India must be a powerhouse of well-being

JRD Tata, whose family built the basic foundations for Indian industry, was once asked if he wanted India to become an economic superpower. He replied, "I do not want India to be an economic superpower. I want India to be a happy country." So I do not want India to be a great power. I do not want any country to be a great power. Rather than being a great power, I want every country to be a powerhouse of well-being for everyone who lives there.

This aspiration that you want your nation to be a superpower is very silly and childish, and has caused immense damage to the planet. Today, there is a whole argument in the world that without nuclear weapons, there will be no peace, which is unfortunately true right now. Me holding a gun to your head, you holding a gun to my head, and both of us did not shoot - this is not peace, this is madness. Right now, this is how we are trying to achieve peace on the planet. And someday, somebody will shoot, isn't it? If they get a little sleepy and squeeze the trigger, the whole world will explode. It need not necessarily happen out of intent, it can just happen.

In the 1960s, the United States and the USSR, because of a phenomenal amount of suspicion about each other, believed that the other was going to use nuclear weapons against them and came so close to using their own nuclear weapons. If you read the classified information that they are releasing today, their thought process looks like it was that of a total bunch of lunatics. How close they brought the world to absolute destruction, just because of this madness in their heads, is incredible! Sometimes it was just minutes away before they would have fired off nuclear weapons; it came that close a few times.

So, this whole aspiration to become a superpower should go. No nation should aspire to be a superpower. Every nation should aspire for their wellbeing. For wellbeing, resources and other things are a little scarce, so there will be some competition. We will pull and push, it is okay. That will happen among human beings, but for that you do not have to pull out your gun, somebody else need not have a bigger gun and become a superpower.

I want India to be a country of wellbeing, where our standards of wellbeing are different from just a vulgar sense of wealth and conquest. Conquest and robbery are not two different things. If it is done by an individual, it is called burglary. If it is done by a gang, it is called dacoity. If it is done by a nation, it is called conquest or regime change.

So it is not necessary for any nation to aspire to be a superpower. It is necessary that all nations aspire for the wellbeing of their people; that is all that matters. Our aspiration should be to become a sensible, gentle nation, which is for wellbeing for itself and, as far as possible, wellbeing for everyone in the world. India should aspire to make every nation meditative, isn't it?

If we handle the situation smartly, we can be a tremendous power. Power does not mean, "Will we have the biggest army in the world?" Power means everyone looks at you for guidance in the world. If they want to live well, they look at you for guidance - this is power.

People always looked east when they thought of living well. This culture has always had this power, but the culture has fallen. But one must understand, this happens to all cultures. There will be peaks and there will be downtrends. If we as a generation have any sense, we have to pull it up. It does not happen free of cost, everyone has to work for it. Only then it will happen.

It is not far away, we just need to work for it. With the spiritual legacy of this land, with the spiritual processes that are available to us today, it is definitely a possibility. If we dedicate ourselves to making this happen around us, we will see something tremendous and dramatic happening on the planet in our own lifetime.

I am sure the coming generation will see a much better India than we have seen. Every individual, whatever sphere of life he is in, whatever responsibility he holds, whatever influence he has, has to stand up and make that happen in his area. The governments cannot do this, some other leader cannot do it. Every human being has to do it!

[The above is an extract from Bha-ra-ta an ebook produced by the Isha Foundation compiled from various talks and discourses by Sadhguru on the subject. It is available for free download this Republic Day.]