Family and Nation

Author(s): Mahapragna Acharya, A P J Abdulkalam
Publisher: Harper Publications India

Page 39

THE DYNAMICS OF INDIAN CULTURE
principles of cooling and calming the brain. It is only possible through spirituality.
The first step would be contentment, which means demarcating or fixing limits. Today every country longs for absolute sovereignty and economic supremacy. This ambition becomes the cause of its increased aggression and violence.
Similarly, if a religious creed or cult, having a fundamentalist approach, wants to make its ideology and lifestyle spread limitlessly, it becomes instrumental in triggering other people's aggressiveness and augments violence. Hence, for keeping tempers low and keeping intolerance, conflict and agitation below ignition point, national sovereignty needs to be confined within legitimate limits and there needs to be universality of religion through education.
The false conceptual understanding of economics gets implanted in the human mind from the very beginning. The conceptual belief that 'wealth is the be-all and end-all of life' becomes so dominant that familial bonds, human relationships and social commitments become secondary. Accumulating wealth becomes the sole objective of a person's life. The root of the problem is that while considering the utility of money, we are not taking into consideration other needs of life.
Desire or passion is an inborn human tendency. From this standpoint, passions or desires may be said to be the prime factors in life. But, because desires are fulfilled by wealth, wealth becomes most important in life. At the same time, without limiting or restricting desires through selfrestraint, both desire and wealth become dangerous. As man lives in the materialistic world, he searches for solutions to his problems only in the materialistic world. However, the fact is that the root of the problem is not matter, nor does it lie in the external world. It lies within us, in our passions that distort our worldview and conduct. What is needed is