As the first Noble Truth, Buddha declared that life is suffering. According to the legend, Prince Gautama Siddhartha was restricted to his palace by his father, who worried that he might become an ascetic due to a prophecy made at the time of his birth. However, on his first trip out of the palace, Gautama saw four things: a man bowed with old age, a sick person, a corpse, and a wandering ascetic, and wondered whether this was all there was to life. He felt a spiritual urgency and became a wandering monk, which eventually led to his enlightenment.

This is a story that each of us is living. In our busy lives, surrounded by activities – chasing happiness, comforts, friends and loved ones, and more wealth – blank moments stare back at us, questioning the fruitfulness of life in this intrinsic vanity fair and narcissistic theatre that we have turned our lives into. However, because we are extensively conditioned by society, we emerge from this discomfort sooner rather than later and return to our fantasy of daily life, of earning a living and making money, a large portion of which goes into the system that generated the delusion. In this process, we try to avoid the truth of our existence, and this inevitably creates pain.  

The reality is that each one of us has come into this world, not at our bidding, and must depart someday, not at our chosen time and not on our chosen terms. Understanding this Reality is the first step towards enlightenment. I am not an exception; I am like everyone else. What applies to me applies to everyone else and vice versa. Others also value their viewpoints, ideas, and judgments in the same way that I do. Like me, others like a certain hue, a certain flower, or a certain meal, but their preferences differ from mine. The stubbornness that my choices and preferences are superior and must be followed by others, is the source of my anguish.

Reality does not need or seek our approval. We will just make ourselves sad in the end by resisting reality. Our suffering stems from a single belief: that reality should be different than it is. We have been taught that the world should be a certain way, and when reality falls short of our expectations, we are disappointed. However, that upheaval originates within us, not from the outer world. Reality is unconcerned with what we want it to be. It simply is what it is.

No amount of adamantly denying facts will change the world. Yet, we frequently act as though this isn’t the case. We oppose reality with growing zeal and obstinacy, as if the universe will bend to the will of a single person. This is childish hubris that must be overcome as we mature into adults and even approach old age. We suffer the false belief that if we are unhappy enough, the world will notice and bend to our will. People do this by worrying themselves ill, overworking, or withholding love from others whom they perceive do not love them properly.

All of these approaches are unsuccessful attempts to change reality by making people unhappy. They are all inoperable. Even those whose jobs indicate that they serve you – maids, drivers, security guards, hotel servers, vendors, and so on – are there as part of a social contract, not because their lives are less important than yours. Accept others as if they are doing their best. Remember, they would have done better if they could. Recognize that like you do what you want, others also have the right to be themselves.

We are continuously bombarded with political and commercial propaganda, thanks to electronic media. We are conditioned to learn a stimulus that is designed to elicit a response to determine whom we vote for in elections, what we buy with our money, and whom we love and hate. This sponsored propaganda is neither knowledge nor entertainment. Who is the owner of the TV channel? How much money do TV anchors make? In debates, who is opinionated and who is knowledgeable?

There is a continual attempt in public discourse to make people feel nervous and uncomfortable, in the hope that they will feel better by purchasing specific items, following particular leaders, and strengthening a creed. It is a subtle game of controlling people and making them serve vested interests. You can’t change it, and neither can anyone else. The best that can be done is to recognize the reality – differentiating what is genuine from what is fake. The ability to see the motives behind actions is a great skill. 

These are the times of Kali Yuga, the Age of Decadence, with struggle, dissension, disagreement, and contention. Injustice and inequity prevail, and the right actions do not always result in the right outcomes. According to Hindu mythology, Kali Yuga began when Shri Krishna’s incarnation ended and would span many thousand years before the planet is destroyed and re-created after a period of dormancy and another cycle resumes. You have to embrace the current way of circumstances without panic or despair like a bird stranded on a rock in the middle of the ocean. 

The challenge is to remain good and do what is right even when everything around you is unjust and the people you live with are unreasonable. It is vital to understand that acceptance and agreement are not the same thing. It is possible to accept reality without agreeing to it. Whether we like it or not, we must admit that injustice exists. However, accepting the existence of unfairness does not entail that we approve of it. Acceptance allows us to perceive reality for what it is. Our erroneous notions of denial collide with reality’s granite, causing a spark that eventually burns us. The acceptance of reality makes dealing with it much easier.

