Messages for Resurgent India (23 March 2008, Sukhdev Vihar, Delhi) - Audio

So I would not like that our message is designed for amusing people or to attract them from somewhere else and come to us. Our message is given to those people who really are looking for it. So I was thinking that if you have one small little page saying to whom we want to address, so it is very clear that we are not propagandists. We are proactive, but not propagandists. Our message is not propaganda. Our message is action. Mother once told me the difference between propaganda and action. If I give a lecture it can be used both as an action or as a propaganda. How will you make a distinction between the two?

A message is propaganda. If I want people to be attracted and to accept what I am telling them and for doing so, I give all kinds of embellishments and even make my message diluted, it is propaganda. A real message is action. If I make no compromise on what I want to give and keep my idea as undiluted as it can be and not to be afraid that people will not like it, they will not accept it, they will bother about it, they will not listen to it, I only want to tell you if you like, to listen to something, if you don't, but this is the message necessary for you, if you hear it will be good for you, not that it would be good for me, I am already delivered. A question is whether you want to be delivered or not, if you want to be delivered, here is a message for you, you may like it, you may not like it, doesn't matter, throw it if you don't like it, I will not measure my success or failure in terms whether people are opening my station or not, they may not. What I am saying may remain unopened for years, doesn't matter, I am only giving to those people who are really looking for and one day they'll say he said nothing in this world which I can look for, and nobody has done anything at all and he strives for two three days, tries this channel, that channel, that channel ultimately clicks on mine and he comes through it. This is all that I would like to be done. Message of resurgence in India is meant for those people who really care for the country. Who are extremely serious about the country, who want to give the truth message to the people, to the young people to enter, young means anybody who is prepared to progress further.

So I think we should have three four lines. That is all that our channel wants to dream of. We do not want people to open up our channel and come frequently to our channel, and we don't want to measure our success with this. We only want to be a message to those who are dreaming to share what we think is the best that we can share with you. We also don't want to teach. We have reflections, thoughts. We want to share with those people who care for it. This will create a selection automatically. We want to tell our message to those who are tired of going to a hundred places and they are not getting what they are looking for maybe ours is somewhere they might click.

This is my attitude and you could look if you can do that, I’ll be happy personally. I don't want to Resurgeent India to be famous in this world. I want it to be really used by those people who are looking for it sincerely, looking for something.

I have a son, for example, who is going to disco every night. I want him to stop it and do something serious and I am very concerned about it. I don't know what to tell my son, but I am very keen, he is at a stage where I can't tell him what is to be done to himself. What is it that is troubling our country, and do you want to create new conditions in which the sons of your friends do not have the same fate? What is it that is taking away my children from my own home? Do I give help to those parents who are looking for this? There are parents who don't mind at all. They say yes, my child, you go and if you don't do it is not so good for you, be smart, be aggressive, be competitive, you also learn this kind of dance, that kind of dance. Why not? Do you have girlfriends or your boyfriends? Why not? There are many people today who measure the success of children in these terms also, but to them I have no message, continue what you are doing. But there are people who are concerned. Have I any message for them? What can I do for them? Who are sincerely looking for something, a real solution, if my child, for example, wants only amusement because every day my child is getting some message and her friend is saying I am going to see today this film, I have seen two times already, but I want to see third time, would you like to come with me? I say yes, why not, now which, as you rightly said, which restaurant you shall go to before going to the film? Are you free? Your car will be available at that time or not? Now you waste one hour only in adjusting your timetable and it is no problem. You are accommodating the changes. Yes all the time you suddenly change this, you buy this ticket and this ticket is useless. Doesn’t matter, I’ll buy another ticket? If I am concerned about this child, who is now in this net, I am very keen that my child does not go into this net, have another net.

So if you can make this kind of a statement that we are only addressing these people who are really worried. Today, there are three great diseases in the world. One is a disease of materialism. That matter alone is real and nothing else in the world. Accepting senses, joy and pleasure, this philosophy is spread also because of the fact that these pleasures are available easily, so you don't need to even propagate, it’s so easily available. This is one disease in the world and do I have a remedy, do I have people? I am a father of three children: all of them are spending their time night after night in amusement. I have no control, television sets are there. I'm rich, each room has got a television set and they are sitting. What can I do and at the most in the middle of the night, I’ll get up and say: oh you're, seeing television, stop it, just stop it and they will stop it for some time and again as soon as I go to bed, they'd start. What is my remedy?

Well, they won't even stop watching!

