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24
APARIGRAHA - THE HUMANE SOLUTION
the mental disorder of a member of the family since this has a social stigma attached to it.
One of the most dangerous outcomes of consumerism is corruption at all levels. As desires are on the increase quantitatively (in the economic sense), the means to satisfy these desires have become indiscriminate and arbitrary and even ruthless. The objects of desires have to be procured, whatever be the means. Increased consumption would mean more and more 'under the table' payments for getting different jobs done, which would further accentuate the demand for such money, and the corruption spiral would continue. This would reach a stage that can be expressed as 'If you are caught while taking bribe, then get yourself acquitted by giving another bribe'. This is the state perhaps at the lower level, when there is a desire for something that cannot be satisfied with the given means, but when we look at the state of corruption at a higher level, the process gets reversed. A huge quantity of purchasing power is at the disposal of people at such levels (in the form of money or contacts etc.). They have the means, but they do not have specific objects of desires, but suddenly they start craving for fancy objects of desires, as they have the means. Earlier they did not even know what they would desire. Now, they fully know their means, so 'anything on earth' may crop up as an object of desire now, or in their lifetime or their childrens' lifetime or their childrens' childrens' lifetime and so on. Thus the means to satiate the desires has become the end. The picture of the 'objects of desires' is hazy but the picture of the means is crystal clear. Things which do not exist anywhere in one's mental field are soon created as soon as one has the means to have them. The growing menace of the involvement of top level bureaucrats, politicians etc. in countless scams is a sad commentary of the state of corruption. Even to get justice in the court of law, one has to use unjust means. This is the state of the system in which we are living now. Order has changed into disorder, ṛta into anṛta. In such an order man is becoming more and more self-centred and individualistic, not only because of the self-interest by which he is governed, but also because he is becoming disinterested in the world or the system of which he is a part. The 'social man' is changing into 'individual man'.
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