Material Problems and Spiritual Solutions Introduction: Krishna says in Bhagavat Gita (8.

15) that this material world is dukha alayam asaasvatham a place of miseries and temporariness. One may readily agree with the temporary nature of this world because, everything changes with time. Everyone here is subjected to six transformations like taking birth, grow, live for some time, produce some byproduct, dwindle and vanish. But most of the time it is difficult for one to understand that this world is full of miseries. This is because we always seek for happiness and want to forget all the miseries quickly. We want to keep only happy memories with us. Hardly anyone is there, who would like to hear about others miseries and problems in life. But nonetheless this world is full of miseries. The temporary cessation of miseries is considered to be the happiness in the world. Unless one gradually develop a craving for an object or a goal, one will not feel happiness in attaining it. One may be a very rich man, but if he does not have an appetite for eating, he cannot relish his meal. In the entire life, we do only these two things: Craving for an object and working towards it to attain it. We spend a portion of our life in craving i.e. a period of unhappiness and spend another portion in the sense of happiness of having attained the object or goal. Unless we spend some period in unhappiness, one cannot relish the happiness in this world. Thus we experience only relative happiness in this world. This is compared to a situation where a person is forced to struggle for breath by immersing him in the water and then letting him out to take breath for a short duration. That person immediately forgets his suffering inside the water and will think that the short duration of free breathing outside to be happiness. This is the exact situation, which all of us are undergoing in this world. In this essay, the root cause of our suffering, its nature, approaches in solving material problems and some spiritual solutions available from vedic literatures are addressed. Material problems: All problems in this world can be categorized in to two major divisions namely, Absolute and Relative. The absolute problem is one which is true for all beings and for all time. Relative problems changes from person to person. If one is able to solve the absolute problem, relative problems does not exist for him. The vedic literatures reveal both absolute and relative problems in great detail along with the method to overcome them. Absolute problems: The absolute problems described in the vedic literatures are Birth, Death, Old age and Disease. These are all considered as problems because, nobody wants to undergo the pain experienced during birth, death, old age and disease. These problems are considered absolute because nobody is exempt from this at any time. The sufferings encountered in these four problems are described in Garuda purana in great detail. Some of them are described below. Birth: Most of us do not remember, how much suffering that we have undergone during our birth. The purana describes that one is put inside a dark womb of a mother, with no body to talk to or express the feelings, not even sufficient space to move or stretch ones body. Whenever the mother takes acidic food, it burns the soft skin, helplessly experiencing the pain. Also some tiny worms present in the womb constantly tortures causing untold miseries. At the end of the pregnancy, one undergoes terrible pain in

switching over to the new environment by taking birth. Even after taking birth, one has to undergo lot of miseries due to stomach pain, mosquito bites, diseases, etcand unable to communicate properly to the guardians about the needs. Such is the miserable situation. Death: The same purana describes that death is the most miserable problem in this world. Nobody wants to die, but one has to face the death independently. Everyone has to face the death alone. Nobody can say, I am so afraid, I cannot face it. No. There is no exception. It is said that one experiences a pain equivalent to the sting of 40,000 scorpions at a time. Such is the misery. Old age: It is described in Srimad Bhagavatam (third canto, thirtieth chapter), about how one executes life and pass on to the old age and death. He gives heart and senses to a woman, who falsely charms him with my. He enjoys solitary embraces and talking with her, and he is enchanted by the sweet words of the small children. The attached householder remains in his family life, which is full of diplomacy and politics. Always spreading miseries and controlled by acts of sense gratification, he acts just to counteract the reactions of all his miseries, and if he can successfully counteract such miseries, he thinks that he is happy. He secures money by committing violence here and there, and although he employs it in the service of his family, he himself eats only a little portion of the food thus purchased, and he goes to hell for those for whom he earned the money in such an irregular way. Thus the unfortunate man, unsuccessful in maintaining his family members, is bereft of all beauty. He always thinks of his failure, grieving very deeply. Seeing him unable to support them, his wife and others do not treat him with the same respect as before. Deformed by the influence of old age, he prepares himself to meet ultimate death. Thus he remains at home just like a pet dog and eats whatever is so negligently given to him. Afflicted with many illnesses, such as dyspepsia and loss of appetite, he eats only very small morsels of food, and he becomes an invalid. In that diseased condition, one's eyes bulge due to the pressure of air from within, and his glands become congested with mucus. He has difficulty breathing, and upon exhaling and inhaling he produces a sound like ghura-ghura, a rattling within the throat. In this way he comes under the clutches of death and lies down, surrounded by lamenting friends and relatives, and although he wants to speak with them, he no longer can because he is under the control of time. Thus the man, who engaged with uncontrolled senses in maintaining a family, dies in great grief, seeing his relatives crying. He dies most pathetically, in great pain and without consciousness. Disease: Uninvitingly diseases come to us. There is no scarcity of diseases in this modern world. One can easily observe this from the flourishing medical field. Every street, there is atleast a couple of medical shop. One can just peek in to any hospital to know how much miseries are being hidden there. There is no exception, everybody had to undergo diseases even though we dont like. Relative problems: Relative problems according to literatures are broadly classified in to three categories namely, (i) miseries caused by ones own mind and body, (ii) miseries caused by others mind and body, (ii) miseries caused by natural calamities. These problems are relative because, it appears in various degrees to each individual and one mans suffering may be another mans happiness.

