Incentives to National Prosperity
By Karmayogi
Housing, high cost of education, and consumer durables available through
hire-purchase add a great weight or pressure on the middle class
population to earn more. But their salaried jobs offer little scope to
expand their income. In all rich countries, the salaried job is looked
down upon. The government job is the least attractive there. Only those
who cannot venture take a job. In the West the nation as a whole
respects the entrepreneur. In India it is the reverse. Only those who
cannot secure a government job open a shop. The situation has slowly
begun to change.
Apart from the long subjugation, there is a deeper religious reason. The
Vedas have two parts, one of rituals and the other of knowledge. Those
who had followed the knowledge part ended as the Vedantic Rishis. That
tradition is kept up by the sannyasis. Those who had taken to rituals
became purohits who remained in domestic life which offered security.
The Rishi is one who expresses great courage. His counterpart in
domestic life is one who seeks self-employment on his own. Seeking
security breeds timidity. Timidity seeks refuge in respectability and
resorts to respectable lies. The high intelligence of the Mind is used
to preserve the great respectability of the householder. During the past
seven or eight centuries of foreign domination, the Indian householder
has largely lost his initiative for venture.
Prosperity is the result of industry. Industry involves risk. It is full
of risks. Every time one moves, he must risk everything. The
self-employed man faces that all the time. Victory is for the BRAVE, not
for the TIMID who relies on rituals. The question is, ‘Do timid people
have any scope?’ Yes, if they come forward to convert their timidity
into courage and bravery. The formula is as follows: timidity + Truth =
Courage. The Spirit is Truth. Let the timid person decide to be utterly
truthful and call in the Spirit to achieve his aim, and he will witness
the process of timidity being transformed into boldness. The Mother is
the Spirit in life. She converts life into Life. It is for us to avail
of Her GRACE.