THE FALL AND THE FUTURE RISE ... 1
Culture is on a terrible decline in human society today consequent on the proliferation of mass education. Spirituality is on the fall. A reversal is the need of the hour and may be provided only by an Avatar.
Things are averaging out nowadays and excellence is on the wane. Mass mediocrity is ruling the roost and refinement and finesse are forgotten features of civilisation. The common man is being heard even as the raucous calls of the masses make for a discordant cacophony. Music, harmony, lyricism of living are like distant dreams as society gears up ever on a conflicting mode of self-destruction.
Ignorance of the Self is what the Upanishad assigns as the cause of all this disturbing trend. The obsession of the individual with the petty self and its corrosive claims is rupturing both the individual and the collective world which is its aggregate. The association of matter to a degree profane with every bit of earthly living is running down the individual and ruining his spiritual prospects. A reversal is badly needed but for that another Ramakrishna needs to take charge of the proceedings, another Vivekananda must command the Grand Armee of humanity. Will such men be born again to save us from this decadence? That is about the only hope for it is materialism to an excessive degree that is the cause of the current corrosion and it is spiritualism in the opposite mode that must successfully counter it.
The ideal is there, the idea spelt out well in advance but the practical application of the pristine principle is all that is awaited in its wholesome and holistic form. Sectional amendment will not do, for the germ destroyed in one place will breed in another and undo all the good work of reform thus done. There has to be 'root and branch reform' as Swamiji was wont to saying. This is not possible in the classical sense of European revolution that attempts to eliminate evil through widespread destruction aimed at supplanting the existing exploitative order with a new order free of such. But the very method used to do so betrays the movement into the hands of the old enemy, the tyrant, who in the name of revolution unleashes the same old tyranny that had crippled society, only now with added vigour and the sanction of ideology backing action. This has to be avoided. The new movement must be entirely spiritual with a human face to all amendment and adjustment brought about in its wake. It has to be an exercise in sublimity and not in barbarism to end privilege that perverts human civilisation.
Now the question arises as to why the present fall in civilisation is taking place. The answer to this is simple. Human society thus far was a privilege society of the upper classes and the proletariat who lived like beasts of burden merely to serve the interests of their masters had no say in human affairs as such. Theirs was a mute submission to the historical forces of upper class tyranny and this meant that the resulting silence from their end was the silence of the dead, the stillness of the teeming millions whose flesh and form were subjected to inhuman labour that built the grand civilisation of the aristocrat even as the soul suffered stifling death in the dungeons of their earthly existence. But times have changed and with social revolutions everywhere having ushered in a more humane order of terrestrial living for the masses, the onset of democracy lending voice to the mute millions, the suppressed masses are coming to the fore and attempting to take their rightful place in the order of human existence. The sleeping masses are awakening to life and activity and this is being noticed everywhere as the chaotic order that is prevailing. But it is a temporary phase and at no distant date order will prevail, a better and a nobler system will come into existence and human society will evolve into a higher realm of spiritual evolution.
End of Part 1
Written by Sugata Bose
Culture is on a terrible decline in human society today consequent on the proliferation of mass education. Spirituality is on the fall. A reversal is the need of the hour and may be provided only by an Avatar.
Things are averaging out nowadays and excellence is on the wane. Mass mediocrity is ruling the roost and refinement and finesse are forgotten features of civilisation. The common man is being heard even as the raucous calls of the masses make for a discordant cacophony. Music, harmony, lyricism of living are like distant dreams as society gears up ever on a conflicting mode of self-destruction.
Ignorance of the Self is what the Upanishad assigns as the cause of all this disturbing trend. The obsession of the individual with the petty self and its corrosive claims is rupturing both the individual and the collective world which is its aggregate. The association of matter to a degree profane with every bit of earthly living is running down the individual and ruining his spiritual prospects. A reversal is badly needed but for that another Ramakrishna needs to take charge of the proceedings, another Vivekananda must command the Grand Armee of humanity. Will such men be born again to save us from this decadence? That is about the only hope for it is materialism to an excessive degree that is the cause of the current corrosion and it is spiritualism in the opposite mode that must successfully counter it.
The ideal is there, the idea spelt out well in advance but the practical application of the pristine principle is all that is awaited in its wholesome and holistic form. Sectional amendment will not do, for the germ destroyed in one place will breed in another and undo all the good work of reform thus done. There has to be 'root and branch reform' as Swamiji was wont to saying. This is not possible in the classical sense of European revolution that attempts to eliminate evil through widespread destruction aimed at supplanting the existing exploitative order with a new order free of such. But the very method used to do so betrays the movement into the hands of the old enemy, the tyrant, who in the name of revolution unleashes the same old tyranny that had crippled society, only now with added vigour and the sanction of ideology backing action. This has to be avoided. The new movement must be entirely spiritual with a human face to all amendment and adjustment brought about in its wake. It has to be an exercise in sublimity and not in barbarism to end privilege that perverts human civilisation.
Now the question arises as to why the present fall in civilisation is taking place. The answer to this is simple. Human society thus far was a privilege society of the upper classes and the proletariat who lived like beasts of burden merely to serve the interests of their masters had no say in human affairs as such. Theirs was a mute submission to the historical forces of upper class tyranny and this meant that the resulting silence from their end was the silence of the dead, the stillness of the teeming millions whose flesh and form were subjected to inhuman labour that built the grand civilisation of the aristocrat even as the soul suffered stifling death in the dungeons of their earthly existence. But times have changed and with social revolutions everywhere having ushered in a more humane order of terrestrial living for the masses, the onset of democracy lending voice to the mute millions, the suppressed masses are coming to the fore and attempting to take their rightful place in the order of human existence. The sleeping masses are awakening to life and activity and this is being noticed everywhere as the chaotic order that is prevailing. But it is a temporary phase and at no distant date order will prevail, a better and a nobler system will come into existence and human society will evolve into a higher realm of spiritual evolution.
End of Part 1
Written by Sugata Bose
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