MORAL AND SPIRITUAL
REGENERATION OF THE WORLD

 Ref : BHARATHAM : SANATANA DHARMAM :

The revival of our ancient culture through instilling in the minds and hearts of the masses a sense of honesty, truthfulness and morality is the paramount social duty in our country. Something more than mere inscription on Stupas should be done to tackle this stupendous problem. The modern mind should be attacked with the help of modern methods. Stupas are good but only as monuments for posterity to know that we strove towards these good ends—not so much as solutions to the problem that immediately faces us.

Dissemination of the knowledge of the glory and need of a strictly moral life throughout the medium of books and leaflets is one method of awakening the moral consciousness in the masses. But this by itself will not have enduring results unless we quickly follow it up with other methods.

The most effective approach is through schools and colleges. Moral instruction should be made compulsory in school. Teachers too should receive special training in this regard and they should be made to understand that modern student will expect to find such standards of morality in the daily life of the teacher and not merely in his class-lectures. I would very much like to see every school introducing a half-hour class both morning and afternoon of such moral instruction: this is not too much to expect as this forms the fundamental part of the student’s curriculum and as his entire future, and the future of the world depends on what sort of citizen the boy turns out to be. Some sort of_ common prayer (non-sectarian) might also be introduced to begin and end the morning and afternoon sessions of the school.

This reformation at school forms one third of our work with the youth. The impressions that he receives at his home, and in the wide world which he freely roams about outside the school-hours are equally important. We can keep his mind clean and ensure that he has learnt his moral lessons at school well, only if we shun from our book-stalls all trash and filthy literature with which, I now see our book-stalls are at present flooded. Obscene (even to the least degree) pictures and posters should be banished from our fair shores. Something drastic should be made with most of the cinema films, which, I understand, contain much that produces a deep immoral impression on the mind of our youth. The producers should be induced and helped to produce good social films or Puranic stories. By gradual stages, tobacco, tea, coffee and other such stimulants which merely excite the nerves, should be given a thorough and sustained discouragement. Prohibition of liquor is, I feel, only the first though most important step in this direction.

Then we come to the home. The middle-aged man whose mind has already been moulded, needs perhaps even more careful and delicate handling, as he will resent all radical changes. Through regular propaganda, evening classes and morning study-gatherings we would gradually be able to wean his mind away from evil.

The Sadhus and Sannyasins, and the preaching class generally and the social leaders in particular, can do a lot to effecting the much-needed transformation and cooperate with the Government. Their organisation should be approached by the appropriate authorities for their cooperation—All these people should of course have to be trained first before they can train others or spread the message of morality, which must have the basis of personal example.

I have no doubt whatsoever that, however complex the problem and whatever be its magnitude, the Lord is sure to bring about this moral and spiritual transformation in the heart of the peoples of this country. Our essential nature is spiritual; the Indian is fundamentally a man-of-the Spirit. Evil and its manifestations are only superficial superimpositions on his Purity, and they are bound to disappear.

Swami Sivananda