March 2012.pdf - Vivekananda Kendra Prakashan

A good student who became a mass murderer was Angulimala. After all military of
the king of the region failed, Bhagawan Buddha with no arms walked into the forest
which was haunted by Angulimala. He not only tamed the murderer but also
transformed him into a supreme saint who would later die at the hands of a mob
without raising his little finger against them.
We need to contemplate on all these stories and incidents in our culture as we think of
the fourteen year old student who stabbed his teacher fatally. Where have we gone
wrong Why our system does not inherit the strengths of Narada and Buddha Our
educational system has systematically stripped itself of its cultural and spiritual
strengths. A wrong notion of secularism has made our educational system devalue
our cultural strengths in the curriculum. And around, in the media, acts of violence
and lyrics of mindless violence have been glorified and spread. Even love is
presented as 'murder spree' in a song popularized through facebook. Social
pressures, loss of ethics and culture, loss of quality time with the family – all these
have contributed to this crime. The boy who stabbed the teacher could have been
anyone of the teenagers brought up in such rootless society.
Renowned psychologists of the western society like Carl Jung have pointed out that
the violent crimes their society faces are the results of the loss of their mythological
roots. India on the other hand has evolved a system which combines ethics,
mythology, tools of life and reason in a beautiful way to make the individual blossom
into his or her wholeness. Our intentional discarding of that system in the name of
pseudo-rationalism and myopic vision of secularism has resulted in Indian society
also indulging in such violent crimes. Yuva Bharathi team shares the grief of the
family of the teacher who was stabbed by the student; it also shares the shame of the
family of the offender and wants to emphasize that the entire society is in a way of
guilty of creating an environment where such a crime became a possibility. Let our
education system remember our roots and provide our youths knowledge and
wisdom to soar high in their lives.
Let that be an ideal remembrance to the departed soul of the teacher.
Aravindan Neelakandan
YB-ET
Yuva bharati - 4 - March 2012