From Meta Modern Era by Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi
#30 Short Extracts
Chapter 2. Handmade clothes, made of natural materials, are easy to maintain and extremely economical. There is no need to buy replacements very often, as they get worn and torn only after a very long period. Actually, if you wear a sari you don’t have to waste your money on a tailor. It is a simple piece of material which can be arranged very quickly as a very beautiful and graceful dress, and which can be used for various other purposes as well.
Chapter 2. The whole fashion industry is just a money-making racket. It is a wonderful way of pampering the ego to say that such and such a style has won the first prize in the fashion parade in Milan or Paris or Timbuktu. And you are so enamoured by this new chance of exercising your 'choice' and of throwing out all the expensive clothes you have chosen before, as so much out-of-date junk.
Chapter 2. In their vanity, some ladies prefer to buy shoes which make them look six inches taller, with a pointed stiletto heel. They do not even pause to think that this kind of showing-off temperament of theirs will invariably lead to sprained ankles, or to sciatica, or to more serious troubles with their spinal column, so that they may not, one day, be able to walk and will have to lie down on their beds and make their choices from there. There is not a lot of sense in believing that you are free to do what you like and to choose what you like, when all you are doing is playing into the hands of unscrupulous entrepreneurs and spoiling yourself.
Chapter 3. Real democracy is only possible when people truly imbibe democratic principles and respect ethical values above everything else. People who are power-crazy, and who want to make money by any means, cannot be said to have the right democratic ideology. Democracy cannot be managed by people who are greedy, of loose character and self-centred. Those who are womanisers, or who drink while they are working on solving the national problems are, in fact, the true source of their nation’s problems and of the whole world at large.
Chapter 3. A benevolent ruler, in the form of a philosopher king, as put forward by Socrates, is the ideal person to be the head of government. Such a person must be an extremely wise, detached personality, without any desire for lust, power and money. There have been such persons in the recent past, people like Mahatma Gandhi, Ataturk Kemal Pasha, Anwar al Sadat, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Ho Chi Minh, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Dag Hammerskjyld and Mujibur Rahman.
Chapter 5. The culture of this permissive society makes the human mind react in an imbalanced way. As there is no importance allotted to the quality of private life or inner self-development in the core of domestic life, the private sphere is looked after by people who, in the name of freedom, have abandoned all the strengths and disciplines which were constructive, nourishing and conducive to ideal culture. Thus, people in the West have lost respect for each other, for themselves, for their body, for their mind and for their life as a whole.
Chapter 6. In the Hindu religion it was believed that every human being has the reflection of God in his heart, which is the spirit, the atma. If that is the case, how could we divide Hindu society into different castes?
In the beginning of civilisation in India, for thousands of years people followed caste according to the nature of the person. This is called as ‘jaati’ meaning the aptitude of a person. A person who has an aptitude to achieve the divine was called ‘Brahman’.
Chapter 10. Science cannot answer many questions. So many have tried now to reach, in medical science, the minutest thing, called genes. But the scientists are frustrated because they cannot go any further with the help of these genes, to really overcome the complications created by modern life. The conclusion they have reached, that genes are only inherited, is absolutely wrong. Actually genes also reflect our personality that we create in day-to-day life. All our sympathetic activity is reflected on our genes as well.