The word definition is to be defined first. If you define the word definition correctly then you’ll come to realize that definition can never change, unless it is wrong. So what you should say is that if we wrongly define morality then we’ll observe it changing from place to place and situation to situation. But there is the if involved if we define wrongly. And that is why we can positively say that the concept of morality generally held by people is not correct.
Because under that concept this definition of morality seems to be changing. For instance, what is the definition of man, homo sapien let’s call it in scientific terminology. Now that definition would apply equally to the first man that ever came into being and would apply equally to the last man whoever he would be. And also it would apply equally to the African man and to the Australian man and to the aborigines and the most modern man and so on and so forth. So definition doesn’t change, it’s timeless and spaceless.
Questioner 1 – Now the subject goes to in a different direction, like this a man, a baby is born without head and then capitalist. A baby is born without head, what we call medically and then capitalist. Yes, that’s right. So he will not be a man. Of course he will be short of manhood to that degree. You can’t define him as man, you can call him a deficient man. Deficient in as much as he doesn’t fully confirm to the definition of mankind. So you will call him man because in whatever he has he fulfills the definition, he confirms to the definition. Whatever he does not have is lacking from that definition. So he will be a broken man.
You know if you define a cup of tea, a cup as such, in that definition some, if this holder is not necessary, at least the general shape and the general concept of tea cup would have to be defined, otherwise this definition will not mean anything. But it may be chipped off, may be broken and your definition may not apply later on, after some of it is removed fully, with the result that you will have to qualify your statement by saying that this is a half a cup of tea, or one third a cup of tea. But definition will not change.
To include that headless being, you will not change the definition of homosexuals or man. You know you are asking a question, like somebody who went to for a, what do you call, you know, what they call, no, no, no, tattoo. Somebody went for tattooing and he asked the person who tattooed, to tattoo the figure of a lion. So he said, all right. When he started pricking, he felt pain, he said, no, look here, what are you doing now? He said, I am making the head of the lion, no, no, not head, the ears of the lion first. He said, can’t it be a lion without ears? He said, of course it can be, he said, make a lion without ears.
So then he started with eyes and he preferred to have an eyeless lion. Then he started tattooing his teeth, for instance, and fangs. He said, no, I don’t like a lion with fangs, so please omit it altogether. At the end, the tail was left. The whole of the lion had disappeared, but still it was a lion. So when the term of tail came, the term of tail came, he said, can’t there be a lion without tail? He said, of course there will be a lion, so to be with him. I would have a lion without a tail. So the whole of the lion disappeared, but it disappeared according to the definition of lion, piecemeal, one after the other.
So a definition can be demolished piecemeal, but it will not be changed for the sake of a half a lion or a tailless lion or a headless lion, the definition will remain exactly intact. The figure of that thing on which the definition is applied, that will be defective. The question actually which I once raised in the beginning is, in the individuality, morality one may define in a different way, in a society, he may practice in a different way, in a bigger community, then in a different way. But first define morality. In a war time, they forget altogether everything. No, but that is not morality, that is politics, that is missionality, the other things.
So first of all you must define morality, otherwise we will not be able to grip the question properly. But this is why we don’t find the definition anywhere. You don’t? We are completely lost to find the true definition of morality. Because there is no definition, so there is no morality? We see when step by step it is being changed and destroyed, higher we go. What is destroyed? Morality or the definition? Morality itself. Itself is destroyed, so there is no morality? They become completely immoral. Who becomes?
People who practice. But in religion, the morality remains intact because its definition does not change. This is why I said and emphasized the point that true concept of morality can only be found in religion, in relation to God. Because in morality there has to be an absoluteness, otherwise as you pose the problem, the morality, the concept of morality will go on changing from place to place and section to section, situation to situation. But if you want an absolute definition, which will hold good in every case, there has to be a reference point outside these situations, temporary situations. And that reference point can only be God.
Otherwise morality cannot be defined. Unless we have an outside reference point, which is not changeable. Like for the motions of stars and other heavenly bodies, you always have some fixed reference point which don’t change their positions. Like for the determination of north and south and right, east and west, you have a load star as a reference point. Or the magnetic field for instance. So there has to be an outside reference point for things which are moving or changeable. Only with reference to that point one can determine the true position and the correct value of certain things.
And morality also falls into that category. Without being referred to an outside superhuman being, to whom we are responsible and answerable equally as men, morality cannot be defined. Because then it will only be relative morality, like British morality and German morality, Nazi morality, fascist morality, communist morality, and so on and so forth.
