Many think that the quality of a person depends on external things: — their wealth; their education; their job, high birth in a noble family and so on. Possession or achievements of these outer effects influences one’s behaviour and one’s way of thinking but certainly the quality of a person does not depend on external value.
Many measure their importance only on wealth which makes them run faster and faster to accumulate it to gratify senses and gain name and fame; in the bargain they lose their peace by ignoring their internal values. Wealth and achievement brings a little happiness, a little respect to the owner but it is short-lived. Because it is only external value.
“Do not fall prey to sense pleasures,” is often echoed by scriptures of faith. Internal values turn deaf ears to desires and shut eyes to worldly possessions by controlling one’s senses. Internal values consists of honesty and discipline filled life with love and compassion; moving forward with courage with ever-increasing sense of happiness without hurting anyone’s feelings.
We have to balance our life both with external greediness and internal values. Materialism is unavoidable as it is necessary to fulfil our primal needs of existence; but excess of it creates problems. We have to accept our present situation with satisfaction and achieve the golden balance to connect our inner self with God. In short we have to be both men of external value and men of internal values. If there is imbalance in our daily struggle between moral uprightness and material luxuriousness then it is very difficult to achieve the main objectives of life; and many get gripped by vices and become its slave, lose their way and go to hell.
Here is what men of success said: Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity was the formula for making the atom bomb. Seeing the end of World War II after the bombing of Nagasaki that killed thousands of civilians and leaving thousands maimed and injured. Albert Einstein on his deathbed expressed great sadness that he had committed; the biggest blunder of his life, to allow the finishing touches to the atom bomb. He said, “We should be men of values rather than men of success.”
Emperor Ashoka, at the victory of the Kalinga war saw a battle field strewn with corpses of soldiers, children and women, and their kinsfolk grieving and wailing over the dead bodies of their loved ones. This sickening sight filled Ashoka with such fright and repentance that he promised standing there never to fight another war; vowed that he would never wage another war in his life time.
It is said that the cardinal rule is that parents must imbibe values and contentment in children – “Wealth enough to support one’s needs, health enough to make work a pleasure, humility enough to accept mistakes, love enough to move the heart to be loving and helpful to others, strength enough to battle and win over hurdles, hope enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future!”