Absolutely, I mean I was just talking of some more polite children who, to satisfy you, they say.. Anyway, this is the situation. I would like some remedy to be given, the whole philosophy of the child, to understand the depth. So that you can explain to your children at a very deep level. Your children are not entirely fools. It is because I am not able to give my children something which they will be able to understand at a deep level. They will say that you are not as superficial as you are. You are talking at a very deep level. You have made a good study of the matter. You have got evidences, you can show to me that there are realities which are supraphysical and if you go into supraphysical world what happens – and that is what is Nachiketa is told by Yama, that those who believe that the world is what it is and then no other world will always go on round and round and round and there is no escape from it. This world is, and you go on doing this work and there is no escape from it. The first standard of higher movement is to say this world is not all, that there is a world that has got so many things.

So materialism can be met only by a profound knowledge which today people do not normally have. I can only tell my children don't waste your time. Your eyes will be spoiled. What more message do I give them? I don't have a message. Only I don't like that. You are wasting your time. What is there in it? I don't know otherwise any message to give them. So how should I be able to take them out of this, to take them out of this disease? I have to have a very vast store of knowledge where I can say, look instead of this what are you doing? I have here a vaster museum for you. If my parents don't have that vaster store, they will not be able to take the children out of this net. So I would like to give to the parents that vast field, but even they may not like to see that vast field. I will say fine. Then you do what you like. Unless there is the tapasya, don't enter into my field, my field is going to tell you that the world is not easy. Your problems are not easy to resolve. It’s not only a question of headache to be cured. After the headache is over, there are other headaches and what I want to tell you something much deeper, much greater.

This is the one disease I want to cure. I want to tell them what is materialism, what is the truth of it, what is the falsity of it and there’s a great falsity in it. If you're not false, I wouldn't like to unnecessarily trouble you at all. If it was really true that seeing the dances on my television the whole night is really the highest enjoyment available in the world, I don't mind at all. I’ll try to earn more money and use five sets instead of one set, you can have five glances at the same time in your room. I can do that also, if that is the only thing to be done. Anyway this is one message I would like to give.

The second message I want to give is that this world is at present a world of competition. Now there are advantages of competition and there are disadvantages of competition. What we call capitalism of today is so attractive, because competition gives you a power of wealth ultimately, and there are many ways of competition. Also, there are many great businessmen today who are competing in the right manner. You can create a Nano and sell the people and compete with the whole world, it is also one way of competition. There are other ways of competition also, I can have my robbers trained in my house and tell them that you should rob so many banks and give me this share of your loot. I can be a capitalist of this and I can compete in the world very well.

Now this disease which is in the world today, today nobody is criticising capitalism. There was a time in the 19th century, when capitalism was hated. Socialism, democratic socialism, communism all that came now. It’s all crushed gone now, only capitalism, but it’s a disease. Today it is more difficult to disprove capitalism than it was 100 years ago, because the squalor which was available in the world was very great. Today the distance between the rich and the poor is not so great because even the poor people are getting unemployment doles. In most of the countries today, you have no problem, you can remain unemployed, but you will get your food, clothing, shelter, not a very grand thing, but your physical life is not in danger. So today the squalor is not a very great disincentive. What is wrong about capitalism is that unjust situation is imbuilt in capitalism.

My child will be more fortunate automatically than your child, and this distinction will always remain, even though that poor man’s child also gets education. My child also gets educated, but the quality of education that I’ll give to my child, the comforts I’ll give to my child for education will be quite different from your child’s, and this distance will always go on increasing by the very movement of capitalism. Unless you do something deliberately to counter it, that is where a message is necessary that you can change it. You can give to everybody very good things. Only you have to deliberately act in the matter and this acting has to be collaborative.

No single individual can throw away capitalism, it’s a natural growth. You can't help it, but to create true justice, you need to have a deliberate understanding. This is the message I would like to give that you require deliberateness. There is one very big problem of capitalism. It is this that free enterprise is a great virtue. I am free. I should have the capacity to make an enterprise myself, nothing wrong about it. I cannot do free enterprise unless I have got a lot of wealth. What shall be my free enterprise? If I have a lot of wealth and if I am also capable of great entrepreneurship, I can serve a lot of mankind. This is the greatest argument ever of capitalism. You should have wealth behind you, then you really become free and you can have free enterprise and you can serve the world so much.

