A nation is not its land and buildings – it is its people. If we as a nation have to rise and be empowered, the first and foremost thing we need to do is to empower the people.
Empowerment does not mean amassing material wealth or technology. It is an entirely inner process, a spiritual process. Without the necessary sensitivity, inner balance and the faculty of discrimination in individuals, widespread negativity and perversions creep in. This is how a human being or an entire culture sinks to its depths.
Of all the degenerations we have suffered, the most damaging is that the nation has been deprived of its greatest strength – producing exalted beings who are rooted in a different dimension of existence and whose very presence is a blessing to the planet.
One example that the world is familiar with and whose fruits we continue to eat today, is Gautama Buddha. As a prince, perhaps he would have had a few more wives and children and ruled over his little kingdom. But as an enlightened Master, in many ways he has changed the course of life on the planet. We value this culture not because we happened to be born into it, but because this culture had perfected the technology of producing such beings.
There was a time when in a society, a few people were spiritual and the rest just went to them for blessings and sustained their lives. Today, with the tools of science and technology, we have brought ourselves to a self-threatening situation where everyone in society needs to turn spiritual. Otherwise there is no survival for this world. Unless some sense of oneness touches the people, especially to the leadership in the planet, then self-destruction is a live threat.
Skeptics are quick to ask, “Is such a thing possible?” I want to tell them, do not think of the future of the world on the basis of existing realities. Existing realities on the planet could be changed in a moment, because existing realities do not take into consideration people’s will and commitment, they do not take into consideration what is beating in the human heart. If only we can stir up what is happening in individual hearts, miracles are possible.
It is not far away, we just need to work for it. With the spiritual legacy of this land, with the spiritual processes that are available to us today, it is definitely a possibility. If we dedicate ourselves to making this happen around us, we will see something tremendous and dramatic happening on the planet in our own lifetime.