The whole world today is facing many global problems which are connected to each other directly or indirectly. Together, they have created a very complex and grave situation. These problems are too many and too well-known to need any listing here. Till date, many solutions have been tried to solve them. However, it has been noticed that every solution has created some new problems in the process or at the end, even if it has partially solved the old ones.
The solutions adopted by man have been unable to fulfil his dream because they have been piecemeal and of ad-hoc and fragmentary nature. But what is most important is that some essential element that should generate happiness inner satisfaction has been missing. So, even after strenuous efforts and huge expenditure, the result achieved has not been unmixed happiness or a lasting respite and relief. There is, therefore, the need to know or to explore what that missing element is.
An analysis of human action, in general, would suggest that our response is, invariably and always, based on our belief system. At present, our outlook, values, attitudes, and actions are often prompted by the belief system built from our knowledge of science and technology and other disciplines such as economics, politics, etc. Therefore, our response is mainly materialistic, secular, mundane or influenced by body-consciousness. It is not moral and spiritual or of a quality higher than the earthly.
Our motives, goals and efforts are coloured by merely worldly or material considerations and immediate concerns. They do not take into account the durable gain and a higher, nobler and ennobling experience. They violate moral and spiritual laws for immediate gain and neglect the soul's well-being to attain a short-lived, pleasurable, sensual experience. Our present predicament is due to this missing element which should elicit the soul-conscious or the spiritual response.
Spiritual response is a blend of such benign values as universal love, goodwill, cooperation, concern for the well-being of the whole family of mankind. It is based on the constant and living awareness that we are souls and children of one Supreme and are divine in our nature and origin. We must thus remember that without this kind of spiritual response, no problem, whether you call it political, economic, ethnic or by any other name, can be solved.
(The writer is a spiritual educator and popular columnist for publications across India, Nepal, and UK)