It is like the theory of benevolent dictatorship. A dictator can really do great things which no democracy can do providing the dictator is a real benevolent dictator. He can do it. Therefore, the dictator should be justified. Maybe 10 dictators will not be able to be a good benevolent one, but one will come one day and you change the whole situation. So why not have a dictatorship? This is the argument which is very much favourable to capitalism. 100 capitalists may be Anil Ambanis, maybe Mukesh Ambani is a better one, who knows, I do not know, what he is doing? I do not know really because he seems to be a great educationist, and he seems to be doing quite a lot. So one doesn't know. But this is the argument that a good capitalist can do a lot more good than a poor man getting wealth unnecessarily which he cannot use properly.

This is the argument I have to meet with precision, there’s a truth behind it. In free enterprise can you make money available to one who is really capable. Now this you cannot do by natural means, you've got to design it and design properly. That is why you need to give a message to people: look, this is not going to happen just like that. If you want a society where the right man will get the wealth, the one who is not right will not get the wealth, you can create means by which this enterprise will be available to one who is capable of it. How to do that?

Even the communist methods which were employed are not valid because it has been proved. Communists tried to get all the wealth into a state and said now we should distribute the money and then themselves became the capitalists. They could not distribute the money at the right point. That’s why Gorbachev later on had to confess that those who are capable of enterprise are not getting the wealth. We who are running the government have a lot of wealth with us, but we are not looking for the good of the society, that people have to stand in long queues in Moscow to get ration because they have no money. There were no enterprises of trade at all. Everything was available only from the shop of the state and my state people who were running the shops, they were selfish. They were looting my own wealth, so there was no solution, so he had to plead for capitalism afterwards in his own country. This is the issue today, which has got to be discussed by those people who look forward to the new future. They are, first of all, to see the injustice in capitalism which is inbuilt. Today, you praise it because communism has failed, but the problem is not resolved. So what is the solution? I have to create this problem in the minds of people. Resurgent India would mean India where people are thinking about this problem seriously. This is the second problem I want to discuss with people who think about it.

The third problem is the idea of a solution in terms of uniformity. Many problems can be resolved if you make things uniform and many people don't even know that this is a big problem. If you want to succeed in fabricating prefabricated houses, you will advocate in the country, make all houses uniform and my trade will flourish. I can make prefabricated houses in millions for very cheap. Only people have to agree that the solution lies in uniformity. If all become Muslims, there is no problem, no problem at all. There is no conflict.

A few days ago we had a seminar with our editorial fellows for our project. It so happened that at that time only two people were invited between eleven and one, one was myself and the other one was Irfan Habib. Irfan Habib is a communist materialist historian of the country and I was going to give a talk on The Synthesis of Yoga and he was going to give a talk on mediaeval India and the economic history of mediaeval India. That was his topic, so my work done was earlier, so I was talking about problem of conflict of religions in the light of The Synthesis of Yoga as a solution. So after I finished my talk, of course he was impressed and all that, but he said, you know, for your problem of conflict of religions, I have a very easy resolution that all people in the world become atheists like me, where is the conflict now?

Now, this is a very important point which is hardly even understood today that today our people are looking for solutions in terms of uniformity, and that is a mistake. I have to show to them that it is a mistake. Even if you want to make all people follow one religion, it won't be possible, even if you try it even in your own sect, there'll be other sects coming up. Why? Because the law of nature is diversity, you can't go against nature. Nature is diverse. You can have unity, but not uniformity. It’s a subtle distinction. Now this subtle distinction I cannot explain to people unless people are ready to listen to me for one year or two years. It’s not an easy thing to explain to people: what is uniformity, what is unity, what is diversity, how to handle it. It’s a delicate art, unless people of India understand these three problems quite well, there is no resurgent India and all the three are difficult propositions, and I cannot explain to people who have no time, who want ready-made solutions and who want to listen to it saying, all right give me the message, I’ll immediately do it, even that it is not possible, even the people who will listen to the message have to do lot of the tapasya in their life, just to be able to listen.

And the fourth thing, which is even more difficult. Today mankind has come to a point where what Vivekananda wanted as an individual, and he was in dire need of, is a dire need of all, which they do not know. He was in dire need of somebody who could say, I have seen God and I can make you see God and this answer was relevant to Vivekananda. Why? Because he was in need of it, he had been in search of it. He said anybody, people talk of God, but he had a need himself. So he wanted to find out if anybody had the knowledge of God.

Now my assumption is that today there are lots of young people of that kind. If you told me we do not have, then I have no message at all to give. There are a lot of people in India today who are in need of knowing GGod provided that you can say, God can be seen and that you can be made to see, you've got to have a method. You follow that method. The middle class of which you spoke who are going to Sri Sri Ravishankar belong to that group. It’s not absent. It’s not that there’s no audience at all, but even they are not told this message unless you put forward before the nation a message to the young people – god can be realised, that there is a definite method by which it can be realised, we have a method, India has a method, India has a message, listen to that message, India has a message – and that’s the whole need. Why have a resurgent India? India has constantly made this available. And after making so much of a search today we are in much greater surety that we can do it.

