One of the central tenets of Indian philosophy is that there are “no absolutes”. This is actually quite unique to India.

A good example that illustrates this is the position taken by Indian religions on right and wrong. Indian culture has taught right and wrongs to generations of Indians only through stories and epics, and most of these have shades of grey with no real black and white answers. Even gods had shades of grey. Ram and Krishna had their own failings. India probably never had an equivalent of the “ten commandments”. In fact, the Buddha in fact advocated good judgement but seemed to reluctantly prescribe some rules for simplicity. Even in Hinduism, my understanding is that most of the things which were perceived to be “transient” or changing with the times (like mores) were kept in the secondary texts and not part of the main spiritual texts.

To elaborate further and exemplify: One could say that to state a lie is wrong. That would be an “absolute”. But what if the lie will save a life (say for example, a lie that could save a jew from a nazi during world war two) ? Would/ should you lie? Perhaps you would.

These simple ideas have large implications for young people: 1) Read stories, epics, fables etc; read those with shades of grey; value the stories that your mom and grand mom told you; 2) be comfortable in shades of grey; do not seek absolutes; 3) learn to be tolerant of people with other very different ways of thinking; do not seek homogeneity; 4) do not mortify yourself and your conscience with notions of right and wrong, learn to exercise good judgement with ample consideration.