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Sisters and Brothers,

Our Yug Nirman Yojana (mission to lay the foundation of a new era of peace, progress and bliss) has begun with the noble aim of refinement and evolution of thoughts, sentiments, and emotional development of the masses. Of the many wonderful faculties bestowed upon human beings, the faculty of emotions, the source of sensitivity, love, and unalloyed joy, is supreme. More than the circumstances, environment of life, or any resources, it is this faculty which is responsible for one’s happiness, or tensions and sorrows in general. Evolution and righteous use of the power of emotions can also solve most of the problems faced by the world today. How?

Nature has provided substantial means and resources for ‘naturally healthy and joyful’ survival of all creatures. Have you ever heard of wild animals being dissatisfied or frustrated of their lives, or being concerned, worried, and sad about anything? The domestic or captured animals, or the animals harassed by mankind might fall sick or suffer in several ways, but not the wild ones. Then why is it that a human being, despite being endowed with so many potentials and the splendid faculty of intelligence, often becomes unhappy, desperate, anxious, annoyed, jealous, frantic, etc.; suffers in several ways, and keeps complaining about something or the other? The root-cause of these complications lies in his emotional core, which influences his mental state, and hence his attitude, thoughts and behavior in a significant way.

It is ironical that in spite of making amazing progress and advancement in producing and possessing enormous tools of comforts and pleasures, today’s society is starving for happiness and peace of mind! Surprisingly this complexity and problem appear to be more prominent in the urban society than the rural, or the less privileged sections. Is it that they just remain ‘contented’ with whatever they get to fulfill their hunger, whereas the more ‘privileged’ ones strive for further progress? Well, but why in the endeavor of higher progress they have to embrace negativity, lose the peace and natural joy of their minds? Look at our ancestral history of Vedic Age! How our rishis enjoyed unalloyed bliss and peace in utterly austere and ascetic life! Moreover, in spite of having no materialistic resources and facilities, they were far more advanced than us in terms of physical and intellectual potentials, progress and knowledge.

On the contrary, think of the life of the giant, mighty, intrepid, brilliant and talented kings like Ravana! Ravana was supposed to have conquered many parts of the world and grabbed gigantic treasures and facilities; what is more, his kingdom was made up of gold! Still he remained dissatisfied and unhappy in his life and generated adversities for others too wherever he went. You may also find similar examples today. What is wrong with such people? Mainly, they lack humane sentiments, they might have accomplished advancement on worldly, extrovert fronts of life but their inner selves have remained crude and might have even accumulated the filth of vices and negative impressions of unethical thoughts and deeds.

Impurity of blood is at times manifested in appearance of acnes. If one acne or pimple is removed by minor surgery, by applying medicinal gel, or by some other treatment, another will crop-up, and so on...; their growth and consequent effects would continue to trouble the patient till the real cause – infection, or impurity of blood – is cured. Similarly our emotional complexity, our mental impurity, our wrong attitude would continue to create one problem or the other for us and also our family, friends and others with whom we interact. At a larger dimension, similar is the case of adversities and problems faced by the world today. Emotional impurities like selfishness, untoward passions, greed, cravings, excessive ambitions, arrogance, envy, hatred, anger, cruelty, animosity, etc, of individuals have given rise to numerous problems, disorders, disparities, anomalies, disturbances, complexities, adversities, and challenges at personal, social, national and global levels.

The ancient history of India is that of holistic development, prosperity and divine peace and happiness. This land was reputed as the land of gods. But there weren’t technological tools, facilities, comforts there; no one there would have even dreamt of the superb materialistically advanced development, transportation and communication facilities that are seen today. In spite of this, ancient India was so progressive and prosperous! People were so happy; life was so majestic here that ancient India was glorified as swargadapi gariyasi (superior than the heavens)! This was because people lived for high ideals; their hearts (emotional core) were full of selfless love, compassion and mutual respect. Sacrificing self-interest and bearing discomfort and pains for the service of others, for the good of the society, was common. Social harmony and mutual cooperation, coupled with adoption of simple living and high thinking led to all-round prosperity in ancient Indian society. Disciplined life and hard-work and blissful attitude blessed them with superb physical and mental health.

And, what is the state of our society, our lives today? We have chosen to forget our great cultural heritage and ignore the ideals of human life, and have let ourselves deluded, allured, and driven by the glitter of name, fame, glamour, and passions of instinctive pleasures. In the rat-race of materialistic gains, outer progress and false-pride and mindless ambitions, we have lost the nectar of soothing peace and emotions indwelling in our inner self. Driven by artificiality, our sentiments of love and compassion, our feelings of joy and calmness too have become artificial and adulterated. Before it is too late, we must rectify this mistake, remove this impurity, and protect, nurture and rejuvenate the natural spirit of humane emotions. Yug Nirman Yojna has emerged to motivate and help more and more people in this endeavor, irrespective of their creed, caste, religion, and faith.

