Mind pollution has led to moral degradation in society, says Rajyogi Brahmakumar Nikunj ji
A little reflection on the recent political affairs in India and its neighbouring countries would enable anyone to identify and understand the factors that are causing high pollution in the national atmosphere of these countries. According to experts, the conflict and confrontation between these countries were due to expansionist thinking and the tendency to grab more land from the other side. Had there been no prejudice and misunderstanding between the top leadership of these countries, then they might have had some kind of reconciliation through mediation by other country heads or through diplomatic talks. But their prejudices made even minor issues as prestige issues and they fought bitterly among themselves even when the national economy had suffered badly.
In India too, there has been a great scramble for power in many states, which is visible on national television nowadays. On one hand, we see that the opposition party of a state wants to grab power at the earliest and on the other hand the ruling party is trying its best to retain power. Most of these political groups who earlier proclaimed that they believed in value-based politics, became ready to throw all values to the winds and to ask legislators and MPs of other political parties to defect to join their groups or to form another party to have some kind of alliance.
This has now become a very common practice in politics, whereby every party wants to repeat its performance in states where it scored high in the last elections. And for that, they go to any extent without bothering about values or ethics. However, in this whole merry go round, each party has their prejudices against each other and some parties even consider the opposition as politically untouchable and hence they are deeply prejudiced against them.
In the ultimate analysis, it can be said that all of these are deeply involved in party politics and have forgotten matters of national interests and national security. They also do not care much for the interests of the poor, the down-trodden and the backward classes for which they had been crying hoarse. These groups never worry that fresh elections would cost the national exchequer very heavily and would consume the time and energy of thousands of policemen, supervisors, etc. However, they always worry about the costs they or their party will have to incur in case of new elections. In short, the party interest and the lust for power and prestige are so deeply rooted in them that they hate each other and yet they are willing to work together cordially for the sake of power.
Why is the state of the nation as bad as it is now? Why is the national atmosphere so polluted? What are all these factors such as lust for power, party politics, prejudices due to? Why have intelligent people fallen so low? Why is everyone selfish or narrow-minded? Well, a deep and practical study would reveal that this situation prevails not only in politics but also in other fields like religion, where prestige and position become an issue and truth is sacrificed for it. Similarly, in business, people consider money as power and they, therefore, run amuck towards that power. In the academic field, people consider degrees, diplomas and prizes as tokens of power, position, prestige and honour and, therefore, they work towards that end. It is thus a matter of pity that, deprived of spiritual and moral power, they run desperately in this rat race and, ultimately, go empty-handed, leaving degrees and rupees behind. Deep thinking on this issue would lead us to the conclusion that it is ignorance about the self that has resulted in the loss of self-respect and contentment. And it is this loss that has led man to run after short-lived attainment of worldly power, position and prestige.
It is, therefore, in the fitness of things that man should attain knowledge of the self and have a feeling of self-respect. There is no other solution to this turmoil.
