Articles for Saadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.

Everyone will agree that there is a value decline crisis not merely in India but the whole world. It is also said in a widespread manner that the present children are not amenable to any kind of a value exhortation or tuition. In the United States when we had been there recently, one middle aged person was talking to me saying that, “Swamiji, do you have any program for children? Whenever we speak to the children about values and the need for value enrichment and refinement, they raise a number of questions and we are not able to answer them. So if you have some course, I shall be very grateful. I would like to send my own children.” I said, “We don’t have any course as such, but we can organize it. But let us know more details as to when the children will be available, whether they can come over to the ashram, what is the period etc. it should be during the time when we are there.” Now this has been a widespread problem.

Our children are becoming more and more intelligent. The syllabus is being modernized every time. When I was studying, to get a first class itself was very difficult. Now people are scoring 98 %, 99 %, 100%. Of course, mathematics was a subject where we could score cent percent if you wanted. So everything has become modern. At the same time, when it comes to a question of value enrichment, there we have a reverse or an adverse trend. What is the reason, have you thought about it? What is meant by value and what is meant by culture? This is how I thought of giving a kind of an irrefutable definition and a description of culture when we had to found Foundation for Restoration of National Values (FRNV), a few years back, an organization to take up the values of India.

Whenever you think of culture, what is this culture? It is a process of refinement and it is the accomplishment of the result. Whenever we speak of refinement, what can we refine, have you thought about it? Anything that we speak of must be relating to our life. Life is individualistic. Everyone is born individually, breathes individually, eats individually, walks individually, speaks individually, hears, sees, touches. So, life is individualistic to begin with and to end with.

Individuals multiplied become the family, still multiplied become the social segment, still multiplied become the nation and still multiplied become the global population. But mind you, any kind of an input into the human society has to become individualistic. When you start thinking in this manner, what is this refinement? Refinement is a process of improvement, artful and enlightened improvement administered to our personality. Our personality has two counterparts. One is the external gross counterpart consisting of the biological body which consists of matter and energy. Then we have the inner personality consisting of only three factors, mind- the emotional, intelligence - the rational and the ego- the assertive. Any kind of a refinement is to be administered to this body on the one hand and simultaneously to the mind, intelligence and ego. Can there be any doubt about it? Is there any unacceptability in the whole process?

So, in the movements and the actions of the hand, then in the movements and actions of the legs, in the movements and actions of the other organs including the genitals, then the movement and activity of the sensory organs like eyes, ears, nose, skin and tongue. Then go inwardly, it is to be brought about in the mind level, the type of thoughts, feelings, responses and emotions, reactions of the mind, then the type of rationality that you are developing and growing. See, we have agnostic people and we have very faithful and believing people. Both are equally projections of the intelligence. Then the ego, it should become an enlightened ego flexible enough to take in whatever is necessary and to give out whatever becomes desirable and necessary. The entire culture aims at refining, sublimating, enlightening and bringing about an artful manifestation in the whole personality.

So, Oxford dictionary defines culture as the art and other manifestations of the human intellectual achievement regarded collectively. This is the definition I started speaking about, because I am a Hindu monk and whatever I say will be taken as a hinduizing procedure. But in the assembly of about 200 or 300 people, all intellectuals and thinkers of the country, when we had a two day national summit, I think what I said was accepted and people had a uniform attitude towards me. I said, “Whenever we speak of values, the values must be cultural values. And the culture should not bring about either God or religion into the discussion.”

Our values can stand independently. And all values relate to the mind, emotionally and intelligence, rationally. When a value is rightly explained, it will instantly evoke an emotional persuasion and an intellectual compulsion, a rational compulsion. Any value that I speak of, nobody in the world can refute it. If they refute, I will think further and interpret it in an acceptable manner.