Thought-Revolution (Vich3ra Kr3nti), and dissemination of scientific spirituality (Vaigyanika Âdhyatmawad) and adept art of living a worthy and progressive life (Sanjivani Vidya) are our major initiatives as part of Yug Nirman Yojna. It is a global socio-spiritual movement aimed to give positive and righteous direction to people’s thoughts, to enlighten their mind, to awaken their divine sentiments, and thus reverse the wrong, declining trends of the present, and transform adversities into opportunities for courageous rise. The problems and challenges before the world are many and appear intractable. But they all could be checked and resolved if their root-cause is removed.

Most of the problems of today are self-created, and consequent adversities and threats are invited by mankind. The origin of these lies in people’s own thoughts, attitude, aspirations, and mental malice and emotional weakness. For example, if one is lured by glamour, lavish life-style, or pompous status, etc, his needs would never be satisfied and so would be his thirst for more money. If income/ production is less and the population and its expenditures and demands are more, the economy of a family, a country is bound to be trapped in debt. Artificial life-style, addictions, and luxuries, and the culture of inflated consumerism and commercialization has not only weakened our health but also disrupted the eco-system and the environment.

To a large extent, cravings of the consumers for instinctive pleasures, lavish comforts, and excessive possession, and passions of the industrialists/businessmen and traders for making huge profits and expanding their hold on market-power, are responsible for corruption at a grand scale. Self-obsession, greed, and mentality of immediate gains, success without merit, etc., spread this evil on other fronts of personal and public life. As we all know, an arrogant, short-tempered, narrow-minded, self-obsessed, revengeful fellow generates foes and spoils the harmony of ambience wherever he goes. In a more expanded form, this emotional malice and mentality of individuals and its cascading effects are directly or indirectly responsible for disharmony and conflicts at social, national and even international levels. Therefore, apart from contributing to, and cooperating with, multifaceted approaches to save the future of the earth and mankind, our mission’s main focus is — treatment of the root.

Religious teachings and sentiments have deep impact on emotions and thoughts of those who have faith. More than 80% of the Indian masses fall in this category. If their superstitions, blind faith, and emotional exploitation in the name of religion are to be stopped, if they are to be awakened, taught the truth of religiousness, and shown the light of prudence and reasoning, this can be most effectively done only through the medium of religion. As they are mostly illiterate, innocent, and deluded, we have chosen to disseminate good thoughts, cultivate scientific temperament, guide and motivate them through religious platform for their uplift, welfare, and intelligent and emotional development. Socio- cultural and grass-roots educative development activities, and self-reliance and personality refinement training programmes also are integral part of Yug Nirman Yojna.

The power of religious organizations is no less than any government in the social context. Religious organizations should therefore come forward to help social reformation and uplift. In India there are about five to six million hermits, sanyasis, saints, priests or religious personalities, who have been surviving on alms or devotional offerings. They are spread almost across the entire country. There are nearly seven hundred thousand villages here. So if about eight of these ‘religious masters’ adopt one village each and work for the awareness and welfare of its people then the goal of all-round progress would be achieved in a short time. They may begin with teaching basic hygiene, literacy and inspiring story- telling, and discourses; they may generate social harmony, and motivate people for collective efforts to resolve the problems specific to their village, help them make adept use of the existing grants, if any, and seek support of non- governmental organizations, in the nearby region. Most importantly, they should inspire people’s devotional sentiments in righteous direction to help spread goodwill and courage, dutifulness, and spirit of collective progress.

In many parts of Indian society, people confuse devotion or religiousness with some traditional rituals, idol worshiping and offerings made in a shrine. Such blind faith and practices should be uprooted. People must understand and also make others learn that true worship, devotion or service of God is offered through compassion, altruistic service of the needy and sincere efforts for the welfare of all, for the beautification (betterment) of His creation – the world. I am happy to see that our Yug Nirman Yojna has succeeded in generating mass awareness in this regard and has also motivated many to voluntarily join this noble mission.

Many of the grand shrines in our country are so affluent that even if a fraction of their monthly income is used for social reformation, and skill-development projects and farsighted self-reliant progress, it would significantly strengthen the economy of our villages. Some fraction of the charity received by religious trusts should be used to develop and support educational institutes that would produce dedicated talents who would disseminate the message of humanity, and divine Indian culture and wisdom that has the potential not only to help revert the declining trends and allay the adversities, but also to guide holistic wellbeing and progress to usher in the era of unalloyed love, enlightenment, and lasting bliss. In spite of its meager resources, Yug Nirman Yojna has taken pioneering and trend- setting steps in this direction*.

|| Om Shanti||

*Remark: As per Acharya ji’s vision, his mission has now accomplished a milestone in its glorious journey with the establishment and successful completion of a decade of first of its kind, full- fledged university — the “Dev Sanskriti Vishwa Vidyalaya”, Shantikunj, Haridwar.

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