Accept the existence of others as a part of your life and reality.  Allow life to live through you by letting go of your biases. The unpleasant things, challenges, difficulties, disputes, and quarrels are all created to bring out the best in you. Take them as a learning experience, learn from them, and move on. Accept that suffering will always be a part of your life; there is no getting away from it. The best advice I have ever come across is that of Mahatma Gandhi, who said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” If you want others to be kind to you, start by being kind to them. If you wish to get more money, start by giving a little to those in need. And if you want others to tell you the truth, first start telling yourself the truth.

Books are precious in the sense that they capture the authors’ thoughts and retain them even after their lives, and in changed times. Those books that remain popular even after decades are called classics; those that remain relevant even after the passage of centuries become scriptures. 

Confined to home on health grounds, reading books has been my lifeboat lest I am drawn into despair. Recently, I concluded reading Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography, My Experiments with Truth, and discovered a new meaning of the word “Truth.” Gandhiji even called Truth God and said that if one wants to meet God, it can be done by living one’s truth – as simple as that. 

But then why don’t people do that? Instead of observing their minds and deciphering their feelings, they seek solutions in the world – rush to religious places and follow dogmatic habits. Instead of living the truth of their lives – facing the reality of the moment – there is a tendency to escape in imagination. Instead of fighting, they choose a flight to survive. But the real problem arrives when this avoidance of reality leads one to a false reality. 

Coming to the book of Gandhiji, it is a wonderful read. It is amazing how he has written about his errors and moral lapses, which we all have but hide. Gandhiji went to South Africa as a failed lawyer back home and faced terrible discrimination meted out to Asians and local Blacks there. Over the years, he developed a non-violent method of dealing with oppressive rulers and gained recognition and popularity in the process. When he relocated to India after spending 20 years in South Africa, inspired by Gopal Krishna Gokhale, he joined the Indian independence movement and took it to the masses. The rest is history.  

Gandhiji mentioned in his autobiography, a short book, Unto the Last, by English author John Ruskin (1819-1900), which formed his political ideology. It was given to him by Leon Polak, an Englishman living in South Africa. Gandhiji paraphrased this book in Gujarati and called the idea Sarvodaya (Well-being of All). The economic development of a nation must include the upliftment of the person at the lowest level in the societal hierarchy – the masses living at the bottom of the pyramid. So, after I finished reading Gandhiji’s book, I located Ruskin’s book on the Internet. 

Oh my God, what a treasure of wisdom it is! 

Ruskin opens the book with a parable mentioned in the Bible (John 20). A vineyard owner went to a market yard and hired some workers on a day’s wage of 1 penny. When he found many sitting there still not hired by anyone, he added a few more at noon, and even some more towards the evening. He paid everyone an equal wage of a penny at the end of the day. 

The workers hired in the morning protested as to why the latecomers received equal wages. The landlord asked them how it affected them. Ruskin added that it was no wonder Christ was betrayed for 30 silver coins by his disciple – “So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver.”

England in the days of Ruskin was going through the Industrial Revolution. Many factories had been created, filling the air with smoke and fumes and pouring industrial waste by exporting their products throughout the vast British Empire. Workers performed repetitious factory work under the worst of conditions, and their families lived in poverty and ill health in crowded slums. 

Ruskin’s mother taught young John to read the Bible from beginning to end and Ruskin could differentiate early in life between right and wrong behaviour, and righteous and immoral ways of living. While growing up, he found the social conditions of the world around him deplorable. Ruskin envisioned a better society in which commerce was conducted justly, workers were treated fairly, people lived fulfilled, happy lives, and clean air, water, and soil were recognized as essential to human life and protected from industrialism. Ruskin felt that the business elite must improve the conditions of the lower classes out of moral responsibility.

