The religious philosophy of the Hindus, Christians and Muslims has always denounced riches, name and fame. They say it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. Hindu philosophy, Orthodox Christianity, Muslim philosophy or Buddhist philosophy always talk about self-imposed poverty, penance, titiksha, endurance, and tapasya, austerity. That is good. I do not have anything to say against it because it is said by great men. I do not want to criticize it, but at the same time, it is a fact that on account of the influence of this philosophy in India and in the West, people have remained impoverished and unhappy for centuries. The West came up only after it changed its relationship with the Christian religion. When western people changed, they did not renounce religion, they are Christians still, but they stopped practising the extremes of religion. The same should happen in India, too.
People should remain in whatever religion they belong to, but should not practise extreme systems of philosophy. Too much of religion in life is not good. As such, the whole majority of people – millions and millions of people have to see things in the perspective of reality. Why should we not ask young people to work for name and fame, for money and power?
They must get satisfaction in full. They must have ambition to rise high in worldly life. You may call it ‘worldly’. They must achieve the worldly things first. Only then do they have a right to renounce. What is the use of renouncing when you do not have anything? You should renounce when you have a lot of ambitions and passions. Therefore, renunciation must follow great achievements. Buddha renounced when he was a prince. Yes, that is renunciation, because he had everything.
In society also there has to be a thesis, antithesis and synthesis. There has to be a tug of war in this society. There has to be a class conflict as society does not grow without that. There has to be a conflict between religions, philosophies and ideologies. The progress of society depends on that. First there have to be clashes, then there has to be a classless society.
For every individual who reaches the zenith of success, there is an anti-climax. What has happened to the West? Anti-climax. Western people are working, aspiring, ambitious, passionate, exciting, conquering and colonizing, and now they are becoming spiritual. It is a natural reversal of the procedure. You have to go to the climax and then come down. Do not come down halfway. When you reach the climax of prosperity, success, money, comfort or enjoyment, then later you will not say, “I did not get anything from this.” You automatically turn towards the spiritual path. The realization of spiritual aspiration should be a spontaneous and automatic process of reversal of the whole procedure: climax and anti-climax. That is how the civilizations must work.
We should not brainwash our children to become spiritual at the very beginning of life. No, it is wrong, and I do not believe in it. You should not make your children religious dummies and puppets. They should be given a lifestyle, but they should be taught to succeed in life. They must run and run and run. That is called the race. They must keep running. That mad race will ultimately turn them to the spiritual path. Swami Sivananda used to say, “When you get knocks and blows in the daily battle of life, the mind is automatically turned towards spiritual things.” Then comes viveka and vairagya, disgust for worldly things and the desire for liberation, moksha. This is how the whole civilization has to work. There is no use making people puppets.
27 June 1986, Ganga Darshan, Munger