Guiding Light: Increasing crime rate is the result of emotional imbecility

Guiding Light: Increasing crime rate is the result of emotional imbecility

Rajyogi Brahmakumar Nikunj jiUpdated: Thursday, December 02, 2021, 06:19 AM IST
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Today if you open any newspaper or tune into any news channel, you can be pretty sure to read or watch about crimes of all sorts ranging from petty thefts to dacoity, murder, terrorism, sexual crimes etc. Everyone from criminologists to law-enforcing agencies who hold the portfolio of law and order and people who are victims of robberies and rapes, corruptions and conspiracies, murderous attacks and scams and several kinds of blackmail, all of them openly say and with a loud voice that crime is awfully increasing day-by-day. They ascribe many causes to crime and its rising graph-line.

Giving the rationale behind this frightening phenomenon, they explain that some cases are due to the motive of money, others due to rage, hate, enmity and revenge and yet others due to odious discrimination based on caste, religion, ethnicity, culture or nationality or due to business rivalry or professional jealousy. However, if we go deep into this problem, then we will find that emotional disturbance is the origin of all disturbances.

Yes! emotional imbalance or instability of mind is the mother of all kinds of anarchy, deviant behaviour and crime —big or small. In this context, let us understand that like and dislike are the natural tendencies in all men and women. But liking for a particular gender may become so irresistible as to grow into sex-lust and dislike for certain persons may become so strong as to grow into deep hatred and, in the case of these emotions going berserk, people may, one day, find that they have landed in jails.

So, when we talk of emotional maturity or control, what we really mean is that we have to have a measure of discipline or control over our tendencies of inclination and aversion, liking and disliking or love and hate so that these natural tendencies enable us to keep the company of what is good and salubrious and keep away from what is bad and harmful.

But, alas! most men and women miss that education which trains emotions or develops the emotional potential in a positive way. As long as this continues to happen, we will have a society where crimes are rampant and where people live in a state of tension with the push and pulls of criminal tendencies pounding their minds. Hence, our struggle for independence will remain incomplete unless people are educated to have emotional self-control, which can best be achieved through proper spiritual education and practice of meditation.

(The writer is a spiritual educator and popular columnist for publications across India, Nepal and UK. You can write to him at nikunjji@gmail.com)

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