The book includes four essays. The first essay, titled The Roots of Honour, deals with employer-employee relations. Ruskin insists that the employer must deal honourably with the employees. Ruskin writes, “And as the captain of a ship is bound to be the last man to leave his ship in case of a wreck, and to share his last crust with the sailors in case of famine, so the manufacturer, in any commercial crisis or distress, is bound to take the suffering of it with his men.”

The second essay is titled The Veins of Wealth. Ruskin defines wealth as power over man and disagrees with the science of getting rich by forcing people to work at low wages and generating profits by trading. “The true veins of wealth are purple — and not in Rock, but in Flesh — perhaps even that the outcome and consummation of all wealth are in the production of as many full-breathed, bright-eyed, and happy-hearted human creatures as possible.”

The third essay, Qui Judicatis Terram (Who Judge on Earth), deals with the idea of justice. When men are treated and paid justly, we go from a society where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer to a society where everyone has a chance to rise in economic status. “Government and co-operation are in all things the Laws of Life; Anarchy and competition the Laws of Death.”

The fourth and last article, Ad Valorem (According to Value), defines value, wealth, pricing, and production differently than political economists. According to Ruskin, value is that which leads to or sustains life. “A horse is useless, and therefore unsaleable, if no one can ride, — a sword, if no one can strike, and meat, if no one can eat. Thus, every material utility depends on its relative human capacity.”

Ruskin then summarises his economic thinking as an axiom, “THERE IS NO WEALTH BUT LIFE. Life includes all its powers of love, joy, and admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings; that man is richest who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal and using his possessions, over the lives of others.”

Ruskin wants political economists to focus on the type of products produced by a society, how widely these things are distributed to the populace, and how well people use them. Most crucially, he sees a true science political economy and true merchant and manufacturer company as producing a nation of healthy, engaged employees who live meaningful, joyful lives. For Ruskin, “That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings.”

Mahatma Gandhi might not have been followed by Indians in their lifestyles. But he has certainly not been forgotten. The picture of Mahatma Gandhi adorns the Indian currency. He is revered as the Father of the Indian Nation and with all our defects, there is an awareness about the treatment given to the poor in modern India. When I say this, I factor in the vastness of my nation and there may be pockets of darkness. Awareness towards the rights of the poor is fundamental. Treat the poor around you with respect and deal with them kindly.

India had a glorious culture of charitable hospitals and educational institutions. There has been a drift and it must be corrected. There are more than 150 billionaires in India, said to be the third-highest number in the world. Few of them are quite active in their social service. But if each one came forward to establish an autonomous and self-sustained world-class institution in public service – education, healthcare, law, whatever, adopting the basic civic amenities of a town in the process, we would have achieved something where most other countries have failed. 

Much before Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations in 1976 and Karl Marx wrote Das Capital, Kautilya – also identified as Vishnugupta and Chanakya – wrote अर्थशास्त्र, Science of Wealth, in around 300 BCE.  Ancient India was a land of plenty, called the Golden Bird, and Indians saw the world as one family – वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम् – and desired the happiness of all – लोकाः समस्ताः सुखिनोभवंतु ।

The Scottish philosopher Smith’s world was about how the wealth is created. He saw adventurous sailors crossing seas, conquering new territories and bringing wealth home, leading to industrialization. Smith famously said, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity but to their self-love.

The world of the German philosopher Karl Marx was about how this wealth is distributed. Industrial Revolution had happened by his time, and there were wealthy owners of factories and poor workers employed there. According to Marx, capitalists take advantage of the difference between the labor market and the market for whatever commodity the capitalist can produce. Marx famously said, “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.”

India favored badly after local kings were dethroned by invaders, and finally, British established their rule and destroyed the local economy. In my lifetime, I have seen the hegemony of the capitalistic United States, the dissolution of socialist Soviet Republic, the rise of communist China, and the transformation of my own democratic nation from a food-deficient nation to a 3-trillon dollar economy with good, if not the best, education, healthcare, and civic amenities, if not for everyone, to a quarter of its people and improving by the year. 

