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duty. You will need to know the fundamental conduct. You have, therefore, a basic need, which is a selectively chosen ethical and moral foundation of life. You cannot find a greater source of such knowledge, of such a sense of duty, as in the Bhagavad Gita.
I am not saying that you have to practise all the teachings, but choose the basic morals. You cannot find a greater knowledge of human nature than in the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, the Pancha Tantras, and the Puranas. In the Bhagavad Gita and the Puranas, we have a source, an immense storehouse of knowledge about the complexities of human nature, its weaknesses, its potentialities, its obligations. As a human being, how should we live, what should be our conduct, how should one be a maryadaa purushottama? These things are not taught in our schools, and it is a real shame. In the name of secularization, we have neglected this.
Now, in western countries, in some schools, you have obligatory courses either on religion or ethics. According to the student's religion, there are courses on the Catholic religion, on the Protestant religion, on the Jewish religion, or even on the Islamic religion. If your parents do not want to choose a religion for you, if they do not believe in a particular religion, you have other courses in ethics to choose from.
Where is there in our schools a training in our basic culture, 'our basic Sanatana Dharma? Where do you find knowledge of human nature, knowledge of ethics? The Pancha Tantra is probably the first psychological work ever written. The Pancha Tantra, thousands of years old, describes the complexities of human nature, how human beings are capable of deceiving each other, and how they can redeem themselves from their nature. In the Ramayana, Mahabharata and Bhagavatam you have all the complexities of human nature, and yet the greatest spiritual ideals are described side by side.
So, we need to teach true religion, not emotionalism. Religion is not praying and jumping around. Religion tells you how to base your life on an understanding of spiritual ideals and the basis of such an understanding is what should be our aim, our goal. How to live and how to conduct ourselves must first be understood, so Yogah aachaarasukaushalam. Compassion, a sense of duty, integrity, responsibility, reliability, punctuality. If you do not have these, if you do not learn how
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