Page 277 - Microsoft Word - SPIRIT AND THE MIND.doc
P. 277

Questions and Answers 249
morality, compassion and detachment, as against the existing greed for competitive luxury and conspicuous consumption. People have to be convinced that the only way to rouse the latent divinity in them is to master desires and conquer greed for pleasure and luxury instead of being a slave to these false materialistic values.
SAI PATH TO DHARMA (RIGHTEOUSNESS)
Q: Then I take it that the various educational and social service organizations run by Baba—some 3,000 in all—are designed to create the cadres necessary for bringing about the desired socioeco- nomic change by means of love and persuasion?
Baba: They are designed to put the new generation on the Sai path of truth, righteousness, peace, love and nonviolence. Their motto—work is worship and duty is God—seek to bring in the new social order related to Sathya—that is, truth, and dharma—namely, right action.
Q: India has been described as a rich country of poor people. We have the wealth of the whole world locked up in the bosom of our good earth. And yet the people remain economically poor and backward. Have you any solution to rehabilitate our economy?
SOCIO-ECONOMIC SYNTHESIS
Baba: Your analysis is correct. The solution to the problem you have posed lies in hard work and increased production on a cooperative basis. To achieve this, one has to rid the people of the disease of individuality, greed and selfishness. Every individual must be taught to think and work in the broader concept of society and its needs. Once that is done, there will be less talk, more work.
Here again, it is the spiritual path that can save this country and the world from the wrongs of a materialistic order. What we need is a synthesis of the spiritual and material aspects of life. That will provide man with the social conscience and cooperative spirit imperative to the creation of national wealth and prosperity through selfless, cooperative labor.
Q: Very good counsel, Swamiji—but the trouble is that all the wealth created by labor appears to find its way into the pockets of a rich and powerful minority. Have you a spiritual prescription for this inequality?


































































































   275   276   277   278   279