Why I am mentioning this? In every expression of the human being outward or inward, that artful, enlightened, entertaining and charming note should be there. Say, the way you glance at people or look at people. We have developed a civilization by virtue of which cooking becomes an art and Nala is said to be the best cook in our history. Whenever something is well cooked, we refer it to as nalapāka. It has been very well cooked. So in cooking we have a civilization. Whatever food articles we can take, treat them in such a manner with heat and other condiments etc. so that it will become good, tasty, delicious, nutritive and it can be preserved for a long time whenever it is necessary. So we have various methods to be administered to the vegetable kingdom by virtue of which they can be preserved for a long time.

In my young days we did not have access to the vegetable market, there was none nearby. So we had to live on our own indigenous vegetables and during the rainy season we used to have some preserved items, preserved items which were dried up on the sun adding salt and other items and we used them for a few months. This is all part of our culture and civilization. Let us be very clear.

Now, our culture is represented or our values are represented in the way of a culture and the best way to inculcate values, to make them eternal and to make them compulsive is to present them interwoven with the life of the society. When you discuss life you will find, we have to relate it to individuals, we have to relate it to places, we have to relate it to events and we have to relate it to dialogues between the people. So, all our cultural narrations are with reference to persons individually, places and circumstances, then different types of events and different types of dialogue.

Valmiki has written about the prince and King Rama. Veda Vyasa has written about the Pandavas and the Kauravas and all who were elder to them, younger to them also. The success of our people is to provide a cultural narration in which only value inculcation is the subject as well as the object aimed at. We have 5151 year old Mahabharatam. The entire Mahabharata discusses the decline and fall of the Kuru dynasty due to value denial. A set of people denied values. Another set of people preserved and adhered to values. The second group survived, the first group perished in spite of the fact that stalwarts who were given to morality and ethics supported them physically. I don’t know whether the entire humanity in the world has been able to produce a similar literature. Only when values are made to stand independently in terms of a beautiful narration as we have in Ramayana and Mahabharata, people will be able to refer to them.

So I think what is required today is explaining to people that any value is part of the culture and civilization of humans. You know where we have bungled? We were so much enamored of science and technology. Whatever we have done in terms of science and technology is now posing a threat to destroy the human civilization and also the structure of the earth, water and air. This is the result of our civilization. I have not heard anything like a sustainable civilization till a few years back. Anything that we do should be sustainable. Sustain what? Sustain the sources of nature upon which our life depends. Sustain the very human personality which breathes, drinks, eats and lives and moves upon the earth. Smoking - it is anti-sustaining. Various types of fertilizers, now they are saying anti-sustaining. Different types of chemicals we are using - anti-sustaining. People say that in coco cola if you put a coin, maybe in a few hours it will be dissolved in coco cola. What does it mean? If it has the power to corrode and dissolve even a coin that we are using what should be the corrosive effect of the same drink in our intestines? People have so much of a flair to use detrimental items. Is it culture?

So let us understand that culture is the substratum, is the denominator for any kind of a human activity and achievement. To make the whole process... Why are we burning incense? And we select such items which are not injurious to health. Now incense manufacture also has become commercial and it is very, very harmful. We are burning camphor, we are burning incense, we are burning oil, so many items we are using. All are supposed to be very, very indigenous and not harmful to the health of the people. When are we going to understand that culture is indispensable and inevitable and culture consists of values and values alone which are meant to sustain our civilization, our humanity without allowing it to degenerate, decline and have a downfall? The Roman civilization is said to have perished only because of a value and cultural decline. So the alternate to culture is co-destruction. And pro culture means to have a sustainable life upon the earth for a very, very long time.

Now, this Vishnu Sahasranama Vishva Maha Yajna or Vishva Yajna Mahotsava we are performing is with a view to take the people to our own cultural narrations in which Mahabharata stands very close to us. Let us understand that we have a history. Not only we have a history, we have got a cultural narration which continuously creates the history of our people in this country. When was Mahabharata written? And through the characters and narrations of Mahabharata, so much of inspiration, guidance, leadership and moulding has taken place and still continues to take place. It is not just a record of the events that took place in the past. It is on the other hand a cultural narration, on their basis with a view to cultivate eternal values of our society. I would like you to understand them properly and explain to the children when necessary, what is the meaning of culture. That is the basis of everything that we do should be culture, refinement and sustainability.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.