Therefore look for it, demand it. I want to tell young people: do not be satisfied merely by listening to lectures on God, demand from your teachers. Have you seen God, make that demand and my assurance to them is there is an answer, you'll get the right answer and that, if you do that, the other three problems of which I spoke will be resolved. They will not be resolved unless you do that.

Therefore, these four messages are simultaneous. This is what I would like to convey basically through resurgent India, fundamentally. First, that materialism is a falsity. Second, competition is not the method of life. If you follow it, injustice will always remain, and if you want to get rid of injustice, you have to do something deliberately, it will not happen automatically. Thirdly, that solutions will be put up before you today, which will require uniformity, but nature is not uniform. Therefore, it will not work. Fourthly, the highest need of man is to know God, not to think about, but to know God and God can be realised, and that this need is not now limited to one Vivekananda.

Today, in India there are at least 25 lakhs of young people who are in need of knowledge of God. 25 lakhs is nothing compared to 1 billion people, but 25 lakhs is a good number. If 25 lakhs of young people today look for God and if they can be told that it is possible, it could be a great boon. Therefore, this message has a relevance. I don't want one billion people to look at my internet, my whatever I want to, even if out of 25 lakh, even if one lakh of young people are able to do this, make use of this, I’ll be happy.

If you agree with all this, then we can work on this at a modest pace. We have no ambition to compete with anybody, but we want to give to the country a possibility of thinking on this subject very seriously, and these ideas, which are four ideas which are given, are most fundamental. Many other things are there but these are more fundamental.

Regarding capitalism, so what is the solution to capitalism? Certainty not communism.

Both are wrong. You see, in India we had a concept of society which I am not proposing now, but I am only telling you that particular concept had a great validity. It won’t apply now, but let me explain to you. It was told that one who is pursuing knowledge, society would tell you, you pursue knowledge, don’t worry about your food, food and shelter. We shall provide you, only my children, you educate them.

To the Kshatriya it was said, you just protect my land, I'll give you all that you need. For the rest, we said that we shall have free enterprise, compete among ourselves, but, whatever we gain, it will be our collective duty to see that these two sections of people are provided for. So, even on our wealth also, there is a limitation, we can be rich, richer, richest, we can compete and we are all responsible for it. And the fourth category of people can say that, look, my dear friends, you do not have the intelligence which I possess. It’s a fact. Uniformity is not a solution, you can do a lot of manual labour, but you can't do enterprise. Even if I give you 100 crores of rupees, you will waste it. You don't know how to make use of it. Therefore, accept to serve. I’ll give you some activity to do and do it well, but I will ensure that you will not be hungry anytime.

There was a rule in village panchayats, that the richest man had the duty to go down the streets of the village. At the end of the day, it was a kind of ethos in our country that the richest man will go around the village. If anybody is hungry, the whole day he has eaten nothing at all, he will bring him to his home and make him eat, so that nobody goes hungry at night. He may not get food the whole day, doesn't matter, but at night at least he gets minimum food. It’s a duty of the wealthy man.

You see one of the things that our religion propounded was dana. Now dana is for what? It is to equalise a society in the right manner. It was my philanthropy. It was very important for me to give to the poor. So this was the arrangement of a society at a given time.

Now you can see here, in capitalism everybody must strive to create wealth, whereas here in this society everybody did not have even the possibility and they were freed. After all, what do you need? food, clothing and shelter. And society said you will get it, but you pursue knowledge, teach my children and in your own dharma your own greatness will not lie in your wealth. We shall honour you for your knowledge. Even the social value was different.

The reason why I’m saying that this will not work in the present day, because it has now gone, you can't recreate it now. Therefore, I don't give a solution. I am only saying that a solution was possible and Indian society survived even till today, because of that, even today there are temples where nobody can go hungry. There are people who are beggars here, but they do not know to go to temples where if they remain near the temples, there is no hunger at all. Even today it’s possible.

