Copyright 2008 SOUL Research Institute
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Nobility is purposeful and unconditional abstinence, which manifests as deliberately shying away from all wrongdoing under all circumstances, including ethically and morally challenging situations and dilemmas such as having to kill someone in self defense or having to lie to save someone's life.
When we develop nobility, we become increasingly intuitive, and creative, and learn to handle most challenging situations. We begin to understand that in reality, there are no dilemmas, only artificial difficulties. We begin to keep our minds open to all possibilities instead of simply assuming that there are no options but to kill or to lie in some situations.
Nobility is the highest degree of courageous intention and greatest will.
The courage required for purposeful abstinence from wrongdoing (such as killing or lying) cannot be matched by any amount of courage required for worldly achievement.
Refraining from fighting for any cause—even the cause of justice—is an example of a noble action. Tremendous bravery and courage is needed.
We cannot fight a cause without bravery and courage. That is true. But the degree of bravery and courage we require to refrain from fighting is significantly greater. It is easy to be brave and fight another person who is unjust. Self-defense is even protected by law. However, in most cases fighting is driven by the emotions of anger and fear, which are rooted in ego. A worldly person cannot fight an unjust person without feeling angry or restless. Even if the fight is won from a physical, monetary, or social perspective, it is never won from a spiritual perspective because of the mental impurities caused by the fight. Therefore, for a spiritual seeker, such victories are a loss.
Whenever the ego is involved, no real victory is possible.
Only a noble person can arouse enough bravery and courage to refrain from fighting, because the ego desperately wants to fight. The ego cannot tolerate injustice. It wants fairness and recognition. By purposefully abstaining from doing what the ego wants, the noble person does not let the ego have its way. Overriding the ego’s wishes requires courage. Therefore, refraining from fighting is possible only for the noble ones who, in my opinion, are greater than the greatest warriors.
bliss
SOUL RESEARCH INSTITUTE NEWSLETTER, OCTOBER, 2009
NOBILITY
It is not at all easy to face someone who is inflicting pain without fighting back. It also requires tremendous bravery to endure physical pain without fighting back. It needs nobility to maintain composure and compassion while being mistreated or mishandled by others.
Noble ones neither fight nor give up. They serve.
When we fight, it is always us versus another person or us versus some organization. When we serve, this is not the case. We simply serve a cause or a principle. For example, if you are living in a city where the municipality is corrupt and you want to do something about it, instead of fighting directly with the municipality or with corrupt officials, simply serve the cause of anti-corruption by writing articles in the newspaper, conducting seminars, arousing grassroots activism, developing social awareness, taking part in lobbying for anti-corruption legislation, and so on. In this way, you avoid directly fighting with specific individuals and there is much less opportunity for the development of anger, hatred, animosity, and so on.
In this way, the ills of the world can be removed: by not directly fighting another person but by serving the cause for one and all.
In order to respond in this manner, first we have to develop the four elements of love: loving-kindness, compassion, gladness, and equanimity to some extent. Then we have to arouse nobility in situations where we must refrain from wrongdoing. In this way, we become fit to serve the world. After we train ourselves in loving-kindness, compassion, gladness, and equanimity and we train ourselves to refrain from wrongdoing by speech, action, and vocation only then we should serve for the deliverance of all beings.
Understanding love is a good beginning, if your goal is to develop nobility. (Pl click on the link below)
