Life continues. Even after our death the life continues. We
find in mythological literature from ancient India that even an ordinary
housewife advised her children not to conduct in a manner that set a wrong
example for future generations. We learn from various ancient literature that
on a spiritual plane one thought about the cycles of births and rebirths, and
emancipation for eternal peace and happiness. At the same time, we also learn
from the same or similar sources that the man was expected to conduct himself
in his daily life in a manner that set the right example for the generations to
come.
We learn from ancient India literature that the learned
people contemplated over the traditional knowledge with reverence and thought
about the welfare of future generations. The common man, however, accepted that
the Jnana and the Vijnanna, the knowledge and the wisdom, was
being nurtured by a few whose only job was to keep on learning, experimenting
and thinking about the truth of the things and welfare of the human being. The
people in those times treated the knowledge as something having been passed on
to them by their ancestors; and considered it as their duty to conduct
according to such knowledge. There had been a ‘tradition’ of passing on ‘the
Jnana’ (ज्ञान) and ‘the Vijnana’ (विज्ञान) to the future generation for their benefit. Can we say that the
mythological literature from ancient India suggested that there was a tradition
of thinking about the future?
Some may object to my treating the ancient Indian
mythological literature as an authentic source of true information. In this
connection I have to say that such mythological literature was created by learned Rishis who
themselves were distinguished for propounding theories of great value and were
followed by several other Rishis whose character was believed to be
spotless. Further, they did not avoid writing about the evils of their times.
It means there was no pretentious effort on their part to project a better
picture of the life existing then. They wrote honestly about what was wrong and
what efforts were made by the man in rectifying all that was unacceptable. From
time to time their concern for the worsening scenario was also expressed in
their literature. My sole intention was to give a rough account of what and how
generally the people thought, behaved and spoke about. I have already said that
I have no intention of saying that everything was fine in those days, I only
said there were things that were fine and beneficial to the mankind. This is also
known that many thinkers in other parts of the world were also active in
propagating the right ideas that could benefit the mankind, but whether those
good thoughts could become a way of life for the common man does not appear to
be certain. The extraordinary consistency in the essence of ancient Indian
literature makes us reasonably sure that perhaps the right thoughts had
percolated down to an ordinary man to quite an extent.
I find that in modern times we have lost touch with such
tradition. Notwithstanding all what is being extrapolated on the basis of most
modern techniques we find that the modern man cannot think beyond the
materialistic welfare of his own children. The modern man does not even bother
if his children would be able to find some meaning from their lives and make it
purposeful for themselves and the others. The modern man is producing and using
newer goods based on the overnight changes in technology and leaving the waste,
selfishness and violence as a legacy for future generations.
Today, this has become a matter of serious concern for us
that it never occurs to a common man that even after him there will be people
who will live on this earth, and they will also be entitled to live here as
much as he himself is. We find that there is no humanitarian, social, religious
or educational necessity, or at least an expediency, to imbibe such thought in
the mind of a common citizen of this world. With each passing moment the things
are happening that will make the life of future generation more difficult than
one can imagine. Does the thought of human rights apply only to the human
beings that are alive or are breathing in their mothers’ wombs? Three thousand
years ago the physical abilities of the man were much limited than the man of
today. It is quite surprising that the common man of those days, who could not
even imagine how dangerous a human being can be for another human being, was
worried about his future generations; whereas, today, in spite of knowing full well
about the destructive might of the human beings, we, a highly impatient race
otherwise, have all the patience about what can happen to our future generations.
Is the modern man an uneducated man? Or, is he insane?
Unfortunately, I have no option, but to point out my
fingers directly at my own country, India, who possessed the right knowledge, percolated
down to the grass-roots, about three thousand years ago. We must know that lack
of resources cannot be an excuse for everything.
PROMOD KUMAR SHARMA
[The writer of this blog is also the author of “Mahatma A
Scientist of the Intuitively Obvious” and “In Search of Our Wonderful Words”.]
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