Without duty, the individual totters and falls before the first puff of adversity, or temptation; whereas inspired by it, the weakest becomes strong and courageous, writes MEERA S. SASHITAL.
Duty is a thing which is due and which we owe to every person we come across in our lives. It is an obligation a debt – which we can discharge only by voluntary effort and firm action in the affairs of our lives.
Like charity which begins at home, Duty also starts only from home where parents owe duty towards their children and children owe their duty towards their parents. Likewise, there are the respective duties of husbands and wives, masters and servants. Again, outside home we have men and women who owe to each other duties as friends or neighbours, then between employers and employed or government and people. Thus duty covers all our lives from the moment we enter into it until our exit from it – duty to superiors duty to subordinates, duty to equals and finally duty to God.
Sense of duty is the main part of character. Without it, the individual totters and falls before the first puff of adversity, or temptation; whereas inspired by it, the weakest becomes strong and courageous. “Duty,” says Mrs. Jameson, “is the cement which binds the whole moral edifice together; without which all power, goodness, intellect, truth, happiness, love itself, can have no permanence; but all the fabric of existence crumbles away from under us, and leaves us at last sitting in the midst of a ruin, astonished at our own desolation.”
Duty is based upon a sense of justice – justice inspired by love, which is the most perfect form of goodness. Duty is not a sentiment, but a principle pervading our lives and it exhibits itself in our conduct and in our acts, which are mainly determined by man’s conscience and freewill.
Our conscience plays a great part in performing our duties. In doing our duties, conscience regulates and influences our actions without which we may possibly go astray. Conscience is the moral governor of the heart – governor of right action, of right thought, of right faith, of right life and only through its dominating influence can our character be fully developed.
Conscience guides one to do the right action or the right duty. If one has failed in doing one’s duty, his conscience will continue to prick him and the guilt feeling will always remain. To abide by the right action and follow his right course of duty, will power is also needed. The will is free to choose between the right course and the wrong course.
If the sense of duty is strong and the course of action or duty is clear, the courageous, upheld by the conscience, will enable the person to bravely accomplish his purpose in the face of all opposition and difficulty. In case he fails in his purpose, at least he will have the satisfaction that it has been in the cause of duty.
Men of principles often sacrifice all that they esteem and love rather than fail in their duty. St. Paul inspired by duty and faith, declared himself as not only “ready to be bound, but to die at Jerusalem.” Robertson of Brighton, has truly said, that man’s real greatness consists not in seeing his own pleasure, or fame, or advancement – “not that every one shall seek his own glory – but that every man shall do his own duty.”
Washington the Great’s chief motive power in his life was the spirit of duty. It seems it was the regal and commanding element in his character. When he clearly saw his duty before him, he did it at all hazards, and with inflexible integrity. He did not do it for glory, or fame or for rewards, but for the right thing to be done and the best way of doing it.
Wellington’s watchword, like Washington’s was duty and no man could be more loyal to it than he was. “There is little or nothing,” he once seemed to have said, “in this life worth living for; but we can all of us go straight forward and do our duty.” This ideal of duty seemed to be the governing principle of Wellington’s character. Duty was also the dominant factor in Nelson’s mind. The spirit in which he served his country was expressed in the famous watchword at Trafalgar “England expects every man to do his duty; I have done my duty; I praise God for it.”
Likewise there are many instances in our Epics and Puranas where men and women have abided by the path of duty and become famous for the same.For example Anasuya, Sita, Sukanya etc were well-known for being dutiful wives. When Lord Ram in Ramayana was pleaded by his brother Bharat not to go in exile as commanded by his father Dasharatha, Ram replies that it was his duty to obey his father and carry out his wish.
Bhagvad Gita also emphasizes the importance of Duty through the immortal words of Lord Krishna to Arjuna. It says “Your right is to work only, but never to the fruit thereof. Let not the fruit of action be your object, nor let your attachment be to inaction.” Again “Arjuna, perform your duties dwelling in Yoga, relinquishing attachment, and indifferent to success and failure; equanimity is called Yoga” (Chap.II).
As said in the Gita we must do our duty without expecting any results. We must try our level best in whatever ventures we undertake not wanting the fruits of it only. Especially students should make all their efforts in their exams to do good and leave the results alone. In whatever work we do, even if we fail we shall have the consolation that we have done our duty and tried our best.
Whatever be the profession, be it highest or a menial, duty stands above all. The story goes that once a Sanyasi meditated under a tree for a long period. One day the birds above the tree disturb him by dropping the leaves on his head. The Sanyasi gets angry and looks up, but as looks up a flash of fire bursts from his head –the Yogi’s power – and burns the birds to ashes. He is overjoyed that he had developed yogic powers and that at a glance he could burn the birds to ashes. He then has to go to the town to beg for his alms. He reaches one house and calls out
“Mother give me food.” But the woman tells him to wait. The Sanyasi gets offended and thinks how dare she could ask him to wait; ‘she does not know my yogic power.’ While he was thinking thus, the voice came again “Boy, don’t be thinking too much of yourself. Here there are no birds for you to burn.” The Sanyasi is astonished and when the woman comes out falls at her feet and asks how she knew about it.
The woman replies that she did not know his Yoga or his practices and that she was only a common woman who was doing her duty of nursing her ailing husband because of which she had asked him to wait. Next he goes to a place where a butcher was doing his job. He asks the Sanyasi whether the woman had sent him. The Sanyasi is amazed as to how he knew this.
The butcher after completing his business takes him home. Then the Sanyasi sees him doing his duties towards his parents after which the butcher asks him what he could do for him. The Sanyasi next learns from the butcher the highest metaphysics, a lecture whichis a very celebrated book in India, the “Vyadha Gita.”
It seems it is one of the highest flights in the Vedanta, the highest flight of metaphysics. He told the Sanyasi “No duty is ugly or impure. I am unattached and I try to do my duty well – as a householder. I neither know your Yoga nor have become a Sanyasi. I never went out of the world, nor any forest. But all this has come to me through doing my duty in my position.”
As such Duty comes foremost in our lives whatever be our circumstances or birth. As Gandhiji said: “Infinite striving to be the best is man’s duty; it is its own reward; everything else is in God’s hands. Non-co-operation with evil
was much a duty as is co-operation with good.”