I was born in a middle class family. My grandfather, whom I have never seen, was a retired railway employee who gave tuitions in the neighborhood after retirement and constructed a three storied house in Meerut City, a cantonment town of British India, north of Delhi. My father worked in municipal administration and with the help of my mother, who was a schoolteacher, could send me for engineering education. My employment brought me to Hyderabad in 1982 and both my children are brought up here. We remain in middle class but have moved up from local to cosmopolitan standards of living. 

Thanks to my 33 years tutelage with Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, which started with working under him in the missile laboratory and being his aide, and consequently my exposure to the higher echelons of the society when he had risen as a national figure, I traveled to many countries and met hundreds of people of consequence who generously shared with me their experiences and wisdom. 

It was through Dr Kalam that I met Govind Bhai Dholakia, a prominent diamond industry person well known for his philanthropy. When he invited Dr Kalam to visit his factory in Surat, Dr Kalam deputed me to meet Dholakia-ji and understand his model of wealth creation and charity. Dr Kalam and Dholakia-ji articulated on creating a knowledge foundation for organized skill development needed as technology raises its level from gross to subtle. Dr Kalam departed in 2015, and I remained a part of the knowledge foundation that Dholakia-ji had created as per Dr Kalam’s vision.

I visited Dholakia-ji many times, participated in his societal work – especially the population health project in his native village Dudhala and surrounding areas in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat. I met his family members and employees and other people in the society with whom he had worked. Three things I found different in his world. First, though he could not study beyond primary school, his penchant for education, especially of the girl-child. Second, his support of needy patients in their health crises, both using his connections in the medical fraternity and financial support.  Third, his emphasis on an addiction-free life and a penchant for the joint family system. 

These are not mere ideas and sentences written as vision, mission statements on his company website, which does a business of 2 billion dollars every year, but these define his life. He supports a large number of schools. He has played a pioneering role in the creation of Kiran Super-specialty hospital in Surat so that no one has to rush to Mumbai for a medical emergency. His family – his six siblings and their children and grandchildren – more than 1500 people now – meet once every year and stay together for a few days.  

It was during the coronavirus pandemic that I broached the idea of writing a book about him. He was reluctant in the beginning but, perhaps impressed by Wings of Fire, which he had read in Gujarati and immensely liked, agreed. Then came the language barrier. So, his long-standing associate and educationist Kamlesh Yagnik joined me as the co-author. We had 48 Zoom sessions during the lockdown and published Diamonds Are Forever, So are Morals. Bhiku Parikh, Labour Party member of the House of Lords, wrote the introduction and, like a cherry on the cake, the Prime Minister of India has written a paragraph acclaiming the book.

I got another bestseller book to my credit, but that is not the point. During the writing of this book, I learnt a great deal about wealth or rather aspects of wealth. Indian society and a large part of it still live with the ancient mindset. They work hard and expect to be taken care of in need. Govind Bhai used his wealth to whatever extent he could to address this issue. The only prohibition he enforced upon the people who worked for him was zero tolerance of addiction – tobacco, alcohol, gambling, for example. 

Employees in Govind Bhai’s company – Shri Ramakrishna (SRK) Exports – are treated as family. I have participated in the 50^th year celebration of his company in 2014 and dined with 20,000 people – from small children to aged parents of employees, everyone was there in the celebration. Expenses for children’s education and medical care for the elderly in the employees’ families are borne by the company, and the deserving would automatically get a job upon growing up. 

As a good biographer, I must ask him how he got this idea of utilizing his wealth. He narrated to me a dream he had transiting in London from a business breakthrough in Antwerp, Belgium. I quote from the book: 

Goddess Lakshmi was saying, ‘I have eight forms, Adi Lakshmi, Dhaanya Lakshmi, Vidya Lakshmi, Dhana Lakshmi, Sanatana Lakshmi, Gaja Lakshmi, Dhairya Lakshmi and Vijaya Lakshmi (आदिलक्ष्मी, धान्यलक्ष्मी, विद्यालक्ष्मी, धनलक्ष्मी, सन्तानलक्ष्मी, गजलक्ष्मी, धैर्य लक्ष्मी और विजय लक्ष्मी). Depending upon your goal—spiritual enlightenment, food, knowledge, resources, progeny, abundance, patience, and success, I support them with abundance and success. So, tell me son, what do you want?’

