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Vedic view of life

CHENNAI: Every individual by nature is born insecure. There is no baby, which is born secure. At birth a human child is 100 per cent helpless. All living beings have the urge to live, and a child also wants to live; so there is always the fear of death. But the child does not have the wherewithal for survival. Before birth it was secure connected to its mother. Then it had to start an independent life snapped from its mother.

In his discourse, Swami Dayananda Saraswati said the infant’s helplessness was secured by its trust in its mother who cares for it. Because of its trust it is free from panic. The child cannot afford to distress the person in whom it has placed its trust and who cares for it. So it relaxes in the care of the one who takes care of it. But the one who takes care of it is not all- knowing. She is a human being after all. She has her limitations. What will this child do in a competitive world? It has to pick up the required skills for survival. Up to four and a half years the child is controlled by the unconscious after which conscious development takes place.

Today when a child is admitted to school at the age of two and a half, what will be its state of mind? Maybe it thinks, “I am not good enough, so I am being sent to school.” This insecurity becomes the essence of its self- identity as it grows. When there is so much insecurity the person is small and so he tries to grab more and more. On the contrary, “to give” is to be a human being. The attempt to give must be there in every person even if he may not be in a position to give. A mature adult is a person of compassion. Being a consumer all the time without contributing to society is not the Vedic view of life.

Till it grows into an adult the child is a consumer, and growth is the process of transforming a consumer into a contributor. An intelligent parent can make a child a contributor. One who consumes the bare minimum and contributes the maximum to society is a Mahatma. In the Vedic vision one is born small (helpless, and a consumer) but grows into a secure individual who contributes to society. One has to grow into the “bigness” one is capable of. Kindness is a disposition that comes naturally with self-sufficiency.

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