{"id":34684,"date":"2022-05-13T13:35:56","date_gmt":"2022-05-13T09:35:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/?p=34684"},"modified":"2022-05-20T16:44:29","modified_gmt":"2022-05-20T12:44:29","slug":"beautiful-life-blighted-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/beautiful-life-blighted-lives\/","title":{"rendered":"Beautiful life, blighted lives"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Dr R Neerunjun Gopee<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Except for the bare minimum so as to keep abreast of events, I have switched off watching the news about the war in Ukraine, so sickening are the graphics of death and destruction, both of which were totally unavoidable and unnecessary. Except for a leadership that a large body of sane opinion increasingly considers as having been trapped in a proxy war which is benefiting only the military industrial complex, which is made up essentially of five big global companies that have seen their stockmarket shares and profits going up from very soon after the war began.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span>Death and mourning in Ukraine: Mountains of corpses found in devastated cities of Ukraine. Pic – PressWire18<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The biggest losers in this war are the people of Ukraine and their devastated country. Putin, contrary to all the rumours that had been circulating about his presumed illness, looked quite healthy when he gave an address recently as Russia paraded its military might. 75 days into the war and despite setbacks, he appears to be more than ever determined to continue pounding Ukraine and will not stop at anything until he feels that he has won, never mind that Ukraine might be completely razed at the end of it all. <\/span><\/p>\n

Zelensky, who better than most should have had the farsightedness to gauge Putin, still believes that he is fighting for liberal democracy, for liberalism. When he surveys his destroyed country, will he still feel like that? Will the parents who have lost their children, the wives who have become widowed, the children who have become orphans, the women and children who have left the comfort of their homes to overnight become refuges in alien lands \u2013 will they too feel alike, that the desolation that is left was worth the sacrifice and loss that they have suffered? It will be too late then.<\/span><\/p>\n

But liberalism itself, like the other \u2018-isms\u2019 that have preceded \u2013 such as socialism, capitalism, communism, nationalism — has been found to be flawed. Reference, for example, the article \u2018Liberalism Isn\u2019t Dead\u2014but It\u2019s Very Sick\u2019 by James Traub, columnist at Foreign Policy<\/em> and non-resident fellow at New York University\u2019s Center on International Cooperation.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is therefore better to leave these confused minds to their own devices and focus more on how beautiful life is.<\/span><\/p>\n

* * *<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

T<\/u><\/strong>he Truth of Life<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This is what we did a couple of weeks ago with Brahmachari Vignesh of Chinmaya Mission Chennai who has come over for a short stay to conduct some sessions at the local branch of Chinmaya Mission. The hostess had invited a small group of friends for a satsang to be conducted by Br Vignesh \u2013 sat<\/em> means truth, sang<\/em> means together: the topic was therefore an enquiry into the Truth of Life. What is life, how do we go about discovering its ultimate purpose?<\/span><\/p>\n

There was no prescription, only exploration and an invitation to share views and thoughts about life, in the spirit of the Hindu scriptures, the Vedas, to wit that vade vade jayate tattvabodha<\/em>; through dialogue and debate the truth emerges. Br Vignesh only made comments and guided the discussion in a process that would allow everyone to discover the truth of themselves by drawing from the crucible of the veritable fragrance of ideas that were presented. Everybody came out enriched and a better person, with a clearer perspective and an urge to explore further.<\/span><\/p>\n

As I reflected on our exchanges afterwards, I could summarise for myself four categories into which one could place definitions of life:<\/span><\/p>\n