Virus and Virtue

Feb 12, 2020 | permalink

Coronavirus gives us an experiential insight into "many-to-many" networks.

Consider the lily pond riddle. If lilies in a pond double every day, and the pond takes 30-days to fill up, how many days does it take to be half full? 29 days. On 28th day, it's a quarter full. Day 20 the pond was just 0.1% full. If the full pond is 10,000 lilies, Day 20 is only 9 lilies! That's why countries are shutting down even when everything looks "normal" -- it's Day 20 normal.

What's really interesting is that virtue is also contagious in the same way. Only thing is that the opportunity-cost is not as clearly seen. If we saw it clearly, we'd cultivate as if our hair is on fire. :)

With virus pandemics, we respond to preserve our Self. With virtue pandemic, we respond to dissolve our Self.

Therein lies the challenge -- not having examined the Self.

Nisargadatta says, "Our indifference to our neighbor's sorrow brings suffering to our door." Once we see that, we would take virtue as seriously as a virus.