In the last few decades, with the advancement in Science & Technology and with urbanization and expansion of cities, man's capacity to do good or bad, particularly bad, has increased manifold. Under such a scenario, there is an urgent need to impart education in values, which if not done, may lead to disastrous results. Again, in the modern world, because of increasing complexity of society, life has become a network of secondary and institutionalised groups and specialised professionals. This has produced inconsistency between what a man professes and what he does. On the one hand, he wishes to follow a professional code of conduct and, on the other, he wants material gains even against his conscience. Similarly, he has loyalty to some group which may go against the wellbeing of the society as a whole. A man, wearing the mask of loyalty to a group, may do much harm to other groups and to the wellbeing of the society as a whole, if he is not cultured in proper values.
It can thus be understood that all our present-day problems in the form of group rivalry, narrow interests or jingoism, conflict between man's impulsiveness and passions on the one hand and reason, conscience and society on the other hand, hypocrisy and double standards, various kinds of wrong-doings and anti-social acts are due to the fact that even though we have education in various disciplines, we do not have education in spiritual discipline.
The failure of an European country to prevent the excesses under the dictator regime was due precisely to this reason. Throughout the nineteenth century, this country had rapid development of specialisation in science & technology but value-education was pushed aside or that also became technical and the concern of specialists only. As a result of this, it became a nation of highly trained specialists interested in facts in their respective fields but unconcerned with the large problems of life and the world, which resulted in moral paralysis of the people in that country. If, therefore, we wish to avoid moral paralysis in the world, we will have to do something to impart education in values.
One can’t really say that education in values will guarantee right conduct. However, it will definitely give an understanding of what is right and what is wrong to the people and will create a tendency within them to have right conduct. They will understand that not only we must have high ideals but we must also adopt the right means to attain those ideals. Also, it will explain to us that our motives also must be genuine, for only goodness of goals is not enough.
The writer is a spiritual educator and popular columnist for publications across India, Nepal and the UK. He can be contacted at nikunjji@gmail.com / www.brahmakumaris.com
