Self-transformation, Universal-transformation and harmony in human relations
In our present day world, we find that violence has become almost a creed, a cult or a culture of many sections of society. It is now being increasingly used, even against innocent people, for giving expression to one’s disapproval of a political decision or one’s resentment against an act of State, or for securing public attention or getting one’s grievances redressed.
One hardly finds, nowadays, any sincere efforts for maintaining an atmosphere of friendship, brotherly love, fraternal feelings, personal and social goodwill and good neighbourliness or for showing concern for each other’s well-being though these were, once upon a time, commonly prevalent personal and social norms. Instead, one finds that the capacity to tolerate and adjust at interpersonal, institutional or community level and the efforts to maintain harmony in human relations have gone very low or have almost vanished so much so that individuals and communities now indulge in bloodshed on trivial matters and on slighest provocation or even without provocation. Thus, social or communal harmony has now become a very rare commodity and goodwill is in very short supply.
We also find conditions of grave economic misery in many parts of the world. About fifty per cent of the world-population is living a subhuman life in a state of abject poverty. How many people die daily of malnutrition or due to lack of medicare!
Further, a very large part of mankind is afflicted with physical, mental or social sickness or psychosomatic diseases and emotional disturbances. There is mental tension and a high incidence of crime everywhere and people feel much personal and social insecurity.
There is lot of political corruption. There are injustices and cruelties in our social order; hatred, threat of war and duplicity in international relations; domestic disorders; family breakups; greed in trade and commerce and lack of service-motive and values in business and industry; imbalance in ecology and dangerous level of pollution in the environment; worrying growth-rate of human population, and personal viciousness which is manifested in many ways. Man is no longer in harmony with Nature, with his environment, with fellow beings and even with his own self. In fact, disharmony in the world is due to disharmony in the inner self.
All is not right with the world
No doubt, the world conditions cause themselves to be interpreted differently in different frames of reference but the present situation, considered in the light of its war-potential, violent tendencies, low morals, stark poverty, and fragmentary and ultra-materialistic tendencies can, in no sense, be called ideal, laudable or satisfactory. No one can say that all’s right with the world.
Seven factors responsible for this sad state
Analysing this state of the world, someone has rightly said that there are mainly seven factors responsible for our present predicament. These are : “politics without principles, wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, industry without morality, science without humanity and worship without sacrifice.” Someone else has truely said that the ignorance about our real identity, our insensitivity, irresponsibility and narrow loyalty are the main causes of all our troubles, including disharmony.
Eight Deadly Sins as the major causes of sufferings
Others have identified ‘eight deadly sins’ as the major causes of all our sufferings. Pride is one of them. It is an overstressing of oneself standing stiff on prestige and refusing to accept that others also have an equal or higher ability or worth. It is dwelling upon oneself to the exclusion of others or showing little or no respect to others. Greed is another major sin. Greed is drawing all to one’s own self even at the cost of being unjust and unfair to others or even depriving others of their happiness. It is a form of selfishness or another kind of an overstressing of the self.
It is a sign of mental poverty and a feeling of dissatisfaction however much one has. Wrath, Anger, Aggressiveness or Violence also is one of these deadly sins. It is generally accompanied with a feeling of hatred or vengeanace and is linked to an obsession of one’s own righteousness or self-interest. It is based on motive to hurt, harm or disregard others. Sex-lust, another evil, is due to attraction towards a person’s physical form or figure or to the colour of one’s flesh or towards the pleasure one gets from physical contact with that person.
It is a kind of slavery to one’s sex-urge or impulsive attraction towards another person’s physical charm, blindfolded by one’s own delusion. It is a kind of lechery, i.e. the use of others for one’s own sexual pleasures. Attachment also is a deadly sin. It is based on deep desire to possess another object or person. It makes a person emotionally dependent on another and is due to ignorance about each other’s real identity and real relationship.
It is a strong, mental and emotional tie or bond that drags two or more persons together and causes disturbance in their mental equilibrium and ultimately results in grief or trauma. Sloth, lethargy, indolence or sluggishness is the wish to reap without sowing or to take things to oneself without making efforts. It is a subtle refusal to make effort for what one gets or expects to get. It is a kind of fatalism and is based on ignorance about God and the law of Karma.
A lethargic person desires without working and deserving. Jealousy or Envy is the wish that others be less happy or they be given less praise. It is based on narrow-mindedness or meanness or on the hatred of another person’s ability, efficiency, progress or happiness. Gluttony and wrong food habits are caused by disregard of one’s own physical well-being and by lack of concern about what others receive as a result of one’s own voluptuousness or voraciousness. It is a kind of greed or a form of slavery to one’s taste-buds or to a sensual pleasure.
All these ‘eight deadly sins’ are based on delusion, illusion, ignorance, unwisdom or lack of concern for the well-being of others. In one way or the other, these ensue from selfishness. These, therefore, become the causes of social and inner disharmony, violence, crime, mental, emotional and physical diseases, rapid population-growth, poverty, injustice and all other ills which have been mentioned earlier.
Nine well-known vices or vicious tendencies and their two roots
The Indian spiritual wisdom considers all disharmony and human suffering due to nine vices or vicious tendencies, also called ‘Vikaras’. It names them as Kama, Krodha, Lobha, Moha, Ahamkara, Alasya, Irsha, Bhay, and Ayukt Ahara, i.e. sex-lust, anger, greed, attachment, pride, sloth, jealousy, fear and wrong or unyogic food-habits.
