Loving your country and loving the Divine are two sides of the same coin. If someone says, “I love God wholeheartedly, but I don’t love this creation, this Earth, this society that He has created,” then that would be a dishonest thing to say.
This is like saying that you love the gardener (God) but not his garden. One who truly believes in God will also definitely want the best for society. We should all work towards the betterment of our society.
We should take out one hour every day for our country. We must create a better planet and a better society for our children and future generations and leave this planet in a more prosperous state than we found it in. We shouldn’t leave behind a society that is suffering from fear, injustice, and corruption.
We have to take the responsibility for a strong, self-reliant India. Society suffers not because of a few wicked people. Rather, it is because of the silence and inaction of the good-hearted people. We remain silent and indifferent to whatever is happening in society. We don’t take corrective actions when required. This is why society has suffered a downfall.
Corruption starts where belongingness ends. A lack of friendliness in people gives rise to frauds. Would anyone cheat someone whom they think of as a friend? No. You would give your life to save your friends but not cheat them. Fear, a lack of belongingness to everyone, and the ambition to amass for oneself instigate people to cheat others. So, I would say we should spiritualise politics, socialise business, and secularise religion.
Inside every human being, there is some goodness. We just need to bring it out. This will happen through meditation. We need to bring about an atmosphere of friendliness. I usually ask kids how many friends they have in their classroom, and they count on their fingers. I say, “Hey, come on. In a classroom of 30 kids, if you aren’t friendly with everybody, and in a school of 500 children or a thousand kids, if you aren’t friendly with everyone, how are you going to live in this world with 8+ billion people?” Children’s and teens’ programmes conducted by The Art of Living have helped millions of kids learn this simple thing.
