Practical Vedanta and the state. - Must read article from The Pioneer.

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Practical Vedanta and the state http://www.dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?main_variable=OPED & file_name=opd3%2Etxt & counter_img=3A moral compass in times when most institutions have turned decrepit will serve nation-building, says Jagmohan You may make thousands of societies, 20,000 political assemblages, 50,000 institutions. There will be no use unless there is that sympathy, that love, that heart that thinks for all. But where is the heart to build upon? Where are the

foundations?" These words of Swami Vivekanand ring in my ears, whenever I reflect upon today's sorry state of governance - a state in which Members of Parliament do not hesitate to accept bribes for tabling questions in the House and chairpersons of constitutional authorities (like Public Service Commissions) are arrested on charges of forgery, cheating, etc. Most of our problems have sprung up from our inability to provide to our governance the "heart and the soul". Soon after Independence, the top leadership should have engaged itself with the problems emanating from the poverty of the soul of India and the pollution that had seeped into it during the period of its decline and degeneration. It should have realised that even the

goals of material advancement, which were being sought through scientific knowledge, technical skill and economic planning, could not be attained without simultaneously making an earnest attempt to free the 'soul' of the nation. Besides, the leadership should have understood that the constitutional morality was as much needed as the sound provisions of the Constitution; that the architects and engineers of soul had to be engaged along with the architects and engineers of modern institutions; and that new temples of 'economic development' required, besides the skill and scientific technique, clean hands and pure hearts. Unfortunately, no such realisation, in any meaningful way, dawned upon the leadership of post-1947 India. Initially, pious declarations were made, but they were not followed by any positive action. Worse, the little candle ignited by the stalwarts of the

late 19th century and early 20th century reform movements was not used to search the right path for the future. If the current trend and attitude persist, India would, in the best of scenario, be nothing more than a Third World country, living with an illusion of progress and agenda set by others, and, in the worst, a nation constantly at war with itself and exposed to the risk of disintegration. And a situation could arise when, to borrow the words of Vivekanand, "spirituality will be extinct, all moral perfection will be extinct, all sweet-souled sympathy for religion will be extinct, all ideality will be extinct; and in its place will reign the duality of lust and luxury as the male and female deities, with money as its priest, fraud, force and competition its ceremonies and the human soul its sacrifice". For the past 58 years, the national leadership has been superficial in its approach to attain its declared constitutional objectives. It has not paused for a moment to think whether it was possible to establish an honest administration without an honest mind and a beautiful edifice without a beautiful instinct. Few realise that Vivekanand was one of the principal architects to cut a new cultural stream that watered the parched soil of India and produced a rich harvest of men and women who brought its freedom. "Here is the same India whose soil has been trodden by the feet of the greatest sages that ever lived. Here first arose the doctrines of the immortality of the soul, the existence of a supervising God, an immanent God in nature and in man... We are the children of such a country," he declared.

These inspiring words created a wave of self-respect and self-confidence that brought men of sterling eminence like Mahatma Gandhi and BG Tilak to the scene. It is Vivekanand's practical Vedanta that has shown us the way out. The cornerstone of the ideal is: "Jiva is Shiva", that is, if one serves the sick, the poor or any other person in distress, one offers prayers to God in the highest form. "May I be born again and again, and suffer thousand miseries, so that I may worship the only God I know that exists, the only God I believe in, the sum total of all souls, and, above all, my God the wicked, my God the miserable, my God the poor of all races, of all species," he added. Why could the above views of Vivekanand not be accommodated in our Constitution in

the form of an ethical system and made one of the constitutional goals, for the attainment of which the state, society and individual should specifically strive. Practical Vedanta, if its propagation has a backing of the state, would help in orienting the mind of the individual towards service, compassion, non-acquisitiveness and realisation that he is a part of the Greater Self and he should not do anything that has the effect of injuring a part of his own self. It has been rightly observed: "If there is no purity, fairness and justice in your heart, these qualities will not be in your home; and if they are not in your home, they will not be in your society; and if they are not in your society, they will not be in your state." All said and done, it is basically an individual who constitutes the building block of a nation. Practical Vedanta accords with the scientific spirit of our times. It promotes rationality, generates self-confidence and frowns upon fatalism. It is not in any way antithetical to the ideal of secularism as incorporated in the Constitution. Though associated with a particular religion, practical Vedanta is nothing but spiritual secularism as well as spiritual pluralism. In his speech delivered to the Parliament of Religions, Chicago, Swami Vivekanand made it clear that Vedantists consider all religions to be true. The adoption of practical Vedanta as a state policy can provide solution to most of our problems relating to governance. It would ensure that the people do not remain without inspiration, mooring or moral compass. The current Indian state leaves the people generally cold and the latter do not

feel any compunction of conscience in resorting to corruption and other malpractices. (Today is the 143rd birth anniversary of Swami Vivekanand) "Our ideal is not the spirituality that withdraws from life but the conquest of life by the power of the spirit." - Aurobindo.

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