Quest of Young Adults
Saturday May 7 2005 09:34 IST
By Karmayogi
A hundred thousand freshmen who started college last year answered a survey. Four in five reported interest in spirituality. This survey was conducted in America. Three out of four said they were searching for the meaning or purpose in life. Those who said they were seeking spirituality took care to say that they are not religious or ritualistic.
Fashions spread readily. Everyone responds to fashion. The less serious take to fashions more readily and make an ideal of them as long as they last.
The parent in India has a duty to his children. Education, marriage, employment of the children are the responsibilities of the parent. It is the parent who decides to educate the son or daughter. If the son is unable to receive education, the parent is at a loss. Again, it is the father who finds a job for his son. In the event of not securing a suitable job, the parent is in despair.
Life tells him, Your son will have to be a day labourer. It is a grim warning. Should the sons marriage fail, again the parent knows, Hereafter my son cannot be a part of respectable society. These are heavy misfortunes which decide the social fate of a person. In the West, the responsibility of the parent is for education. Marriage and employment are primarily the sons responsibility. The young adult of today in the West is acutely aware of his future. His future life needs a sheet anchor. It cannot be merely his job or even his marriage. That anchorage is necessary even to make the employment and marriage meaningful.
In the West, it is an urgent problem. Hence the survey. The results of the survey speak of the importance of spirituality. But the survey does not clearly spell out what that spirituality is. In India, it is not yet a problem. Job is the problem. In India that QUEST is an opportunity, as the basic spiritual preparedness is there. The boys education, marriage and job will move smoothly if the BOY, not the parent, has the same quest as in the West. Parents quest will help, but it is vicarious. Parents quest will help the parents to emerge out of uncertainty, superstition, obsessive fear, and nightmarish anxiety. It can indirectly help the son or daughter.
Young adults in India do not yet know the full scope of social opportunities in India, except by chance. Should they seek the Spirit as their compeers in the West fervently do, overnight the Indian youth will see unparalleled opportunities in education, marriage and employment. Western business SEES that for him in India. I wish the Indian aspirant sees as much in the fields of his search.