it's a very very important question to address you see we are supposed to be one of the most
ancient traditions that's wonderful we've got a lot of anti-material from antiquated times
well from ancient times a lot of interesting ideas about spirituality that we've been caring for
over thousands of years what's wrong with nothing wrong it shows if you like the magnanimous kind of
you know ancient tradition that we subscribe to fair enough
the problem is this the world is moving very fast the hindu youth are moving very fast
they have great difficulty in relating to ideas that the older generation were comfortable with
i'll just give an example you see at the moment we look at the older generation
they're interested in just two things colorful narratives ramayan mahabharata bhagavata purana
and kaspajang singing glories of god and wonderful and they get carried away they dance and nothing
wrong with any of that for the older generation that is the best way to engage with spirituality
please carry on don't get in their way but the youth are not going to tolerate this i don't know
a single youngster that i come across who will say they are interested to go to pajama or to listen
to katha even though the kathak are supposed to be quite well famous the youth are not bothered not
at all attracted or interested in that at all so in a way we are losing our youngsters very quickly
because they would rather subscribe to a bollywood agenda a highly materialistic agenda rather than
the spiritual agenda that because very it is our speciality so it is necessary to pull them
forward now i'll show you how badly things have become how badly things have gone for hindus you
see a lot of things that we hear in ancient times are no longer relevant how does they show up for
example in the rituals they'll carry out certain rituals without realizing why they are doing it
most important issue about ritual is you must understand why a specific ritual is carried out
if you don't think without understanding the why reason why bother with any ritual
whether it's wedding ceremony or whether it's a you know going on pilgrimage or whatever
celebrating festival you must know the why behind it then you are safe because then you can evolve
if you don't know the why reason then you know in no no no no time you soon become a very stodgy
a very mechanical and meaningless enterprise and that is what is happening
almost all the rituals we are carrying at the moment are done in a mechanical manner in a
meaningless manner without any understanding of what is the background to it so the why thing is
no has been completely forgotten it's become meaningless mechanical ritualistic practice
again you see the other issue that i want to say is this even the narratives for example
we are lovely colorful ancient narratives with all these very polished images of gods
and goddesses you know participating for the betterment of greater humanity so good
but they are so polished up over thousands of years we cannot relate to modern personalities
who are perhaps equal or better than the previous personality we just can't relate to them
because they seem to be so ordinary while the ancient ones that we subscribe to like ram or
krishna or they are so popular you know portion kind of polished polished image
so we hope that the modern prophets also should be look like that like very polished they will not
they will look very ordinary and because of that we lose lose out we can't appreciate the modern
prophets because we are stuck on the antiquated ones we've got a very polished up image that we
love wow we love this so again this inability for us to move from the ancient personalities
modern personalities one of the serious flows if you tell the modern hindu youngster oh you see
you must listen to the stories of krishna etc doing these magic tricks through that lifting
mountain see it doesn't sound sensible at all talk about a modern personality who's talking things
which are suitable for the modern world they will immediately engage with it so our storytelling the
narrative part is struggling it just caught up with antiquated stuff and i'll tell you how bad
it is in in rude language i would say it is just wallowing in sentimentality look out at all the
kathas they just kind of wind you up wallowing in sentimentality there is no deeper vision
they give us a little quirky bits of philosophic ideas and how to lead your life in some sounds
nice but that is all it is for a modern thinking yourself is not good enough you need to move to
modern personalities and their prescription of how to lead a religious life we are not able to
do that so ritual struggle the negative struggle the philosophy goes in a worse situation i tell
you an initial guy if you look at the hindus today more than you know your intellectual hinduswagar
were doing well in iit and you know head of big c the chief executive officer of major companies
their knowledge of hinduism is so scattered so this disjointed they have their mood away from it
completely so the philosophical idea that you need a joined up system of thinking has been lost only
the modern vision that it offers you a more joined up more rationally oriented system of thinking
can in a way be embraced by modern you know intellectuals hindu intellectuals youngsters
throughout the world so again i'm saying please recognize our limitation and this is why we are
having this serious problem so we need to move from the antiquated vision nothing was wrong with
it we carry forward and let our elders carry on with the tradition of bhajan and katha good luck
to them but for for the modern thinking youngster this is no longer acceptable and one of the worst
thing that's happened because of his this is this the modern hindus who are very affluent
very rich very clever you know well established throughout the world for them the religion has
become very simply money just get more money more bonuses you go to the top banks create the top
job and get this huge sums of money millions of dollars and say wow we made it we hit the target
so they lost track of a very spiritual aspiration for a very materialistic highly you know
physical and monetary minded a pre understanding of of their own tradition this is why see the only
hindu ritual they will see in the uk is wedding ceremony a million hundred thousand pounds or west
they're literally rested overnight and there is no deeper vision regarding it so purely showmanship
because i made money look i'm making so much money i can spend so much money so this has become the
religion of modern you know intellectuals in the western world we need to move them
from that we think about a spiritual aspiration rather than purely materialistic aspiration
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