept over me. Because of their physical appearance and behavior I categorized them as “the arrogant ivy-league type”. The envious feeling toward their theoretical knowledge was silly because not having been exposed to these tools had in fact enabled me to develop a very different approach that proved also valuable. As to their being younger, well, good for them! We each have our own paths. My resentment toward the fact that they came from the best universities was plain nauseating. It was harmful both to me and to them. It may well have been the case that what I had picked up on was a sort of smugness that they had developed as a result of their training in such prestigious universities, but even so, who was I to judge them for it? They were God’s creatures just as I was, with the same inherent dignity, and they deserved my respect and kindness. My reaction to them was all the more reprehensible since they had always been friendly to me and certainly had many qualities. Following this incident, I made deliberate efforts to be kind to them, and was able to notice some positive effects.

Conclusions

The brief analysis of these two incidents from my everyday life has led me to become aware that prejudices—whether toward young people from disadvantaged neighborhoods, or toward privileged students from ivy-league colleges—can affect people with the best intentions; they can insidiously pry their way into our thoughts and feelings and negatively color the vision we have of the world and of people.

There are, however, ways to avoid these traps. For me, one was to remind myself that all human beings are created from the same source, that all have inherent dignity within them and deserve respect and kindness. Of course the idea is not to become naïvely optimistic about people. People’s actions can be harmful and are in that respect reprehensible. It is important to be able to recognise these actions as such without judging the person committing them. Indeed, it is not for us to judge as it is neither our role nor in our capacity. While certain groups of people might choose unethical codes it is still the actions and not the people that must be judged. Hasty generalizations must be avoided too, even as we are tempted to make them under the influence of our environment and our emotions. Finally, we know for a fact that different environments can favor the development of different faults or qualities. Well, this diversity of environments, which enables us to be confronted to a host of different scenarios and situations, is inseparable from the very process of moral and spiritual perfection!

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