I am reminded of a story by Kahlil Gibran.
A few friends
go to a pub
and drink too much,
enjoy, sing and dance and fight,
and do everything that drunkards
are bound to do.
The pub owner is very happy
because business has never been so good.
When they were leaving,
he asked the man who paid the bill,
"When will you be coming again?"
The man said, "Just pray to God...
that if my business goes well, we will be coming every day."
The pub owner said, "We will pray every day
for your business.
But what is your business?"
He said,
"It is better if you don't ask."
But the man said,
"That makes me even more curious.
I am going to pray for your business,
my wife will pray... because
if you come every day
we are going to become rich very soon."
He said, "I am a gravedigger.
If people go on dying every day
in big numbers,
I will be coming every day with all my friends.
That is my business."
The gravedigger,
naturally, wants somebody to die.
The doctor, naturally, wants somebody to be sick.
Things have to be changed: this is not a sane
structure of the society.
In China,
Confucius
has made a very significant change.
Every person
has to pay the doctor
if he remains healthy.
If he becomes sick, he stops payment;
then the doctor has to pay for his
medicine,
and has to take care of him.
Now that seems to be a sane arrangement.
Every person pays the doctor for remaining healthy.
Now the doctor cannot pray
that people should be sick; he will pray that people should be healthy.
He cannot afford
people to be sick.
He cannot afford epidemics;
he will go bankrupt.
But in our society,
just the opposite is the situation
The more epidemics there are,
the more the doctor's bank balance
becomes bigger and bigger.
If everybody is healthy,
then the doctor becomes poorer and poorer.
If everybody remains healthy,
then the doctor will be the only person who will be sick!
A sane society will arrange things in such a way
that the profession -- any profession --
does not go against the society.
The judge should be paid
because there has been no criminal case.
The police should be paid and rewarded
because there is nothing to do for them.
The doctors should be respected and paid
because nobody is sick.
Right now we are doing
something which is very suicidal.
Truth should be respected --
rewarded,
not punished -- and there is no need for any oath.