Present Scenario In India
Indians have not traditionally accorded a high place to the making of money. The Vaishya or bania(merchant) is placed third in the four-caste hierarchy, behind the Brahmin and the Kahatriya (warrior, Landowner), and only a step ahead of the laboring Shudra. Since the economic reforms, making money has become increasingly respectable and the sons of Brahmins and Kshatriyas are getting M.B.A’s and want to become entrepreneurs. India is in the midst of a social revolution rivaled perhaps only by the ascent of Japan’s merchant class during 1868 Meji Restoration, which helped transform Japan from underdeveloped group of islands into thriving modern society and economy. The commercial spirit is not limited to the cities. The smallest village has also found it.
Everyone has become money-minded. Even the leather workers, low down on the social scale, are removing their children from government school and putting them into this newfangled private ‘English’ school . They all want to get rich, no matter at what price. Almost all children are forced to become something that they don’t like to be. Country will doom if there will be no spiritual growth. Present Scenario of India is really scary as all want to make money, irrespective of path they choose. Today generation is loosing their touch of innocence and integrity.
Money Money Money !!!
It is a touchy question, Because money is not what it appears. Money is more deep-rooted. Money is not just there outside in the currency notes, it is something to do with your inner mind and attitudes. Money is your love of things, money is your escape from persons, money is your security against death, money is your effort to control life, money is a thousand and one things. Money is not just in the currency notes otherwise things would have been very easy.
Money is your love- love of things, not of persons. The most comfortable love is of things because things are dead, you can posses them easily. You can possess a big house, a palace – the greatest place you can possess easily – but you cannot possess even the smallest baby; even that baby rejects, even that baby fights for his freedom. A small baby, however small, is dangerous for the man who wants to possess. It will rebel, it will become rebellious, but it will not allow anybody to possess it.
People who cannot love persons start loving money because money is a mean to possess things. The more money you have, the more things you can possess; and the more things you can possess, the more you can forget about persons. You will have many things but you will not have any contentment because deep contentment comes only when you love a person. The money will not revolt but it cannot respond also, that is trouble. That’s why miserly people become very ugly. Nobody has responded to their love ever. How can you be beautiful without love falling on you, without love showering on you like flowers – how can you be beautiful? you become ugly. You become closed.
Anime, Manga & Indian Culture’s Teaching Similarities
Way Of Encouragement
Man is a quest – not a question, but a quest. A question can be solved intellectually, but a quest must be solved existentially. It is not that we are seeking some answers to some questions; it is that we are seeking some answer to our being.
It is a quest, because questions are about others. A quest is about oneself. Man is seeking himself. He knows he is, but he does not know who he is. Hence,a great inquiry arises in the innermost core of every human being at the moment of birth. We can change that inquiry for substitute inquiries, but we cannot kill it. There is no way to kill it, because it is intrinsic to human nature. It is intrinsic to consciousness to know one’s quest.
The Truth
That inquiry is our very nature, and unless it is resolved, we remain searching. Of source, there are 999 ways to go wrong, and there is only one way to go right – so the search is full of hazards. The quest is not simple; it is very complex- and it is very rare that a person achieves resolution. But unless you reach for it, you will continue in agony, in turmoil. You will remain a cry in the wilderness. You will not know what joy is. Not Knowing yourself, how can you be joyous? And you will not know what benediction is. Not knowing yourself, there is no benediction.
The Way Of Anime & Manga Hero’s
You will hear words like contentment and blissfulness, but they will remain words. They wont have experience. They will remain empty words, They will create much noise around you, but they will not signify anything.
Search is intrinsic to human nature. But the arises the problem that there are many ways to go wrong. How to find the right path?
Thomas Carlyle said, ” The misfortune of man has its source in his greatness. For there is something infinite in him and he cannot succeed in burying himself completely in the finite”
There is something in you that is higher than you, bigger than you, and there is no way to bury it somewhere in the finite. You can see it in your own life. You can seek money and power, but each time you succeed, the success will bring nothing but the awareness of your failure. Money is there, But you are as dissatisfied as ever. Nothing makes one more aware of powerlessness than power. Nothing makes one more aware of inner poverty than riches – because of the contrast. You can see that there are riches outside, but inside, you are beggar, still desiring and asking and hankering and searching.
Path To Greatness
From one side, this seems to be a misfortune – the misery of man. From another side, It is his greatness. Carlyle was right when he said that the misfortune of man has its source in his greatness. What is greatness is? This greatness is the human capacity to surpass oneself, to go beyond oneself, to make a ladder of one’s life, to jump out of oneself. Unless that jump has happened, you live in a wasteland; nothing will ever bloom there. You will not come across any flowers.
Those flowers start blooming only when you have started reaching somewhere close to truth. That is the quest. The quest is the human being longs to become truth. You want to feel it – That ” I am Truth”. Nothing less than that will ever satisfy you.
Anime & Manga Roots Connection to India
All the famous Anime and Manga like Dragon Ball , Naruto, One Piece, Bleach, etc have one thing in common. Main Characters of of all these series always take their decisions from heart not from their mind. They give importance to their relations with friends and family. They are never money minded. And above all they all practice Zen in order to control their mind.
Zen
Zen is the culmination of the Buddhist search. Zen is the uttermost flowering of the path of meditation. The word Zen comes from Dhyana. Dhyana became ch’an in China, then ch’an became Zen in Japan. Remember this: Zen originated in India with Gautam Bhuddha. When Gautam Buddha attained his ultimate enlightenment, the state of no-mind, the world came to know the path of analysis, the path of right thinking, the path of right remembering, and the path of how to dissolve all thinking by becoming more and more aware of thoughts.
