Chapter 4

1. Chapter 4 What Our Culture Is

2. Our culture is not a Hindu or a Muslim or a Christian culture. It is not a culture of a specific region, religion or race. Look at the lives of great men – there was no Christianity at the time of Christ, there was no Jainism at the time of Mahavir, and there was no Buddhism at the time of Buddha. All these religions came up later, after the leader had gone. This is because all these men were aware of our culture, which only distinguishes civilized from the uncivilized and does not divide or group people on the basis of religion, country or colour. A civilized culture may thus be summarized into two simple words – preservation and evolution. Peace or shanti forms the basis of such a culture Till date ,modern man has not been able to understand the concept of shanti. Our ancestors not only discovered the power of this word but also the way to have complete peace, complete shanti, which is not just being at peace with ourselves but to have peace all around Our ancestors had realized that being at peace is not possible if only we ourselves are at peace, but there must also be peace around us. We, the selfish beings of today, cannot think beyond ourselves and just want peace for the self, failing to understand that if there is disturbance around us we can never be peaceful. The idea is based on the fact that nothing in creation is in isolation. The vibrations of an individual directly affects his/her immediate environment and similarly his/her environment has a profound impact on his/her state of being

3. In fact Dharma is the lifeline that keeps the creation going. It is the dharma of human to protect those weaker than him – physically, financially, mentally and emotionally. It is the dharma of human to feed all humans, animals and plants. It is the dharma of a human to nurture the environment, develop the strength of character and resist exploitation of any fellow being, animal or the environment at large. When a person performs his/her dharma, he may rightfully be called ‘human’ Vedic rishis dedicated the first quarter of human life to the study of dharma, to understand the purpose of life, about creation, the laws that govern creation and an individual life. Only when a man was still in his dharma, was he allowed to venture into other parts of life In present times, everyone 18 to 80 is busy enjoying sensory pleasures, neither is concerned about evolution or preservation and hence no one is performing the tasks assigned to them. There is nothing wrong with enjoyments; our ancestors too took out time for finer aspects of life and engaged in arts and cultural activities and duties and held them as priority “A clear indicator that you are evolving is that your sensitivity is increasing towards creation – plants, animals, fellow beings and environment at large. If that is not happening, if you still can’t look beyond yourself, something is not right…” It is time to make it right