(i) Own mind and body: Many times we undergo mind related problems like emotion, depression, fear, ego clashes, etc and body ailments. One cannot deny, we have to undergo all these problems almost everyday. (ii) Others mind and body: Although sometimes our mind and body do not cause us problems, our relatives mind or boss mind, etc can cause us problems. Atleast a mosquito may come and bite causing us some problems. (iii) Natural calamities: Problems like famine, flood, tsunami, earthquake, accidents, etc causes suffering on us. Modern science approach in solving problems: One may say that modern science has given us advancements like T.V, cell phone, aeroplane, motor car, etc But all these inventions are not solving our problems which we have discussed above. Modern science has only attempted to cover up the actual problems by diverting our attention to these fascinating gadgets. In fact, none of the above mentioned problems are solved permanently by modern science. One may argue that science has made great advancement in medical field. It is true, but diseases have nonetheless taken different forms even more crucially with advancement in medical field. The point is modern science approach is consuming lot of our time to cover up the problems rather than to solve them. At this point, one should realize the importance of the real treasure of India, the vedic literatures which we have shamelessly neglected after seeing the fascinating gadgets, the foreigners have brought into India during the time of industrial revolution.

Spiritual solutions: There are innumerable perfect solutions available to lead a perfect life. A few of them are captured for discussion below. Change in educational system: Our entire education system has changed after the industrial invasion. Previously a gurukul system was maintained, where the students primarily learns the art of simplicity and respect for elders. Technologies were taught on secondary basis. It was taught only to some well disciplined students. Our ancestors were very intelligent to maintain this type of educational system because they strongly believed that technology in the wrong hands will create havoc in the society and it will be used for exploitation and pollution. This we can practically see today in terrorism and in industrialization. Only exploitation is going on in the name of globalization. Theory of evolution claims that human beings have taken birth from monkeys. Many people believe this theory because they think that they are more intelligent than their ancestors by comparing merely with the technological development. But the effect of thinking in this way has increased disrespect for the elders, thinking them to be technologically foolish. Life is lot more than just technological development. Why are we still holding on to this strongly disproved theory of Darwinism? Already, this theory has been disproved as merely a mental speculation and has been completely

