‘RIGHT’, IS a word we contend with all our lives. During childhood our parents tell us what is right. In school our teachers teach us. In the university, we get new ideas about it. During employment, we learn still more on it. On marriage and settling in life, we continue to discover new meanings of the word. Personally, we may prefer what is right and what is not, but collectively, we must have a clear view of it, lest our society runs into a jungle raj.

And indeed, right and wrong is defined for us in our religious books and in our Constitutions. The religious tenets define what is right morally and the constitutional statutes, legally. The religious tenets may not be binding on us, but the constitutional statutes are.

However, more than the provisions in the religion, books and the constitutions, it is spirituality, which truly defines what is right for us. Spirituality, for the newcomers, is not about any religion but the search for truth. Morality, as contained in the religions, flows from it. Do the rights, mentioned in our Constitution, also go with spirituality? Constitution provides us fundamental rights to life, liberty, and security. These rights may be subdivided into two: relating to our body and relating to our mind.

The rights relating to the body are: right to protection, social security, equality, movement, property, marriage, etc. These rights go well with spirituality because only a safe and secure person can practice meditation and seek the truth. The rights relating to mind are: freedom of thought, belief, and opinion and its expression through speech, writing, etc. In a way it is to give a free rein to our mind. This freedom however does not go with spiritually, and with materiality either.  

Human mind is a double-edged weapon. It can give us comforts of life, and it can destroy life also. We are already on the brink when a flash point in nuclear war would annihilate all life. At a personal level also, we see the mind playing distraught often. Mind, therefore, cannot be trusted, to give it freedom.

One could say that man can use reason to ensure sanity of mind, and thereby justify freedom for it. However, do we not see reason decimating reason in everyday life? The politicians give opposing reasons contesting the same issues. The judiciary often arrives at conflicting views using reason. Even the killers give reasons justifying killings. Reason, therefore, does not clear the mind and act in the best interest of the society. The freedom of thought therefore, could be dangerous to the society.

From the point of view of spiritualism, the freedom of thought is even more worrisome. Mind is the biggest obstacle in spiritual attainment. A practitioner of meditation arrives in a state of ‘no mind’ when the truth dawns upon him/her. An enlightened person arrives in pure and compassionate mind. Only he/she is in a position to say what is right for the society.