5. Resistance to Awakening

The difficulties in coping with studies and examinations are compounded by the verbal torture that parents often unleash on the poor performers. Comparisons are inevitable within and outside the family, and the poorly performing child is acutely made conscious of its inadequacies, and even begins to believe it when the parents say: You are good for nothing. Naturally, everybody cannot succeed in this mad race. The losers outnumber the winners multi-fold, and so we end up with a fairly large number of “good for nothing” individuals in society, thanks to the neurotic delusions of their parents.

It is unfortunate but true that religion, like education, has also been reduced to a means to serve materialistic ends and to encourage delusion. The higher and common objectives of religions, relating to the surrender of the ego-self to the all-pervading ultimate reality, are lost sight of, and it is only the lower forms of ritualistic worship that are commonly practised. “God-fearing” is considered virtuous, and it is obviously not recognised that fear is an unhealthy basis for any relationship!

God, to many of us, is some kind of a feudal lord to be appeased and worshipped periodically so that “He” may bless us with all the goodies in life. Such worship, unfortunately, does little to dispel the fundamental delusion, and on the contrary, strengthens the false identification with the ego-self.

One of the more serious ailments of the present civilisation is its obsession with “productivity” and the associated illusion of “progress”. As someone once said: Passion is good, but not obsession, because obsession results in lop-sidedness and imbalance. You may gain something apparently precious, but at the same time lose something even more precious. Our obsession with material progress in this technological age has created all kinds of problems because of this. We are hurtling “forward” at such a reckless speed that, unless we slow down and ask whither and wherefore, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to “sustain development” of mankind as a whole.