The Ethics and Values Forum
21st September 2009, KC College, Church gate, Mumbai
The speakers were those who have actually walked the talk.
Mr. Sivanandan –Police Commissioner
Justice B. N. Srikrishna – Retired Supreme Court Judge
Dr.P.N.Singh- Management Guru and Philanthropist
Swami Sukhabodhananda – the renowned international corporate guru.
Our lives begin to end the moment we are silent about things that matter. Hence, as part of Rotary we took the lead to organise a forum which would help us to rethink the values we uphold and to move towards a value based society.
Ethics is not something we do when it convenient or comfortable to do. It’s something that we live for, fight for and ready to die for.
One of the underlying messages from all the speakers was ‘Do we have the courage to stand for ethics’
DG Raju asked the question ‘What is it that keeps us from doing the right think despite knowing that what we are doing is wrong’.
What keeps us from doing what is right and what we ought to is just two things Ethics’ and Values.
He very aptly quoted Aristotle ‘We do not act rightly because we have virtues, but we have them because we have acted rightly’.
Justice Sri Krishna said the grab as you can grab mentality is the cause of the deterioration of values.
He said just because each one of us has a different values does not mean we need to suppress another’s value.
We need to be model parents , teachers & leaders in society so that our children want to do what we do and not only what we say. If we do that and keep repeating the importance of being ethical , then 99% of the time the child is likely to behave ethically.
Dr.P.N.Singh, said that his talk was divided into 3 parts, glorify the past, lament the present and dream for the future.
He said that nowadays we have started glorifying corruption, and not standing up and against issues.
Mr. D. Sivanandan said we need to remove the cobwebs from our values.
He said that if we find corruption in the people, it is a reflection of our society.
Swami ji said that a ‘value is a value if the value of the value is valuable. We need to constantly audit and edit our value.
The problem arises when we operate from ego. Then we say whatever is mine is good, however we need to say whatever is good is mine.
Understand how insignificant we are in the larger perspective and that we are just trustees of the money and skill that we hold. We can’t take it with us. Once we understand that we are more likely to operate with values and ethics.
He beautifully said that EGO means - Edging God Out.
The evening made us all rethink some of the issues and brought greater clarity with regards to the importance of ethics and values in our lives.