Mandirs have forever been the epicentre of much that is Dharmic in our communities. Here in Northampton, there is no such venue and therefore much of the Hindu community have rallied together to build a new Mandir and community centre. I was speaking to one of the persons behind the project and he informed me that the plans were in the final stages from approval but for some opposition. To my surprise, he revealed to me that the opposition was not from the local community, nor from any other religious groups but from some within our own Hindu samaj!
How tragic that such disunity arises even in the building of a place of worship for use of all! What we fail to realise is that there is no difference between you, me and everyone else that identifies themselves as a follower of Dharma. We have the same ideals, the same principles, we worship the same great souls and so what are we fighting each other for? Swami Vivekananda, Guru Gobind Singhji, Shivaji and others didn’t lay down their lives so that all of us as individuals could subject ourselves to such petty and nonchalant in-fighting. They worked tirelessly, day and night, sometimes in unimaginable conditions to put forward our Dharma in its entirety, as ONE.
And what message are we to send out to our youth? The same youth that in a mere ten to twenty years time will be flying the flag of Dharma in this country and the world over. What do they take from this when they see predominantly our seniors squabbling over name, game and fame? We complain that our youth are going off the rails and straying away from the path of Dharma but what example are we ourselves setting them! If the neighbour across the street parks a brand new shiny Mercedes on his drive, we can’t just go on living our lives and be happy for him, we have to go out and buy a new Mercedes ourselves just to prove the point. ‘Whatever you can do, I can do better’ is the name of the game. It is this attitude of competitiveness in our samaj that has led to our inability to come together when it matters, when our Dharma is obliterated to pieces. Our Deities have been printed on toilet seats, they have been drawn in what can only be described as disgusting positions, they have been depicted as monsters, they are used to hold alcoholic drinks - the same Deities we WORSHIP day in day out, the same Deities by whose principles and values we wish to live our lives by. At some stage we have to stop and ask the question why is this happening? What are these people trying to say about us as a Hindu samaj?
“Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam”, let us not just simply say it, let us immerse ourselves in it, let us breathe it, let us live every single aspect of our life by this very shloka. Disagreement and arguments will occur, we are human after all but when we do disagree let us listen to each other more than ever in a spirit of “the whole world is one family”. Such shlokas should never ever become mere marketing rhetoric used to please our consciences, they should be imbedded in our lives to such an extent that we don’t need to use them as marketing tools, people will simply look at the way we live, our actions and adapt accordingly. After all, how can we as a Hindu samaj talk of living as one big family to the rest of the world if we ourselves do not live as one big family? PP Guruji has said:
There is no use merely saying “Oh! We have a great culture.” What do we know of it? How do we practise it? Do we look at our individual life as an offering to society? Do we feel that we should not merely run after pelf and power but should hold aloft virtues in life? Let us introspect on these lines and gradually assimilate all those distinctive Hindu traits so that we can stand before the world as positive, dynamic Hindus. Let us live up to our philosophy, our dharma, and all those great qualities which have moulded our lives for countless generations.
In all that we do, in our dress, in our behaviour and in all walks of life, that stamp of positive conviction should be vividly manifest. This is the prime responsibility that rests upon us.
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