Dr. Ashok Bapna
First Plenary Session
Inaugural session with all the office bearers
and the conference chairman Ramnivas Mirdha
with H. H. Acharya Mahaprajnaji, Yuvacharya
and other monks.
The conference began on a musical note with the recital of a beautiful and melodious song of peace by Joshua William Jensen, USA setting the stage for the theme of the Conference. It brought to the fore the inevitably needed but relatively scarce feelings of fraternity, non-violence and non-possessiveness. It aspired for an integrated world with freedom from hunger and poverty and no differences of regions and religions.
Inaugural Session
The song of peace was followed by the address of Shri Tejkaran Surana, Chairman Reception Committee, wherein he extended welcome to the most revered Acharya Mahapragyaji and delegates from India and abroad, present on the occasion. Shri Surana opined that there were two vital aspects of life - Spiritual Principles and Economics. A happy convergence of the two is the only panacea for attaining peace, prosperity, sustainable development, blissful and benevolent happiness and holistic health. He commended Acharya Mahapragyaji for having donned the mantle and leading us towards the higher goal of peaceful, non-violent, world order. He was hopeful that some concrete outcome would evolve through the deliberations at the conference, which would go a long way in attaining our long cherished goal.
Welcome Address By Shri Ram Niwas MirdhaNext was the welcome address by Shri Ram Niwas Mirdha, a veteran statesman and a former Union Minister. He expressed heartfelt gratitude to His Holiness Acharya Mahapragyaji for taking the initiative for holding the conference, which will speak of basic human values and their integration into the economic and social system. Acharya Mahapragyaji has been an ardent proponent of the belief that unless the social and economic order brings equality, harmony and happiness to the world, the system has a lot to do to prove itself. He wished that the august gathering of academicians, UN officials and the followers of Acharya Mahapragyaji pondered upon how to manage the fragile world that we live in, abounding in several problems and difficulties, so that a viable human society emerges. In essence, we need a humane society, a society that cares for all, the rich and the poor alike, making them co-exist in a very peaceful manner, and make compassion a living reality, which we sometimes ignore.
Today, we are beset with broadly two economic ideologies- one is the American Model, the Capitalist Model or the Free Enterprise Model, and the other is the Communist Model of Development. Both the systems have proved to be imperfect over the years despite the fact that both have yielded tremendous production capacities, generally exceeding the targets. But, the systems have been alleged with very poor distribution, growing inequalities, people living below the poverty line even in prosperous and developed countries. Such a system is truly futile; it cannot take care of its people who are denied even the basic necessities of life. So we need to evolve a model that lies in between the two extremes.
People of India are told that we would turn Bombay into Shanghai or New York, but Mr. Mirdha opined that these are hardly models for us. China is an extremely totalitarian society with reckless exploitation of the resources, with no human rights in place. Mere GDP growth can never be the measure of a country's greatness. What we in India aspire for is a humane society, a society that thrives on justice and equity. The UN brings about a Human Development Report every year. It is deplorable that we always talk about GDP, but never give a thought on how to improve the Human Development Status of India or any other country. Let's have a target or index like happiness index or peace index as suggested by Acharya Mahapragyaji. All our efforts are directed towards the reckless and indiscreet exploitation of the limited resources of our mother earth. India abounds in all the aforementioned problems, but the proficient guidance of Acharya Mahapragyaji would definitely help us evolve a set of thought, a ray of light to serve as a beacon in all our developmental efforts.