OPEN THY FIST AND BOUNTIFULLY GIVE

We as a nation do not deserve a better deal from the government simply because we ourselves are so selfish and will not expedite the fruition of a social cause. We have a million excuses for our stated self-centred living and cannot look beyond our immediate requirements and securities. Who cares, after all, whether millions live or die in hunger and privation, sickness and ignorance, so long as our own ones remain well and fine. We own no responsibility, owe no liability to the nation or to the world at large. We are devotees after all and must secure our own liberation and keep chanting those pretentious terms in the name of gods and goddesses, divine incarnations and prophets, while the rest of humanity, which is the visible form of our divine ideal, goes to ruins. This world is Maya, after all, and we must mischievously interpret its meaning to suit our ends. Thakur and Ma are supposedly waiting on us to tend to our hypocritical stance while we go about the business of upsetting their divine order on earth and feel content to have done our duty on earth in merely shouldering our desires which we call duty and, for good measure, uttering their name hither and thither as if they were dispensable commodities of little value beyond being showered false flattery in the name of devotion. This much for our national involvement, this much for our duty towards our countrymen, this much for our 'love' for God. When will the essence of the Vedanta be evident to devotees? When will familial bounds extend to the whole of humanity? When will the sense of the 'self' embrace all who are seemingly not the 'self' but are 'others' about whom we need have no commitment beyond pretentious social etiquette with no genuine feeling that merits sacrifice for them nor any depth of love to give substance to it? All these are pertinent questions that need a lot of soul-searching before we come to terms with them and, with it, our present state of earthly existence.

Life is of two days, a day of growth and aspiration, and another of decay and desperation unless, of course, detachment and renunciation be our helpmates in this latter phase of recession. But the motion must begin from childhood and continue through adulthood. Only then in ripeness will fruition be. Else, it will be a visit to earth in vain, much of fun and frolic to end in deadly pain. Hence, the need for dharma, the necessity of virtue, the practice of unselfishness, love for all and the imperative of charity, that is, the habit of giving out of the fullness of the heart for one's fellowmen who are less endowed and less fortunate in the horrendous scheme of things this world is. There can be no excuse for not giving, no rationale for giving too little, but there is the desperate need of billions for the mighty giving of those whose hearts have opened. Otherwise, futile will be rendered the lives of our brethren and in vain will our lives have been. So, be up and doing, for there is no more time to be lost and each moment lost means a life lost as well, bereaving a mother somewhere, a daughter somewhere else or widowing a woman in the prime of her youth. Jai Hind!