I said, ‘O Mother, give me spiritual enlightenment.’ The Goddess smiled and said, ‘Had you asked for Dhana Lakshmi (धनलक्ष्मी), I would have established you here controlling a quarter of the Diamond business of the world. Nevertheless, you asked for Adi Lakshmi (आदिलक्ष्मी), so go back home. I will always be with you, giving you enough for all your good works. Do whatever charity you want to do without any fear.’ 

So, the issue is not what wealth you want; the issue is for what you want it. If you are clear in your heart and mind, the symbolic words used here to mean intent and thought, you will get whatever you seek. 

I can see capitalism, communism, and socialism as three different streams emerging out of this one spiritual spring. Simplicity is what matters in life. If the life is complicated, no wealth is sufficient. Even the wealthiest people live miserably. I have seen Dr Kalam rising to become a great scientist and the President of India. He lived a very simple life – all belongings that could be packed in two suitcases – and yet I receive every year the royalty of Wings of Fire for having worked with him. 

The Indian diaspora has excelled in the modern world. Indian-origin engineers are heading three top technology companies of the world – Microsoft, Google, and IBM – and many more. There is hardly any company or university where Indians are not present, holding responsible positions and carrying out work of consequence. The Science Advisor to the President of the United States, the President-designate of the World Bank, and so on. Ancient Indians called themselves the children of the earth and the sky – तन्माता पृथिवी तत् पिता द्यौः। (Rig Veda 1.89). As local people pride themselves as sons of the soil, I celebrate overseas Indians as children of the Sky.

Abhijit and his wife Juri work for Honeywell, a multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. With their 11-year-old son Abhiroop, they live in Bracknell, 40 miles west of London. Bracknell is a post-World War II, newly-built town, like Chandigarh in India. They do not own a car because their office is within walkable distance, and for every other commute, there is public transport.

Abhijit was born in Sivasagar, some 300 kilometers northeast of Guwahati, south of the Brahmaputra River. He did his Master’s in Polymer Chemistry from Tezpur Central University. He has fond memories of receiving the degree from President APJ Abdul Kalam who came to the convocation in October 2002. I, too, was there as part of the entourage.

Not knowing what next, Abhijit came to Mumbai with three other graduate friends to find a job. They end up working as shop floor technicians in small-scale companies (as good as laborers) and a chemical factory and struggled for about a year, surviving somehow in the Maximum City before getting a proper job with Asian Paints.  

Abhijit was sent to China by the company in 2006, and he worked in Shanghai for 3 years. After returning to India, he married Juri who was working for a US MNC in Gurgaon. She resigned from her job and moved to Mumbai after marriage.  But when Abhijit got a job with Honeywell as a Product Application Specialist in their newly set-up facility in Gurgaon, the newlyweds were perplexed. Addressing their plea positively, Honeywell recruited her as well, and the couple moved to Gurgaon. They were blessed with a son in 2011 and named him Abhiroop.

In 2015, Juri got a promotion and was posted in Bucharest, Romania. Abhijit also got a breakthrough to make a lateral change in his career and started as Sr Strategic Buyer in Bucharest, overseeing 100 million dollars spent. Time moved on, and eventually, they came to the UK in 2022. Though they literally are living as children of the sky in their careers, they remain rooted in their culture. Abhiroop speaks to his grandparents almost every day on video calls in Assamese. 

Geography used to define destiny. Earlier, people born in the hinterlands remained trapped in isolation. No proper education, no good employment opportunities, and the mindset of a sectarian living spoiled countless lives akin to buds never blossomed. The struggle of Abhijit and Juri in their early life is an example of the end of that era. The world has opened now, and talented and hardworking people are welcomed with open arms. But it took almost 100 years!

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was an emblem of the universal spirit. In the early twentieth century, when the idea of independence was fermenting in India, Tagore asked the fundamental questions: Independence for what? Freedom from whom? Liberty for whom? He penned the iconic poem – Chitto Jetha Bhaiyashunyo (Where the mind is without fear). This one poem, written as one long sentence without rhyme, stands testified by Abhijit today.

