Way of The Seekers — Page 22
22 THE Every particle has the faculty to enlarge other particles and make them manifest. Its correlate is self-manifestation. Every particle has the capacity to become manifest and prominent. The sixth direction or pair of faculties is screening. Every particle has the faculty to screen another particle. The correlate of screening is the passive faculty of being screened, to accept another particle’s shadow, as it were. These pairs of faculties, present in the tiniest of material particles, provide the ultimate theoretical basis of human morals. A steady process of growth and composition takes place which in the case of man assumes the most amazing forms. As matter becomes compounded, more and more elements conglomerate and the resulting behavior becomes more variegated, more precise. Progressive change in the basis results in progressive change in behavior. As we look inversely at this change we find its manifestation becoming lower and lower and more and more limited. While these properties operate under mechanical natural laws, we can call their results good or bad–good or bad in relation to their functions. We cannot describe them as if they were moral qualities. Everything is either good or bad, in terms of its functional nature or efficiency and this grading applies in terms of the six pairs of basic faculties. Can the inter-behavioral modes of the six faculties be called moral? Let this stick drop on someone and hurt him. The person hurt will feel pain but will not blame the stick as ill-mannered or immoral. Similarly if a person chances to find a coin lying on the road, he would welcome the sight and be pleased. But he will not praise the coin for thus presenting itself to him. No credit attaches to the coin. In short, as long as the behavior of things is in accordance with natural laws, we can call it good or bad only in a limited sense, but we cannot treat it as moral. They are good or bad for our purpose, in terms of our needs. Often goodness or badness is just relative, from a particu-