Wanted: University of Wisdom!

During the Christmas season let's turn to Jesus Christ who was one of the great religious leaders the world has produced. Christians believe that he is the Son of God and others consider him as one of the greatest men who was born in this planet. When the whole world is facing an economic downturn we should turn to Jesus Christ for guidance. In a world driven by relentless market forces, consumerism and human greed, people appear to be robots running after material gains. Despite his teachings, we tend to put undue emphasis on material possessions.

Jesus Christ preached, "Stop storing up for yourselves treasures up on the earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break in and steal." He warned that people should rather store up treasures in heaven by putting God's services first in their lives. Jesus Christ said, "Observe intently the birds of heaven because they do not sow seeds or reap or gather into store houses; still your heavenly Father feeds them."

If you look at the world, you see people are doing just the opposite.

Hoarding wealth has become a pastime. When you want to hoard wealth, you do not consider the means of earning it. This leads to many social malpractices such as theft and bribery. He who earns wealth will never be happy because of his greed. The supreme principle in righteous life is moderation. It is like a man milking a cow leaving enough for the calf. To take another example, we should earn wealth like the bee, without doing any harm to our source of wealth.

This runs counter to modern marketing and business practices. We are taught to maximise our earnings ruthlessly. If people do not buy your product, you launch an advertising campaign and create a necessity for people to buy it. As a result people tend to buy things they never wanted to possess. Heavy advertising mainly in the electronic media encourage the consumer to lead an ostentatious life, sometimes above his means. As a result, the consumer begins to raise loans from financial institutions and tries to keep up with the Joneses.

Greek philosopher Diogenes

If you walk into any house of a middle class wage earner you will find him surrounded by all kinds of modern electronic gadgets. Most of these expensive items can be dispensed with. Once a visitor to my house asked me why I was still having an Indian type toilet instead of a modern washroom equipped with a hot water cylinder, bidet, and an expensive bathroom set. I really do not know whether I should spend a lifetime's savings on a toilet!

We have to earn a living in order to lead a decent life. The wealth we earn must be used for reasonable comforts for ourselves and our family members. What is earned in accordance with our righteous lifestyle is regarded as blameless wealth. If you are naive, you are going to be influenced heavily by consumerism which knows no limit. Over-consumption will lead you to waste your hard-earned wealth and waste your resources. What is happening in the United States is a clear example of the futility of over-consumption and utter wastage of food.

Even a leading philosophy such as Buddhism gives us a vivid picture of the significance of right livelihood in the economic field. The Buddha wanted His followers to desist from killing living beings and from doing anything that would harm their mental and physical well-being.

He wanted people to desist from cheating or falsely attracting others to the products that one has to offer. The Buddha also wanted people to desist from taking excessive profits at the expense of the consumer.

Leading a simple life is not something new to any intelligent person.

The great Greek philosopher Diogenes always professed a simplistic lifestyle, foregoing the trappings and distractions of civic life in favour of a devotion to the mastery of the self. He believed that happiness could only be achieved by living according to nature. In other words, we have to satisfy only the most basic requirements of the body by the simplest means possible. Diogenes was a philosopher who practised what he preached. He made a living by begging and refused to wear anything other than the simplest of clothes.

Although we cannot live like Diogenes, we can learn a lesson from his life. He teaches us the mastery of the self or self-sufficiency that leads to happiness. But this needs constant practice and training in the face of adversity. Although we cannot get rid of everything we possess, let us start somewhere to lead a simple life without the trappings of social values and modernity.

Another cause of unhappiness is that nature demands one thing and society demands something else. If society demands the same thing as nature does, there is no conflict. One problem with today's world is that society has its own interests. Society wants to put up a dam across a river. This may be a method to produce hydro-electricity or to augment agriculture. However, are we not tampering with nature too much? Similarly, we clear large areas of forest cover for development purposes. In the process, innocent animals are driven out from their habitats. When trees are cut down mercilessly, birds have no place to live. When elephants have nothing to eat, they invade villages, leading to conflicts.

What is wrong with modern civilisation is that we think and behave as a collective organism. Like fish in the mighty ocean, human beings swim through history without paying any attention to how its water shapes their movements. Print and electronic media force us to think collectively, not individually. You are going to vote for a certain candidate simply because others want to do so. We dread to think individually. That is a tragedy in the 21st century.

The world needs a new University of Wisdom with a faculty of philosophers, anthropologists, historians, psychologists and a few others who can think individually. Modern day universities do not produce thinkers or philosophers. They only produce Philosophy Graduates who can hardly think for themselves!