Monkeys of Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Modern Kalidasas & Modern Dhritarashtras

Dear Friends,

If you put a banana & money in front of monkeys, monkeys will choose bananas, because monkeys don't know that money can buy a lot of bananas. "In reality, if you put money & health in front of people, people tend to choose money, because too many people do not know that health can bring more money & happiness."

Isn't the above view of Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam essentially true?

Pure food, pure water, and pure air are necessary for health, and health is necessary for the pursuit of wealth and happiness. Indeed, health is necessary for the pursuit of all four Purusharthas. But under the spell of the glamour of our present culture of development of the modern civilization which Mahatma Gandhi rightly considered to be fundamentally unethical, Satanic, suicidal and a nine days wonder only, for satisfying our lust for pleasures/luxuries and greed for wealth, in the name of development for the common people, we are destroying our natural eco-systems which are invaluable for pure food, pure water and pure air. The more and more concrete the forests, the less and less natural the forests, and the less and less natural the forests are bound to lead to less and less pure food, pure water, and pure air.

Our environmentally uneducated people are modern Kalidashas and our environmentally educated people are modern Dhrtarashtras: they lack spiritual, ethical wisdom.

We must create a mass awareness about the supreme importance of the environmental truth that rejuvenation and preservation of our great river mothers and their sources, our great mountains and forests, is necessary for ensuring permanent food, water, air, and health security to our masses, future generations, and our fellow lower forms of dumb and deaf life-world. They provide their invaluable services free of cost or which we can get through some Eco-friendly work with zero use of fossil fuels.

In the context of our present technological age, with the massive power of science and technology, it is not possible to rejuvenate and preserve our great river mothers and their sources our great mountains and forests without putting a limit to our desires; and it is not possible to put a limit to our desires without having a spiritually ethically enlightened/rational spiritual ethical culture; and it is not possible to have such an culture without introducing critical character-building ethics education with spiritual ethics as its core and the problem of ultimate meaning/goal of life as its central problem from the beginning of our education system/systems giving it the due importance it deserves in the education system/systems. We must know that without introducing such character-building ethics education from the beginning of our education system/systems, we can't avoid the unethical use of science and technology based on selfishness or base passions like lust for pleasure, greed for wealth, etc. which are our internal enemies and which are our greater enemies than our external enemies in the sense that they are more dangerous than our external enemies and more difficult to defeat than our external enemies. Let us introduce environmental education, both environmental science and environmental ethics, along with such character-building ethics education from the beginning of our education system/systems giving it the due importance it deserves in the education system/systems. It would certainly be a major step in the right direction to create a Rama Rajya / Kingdom of God in our country. We must know that with the easy in which global communication and transport is available or possible with the help of science and technology of our age, it is possible through the ethical use of science and technology of our age to create a fundamentally spiritually as well as non-spiritually ethically enlightened/rational kingdom of ethical righteousness/goodness / of justice liberty and love ( Rama Rajya / Kingdom of God) both locally as well as globally, just as it is possible through the unethical use of science and technology of our age to create a kingdom of devils both locally as well as globally, by exercising one's free will and reason. Our traditional Indian civilization has the spiritual as well as non-spiritual ethical resources to create a Rama Rajya / Kingdom of God in our mother land and save her and through it show the world the right way / the true way how to save the world at large from the impending catastrophic consequences of the present human-made very grave global environmental crises in general and the crisis of global warming and climate change in particular, along with the present very grave deep-rooted, all-pervasive global spiritual as well as non-spiritual ethical crises.

Mrs. Rama Rauta

Chairperson: Gandhian Modern Eco-village, Village Swaraj Pilot Project, Odisha

President: National Women's Organization, Pune

Former Expert Member: National Ganga River Basin Authority, Government of India

Former Member: Expert Advisory Committee, Ganga Rejuvenation, Ministry of WR, RD & GR, Government of India

Founder: Save Ganga Movement

Websites: www.savegangamovement.org | www.4gashram.org

Email: ramarauta29@gmail.com | Mobile: +91-9930537344