"Neither money pays, nor name, nor fame, nor learning; it is CHARACTER
that can cleave
through the adamantine walls of difficulties"
-- Swami Vivekananda
There
is a popular saying, "If wealth is lost nothing is lost, if health is lost
something is lost, but if character is lost everything is lost". But today what
we see in society is quite the contrary. Money is playing a dominant role in
the present society. People are prepared to do anything for money, they can go
to any extent, and they are least bothered about the means. They are busy
amassing wealth even at the cost of others. Their hearts are dead. They are
living corpses. They have no compassion, love or sympathy for other human
beings. Adulteration, cheating, bribery, theft, scams, scandals, dowry
harassment, robbery, exploitation are rampant everywhere. Surprisingly they are
being perpetuated by the so-called educated people. In the modern educational
system, only intellect is being developed but there is no scope for the
development of the heart. It is making people more and more selfish and greedy.
Swami Vivekanand observed this and said, "Bring light to the ignorant, and more
light to the educated, for the vanities of the education of our time are
tremendous."
In the midst of chaos and confusion, here and
there we come across a few great characters who have left their marks through
their wonderful contribution. Among such we have a most celebrated personality,
Sir Mokshagundam Visweswarayya, a great engineer produced by India in the last
century. He is a bright example to our youth. He lived for 102 years and was
full of enthusiasm, zeal and energy, almost till the end of his life. His
dedication, sincerity, hard work, skills, integration, honesty, spirit of
service, patriotism, and above all his undaunted courage and disciplined life
made him a unique personality. He was awarded the highest civilian award,
`Bharat Ratna', for his great contribution to our motherland. His biographer writes,
"His was an unblemished pure life. No blemish could be traced in his long
career. When on duty he would use Government vehicle, otherwise his own car. He
never used Government paper and stationary for personal and non official
correspondence. When in doubt, whether it was Government paper or not, he would
examine in bright light to detect the embossed mark, `government stationary'.
When he was asked about the eradication of poverty, he said, `poverty is not
natural. It is unnatural. It is curable like any other disease. Ignorance,
dependence, inefficiency, laziness, want of the spirit of enterprise are the
real causes of poverty.
Gandhiji's slogan was `Industrialise and
perish', where as Sir Visweswarayya's slogan was `Industrialise or perish. Both
were right: one was emphasizing human values, other material prosperity. Swami
Vivekananda came to harmonise these two apparent contradictory views. He
encouraged Sir Jamshedji Tata to establish heavy industries in India, and asked
Mysore Maharaja to help Jamshedji by way of providing land and infrastructure
for the same. Swamiji wanted India to be great in every field, but not at the
cost of long cherished values and culture. He was sure unless we combine both
these there cannot be real progress. The education which provides us both these
aspects was real education, according to him. He said, "What we want are
Western science coupled with Vedanta as the guiding motto and also shraddha and faith in one's own self."
Unfortunately, after independence, we are
mostly concentrating on only one aspect, which is western science; the other
one is completely neglected. In the name of secularism, we have carefully
avoided long-cherished values which our ancestors lived for and practised. Due
to lack of character energy, we have converted human beings into machines.
Every year we are manufacturing thousands of Doctors, engineers, Lawyers,
Managers, Administrators but not real human beings. Human values such as love,
compassion, peace, happiness, truthfulness, honesty, sincerity, contentment,
non-violence, patriotism, fearlessness, confidence, courage, self-restraint are
replaced by hatred, cruelty, deceit, greed, dishonesty, lust, anger, fear,
cowardice, selfishness, violence etc, which has created a vacuum in the hearts
of people. We have never seen in the history such a degradation of human
values.
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Regards
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