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way

Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit

Where the mind is led forward by thee

Into ever-widening thought and action 

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

India is celebrating 75 years of independence, and from now to 2047 has been declared as the Amrut Kaal, a quarter of a century when India must find its rightful place in the global community. For the first time, India is asserting itself as a civilization. 

Besides children of the earth and the sky, वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम् (Maha Upanishad VI. 71) is another central idea of the ancient Indians – this entire world is one great family. How different it is from the violent creeds of denominational supremacy in Europe, which created havoc on the planet in the form of the brutal colonization of Asia, Africa, Australia, and America? What a great contrast it makes with Nazism, Fascism, and the Crusades! 

The hallmark of modern times is connectivity. Five hundred million Indians are now continuously connected to the Internet through their mobile phones. This connectivity is almost free, and though many may not cherish the blessing, it is not available yet for billions of people elsewhere in the world. It has become so easy to seek knowledge, know the answers to our questions, and be in the mainstream, wherever one may live in geographical terms. 

It can’t be a coincidence, a favor, or a preference but a tell-tale sign of the purity of the soul and clarity of the mind that Indian civilization has bestowed upon its people that is shing through Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai, Arvind Krishna, Arti Prabhakar, and thousands of other achievers like them. That Ajay Banga, who studied in Hyderabad Public School, where my grandson is now studying, will be President of the World Bank for a five-year term beginning June 2, 2023, is both inspiring and joyous for the Indian children growing up today. 

But what pleased me the most about Abhijit, Juri, and Abhiroop is that they remain connected to their roots while living abroad. A tree is called a giant only when it is alive and draws nutrition from its roots. Once its roots are severed, a tree becomes material – bagasse and timber – to be used and consumed. This truth must be internalized by millions of those who, though physically remaining in their hometowns and even joint families, are overwhelmed by the nuclear lifestyle and do not care for their aged parents and support their siblings. 

Rabindranath Tagore, while celebrating the mind without fear and the head held high, also cautioned against this narrowmindedness and selfish attitude. 

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments

By narrow domestic walls . . .

Wars will be redundant soon. I have no doubt, whatsoever, that India would lead the world, not in the military or political sense, but in the Buddha way, living peacefully, doing virtuous and wholesome deeds, and treating other sentinel beings, including animals and plants, with compassion. The Indian ethos of loving-kindness would prevail over the greed of commerce and ideological violence. Those who take care of the earth are looked after well by the sky too!

I recently got the opportunity to offer the first sip of water to my younger brother’s granddaughter. The week-old child looked into my eyes and seeing her quaffing the first drop of water was such a great pleasure. My brother’s son-in-law is a Squadron Leader in the Indian Air Force and stationed at Hyderabad these days. I had somehow missed this occasion earlier when my sons and even my grandson came into this world. So, this joyous moment came very late to me, but nevertheless, it came. 

We all come into this world as little babies – weighing some 3 kg, as a bundle of joy for our parents and grandparents. Some have elder siblings around doting on them; others, the first child like me, are treated like a princeling anyway. I have no doubt whatsoever that each one of us enters the world as an immortal essence of consciousness assuming physicality. This conscious is smeared with experiences of earlier lives, making a little child laugh and cry for no apparent reason. As the child grows, it gets integrated into the world. However, past lives impressions remain operative as innate temperaments, whims and fancies.  

A lot has been said about fate, destiny and free will. Put simply, our fate gives us birth in a particular family and the initial conditions of growing through our childhood. We can also add our temperaments, embedded emotional drives and even genes as our fate. Parents and other influencing people around – grandparents, elder siblings, teachers, and so on – impose upon a child their own wills. Human destiny is all about emerging out of these traps. To become a person first, escaping the imposters. And then expand the personal consciousness  from social to universal to cosmic. It is here that people differ – one life may blossom and the other life may wither away.  

