“No one can teach us, because…” and “No one can
make us learn, unless…” are two different statements, often used to convey the
same meaning. The latter, however, reminds us about one of our important
duties, that is, learning.
Over
the years the human society has changed considerably, and the changes have been
thoughtfully effected for the benefit of the man. However, it seems, we have
failed to inform the man with sufficient clarity that each benefit has a cost
associated with it.
Traditionally,
we attached much importance to the teachers telling some privileged classes of
men that they must, for their own benefit and for the benefit of the entire
human race, find able teachers to know what must be known; but we paid little
attention to how the big majority of those deprived of the benefit of right
knowledge could grow intellectually and spiritually. We were not entirely wrong
in thinking that the classes who lead and ruled the human race must think
rightly and conduct dutifully for the mankind. But, we failed to fully
anticipate and appreciate that physical and intellectual power can easily
corrupt the human mind beyond redemption. Our ancestors very carefully and
diligently defined and delivered the knowledge concerning ‘Rajdharma’
(duties of those who ruled) in a system of ‘Rajtantra’ when the
kings thought and conducted for the welfare of the people.
Perhaps,
it was the influence of the right knowledge circulated through various scriptures
that the human societies adopted a system of ‘Prajatantra’ (democracy),
a system when the people lead and rule themselves. The prevalent system of
democracy, however, is not supported by any knowledge, percolated down to the
smallest man, of ‘Prajadharma’ (duties of the people who rule
themselves). The democratic man of today looks towards some rules and laws
framed and enforced by those who ‘rule’ him, and in the absence thereof, acts
like an anarchist having no support of some kind of a ‘rule of self’.
Our
scriptures cannot provide any word by word or line by line solutions to deal
with this situation when the people themselves have become the decision makers
and implementers of the decisions made; they (the scriptures) can only enlighten
us about the essence of life and our duties in this world in accordance with
our ‘human nature’ to cause no harm to the creation of the God. The scriptures
gave freedom to the man to modify the operative parts of the scriptures
according to space, time and circumstances.
Perhaps,
it has come upon the man to learn how to define and detail the theory and practice
of ‘Prajadharma’, without altering the essence of human life and
his duties in the world towards himself and the others. We are faced with two
new situations concerning our lives; the first is ‘democracy’ and the second is
‘science and technology’. There is also a third situation we have no experience
with; it is selfishness and materialistic aspirations of many powerful ones in
place of only a few. It is the quality of ‘human adaptability’ that has allowed
us to remain apparently immune to ‘an unprecedented’ shock that we have
experienced. But, the things are not normal about us and around us, that we
must admit.
The
big question is, “Do we have the inclination and time to deal with the problem
we face today; and, are we ready to experiment with our routines and learn as
to how we can improve upon the quality of our life?”
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”.]
0 comments:
Post a Comment