Some others have said that the ‘eight deadly sins’ or ‘the seven factors’or the nine vices or vicious tendencies are like the branches of Evil and that, at the root of these all, are only two evils – Attachment and Hatred or Infatuation and a deep feeling or Resentment, Raga and Dvesha. Sex-lust, Attachment, Greed and Gluttony are various kinds of attachment to a person, a thing or a pleasure. Anger and Jealousy are based on hatred. In fact, they all ensue from self-love. Pride arises only when a person possesses things or qualities to which he has attachment.
Lack or absence of values
In modern language, we say that all our problems and sufferings are due to lack or absence of moral, human, social and spiritual values. Some of these values are self-control, humility, tolerance, contentment, compassion, spirit of service and sacrifice, nonviolence, love, truthfulness, honesty, cooperation, etc.
Purification of Love
Briefly, it can be said that all our troubles are because our basic emotion, called ‘love’, has become vitiated. If our emotion of love gets purified and universalised, this world will become a happy place to live in and there will be harmony in human relations. It is the basic emotion, called ‘love’, that has taken the vitiated forms of sex-lust, attachment, greed, self-love, etc. and it is the obstructions in its fulfillment that cause anger, hatred, jealousy, etc.
Self-change and universal-transformation
We may identify our troubles to any causes or factors in anyone of the above or other ways but one thing that is sure is that the fault is neither with the world nor with God but with our own ignorance or wrongdoings. The fault also lies in social, political and other institutions, organisations and systems, created or run by us, human beings, who are afflicted with the above evils. So, it is human beings who have to be reconditioned, for then only will the institutions, organisations, systems or the society also get restructured, reconstructed or renewed. The real remedy, therefore, lies in transformation of the human individual.
Further, since life compels us to act, we must apply our mind to know how best to act. For this, we need a simple philosophy that can be lived. We need a correct system that gives us a sound basis for correct principles and practices which lead to development and happiness of the whole society. Thus a basic change is required in man’s knowledge, ways of thinking, habits and culture. For this, we must retain a readiness to change our views in the light of new rational and experience-oriented knowledge, new ideals, new visions and new conditions, for we have seen that our present beliefs and ways have led us to the present sad and sorrowful state.
We have to be mentally prepared to give up what mars, destroys or vitiates our personality and to receive whatever leads to enrich our personality and to our full and happy growth and development. We have also to keep in mind that, often, the actual cause of wrongdoings is not of a conscious nature but there are forces lying in the subconscious or the unconscious that trigger our those actions. We name these as our ‘samskaras’. We have, therefore, to learn certain practices that can change our samskaras.
Proper values and principles are perhaps more essential than structures
The very fact that our structures, our systems, our organisations and institutions are not working should be enough to convince us that our present ‘Belief-System’ has given us wrong attitudes, faulty outlook, unsatisfactory life-style and improper behaviour. It has not been able to bring love and harmony into our relationships.
So, for building a new world order, based on love we, therefore, require new knowledge new set of principles, new values, a new life-style, new meaning and new understanding of life. No system or organisation can work if the human agents who devise or run them are themselves devoid of such values as bring about social harmony and make everyone feel happy. What is, therefore, required is ‘human resource development’ by inculcation of values in our personal lives, in our professions, in our educational system and in our politics.
We have to remember that, without effecting self-transformation on these lines, there can be no change in world-conditions. Man is the unit of family and society; unless his actions and behaviour change, all efforts to transform the world will bear no fruit.
Let us not befool ourselves
Too many people have been befooling themselves with the illusions that a change in government will ameliorate their living conditions, that the social service institutions will eliminate poverty, disease and crimes, that science will build a paradise full of peace and happiness on earth, that certain new economic reforms or measures would change the face of the earth and that we need not bother ourselves about our future. Let us be free from all these notions. Our present condition should be enough to convince us of the fallacy of these stereotypes.
No doubt, science, social service institutions, economic reforms and all the rest are making their own valuable contributions but as long as the attitudes, the outlook, the behaviour and the interpersonal relationships of man do not change and are devoid of love and such other values that create social and inner harmony, the world will not become a better place to live in. Self-transformation in terms of higher values is essential to bring about world-transformation and the times, in which we are living, do call for such a change. In fact a large number of people all over the world wish the world-order to change and new values to be incorporated in our life-style.
Why our behaviour is what it is?
It has been rightly said that the atmosphere in our homes has a very close relation to our conduct. Lack of adequate space and of minimum decencies of physical existence and also of parental love, care and control are often responsible for a person’s misconduct in adult life. It is these which are responsible for juvenile delinquency and for crime in later life. Lack of proper atmosphere causes unsocial attitudes or suppression of wishes which later breaks out in misdemeanours.
Further, one identifies oneself with one or many groups. Groups, associations or institutions have a very powerful influence in habit-formation. The customs, the folkways or rules of conduct of the community and also the role of the individual in that group enormously mould the personality and influence the life-style and behaviour of a person. Just as an individual acquires the language of his social group, so does he generally acquire the moral standards or the values of the group, consciously or subconsciously. The process of habit-formation, started by the parents in the form of praise, denunciation or blame is continued further by the community.
In this process, neighbourhood conditions, religious institutions and the law of the government also play an important part. The language, the local customs, public opinion, edicts of the government, advice and warnings of friends and relatives, the discourses of the preacher, conversations with the elderly and other people, the personality of the teachers, the newsmedia, the literature and the leaders, the economic conditions and the Arts and the visual imagery, the form of amusement, all these influence a person’s character, value-system, way of thinking and behaviour. But most powerful of all these are (1) our Belief-System (2) our relations, (3) our Samskaras, (4) our goals, and (5) circumstances.
Contd....Part 2
Prajapita Brahma Kumaris Ishwariya Vishwa Vidyalaya
