syāt pradānaṁ tato’dhikam

 India’s role in helping the world community to wriggle itself out of the present Pandemic crisis is a sign that it is coming of age to assume its role of Jagadguru. The “Vaccine Maitri” initiative is a step towards that goal. When the panic driven world succumbed economically due to the spread of virus, very few would have expected that the solution will come from India. But the supposedly developing country had the answer to this global threat. Out of the vaccines which have been developed, the Indigenously developed Covaxin has found a lot of recipients in the world.  Our Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that India has extended medical and other assistance to more than 150 countries in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. But apart from this Our Great land has something more to offer as a relief to the Humanity. It is the spiritual solution to the other more dangerous pandemic called Religious Fundamentalism. The world should listen to sane voice of India once the pandemic dust settles in. Swami Vivekananda said that, “Every other problem in life must be subordinated to that one principle theme(religion). That is also the law of Harmony in music. There may be a nation whose theme of life is Political Supremacy; religion and everything else must become subordinate to that one great theme of its life. But here is another nation whose great theme of life is Spirituality and renuncia
tion, whose one watchword is that this world is all Vanity and a delusion of three days”. 

The world direly needs the lesson of unselfishness now. Because there can be no Spiritual Journey possible where selfishness resides. India’s recent showing is an example of how a country, if properly guided by men of extraordinary will, can give the world a practical lesson in being unselfish. Giving more to the society than what we actually recive from it. Even when our own society is reeling under the threat of the Pandemic, India has extended its helping hand to several countries, many of which are very poor ones. The real test of an evolved society lies in the way it handles the obstacles and we have proved to the world that we are capable of guiding them.

V.V.Balasubramanian

YB-ET