Our assumption is that we are growing. But we may not be able to prove God that this is growth. On a Sunday evening, a passenger was waiting in the Tokyo Airport waiting for his flight to San Francisco. According to the time zone setting, when in San Francisco it would be Sunday morning only. The passenger was excited about having two Sundays in a chain. Yeah, he thought of having a cup of coffee. He saw a vending machine beside a snacks stall, close by. But there was a small problem, he had converted all his yen into dollars and the yen he had with him was not enough for a cup. He went to the snack stall and asked the girl there, if he would get a cup for two yen less. He told her that the measure doesn’t matter. But what she told him was that the machine would work only if the cash tendered matches the price.
Not long back, I happened to hear the sad story of a newly wedded couple who drove to Niagara from Detroit. In between Detroit and Niagara, the Express Highway splits into two – one to Canada and the next to Niagara (USA). There were no check points at Canada entry point and they understood the blunder only when they were fully in Canada. The lady had all the papers ready, but her husband was on a visa under some controlled categories. According to the story, the husband was not allowed to enter the USA and was flown back to India. In the advanced world, it is the heartless machines that decide everything. It’s true that machines don’t cheat and it is more trustworthy too. But with intelligence added machines all around, how shall we teach our kids those prime lessons of offering and love?
Helen Keller said, “Life is an exciting business and most exciting when lived for others.” Unless we thrive in respecting and loving others, we miserably fall from our status of cocreators. Also, if you are not loved, according to psychology, you are virtually dead. Actual love does not remain confined to selfishness or self-love. It gently grows into ours, then to those around us, and further to our country and to the globe and then to the Universe…. The love that oozes out from us should wet the entire universe. According to a survey done by J C Staehle, among US workers, it was found that the biggest of workers’ problems is lack of sharing. It was world Bank President Robert McNamara who said, “Brains are like hearts, they go where they are appreciated.” We are not ready to share any profit with others, be it gross or subtle.
According to Swami Vivekananda, we need the world more and never the other way round. He said that service is a process to be done with prayer and intention. What we propose to give should be given at the right time to the right person in the required volume. Then only it gets registered in Nature’s Day Book. Frankly speaking, blaming the machines alone is senseless. Which of our acclaimed religions have love mechanisms? They have only brains, no hearts. Coming to our penal codes, they too have only bone and skin – no hearts.
The problem with machines is that we see everything mechanically only. Here, God appears to us as an entity which responds, only if activated. Our God here spends luxuriously and at other times appears to be very stingy. God does not virtually fit in a mechanical mind.