Just by watching thoughts- slowly, they fade out- you become simply a watcher. You are not identified with your thinking, you stand aside of the road and watching the traffic. The mind is like traffic, very circular, goes moving in a circle, very repetitive, again and again. Your whole life is nothing but a prolonged repetition, very circular. The mind is mandala, a circle, and it moves. If you watch, by and by you become aware of the circle, of the vicious circle of mind. Again and again it brings the same emotions: the same anger, same hatred, the same greed, the same ego. And you go on. You are just a victim.
Once you become aware of the mind and you start watching it, the bridge is broken, you are no longer identified with mind. Once you are not identified with mind, the mind disappears because it needs your cooperation to be there.
What Does Anime And Manga Teaches Us?
1.The Eyes of Wonder
Wonder is the source of wisdom, wonder is the source of all that is beautiful, and wonder is the source for the search, the real search. Wonder takes you on the adventure to known mysteries of life. All Anime & Manga are about the journey of characters whose eyes are filled with wonder and they go on journey of adventure with full on curiosity.
Where We Lack
It happens to almost everybody. That more Knowledgeable we become, the less wonder is felt. And parents, school, universities, the society, they all go on forcing you to become knowledgeable( specially in India). Their whole effort is to give you knowledge. Your inner space becomes so full of knowledge that wonder disappears; wonder has no space left to abide in you.
A child has the eyes of wonder. He feels awe, he is mystified by each and every thing. Small things surprise him; hence his bubbling joy, because his life is constant discovery(just like characters of Anime).
The society wants you to become knowledgeable. Knowledgeable is very much needed, knowledge has so much utility. And wonder is dangerous, because a person who wonders is bound to become either a philosopher or a poet or a mystic, and all these three kinds of people are useless for the society. Society needs machines, skillful machines- by giving you more and more knowledge, making you full of knowledge, society turns you into an automaton, into a robot. And more you think you know, the more wonder becomes impossible-because when you know, how can you wonder?
Anime & Mangas Are Full Of Wonder
Albert Einstein’s last words were, “I have been thinking the whole of my life that i would demystify the universe. But what has happened is just the contrary. The deeper i went into existence, the more the mystery deepened. I am dying full of wonder, I am dying in wonder.” But this is rare; this is quality of a genius. The genius is one who does not allow the society to reduce him to a robot: that’s my definition of genius. Everybody is born as a genius, but their talents disappear, their intelligence dies. They go on selling their souls for mundane things, for useless things-useless in the ultimate sense; they may be useful here, but death comes and all those things are taken away from you.
Watching Anime & Manga Will definitely encourage you to find that genius in yourself.
2. Courage
Living Dangerously
- You cannot be truthful if you are not courageous.
- you cannot be loving if you are not courageous.
- you cannot be trusting if you are not courageous.
- Hence courage comes first and everything else follows.
Courage is always one of the main theme for all Anime & Mangas. Going into the unknown gives you a thrill. The heart starts pulsating again; again you are alive. Every fiber of your being is alive because you have accepted the challenge of the unknown.
To accept the challenge of the unknown, in spite of all fears, is courage. The fears are there, but if you go on accepting the challenge again and again, slowly slowly those fears disappear. The experience of the joy that the unknown,brings, the great ecstasy gives you a certain integrity, makes you intelligence sharp. For the first time you start feeling that life is not just boredom but an adventure. then slowly slowly fears disappear; then you are always seeking and searching for some adventure.
But Basically courage is risking the known for the unknown, the familiar for the unfamiliar, the comfortable for the uncomfortable, arduous pilgrimage to some unknown destination. One never knows whether one will be able to make it or not. It is gambling but only the gamblers know what life is.
3. Freedom
Three Aspects Of Freedom
Freedom is three dimensional phenomenon. The first is the physical dimension. You can be enslaved physically. Freedom of the body will mean that there is no distinction between black and white, that there is no distinction between man and women, that there is no distinction of any kind as far as bodies are concerned. nobody is pure, nobody is impure, all bodies are the same. This is the very basis of freedom.
Then there is the second dimension: psychological freedom. There are very few individuals in the world who are psychologically free. Because if you are Mohammedan you are not psychologically free; if you are Hindu you are not psychologically free. Our whole way of bringing up children is to make them salves. We force their minds into certain mold. We stuff their minds with things- things even we are not experienced in. Parents teach children that there is a God- and they know nothing of God. They tell their children that there is heaven and there is hell- and they know nothing of heaven and hell.
And the third dimension is the ultimate of freedom-which is knowing that you are not the body, knowing that you are not the mind, knowing that you are only pure consciousness. That knowledge comes through meditation. It separates you from the body, it separates you from the mind, and ultimately only you are there as pure consciousness, as pure awareness. That is spiritual freedom.
These are the three basic aspects of freedom for the individual.
Verdict
India is a land of Gods, Mysteries, Magic and Wonder. But we are loosing our connection with it. Because these days we are all so serious that we have forgot the way of living. We need that connection with wonder, mysteries, adventure. Anime and Manga are that source that motivates us, fuels our creativity. They teach us that life is not all seriousness. It is full of wonder and fun. And we can be whatever we want, all we need is courage.
Challenge
I challenge all my readers that they once start watching any Below given Anime or start reading any given below Manga, their life will definitely change.
Just be courageous to start one.
Famous Anime & Manga
- One piece
- Golgo 13
- Black Jack
- Dragon Ball
- Kochira Katsushika
- Detective Conan/ Case Closed
- Naruto
- Oishinbo
- Slam Dunk
- Bleach
- Hajimi no Ippo
- Captain Tsubasa
- Sazae-san
- Kindaichi Case Files
Stay tuned for more upcoming Anime and Manga awesomeness.
Also read
- How to Watch Anime In India
- Top Super Powerful Female Anime Characters
- Current State Of Anime In India
- Top 15 Most Popular Anime in India
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