Prof. B. M. Hegde,
Vice-Chancellor
Manipal Academy of Higher Education,
Manipal 576 119.

During the freedom struggle, a young lady was arrested by the British police while picketing for the Quit-India Movement in 1942. On her way to the police jeep she saw a man in Gandhi cap and khadi dress. She took out her mangalsoothra and a couple of gold bangles. She tied them together in her handkerchief. She then handed over the handkerchief to the onlooker in Khadi uniform, along with her home address and, requested him to deliver the packet at her house.

"I don't even know you, neither do you know me! How do you trust me with these jewels?” asked the stranger.

"I can see that you are a Gandhian. Gandhians can never commit any sin" retorted the confident social activist in handcuffs.

We drove the British away eventually, possibly with the collective consciousness of hatred towards them. We got political independence. More than half a century later we still suffer from the same collective consciousness of hatred. This time round there are no outsiders to hate. Consequently, we hate one another in the name of religion, caste, creed, language and what have you. The result is there for all of us to see. Everyday newspapers are full of ugly stories of man hating man and man-eating man.

The same culture seems to pervade our institutions of democracy. All the four supportive pillars of democracy are filled with corrupt, inhuman, incompetent and greedy people who cannot see beyond the tip of their noses. Their greatest vision is that of the next election. The judiciary is filled with the good, bad and, the ugly. Crafty bureaucrats are the ones that make the politicians do the puppet dancing show inside and outside the hallowed halls of the parliament and assemblies. Finally, the self-proclaimed guardians of democracy, the media, is trying to project a biased, distorted and, at times, corrupt view of society’s problems. It is not worth wasting our time blaming any one of these groups for they know not what they are doing. There is still a minority of good people in all these four pillars of democracy, but they are a microscopic minority who does not matter. The latter are also threatening to be extinct in the near future, if society does not sustain them. It would be very frustrating for them to work in this set up where merit and authenticity are the two major casualties.

Some of these people manning these institutions have had the Western type of objective, out worldly, intellect base information, which we call as education. Only very few of them, you can almost can count them with fingertips, seem to have some insight into other’s problems, especially the problems of the less fortunate in society. Human beings, with genuine education, first and foremost, try to understand themselves. Who am I? Where have I come from? What am I here for? Where am I heading? These four questions and their answers would bring out the best in man. We had better go for that kind of education in India. The latter was India’s contribution to the world, in times out of mind, in our Universities in Nalanda, Taxila, Bindoobund and Banaras, where scholars from all over the world came to acquire wisdom!

Swami Vivekananda had enunciated the definition of true education thus: "education is the manifestation of the perfection in man". This teaches man to love one another, to understand other’s religion and respect the same to live like brothers, sisters and citizens of one world- “Vasudaivakutumbakam.” Unfortunately, this goes against the present ethos of money being our God and making money our religion. To cite an example, what happened in NewYork on 9/11 is not only inhuman but also condemnable. But what followed in Afghanistan is a shame on mankind! Curiously, the two are totally unrelated. What happened in Afghanistan has a lot to do with the trillions of dollars worth of Caspian Sea oil, the reserve there being thrice as much as in Saudi Arabia and very little to do with the World Trade Centre disaster!

Unless and until we make our future generation to have the total education defined above, combining both external information that will come in handy in day to day existence and, the internal wisdom, which brings peace on earth, the world has no future at all. In this context it may not be out of place to quote a recent editorial in a leading Indian daily which said “that moral preaching is not relevant to this age of hi-tech living. ” How I wish the editor had a better vision of the future! Hi-tech is more a curse than a blessing.

