Philosophy Time | Article Number 01 | What are 'Good deeds' and 'Bad deeds' ?

 May 17, 2024 

I am from Rajasthan. A state whose North-East part holds the greenery, and the farmlands, and the South-East part holds the mountain range and rivers.

The Western part of Rajasthan holds the Great Indian Desert, Thar Desert. 

I belong to the mid-western part of the Rajasthan.

Every year, the season of summer always creates a new record in temperature. 

Every household tries its best to beat this summer by watering the plants and planting the trees. In short by taking care of nature's natural heat protectors. 

People, in almost all households, will put a mud pot containing water for the birds.

Many months ago, I stumbled upon a reel which showed a wife and her daughter of a Viceroy in Vietnam. They were throwing coins at some people in Vietnam who were, at that time, very poor or that they had to work hard to earn a meal for a day. 

The duo of mother and daughter were seen smiling and even laughing at the eagerness of those children(whom they conquered) to pick up the coins thrown by them on the ground. 

Here's the video = The Video

There was a comment saying, "And the sad part is that they are thinking that they are doing something good"

This comment changed my whole perspective about the Good and the Bad deeds.

We, the people of Bharat, as Sanatanis have many Paap (Bad deeds) and Puniyah(Good deeds) that we are very clear about.

For example, giving tortillas to Cows, dogs, etc. Providing them water, like we do for the birds. Taking care of the trees in a way of watering them and planting them. And many more kinds of works that would help us in the accumulation of Puniyah(Good deeds).

The wife and daughter of the Viceroy were also thinking that they had accumulated some good deeds that would benefit them in this or in the afterlife. 

If we count feeding the animals as a good deed then that is because, we, in the very first place, made their life worse in terms of getting their food direct from Mother Nature.

There is no 'Good deed' in keeping water pots for the birds because we took the Natural water sources from those birds in the very first place.

" The deeds, which are considered 'Good' by the society had been uprooted from the nature by the society."   

How come we can think of quenching someone's thirst, irrespective of whether Human or animal, as a good deed when it is 'us' who snatched the Natural thirst-quenching sources from them!

The same can be applied to feeding the animals as well as to donation.

First, we 'Deprived' them, and then we give them(in a very subtle form) what we deprived them 'of' and call it a 'Good Deed'.

If there was any Index of Stupidity(of all the life forms), we, humans, would have been found at the extreme ends of the List.