The media bring bad news daily. The recent terror attacks in France, Mali, and Tunisia shake the world. I know how one terror attack that blew up the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in in New York in 2001 changed the air travel and negatively affected the entire world as we knew it. The recent downing of a Russian war plane by Turkey on the border of Turkish-Syrian border appears to inch the world toward the third world war. The popularity of the leading Republican presidential candidate in the USA catering to the meaner side of humanity appears to change the national character of a country that has the best resources currently for leading and modeling a world hope. That a well-known celebrity who voiced growing intolerance in India, the largest democracy, is asked by certain political elements to leave his country on account of his religion is itself the height of intolerance. The report in the Hindu (November 25, 2015) of gory details of a mother’s cold-blooded murder of her adult daughter by strangling after drugging her, and disposing her body to destroy all evidence is certainly unparalleled. The daughter who was brought from her work by her boy-friend to her mother was aided in her murder by her own father who happened to be her mother’s ex-husband. To top it all, corruption and dissipated, purposeless living has become a way of life for a great deal of people in the world. Trust that is the foundation of freedom and human living is being dealt heavy blows every day. Our way of life and, above all, the civilization itself is in serious danger.
The scenario described above is very gloomy. The present status of the world can dishearten and drive us into despair or can re-double our effort to work for a better world. Humanity had in the past many ups and downs and innumerable scenarios worse than the one mentioned above. Humanity in its march toward its God-ordained destiny has survived the worst tragedies. Many of us in our own lives suffered small and big betrayals of trust and unnecessary human-made tragedies coming from the most unexpected quarters. Yet we did not give ourselves up to despair and distrust. We will survive this cancer of distrust and chaos if we do not give up our hope. There are many hidden agenda, many vested interests that parade in the guise of human welfare and common good of humanity. Beware of those who hurt or kill others in the name of their own brand of religion or their own self-righteousness. God’s good earth has been drenched with the blood of many innocent lives. Their silent voices as well as the voiceless voices of many humans suffering injustice in different parts of the world are clamoring for justice. It is for us to do a thorough self-examination and straighten out our own lives before we set out to reform the world. Once we become self-aware ourselves and boldly change ourselves and move ourselves from our fortresses of our own attachments and self-centered interests, the world will automatically change. No tidal wave of hopelessness or despair can stop us. If we stay determined and do the right thing, the temporary tide of inhumanity will blow over.
Swami Snehananda Jyoti
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