What is needed today is a new affirmation of truth, a restatement of the eternal principles in the light of modern life and a character strength to back up the utterances. All propaganda, all propagation comes to nought when the personality behind is weak and devoid of the courage of conviction that will validate the truth in the perception of the audience. This is why Swami Vivekananda had famously said, "Religions of the world have become lifeless mockeries. What the world wants is character."
The youth today are suffering either from cynicism or a certain superficiality of spirit, a levity which makes a mockery of anything that is worth achieving or anything that is substantial. It is a pity that with such a storehouse of ancient and modern knowledge in the realm of the spiritual to guide humanity, man yet suffers from a loss of direction owing to the paucity of enlightened teachers who can teach the truth, if not transmit it with a touch as an incarnation of God can do. The imperative, therefore, is to provide spiritual literature, especially, the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda literature, within easy access of the people so that they may profit from reading it and in some measure reorient their lives towards the divine ideal of self-realisation which is in essence the teaching of the Sanatana Dharma (Hinduism).
Irreverence is the order of the day. Shallow intellectualism unfounded in either understanding or realisation tends to sweep age-old wisdom and philosophical knowledge under the carpet and a licentious living with retrograde references to reality seems to be the kernel of the modern-day material mire that goes by the name of terrestrial life. There is a dearth of depth in the man of the moment today who is relentlessly pulled in the direction of surface satisfaction without any key to his eternal whereabouts in a universe which he finds uncharted and alien to him.
What then is the solution? Why? the Mahabharata in trumpet voice articulates the answer. Faced with the questions of the Yaksha who was the guardian of the water of life, flouting which the younger four Panadavas had lost their lives, Yuddhisthhira came out triumphant when he said that the right way is to follow the path trodden by the greats, that is, by the seers and sages of illumined understanding in the realm of the Spirit.
No comments:
Post a Comment