eliminated from academics in western countries. Practically we can see the effect of this false theory in the increasing old age houses, especially in India. Our ancestors have estimated the intelligence based on personality and character. Simple living and high thinking: Before industrial revolution, India thrived much on spiritual science. Truthfulness, cleanliness, mercy and austerity were much revered. An intelligent person is satisfied by the highest level of happiness called bliss. India has not developed materially since industrial revolution because of this reason. Even without machines, they lead happy life by yoga practices (dealt in depth in another essay). They were less dependent on medicines and machines. Lesser we are depended on machines and medicines, the more freedom we get. But after invasion and by the association of western culture, India has started losing its values very systematically. After independence, we have become more dependent on machines. The very purpose of struggle for freedom is not to hate persons born in different geographical location. It was a struggle to hate the dependency on the machines which the invaders had tried to impose on Indians. This was evident from Gandhijis action, who tried to encourage simple living and high thinking on Indians. Otherwise, Indians were so open minded that, they have not discriminated anybody based on skin or language. They have shown love and affection even to animals. They had not opened slaughter houses for mass killing of animals for satisfying the two inch tongue. They waged war on the principles of Dharma and not simply with an intention to encroach others properties. Simple living and high thinking is one of the aspects of spiritual practices. Spiritual practices create true love among the living beings. It brings, fearlessness, self-control, austerity, simplicity, nonviolence, truthfulness, freedom from anger, renunciation, tranquility, aversion to faultfinding, compassion for all living entities, freedom from covetousness, gentleness, modesty, steady determination, vigor, forgiveness, fortitude, cleanliness, charity, cultivation of spiritual knowledge, freedom from envy and from the passion for honor. It eliminates pride, arrogance, conceit and ignorance. Spiritual practices do not mean that one will become lazy. One has to put good amount of time and energy to attain these good qualities. Once these qualities are attained, we would have been transformed to a higher level of consciousness even with the same body, where a higher level of happiness is observed. Technological development gives good comfort but it cannot give true happiness. A person by nature is envious, pride, arrogant and ignorant. He needs to eliminate these things by spiritual practices. But if he devotes his entire time in the technological development alone, those good qualities of simplicity will not develop in him because he has not been given time and opportunity to practice. Thus the society remains restless and unclean in mind. Despite comfortable situation, there is no peace of mind. This is the reason why a rich man can be unhappy and a poor man can be happy. It does not mean that to become happy, we have to voluntarily become poor. We only have to give importance and devote our time in spiritual practices, whichever position we may be in.

Freedom to human beings: One of the basic necessities for human beings is food. Food can be produced directly from cultivation of land. But introduction of machines to do cultivation reduces the human work in the field but simultaneously it increases the human work in creation of these machines in industries. The persons thus artificially unemployed are forced to become a resource of a company. Thus the human beings have started loosing the freedom to work in their own field and are forced to become one of the resources of a company. Thus the value of a human being has decreased from the status of man to a resource of a company. Similarly, milk consumed directly from the cow, can eliminate the time and energy spent on transportation, refrigeration and related activities adopted by modern science. There are many things which were not known to human beings in the past have become the basic necessities in modern life. Exploitation by industrialists converts luxurious things into necessary things. This imposes common people to work more and more even to meet the artificially created necessities. Similarly we may think that we have saved time by invention of vehicles. But saving time in transportation by means of vehicles, actually consumes the time of so many persons involved directly or indirectly in executing it, such as in factories to produce these vehicles, spare parts, maintenance, business, etc... This leads to the conclusion that the time is conserved. Few people can travel more at the expense of time and energy of many people. Thus persons benefitted are few and exploited are large. We can clearly observe that advancement in technology takes mass of people away from the nature and forcibly put them under the employment of some industrialists. This is clearly exploitation. Naturally people have an attraction for spiritual practices. But the current atmosphere of industries does not allow one time to even think of spiritualism. It is to be understood at this point that science should not be applied only for the development of technology to improve comfort; it should also be used for exploring the humanity and spiritual domain. Conclusion: There are many spiritual solutions, for all the problems we face in this world which is beyond the scope of this essay. The above mentioned solutions are only secondary. The main solution for all problems is to clean our consciousness. Our consciousness is presently being polluted by the influence of the age of Kali. Our original consciousness as revealed in various scriptures in all religion is our servitorship to the Supreme Lord. Once we awaken our naturally hankering love for the Supreme Lord, our polluted consciousness of assuming I and mine will gradually diminish. Thus the root cause of all problem by assuming I and mine will vanish and one can be completely become happy and peaceful in the pure love of God. Pure love of God does not necessitates that one has to give up their job and family. One simply has to hear the activities of the Lord as mentioned in Srimad Bhagavatam and other literature in association with likeminded people. All people are not intelligent and fortunate enough to immediately accept the process of love of God. Therefore we have to associate with likeminded people. After hearing and understanding the activities of the Lord, we can glorify the lord by chanting his holy names. Chanting of holy names is recommended in all religion. One has to unshackle the bondage of rubber stamping themselves with Hindu, Muslim, Christian, etc One has to understand the philosophy of life and the love of God. One will not discriminate Hindu college or Muslim college in getting education. Similarly, wherever love of God is found and is easily available, one has to grab the opportunity and become successful in the life.