REFLECTIONS ... 1

The freedom fighters did not bleed for nothing to liberate India from the shackles of the British Raj. Let us stand up as virile citizens to safeguard that freedom by being rooted to our spiritual culture upon which depends our future well-being. India is to live not by the power of the sword but by the power of the spirit that animates her age-old civilization. Hers is a freedom that shall free the nations of the world into becoming spiritually conscious of the essential solidarity of the world and the kinship of the whole of humankind.

The Hindu scriptures are a mine of priceless gems of human thought of the highest order but alas! they are sadly neglected in our school curriculum thereby depriving our children of the beneficent influence of such thought in the formative years of their life. If this is done to safeguard secularism in the name of pluralistic democracy, then it is a sad plight of our nationhood indeed. Our children deserve the best thoughts of their ancestors to rise into full national self-consciousness and be beacons in this sea of humanity where ignorance and intolerance stifles the life of man. Let us then restore this gift from the Rishis to our children that they in turn may be Rishis too.

The vanity of wealth and the greater vanity of learning must be vanquished in our leading men and their heart awakened to the condition of the poor who have neither wealth nor learning. What is this modern trend of editing the scriptures to suit one's own ends? And what is this foolish philosophizing in the name of a supposed social God that suits one's whims and fancies one fine morning or a cosy evening over a cup of coffee? Did the Rishis discover the principles of the Vedas thus? It is time to be honest and admit that this is sheer sophistry, that it will not carry far the agenda of self-deception or deception of others. So, let us revert to what our sages have in true earnest pronounced about the principles of life and living before we put on the facade of knowing it all. Let our wealth be for the good of all, for the service of God and man. Let our learning bestow on us humility that it may mature into spiritual wisdom for the good of one and all.