Thank you Akvan:
-for taking the time.
I see what you mean. To myself it is like this, and this is what I go by: all these ‘laws’, absolute/conventional, are meant to deter people from stealing, or, one can say, to protect people from having their belongings stolen, a kind of enforcement; on the one side, as to the moral aspect, on the other, as to the legal (laws of the land) aspect of it.
However, there is a higher law – that of the Heart. At times this ‘inner’law clashes with external ones (what is legal), and even when an external law would give me he ‘right’to do something, still I go by the inner law if I feel that is the right way to go.
Even saying that intention plays a vital part…intention plays an all-important part, THE important part. In the case you mention – where person A loses an object and drops it on the road as well as if B walks by and picks it up and keeps it for himself he has not stolen anything… This is in the ultimate sense- To me this is not the ultimate sense. I place myself in the state of mind in which the one who lost the object must be in. Would he/she not like to have that object back? How would I feel if it were I who lost it and someone returns it? Would I not be overjoyed? As it is, I am overjoyed myself thinking how overjoyed that person would be.
Then there are the benefits. The merits of the good deed can be transferred to others (more good taking place). This does not occur to me until hours after. On the selfish side, I must admit,(in my case)I have prevented myself from accumulating another object, another burden.
Metta to you and to all