Dashlakshan Parva Day 3: Straightforwardness

The first was forgiveness day, the second was humility day. Today is the third day of Dashlakshan parva. It is the day of being straightforward and avoiding crookedness / hypocrisy / deception (mayachari / kapat) in our intentions, thoughts and acts.

Arjarva or straightforwardness implies the psychic state without crookedness i.e. harmony in our intentions, verbal and physical acts. Let us understand the impact of straightforwardness from possible four outcomes of our acts:

*only you know and externally decided by the courts/community/sufferer

Activities at point 1 are to be most preferred while activities at point 4 must be avoided. Results of activities at point 3 are known sooner than you know (reprimand from the person you are performing) while activity at point 2 is difficult to assess and shows the immaturity of the person performing the act. In short, one should be straightforward in his actions, preferably as indicated at point 1 above. To avoid point 2, one needs training and guidance in performing verbal and physical activities. The one who practices straightforwardness is always liked, while one who practices point 4 is never able to make a community of friends/ family.

To achieve our worldly goal, we have to interact with people in the form of a guru, family, colleagues and seniors, customers and suppliers, government, friends and so on to gain their patronage/support. They soon know your personality and either leave you as a result of your practicing points 3 and 4 or become your loyal friends as a result of your actions as per points 1 and 2 and result in enhancing your happiness.

Let us now see how it is practiced in different life situations:

In the family: To be honest with other members of the family by appreciating their good points and gently discussing their weak points. To be open and accommodating rather than bossing and make others hide their true opinion on an issue.

In School/college: Act honestly i.e. seek clarifications if a topic is not understood, rather than saying yes and not understanding it all. Be frank about yourself with your classroom friends.

Dealing with Society, government: Avoid points 3 and 4 above, else sooner you will be in trouble, e.g. Tax planning and not concealing facts is to be practised.

Lifestyle: We shall understand these through some examples:
The story of crying wolf which shows how a wolf crying for help even though he was not in need was finally killed when he was faced with real threat and nobody came to his rescue thinking of him to be deceptive. I eat things, meant for say wife or a specific family member, when nobody is looking. When asked I do not accept that I ate. Cunningness of crow. We avoid use of point 3 i.e. deceive to gain attention or desired results. In the profession, we practice wrong methods, like falsifying evidence by lawyers, doctor operating a patient for monetary reward by the enemy of the patient or a shopkeeper selling inferior products by packaging them nicely and his good behaviour and so on.

In the end, you are the best judge to take advantage of practicing simplicity / straightforwardness in your life. The most important thing to remember is that our intentions should always be good, no matter what the situation is with the mode of our actions chosen wisely. Being crooked creates a lot of pressure on us to plan our acts to hide our earlier instances. Our nature is to be straightforward and simple and that is happiness.