Recently an article published in Times of India with an interesting heading, “ Do we need a loneliness minister?” It is an intriguing question to ask. The article talked about how we are so engrossed in our digital social circle that we have lost all connection and contact with the outside world. Where we have thousands of friends on our Facebook list but none to have a shoulder to cry on. The modern age of living has surely made people come closer but has also made people feel lonely.
According to the article published, “Loneliness is more dangerous than smoking 15 cigarettes a day and raises the risk of heart problem and diabetes.”
Loneliness has nothing to do with social acceptance or family condition, it is basically the state of mind. In the digital era where everything is counted by number of likes and followers, somewhere we have lost the inner sense of satisfaction, the inner peace.
The united kingdom understood the seriousness of this matter and literally appointed a minister of loneliness! Recently in Madhya Pradesh a similar step was taken forward. A whole research team was called up to measure the happiness index of the state.
India is one of the leading nation where teenagers and youngsters are in depression due to various reasons. According to the statistics 1 IN 5 people in India needs psychological treatment and the number of people living in depression has increased by approximately 18.4% in last few years. It comes as a shock to know that even in a country like India, we have students feeling lonely or depressed and we need measure the index of happiness. A place where yoga took birth, where mediation evolved, where from starting we have discussed about inner peace, talked about getting over superficial material, we came on to the stage where people are not finding contentment.
What have we done to reach a state where we have artificial intelligence but in the race of achieving it we somewhere lost emotional intelligence (EI).
There was a so called prudent saint who was master of all knowledge. Once he hired a boat to cross a river. While he was on the boat he asked the boatsman,“Do you know philosophy?” The poor boatsman said,“No”. The saint, with great grief said,“Oh you wasted one-third of your life.” The boatsman got little nervous.
After a little while the saint asked,“Do you have knowledge ofof sociolo?” The boatsman said no in a very low voice. Saint smirked and said,“you fool, you wasted half of your life.” Saint asked few more questions and finally declared the three-fourth of boatman’s life futile.
Just when boatsman was about to break down by the sudden realisation of his wasteful life, a storm erupted in the river. Both boatsman and saint got petrified. Now, the boatsman asked the saint, “Do you know how to swim?” The saint said no with dread in his eyes. Boatsman smiled and said,“My three-fourth life may have been wasted but now your whole life would drain in the spate of this river.
Moral - It doesn’t matter how much knowledge you posses or how much wealth you have acquired. Important point is know how to live. How to satiate your soul, your own self.
If we wont learn the art of living, if we wont learn the basic law of life, we will keep getting tangled in this peripheral world of facebook and Instagram. While we have different mediums to fulfil our living needs, we need to do something for the fulfilment of our soul, from somewhere we need to arrange the soul food for deep sense of self satisfaction in life.
It is the demand of the time to go back to our actual ethics and values to understand the worth of our life. Its time to start reading Bhagvat Geeta again to unlock the secret of our lives.
As stated by Geeta everything around you is tranquil, everything around you is transient and one day everything would get demised. To attain peace and get away from the feeling of loneliness we need to fathom this truth.
-Soumya
According to the article published, “Loneliness is more dangerous than smoking 15 cigarettes a day and raises the risk of heart problem and diabetes.”
Loneliness has nothing to do with social acceptance or family condition, it is basically the state of mind. In the digital era where everything is counted by number of likes and followers, somewhere we have lost the inner sense of satisfaction, the inner peace.
The united kingdom understood the seriousness of this matter and literally appointed a minister of loneliness! Recently in Madhya Pradesh a similar step was taken forward. A whole research team was called up to measure the happiness index of the state.
India is one of the leading nation where teenagers and youngsters are in depression due to various reasons. According to the statistics 1 IN 5 people in India needs psychological treatment and the number of people living in depression has increased by approximately 18.4% in last few years. It comes as a shock to know that even in a country like India, we have students feeling lonely or depressed and we need measure the index of happiness. A place where yoga took birth, where mediation evolved, where from starting we have discussed about inner peace, talked about getting over superficial material, we came on to the stage where people are not finding contentment.
What have we done to reach a state where we have artificial intelligence but in the race of achieving it we somewhere lost emotional intelligence (EI).
There was a so called prudent saint who was master of all knowledge. Once he hired a boat to cross a river. While he was on the boat he asked the boatsman,“Do you know philosophy?” The poor boatsman said,“No”. The saint, with great grief said,“Oh you wasted one-third of your life.” The boatsman got little nervous.
After a little while the saint asked,“Do you have knowledge ofof sociolo?” The boatsman said no in a very low voice. Saint smirked and said,“you fool, you wasted half of your life.” Saint asked few more questions and finally declared the three-fourth of boatman’s life futile.
Just when boatsman was about to break down by the sudden realisation of his wasteful life, a storm erupted in the river. Both boatsman and saint got petrified. Now, the boatsman asked the saint, “Do you know how to swim?” The saint said no with dread in his eyes. Boatsman smiled and said,“My three-fourth life may have been wasted but now your whole life would drain in the spate of this river.
Moral - It doesn’t matter how much knowledge you posses or how much wealth you have acquired. Important point is know how to live. How to satiate your soul, your own self.
If we wont learn the art of living, if we wont learn the basic law of life, we will keep getting tangled in this peripheral world of facebook and Instagram. While we have different mediums to fulfil our living needs, we need to do something for the fulfilment of our soul, from somewhere we need to arrange the soul food for deep sense of self satisfaction in life.
It is the demand of the time to go back to our actual ethics and values to understand the worth of our life. Its time to start reading Bhagvat Geeta again to unlock the secret of our lives.
As stated by Geeta everything around you is tranquil, everything around you is transient and one day everything would get demised. To attain peace and get away from the feeling of loneliness we need to fathom this truth.
-Soumya
