Ujjain (Madhya Pradesh): Everything in life is in motion. This is the era of high-speed culture. Speed is very necessary for development, but if there is no balance then this speed cannot bring development. Fast food is now being preferred instead of easily digestible food with Bhojan Mantras. It is wreaking havoc on both our bodies and minds. The blind race for speed is such that we are forgetting the village and we like the glare of the city. The pace is so strong that the habit of reading books has been lost and people feel better about spending time on social media. Gandhi has said that along with speed, slowness has its own importance. Slowness also has a beauty which should be the philosophy of our life.
These views were expressed by prof Prem Anand Mishra, president of Gandhi Study Centre, Gujarat Vidyapeeth, Ahmedabad, as the keynote speaker on the sixth day on Saturday of the week-long 20th Padma Bhushan Dr Shivmangal Singh ‘Suman’ Smriti Akhil Bhartiya Sadbhavana lecture series, organised by Bharatiya Gyanpeeth. Keeping his point on the topic “Gandhi Thoughts and Contemporary Lifestyle”', prof Mishra said that today’s society has become a body-centred society. Everyone is engaged in improving their outer personality by neglecting their inner personality. The body has become an object of display. Everyone is engaged in sending their selfies or other gestures on mobile as if the body has been kept as a laboratory for food and clothes. All these experiments are taking us away from our culture. Gandhi had given first place to the soul and second place to the body, but today the body is prominent in the centre of society, he said.
Presiding over the programme former vice-chancellor of Maharshi Panini Sanskrit evam Vaidik University, Dr Mohan Gupt said that due to excess intellectualism, people are forgetting physical labour, which Gandhi had revived and had explained its importance. He agreed that giving importance to taste is also a tradition, but a person should not eat only to eat but to live. It is Gandhi’s moral strength that makes him fearless. In the era of competition, it is necessary to tell the young generation that in case of defeat, it should be accepted and tolerated. Gandhi described over-industrialisation as the cause of destruction. Gandhi is a beacon of morality and truth. The irony is that the greatest decay of morality is occurring now. It is very important to propagate Gandhi’s ethics to the younger generation today, he added.
At the beginning of the ceremony, the president of the organisation Krishna Mangal Singh Kulshrestha garlanded the photographs of the Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi and Dr Shivmangal Singh ‘Suman’. The programme was conducted by Dr Rajendra Nagar while gratitude was expressed by veteran freedom fighter Prem Narayan Nagar.
