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.
