Page 150 - Age of Peace Goodword.indd

Pro-Self Activism,

Anti-Self Activism

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he well-known Indian film actress, Priyanka Chopra, said
Tof herself in an interview:
‘I have spent all my life being different people so I don’t
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know the real me.’
The present age is one of professionalism. Having a
profession means living for others. Therefore, it is true of each
person that he lives for others and hardly knows his own self.
For example, film actors live for their audiences, businessmen
for their customers, lawyers for their clients, politicians for
their voters, employees for their company bosses, and so on.
This is why so many people have become non-self actors,
that is, they live for others rather than for their own selves.
This is surely a great loss for a person, as it is because of
this that he almost always remains unaware of himself. He
frequently evaluates himself according to others’ perceptions
and not his own. He is unable to unfold his real potential, and
finally dies in this state of unawareness.
The worst case is that of those who are engaged in violence
in the present times. Such people are embroiled in the gun and
bomb culture. Their case is that of anti-self activists.
Who are the anti-self activists? They are individuals who, in
the name of annihilating the enemy, are actually fighting with
their own selves—sometimes in the sense of psychological
killing and at other times in the sense of physical killing.

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