That’s why in India, revolution is not possible because ultimately you can get it. You see, first of all, the climate of India is good for your open-air sleeping, in Europe it may not be possible. In India, open-air is much better than your house. In every village there is a river, so even for ablutions, and so on, you can go to the village. There is no need for any toilets anywhere. The flowing water is itself your drain, everything is going on and you can have good baths. You can wash your clothes very easily, dry them up, because the sunshine is so good. You don't need anything else and the food is available in the temple. All these facilities are made available to people. That’s why, even today, why communists are very troubled about India, because in India revolution is not possible because our Indian ethos even today is so effective, the sentiment created in our country is so great, you may say that in India, there’s not much of like Ford Foundations and so on that give you a lot of money. That is true. We don't have such Ford people here in India, but minor philanthropy is huge in our country.

You see that the ethos was so great. You can understand how much work our socialism must have done to create this ethos in the country. Then the brahmin has to be worshipped. Why? Because he is the man of knowledge, knowledge is so important, so not that the manual labour you do is nothing but knowledge is important. This greatness of India, not many people know about it. We speak of resurgence because the spirit of India is there. Today many people are doing all the electioneering and all that. They do not know that the whole strength comes from the Indian masses. Our Indian masses are quite different. That’s very true. India is a different country. People don't understand when you speak of the resurgence of India. We must know our country is a different country. This mass is not a European mass. It’s an Indian mass, this Indian mass is mesmerised by the word god, you may like it or not. And they love Krishna’s stories so much, every child in India, it’s a magic of India.

Even communists!

In one case, I wanted somebody to plead in the afternoon at four o'clock, up to 12 o'clock I had not found a lawyer in Calcutta. It was absolutely necessary that I should have a good lawyer. I had gone to seven lawyers and nobody accepted my brief, it was a complicated case. Ultimately, I was told only one lawyer was left out and that was the attorney general of Bengal and he said he’s a hard-heart-hearted communist and your case is coming with religion, therefore he will not take your case. So I said, take me to him, so I went to him and he is a real communist, I mean god and all that doesn't matter. So I started talking to him and I said this is why I need your help. If you can read this case, so I said I’ll explain to you the case, but first of all this is my summary, so he said Mr Joshi Durga is telling me, I must take your case. It’s a fact of my life. He said Durga is telling me, I must have your case and he took it and within three minutes he went to the judge and judgment was in my favor. He was the only man capable of it, and god brought me to that man. Ultimately, none of them was capable of it, this communist was capable of it, but why? Because Durga told him he said to me: Durga tells me I must take your case.

Actually, I think, some of the real communists of that time, nowadays, of course, I think many of them are really spiritual, god-fearing, god-loving people.

They came from Vivekananda actually. They derive a lot of influence from Vivekananda because Vivekananda spoke of poor people, you should look after the poor people. So there was a great message: what is in amassing wealth and all that? So there is a great message there, of course, which is misused by materialism, but many communists are even today like Yechuri, for example, Sitaram Yechury, he’s a very nice man, so when I see his photograph I can see a future leader of India. He has a great role to play and really he wants poor people to be helped. Truly, he doesn't want exploitation in our society, genuinely he doesn't want. So I appreciate it, that spirit exists in India. The only difficulty is that those people who speak of god, they say you believe in god, the time of belief is gone. Our young people want the proof of god and the proof by seeing god, by experiencing god, and this is the demand and if you can answer that demand, what is the resurgence of India?

But how do we show people God?

That is the point. We have to say that India has this knowledge. This is a method. You have to explain to them. What happened to Vivekananda today is to be multiplied. As Sri Aurobindo said, the one great message to be given to India and to the world is that today, nature wants to generalise yoga in mankind. Yoga is a method. If you do yoga, you can see god. Now that yoga that is meant for seeing god's not put forward today, you are putting yoga only as pranayama. You are devaluing yoga. That yoga is a method by which you can realise God and this message is relevant to many people today, as never before in the history of mankind, that’s why yoga is a necessary message and India is the only country which can give message as no other country can give, and today in India, more people are even ready to accept it. If you can rightly show that, therefore, this knowledge is very important to be given. The resurgence of India actually has its centre on God realisation. If people say that your life is for God realisation, the whole life is nothing but seeking the divine. That’s why we are here on the earth.

Now this message if it is told in the modern India in the way in which people ought to be told, that is resurgence instead of pundits telling you, people with neck-tie should tell you that God is the ultimate aim of realisation of life, if you can give in the right medium, in a new form. So let us see how?

I think this can be done if we can maybe put together a small note. And we empower maybe by just talking to people about this and then redirecting them to this note and then, if you want to know more, then you come. This is the door.

Correct. Like that we need to create four five good articles of this kind. This is one. There are other methods also, other things. Therefore for the resurgence of India spirituality is the main point. It’s a real message to be given to people of India.