Sinha, B.M. The world is passing through very difficult times. Almost every one of us is experiencing the crisis that has been slowly enveloping most countries. There is no difference between the effect on a big country and a small country, between the developed and the underdeveloped or between the rich and the poor. The intensity or acuteness of the suffering-physical and mental-may be more in some areas and less in other areas. Yet it is suffering all the same that the people from one comer of the earth to another are going through today.
We must prepare ourselves to work with dedication to save the coming generations from a disaster they are sure to face if this situation worsens. Those who feel committed to working for the welfare of humanity – I am sure they are not a few in number-will not only be required to be dedicated to the task that awaits them but also be mentally prepared to make supreme sacrifices to clear the path of human progress of all obstacles. The task will, however, remain unaccomplished despite dedication and sacrifices if they are not inspired and guided by the ideals of dharma preached and practiced by the saints and seers in India and several other parts of the world.
It is certainly not an exaggeration to say that the world which is today in the most poisonous and murderous grip of materiality can be saved from a sure annihilation only by the practice of dharma which strengthens the forces of spirituality in all of us-both individually and collectively. Some of us may not believe in the sloka of the Gita which says that whenever dharma suffers. God Himself comes down on the earth to put it back on the high pedestal it should occupy in the interest of humanity. The path of progress for human beings and all other entities in this world is easy to follow only when the forces of positivity, that is dharma, are in the ascendant. But when the ascendancy of these forces is lost to those of negativity, it becomes almost impossible for man to restore the place of honor to dharma. Then the advent of God in the form of Tarak Brahma ("He who liberates") becomes unavoidable and necessary.
There is no doubt, dharma is on the wane. Everywhere is the ascendancy of the forces of crudity, physicality and materiality. The USA is the biggest debtor country today because of the mad pursuit of worldly comforts. The Soviet Union is undergoing tortures inflicted by Stalinism. China presents a record of the worst brutality that can be committed on thousands of youths seeking intellectual and spiritual freedom. India is having the mortification of watching its rulers being accused of corruption. Africa is deep in moral crisis and Europe is grappling with the frightful consequences of materialism. Several countries in Latin America are in the vicious hold of drug mafias. Does this scenario not convince us of the loss of dharma almost everywhere?
But it is such a scenario that has always aroused in the past a strong urge among those committed to working for human welfare to wage a war-a war like the battle of Mahabharata – for the re-establishment of dharma. It is such persons who by their work and sacrifices collectively acquire the status of Tarak Brahma in action and save humanity from possible extinction. There are such persons even today all over the world, and it is they who are coming together to fight in the cause of dharma. And, as in the past, their victory is guaranteed.
Article copyright Himalayan Academy.