Reforming Society

The Daily Rising Kashmir

Without Controlling Desires, No Reform Is Possible

Tolerance is essential for reformation in life. Purity of life, peacefulness and compassion are the foremost requirements of a civilsed society. The development of compassion and control of desires are essential if change has to be for better.

Many people have talked about reforming society. But reform cannot come until one achieves the capacity to withstand pain, oppression and hardship. These qualities are paramount for bringing about reforms.

Different thought processes are going on for reforming the whole society. Marx gave the principle of Socialism. He dreamt of a commune and a society, which would not have any ruler. The ideal of communism is the state-without-administration. No doubt state-without-administration is a dream and the whole society is heading towards stern governance, where more regulations are being imposed. Our whole perception is misguided and perverted. The process of reformation has to start from right point. Unfortunately, the system of economy, administration and behaviorism are being reformed. As long as the foundation is not reformed, even reformed objects would not be effective. Therefore, the reforms have to start from an individual.

The first requirement for reforming society is to achieve the purity of individual. A person with a pious heart and wise head can reform society because he can perceive the truth. Truth can be perceived only by a person who has commitment towards truth. The first doctrine for reforming society is to inculcate a deep commitment towards truth. I consider man as the fundamental factor instead of society. It is only by reforming him that society can be reformed.

The second doctrine is a peaceful life. Unless a man realizes peace and tranquility in his own life, he cannot reform society.

It is essentially required for a man to be beneficial for society. Another important element is compassion. A man without compassion cannot contribute towards the reformation of society. It is astonishing and distressing to know that the people of different religious denominations like Christianity, Islam, Jainism, Hinduism, etcetera claim to be religious but indulge in grotesque and cruel activities. The mind gets agitated on witnessing their ruthlessness. All the claims of being religious prove false. It is no point believing in religion and then doing acts that don’t confirm to the teachings of religion.

Such people, on the one side continue worshipping and on the other side they continue their association with cruel deeds. We have become habitual of being outwardly religious but inwardly corrupt. We are inclined to use religion to cover our sinister deeds. When I go through the newspapers and read that a young lady has been murdered, burnt to death because of being incapable of bringing ‘enough’ dowry with her, I wonder if this society is made of human beings. I feel ashamed of all this. Even beasts are not so barbaric; they do not indulge in violence unnecessarily. A beast does not attack unless it is hungry or is being disturbed. But man is an exception because he simply does all this for greed. The so called kind hearted and benevolent people, who are afraid of killing an ant, do not hesitate or tremble at all while murdering a man. Is this being human? Why should we then talk about religion? Today we talk about awakening but look at the ways individuals are behaving! It is amazing when we witness a mother in-law torturing her daughter in-law. A woman humiliating another woman! It reveals how deep the rot is. It seems the whole of humanity is neck deep in hypocrisy.

The first lesson of a religion is to develop compassion and sympathy. A person who has no sympathy and compassion will go on troubling others. He can never be truly religious. We shall have to investigate the root cause of this cruelty. It may be that an individual is cruel, but when the whole society appears to be inclined to become like that, then this seems to be a new development of the twenty first century. Today, generally it is observed that diseases are multiplying. It is said that the non- availability of pure eatables is the cause of this increase in disease. Has it occurred due to poverty? No, this is not true. Poverty prevailed earlier also but adulteration was not prevalent then. Adulteration has nothing to do with poverty. It has occurred due to cruelty. Man is gradually losing compassion and turning cruel.

In fact the greed for money and material comfort is making men behave cruelly. It even makes a brother inclined towards killing his own brother; a son killing his father!

Economists have also contributed indirectly to augment this cruelty. The whole stress is on expansion of desires. The economists declare that when desire increases only then material development occurs which paves the way for the development of society. The doctrine of development of desire has made people so ambitious that the person having huge amount of wealth cannot be content unless he becomes the richest man in the world. His main aim of life is to solely expand his economy and amass wealth, irrespective of how it happens. This has resulted in breaking of canons, ethics, morality and all the values that constitute morality. The system of ecological balance emphasizes that matter is limited and impermanent, and that desires are infinite. In order to solve our problems, we have to limit our desires. Therefore, there is a need to control the desires. When desires are controlled only then can social reform be thought of. This change will be truly the change that we crave for. Without controlling desires, no reform is possible. Today, unfortunately money is valued more than man.