S p i r i t ua l i t y S t u d i e s 3 - 1 S p r i n g 2 0 1 7 4 1 Swami Veda Bharati erwise all the people of the state would have been adversely affected. So, I have called you to thank you.” It is thus that comfort and happiness are rooted in virtue, in a virtue like peacefulness of mind generated through meditation. This virtue is further enhanced when one sees that it generates not merely some other-worldly mystical state but shows its effect in the greater success in economy and polity, artha, which is rooted in good governance, rājā. All of this requires channeling the energies of our senses, which we can accomplish through self-control and discipline. In a meditative society, greater regard will be paid to the elders not only in the family, but also in the society and in a business establishment. The role of a wise mentor will be emphasized, and younger members of the staff will feel happy being compassionately and affectionately guided by the elder ones. Here, let us give an example from one segment of the economic history of the world. Up to the end of the 17th century one of the most successful economies of the world was that of India. That is why, when the Ottoman Empire blocked Europe’s trade routes to India there was such a concentrated endeavor to find new routes to that part of the world (initially leading to the discovery of America). Cicero, the Roman senator, in one of his speeches, lamented the drain of twenty million (what was its value in that century?) Roman coins per year to India to dress the Roman ladies with Indian textiles. Nineteen centuries later, in the 17th century the prosperity continued and India was producing 24,5 % of all of the world’s goods. Its currency was the strongest in the world. India has no silver mines, but today’s India owns 25 % of the world’s silver – by earning it in the international trade for all those thousands of years. This success was rooted in its meditative tradition, which imparted the qualities of personality that we have hinted at, above, and which, in addition, gave it the temperament that makes people amenable to seek to control the senses, to be humble and thereby seek the guidance of elders and the wise in any area. Today’s “guru phenomenon”, the idea of service to a spiritual guide, is only a small part of that tradition. This has led to the methods of training a business leader. The family groups that had made India the millenniums-long success story in business still continue to train their business heirs in the same way as they did two thousand years ago, and three centuries ago, except that computers have been introduced and the MBA degrees are prized – but without losing the ancient time tested family traditions. These include not only the practice of daily meditative prayer but that the apprentice lives in the house of the business magnate as a family member (in what is known as the gurukula system) and learns in humility, with self-restraint, the traditional art. Slowly he is given little responsibility, then some more, then supplied with capital and sent to run an existing establishment or to start a new one. Lifelong, the person maintains an attitude of humility towards his mentors. He may become more successful than them but in their presence, he retains an attitude of reverence. It is a part of the general sentiment that the success has come to him not merely from what he has learnt as a method, but by the blessings of the wise elders. If, after only sixty-five years of independence India is on the verge of recovering her ancient economic strength, it is because of the personality traits that a meditative inclination generates, leading to positive attitudes, behavior patterns free of frustrations and interpersonal stress, rooted in right relationships. However, lately I notice a major loss of values in India in many public spheres but at the same time its continuity in other spheres. Japan became an economic giant also by the same route of merging the tradition with modernity, and India is well on her way. That is the Asian miracle. In other words, we need not limit ourselves to examining the scientific studies done in research laboratories to prove the efficacy of meditation. We better look at the economic history of the world in which the last two centuries of the West’s economic dominance are a tiny fragment. History shows the effectiveness and success of the societies in which meditation, but more so the meditative attitudes leading to certain relationships, have been the basis of civilization. The rate at which the Asian societies have taken to the computer, the internet and so forth from the West without losing their traditional values proves that the Western business has stiff competition coming in the forthcoming decades and centuries. Just as Asia has taken up the West’s computer, better that the West takes up Asia’s meditation. Taking it merely as a twenty minutes a day technique would not suffice. It is the attitudes generated by meditation that create relationships within the society and within a business establishment. The acceptance of this will ensure the survival of the West in a world where Asia has taken the best of the West and retained the best of the East. Let the West retain the best of the West and take up the best of the East to ensure the continuity of its success. It will help to prove Hermann Kaiserling and Oswald Spengler wrong. To summarize:
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