The break down of love and relationships is the most serious problem in the present world. We are all longing for happiness, but if we don’t know what happiness is how can really be happy? I asked many people for their opinions on happiness. Nobody could give me a clear and satisfactory answer, just smile and ignore my question. I realized that there is a lack of clarification or lack of consciousness about happiness; even though we are all moving and searching for it. As I understand it “happiness means oneness with eternal desires and accomplishment of four spheres of love; children love, siblings love, conjugal love and parental love.”
Can you imagine what terrible suffering happens when we face the lack or loss of love and relationships? I find that because of our selfish love, views, desires as well as ideas, we lose our true relationships. A huge number of the population is only physically mature but spiritually and psychologically immature, just like a child. They express their immaturity in daily life through extreme selfishness.
We know children are naturally selfish and cannot understand the emotional situations of others. They commonly show attitudes based on demand, they protest and protect their own benefits. They can show love and joy when their desires are fulfilled and sorrow when they are not. The children’s love is considered as the pre-mature stage of love. Not only children, but aged people can also show this childish love and attitudes in everyday interactions. I am sure, if we could make a video documentary of our daily life, covering both physical actions and physiological status without any edit, we would feel shy and regret after watching our degradations and selfishness.
Nowadays, parents have also lost their ideal position. Most of parents can’t be dedicated to their responsibilities because of their selfish viewpoints and ideas. Children are being raised with a ‘lack of love’ and loneliness. The `lack of love` is the origin of conflicts, depression, psychological complexity and chaos as well as all kinds of personal, family and social crimes. Mostly in the West and North children and youth are alienated; confused about their purpose and value of life. But in the East and South, children and parents are both very busy in their struggle to survive through poverty. Children and youth are commonly frustrated worldwide. In the irritation they suffer in hunger, they want to be recognized. Throughout their lives they may find the source of temporal joy, become addicted to drugs, gambling, or abnormal sexual habits like free sex and homosexuality. “Do as I like” and “My life, my freedom” become their life mottos. They enjoy wild freedom without responsibilities and disciplines by the name of human rights. The attitudes of frustrated and aggressive groups express, “No need for parents, no need to be parents; no need any authority. We are youth and don’t care about the results”. In such way they lose not only faith in life, but faith in themselves as well.
In the family, the true parents’ personality should resemble that of God. Parents should take care and love the children as God does. Children also should show absolute love, absolute faith and absolute obedience to parents as they do to God. Modern parents would like to finish their parental responsibilities just giving money and pushing the children in so called competition of professionalism and selfishness. By observing these situations, some philosophers explain, “This era is the era of no parents, no love and no God!”
With the lack of parental care, children can not also practice the sibling love. The sibling love is the precondition of societal interactions, patriotic love and saintful responsibilities to society. The filial piety always eager to do something for parents, in the way becomes serious to take care of our brothers and sisters as well as relatives. They can see and consider the whole situation objectively from parental view points, easily can sacrifice for others and become responsible. The parental and objective views encourage us to overcome jealous, anger, restlessness as well as all kind of hostility and conflicts. The serious impact of unsuccessful sibling love is religious, racial and cultural conflicts. This is strange, in the religious realms religious peoples believe to same God, say everybody about world peace and harmony; but can not tolerate each other! I think, they don’t believe actually on ‘parental God’ but believe in ‘God of dogmatism and doctrine’. True religions always look true love, harmony and peace as well as natures of parental God. True religious people practices sibling love excellently in global level, consider everybody is brothers and sisters, members of ‘God’s Family” that is “Global Family” where do not have any conflicts.
I feel sorry by remembering the saying about modern American conjugal life, “My child and your child are quarrelling with other children”. Divorce, sexual abuse, fatherless babies, homeless aged, etc. are the by-products of today’s selfish culture. Through the misuse of information and media southern countries are now influenced by the “culture of individualism”, “culture of separations”. Modern couples directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously consider conjugal life is ‘life of sexual partnership’, not ‘life long partnership’. Is it honest and responsible life style? Eating together, sleeping together, but living in different world with limitless disagreements can give us peace and happiness? Personally I think “do as I like” motto can not give us real salvation and total freedom. To rejoice true freedom, we must have to be responsible in a personal level, family level and societal level.
However, my friends please don’t misunderstand me by hearing my negative expressions. I am not hopeless, I am a visionary, I believe that ‘family is the school of love and peace’, ‘family is the mini government’, by which we can establish our ultimate goals happiness and peace in all spheres of life.
Note: Published in Panorama | TakingItGlobal | Jul 11, 2004