Although I resist the temptations to read the morning newspapers and look at the idiot box for electronic news, the only topic of the discussion at the moment in 'enlightened' circles seems to be the petrol bunk scam. We seem to be scam experts in this country. This reminds me of the old English saying: "Pot Calling the Kettle Black". The present opposition, using all its lungpower, has wasted the common man’s hard earned tax rupees by stalling the parliament. They keep on arguing but they never discuss matters. Argument is only exchange of ignorance while discussion is exchange of wisdom. How would they know the difference, anyway? It seems that the governmental machinery has got itself entangled in one of the largest scams in the country, in distributing petrol bunks to their own people. While on the surface of it, it looks very bad and the media tries to project it in real bad light, the truth, however, stares them in the face. The opposition while enjoying unquestioned power for nearly five decades did exactly the same, if not worse. The opposition and ruling benches combined had thrown all norms of decency and responsibility to the tax payers in squandering away the poor man’s blood and sweat in wasting their time in the parliament and the assemblies. Recent revelations have shown that the opposition, having been in power for a much longer time, seems to have many more skeletons in its cupboards. Any sensible man would know by now that the politicians, irrespective of their party affiliations, are the same and are governed by the same emotions and passions.

Both groups must be ashamed of their behaviour. They should realise that while the country is reeling under one of the severest droughts in the recent past, these few privileged people, in the air-conditioned comfort inside the hollowed halls of the great institutions, do not discuss the relief measures. They do not have any consideration for the poor man in the village who doesn’t know where his next meal is coming from. It is a greater shame that when it comes to legislating on increasing their own pay and perks and trying to modify the irksome stringent election code of keeping criminals out of politics, our netas are so united on both the sides of the house, transacting business in such speed that even would baffle the Gods in heaven! Even the few self-proclaimed custodians of mortality in the parliament or in our assemblies did not even raise a faint voice against robbing the country’s already depleted coffers. The lucky few inside these august assemblies, irrespective of party affiliations, misuse and abuse their powers for narrow selfish ends. They do not seem to realize the wise sayings of the stanza in Ishopanishad, which says: “ nothing belongs to you, enjoy life by giving and not by getting. Do not be greedy".

What is the solution?

There is no way we can change the present lot. Imagine the scenario during the freedom struggle when a woman with her precious jewels trusted even a stranger in khadi dress. In the present scenario, not even the blood relatives of the khadi-wearing politicians would trust them with a penny. Decent human beings would do well not to touch any one of these people even with the bargepole. They are more venomous and more dangerous than the Russells vipers. They would bite even when not disturbed. If one meets a politician and a snake on the road, it is safer to deal with the politician first as the snake is not that dangerous!

Our only hope is first to change the collective consciousness of our people. Man’s mind resides at the subatomic level of every single cell of which there are one hundred thousand billion in all. In the mundane sense, mind is the collection of our thoughts. Since the subatomic particles (lepto-quarks) are in constant motion, both within and outwith every living creature, carrying our thoughts with them, collective consciousness is the sum total of individual consciousness.

The only solution for the welfare of this world today would be to try and displace the negative poisonous thoughts from human consciousness to be replaced by positive thoughts of co-operation, camaraderie, altruism and universal compassion. This is a tall order. Even a journey of thousand miles starts with the first step and that would be to begin the process. "Have the courage to begin,” wrote Horace. People have been trying various methods. Gurus and Mendicants have been preaching from time immemorial. Let us now try it in practice. This could start with our future leaders, the children in schools and colleges, who still remain non-converts to the devious ways of their adults.

Yogic seers have had the Clairvoyance and the vision in the past, which has been researched in some leading Universities. None of these seems to have changed man’s consciousness. However, each one of us could do that at our level to transform each of us and that goodness would transmit to others in society. Let us influence others by example and not by preaching. Even a few people changing in society would radiate the goodness to criminals. This possibility is explained in quantum particle physics. Let us begin by converting our simple, lovely, and innocent children in homes and schools by inculcating in them the positive thoughts of love and compassion.

The future is for non-governmental organizations to mobilize the silent majority of good people and try to alter the collective consciousness of society, which, in turn, would have its sobering effect on the consciousness of the corrupt, greedy and criminal minority. At present the latter holds the compassionate majority to ransom.

In the unified field theory, which comes very close to the Sanathana Dharma, space is the whole universe, Aakasa-the container. The content is Prajnanam, the universal consciousness. Awake, arise our sleeping millions of good people and have the courage to begin to transform the societal consciousness.

Let us not blame or waste time in condemning the minority who are in positions of power and believe that they are all powerful. Poor chaps, they are deluded. Real power comes when you are able to do a good turn to another fellow human being. Let us not find fault. Let us try and build.