Nature versus nurture is an old debate. With the maturity of the science of epigenetics, this debate has ended; only the ignorant are continuing with the argument. A very large portion of our DNA—up to 98 percent—does not code for proteins. Believed to be inert evolutionary leftovers, it merely lives within us. Merely some 20,000 and odd genes are expressed – deciding our bodies, cognitive apparatus, and temperamental hue. Gene’s expression heavily depends on the environment – the internal milieu of our bodies as well as our surroundings. Children growing up listening to music around, loving kindness, and abundance grow up as different persons from those who suffer noise, neglect, violence and hardships of poverty in their early days.  

But even adversity carries with it the seed of greater benefit. As the child grows, the harsh conditions provide strength, toughness and endurance. Many who grew up living within balloons of comforts and privileges find themselves weak, insecure, and fragile in their adult lives. Life is indeed a great leveler. The unevenness of outer conditions in earlier life is eventually levelled off. I have seen examples of APJ Abdul Kalam, Barak Obama and Lula da Silva in my own lifetime.

In India, horoscopes are still considered at the time of marriage and there is a tradition of “matching” the planetary charts at the time of the births of the bride and the groom. I have seen all sorts of marriages – working, not working, and even dissolving in divorces – and horoscope matching is a wasteful exercise – amusement at best. Tuning of temperaments is what matters most in living together. 

But perhaps the biggest problem of modern families is dysfunctional communication. People are not talking to each other. It is very common to find TV always “on” in the evenings when the family reunites after their day-long outings and even at the dinner table mobile phones are continuously used. Children speak in monosyllables. What are you doing? Nothing. Where have you been? Outside. The old art of writing letters is also forgotten, and a horrible style of writing has appeared where the is written as “d” and great as “gr8”.

Neglect of the elderly is becoming commonplace. Old age homes are not common, but Ashrams are full of elderly people. Everyone, including elders, is responsible. People are obviously living longer and it is very common for people to hang around 2 to 3 decades after their retirement. The spirit of the third stage of life, vanaprastha – where the elderly take up a detached stance and do not get much involved in their grownup children’s lives – is by and large ignored. Either way, the grace of old age is either lost or robbed. 

There is an interesting story of Aesop, a storyteller of ancient Greece. A horse, an ox and a dog came and begged for shelter in a man’s home one winter day during a fierce storm. He welcomed them and provided them with warmth by lighting a fire and served food – hay for the ox, oats for the horse, and leftovers from his own dinner to the dog.

Once the storm subsided, the grateful animals blessed the human and each gave a portion of its characteristics to him. The dog blessed old age, which is why old men are frequently peevish and ill-tempered. The horse blessed youth and, as a result, young men are high-tempered and impatient of restraint. The ox blessed middle age, making men in middle life steady and hardworking.

But these problems, though in plenty, are not the serious ones. As Leo Tolstoy wrote in the first sentence of his 1877 novel Anna Karenina, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” people – young and old – devise their own methods to co-exist. The biggest challenge is the failure to live the human destiny of expanding consciousness. Selfish people somehow create unhappiness wherever they are. 

There is no scientific conclusion as to what exactly consciousness is, except that it is a fundamental characteristic of life. From conception in the mother’s uterus to the moment of death, every sentinel being is conscious – from bacteria to plants to insects and all sorts of animals, waterborne, amphibians, moving on earth and flying, and man walking on his two feet – are conscious of their surroundings and deal with it, knowingly or unknowingly, every moment of their lives and therefore, to be alive is to be conscious.   

Human beings have a unique gift of imagination. They remember the past and fantasize about the future. They can dream about their desires and strive for them. Not doing that is the biggest failure of one’s life. In Ramcharitmanas, Goswami Tulsidas compared the squandering away of this opportunity to expand the consciousness after sensory pleasures to throwing away a gem in the hand to pick up a shining piece of glass: काँच किरिच बदलें ते लेही। कर ते डारि परस मनि देहीं।. The neglect of the capacity to develop the divine consciousness is indeed wasting human life. 

The child is named Shambhavi (शाम्भवी), who is loved by Shiva, the eternal God. Everything emerges out of eternal nothingness and is sucked back into it at the appointed time. What we call day and night is the never-ending movement of the earth around the Sun. May Shambhavi grow up to the fullest of the feminine dimension of energy functions – balance strength with gentleness, express subtle energies lying deep within the unconscious – the real purpose of human life.