When we observe mankind itself, we see vast masses of people
in different parts of the globe with an improved material lot, but without
corresponding satisfaction and happiness, which ought to have been the result
of this external progress.
If man is to truly improve and advance, he must do so on all
levels and in all spheres of life and activity. Man’s possessions have been
increased, but not his joy of living.
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| Emami Temple Balasore Odisha |
The imbalance between outward advancements and the basic
degeneracy undergone by the human individual is the root-cause of the unhappy
state in which humanity finds itself today, fraught with fear, uncertainty and
with a sense of insecurity.
People do not want to think of the present. Either they
project themselves into a future when man will perhaps have solved all his
present problems, or they think wistfully of the past when things seem to have
been better. This is due to the basic error that the entire power of man’s
mind, his perceptions and his senses have been totally externalized. He has not
started from the proper point, his own nature. If man does not know himself,
how can his life be lived successfully?
Swami Chidananda Saraswati (1916 – 2008) was the
president of the Divine Life Society in Rishikesh – associated with the Swami
Sivananda Ashram