We live in the age of technology. We commute by automobiles and
airplanes and communicate by emails and mobiles. The media and the
Internet provide us the latest information from all over the world. Movies
filled with hi-tech special effects entertain us. Air conditioners and room
heaters keep our life comfortable despite climatic inconveniences….The
list goes on. Technology has transformed almost every aspect of our lives.
Of course, a few of us may have concerns about the pollution and
environmental problems that technology has led to. But overall most
people feel that technology has benefited us immensely
Where is technology taking us?
The razzle-dazzle of comforts, luxuries and hi-tech gadgets make it appear
that technology has led to progress in human society. But has the quality
of life of people in the modern technology-centered society improved?
● In the past people would leave the doors of their homes open and still be
fearless. Now moderns lock, bolt, chain and buzzer-alarm their doors and
are still fearful. Is this progress?
● Most moderns are proud of their posh houses, fast cars, smooth roads and
skyscraper offices, but they can’t even sleep without a pill. Can a society be
considered progressed if it makes its people struggle to get the simple and
essential pleasure of sleeping, a pleasure that the “primitive” villager gets
effortlessly?
● The technological worldview being materialistic gives rise to selfishness,
competition and exploitation. Most moderns, despite the show of romantic
love, can’t trust their own spouses – what then to speak of parents and
children or bosses and colleagues. Do alienated, suspicious people comprise
a progressive society?
● Mechanized factories can never offer as much employment as the farms did
in the past. So a large number of people have to suffer or fear
unemployment. For subsistence some of the unemployed turn to begging
and others to crime. And overall the modernized industrial environment is
so agitating to the mind that self-destructive addictions become the only
solace for most people. Are unemployment, criminality and addictions
indicators of progress?
● Technology provides comforts, but the high-speed high-stress technology-
centered lifestyle takes away the peace of mind necessary to enjoy the
comforts. A software engineer has an AC in his office, but still he sweats –
not due to heat, but due to tension. Thus, technology makes us comfortably
miserable.
● Medical technology may have eradicated a few diseases and may offer cures
to some more. But far more people need medical attention today than in the
past due to unhealthy congested city living, sedentary lifestyles and polluted
air, water and food. This is evident from the ever-increasing number of
clinics, hospitals and medicine shops. Moreover, many of the sophisticated
medical treatments, unlike the traditional herbal cures, are prohibitively
expensive.
● Most moderns can hardly imagine life without television, movies and
myriad other forms of hi-tech entertainment. And they pity their ancestors
who did not have all this enjoyment. But people in the past knew how to
find joy in the simple things of life – like sharing and caring in joint
families, observing and learning from nature and hearing and chanting the
names and glories of Supreme lord. Consequently, they did not find life
boring. On the contrary it is we who have divorced ourselves from simple
natural pleasures by our infatuation with technology. And so, despite our
much-touted entertainment, we still find ourselves constantly bored. The
entertainment industry may use sophisticated technology, but is the
dependence on entertainment – and the serious inner emptiness that it
symptomizes – a sign of progress?
● Technology intoxicates us with the feeling of being the controller. Just by
pressing a switch, we can cause huge machines to perform complex actions.
Just by clicking a key, we can summon information from any part of the
world. By constantly working with machines, we become habituated to
controlling them and expect everything and everyone to be similarly
controlled. When people refuse to be controlled like machines, we end up
with all sorts of relationship conflicts ranging from domestic cold wars to
marital ruptures, from quarrels to murders. And in life when things don’t go
the way we want them to, we end up suffering from a wide range of mental
problems, from depression to addiction, from stress to suicide.
Technology – Ancient And Modern
Many of us may have been led to believe that we moderns possess the
most advanced technology in the history of our planet. However, the
pyramids in Egypt, the Stonehenge monoliths in the UK and the non-
rusting iron pillars in India are some tell-tale products of an ancient
technology that was amazingly superior to our modern technology. In fact,
the Vedic texts describe even more intriguing technologies. Vimanas
(pollution-free airplanes), brahmastras (precise and powerful missiles
activated by mystical sound incantations) and astonishingly potent and
swift healing by techniques involving medicinal herbs, empowered
mantras and Ayurvedic surgeries are a few examples.
These examples of ancient technology show that the Vedic attitude is not
opposed to technology per se. But it cautions us about infatuation with
material technology leading to neglecting or forgetting the spiritual goal of
life.
Imagine a doctor who prescribes only a painkiller to a seriously sick
patient. The patient is happy because he gets relief. The doctor is happy
because he gets his fees. Happy end of story, isn’t it? The problem is – the
story doesn’t end there. The patient’s pain is not cured, but covered. Soon
it will recur and worsen.
All of us are like the patient. From the moment of birth, we have a death
sentence on our heads. Time forces us to helplessly grow old, get diseased
and die. Our journey through life is not only doomed, but also distressful.
Miseries from our own bodies and minds (e.g. fever, indigestion, stress,
depression), miseries from other living beings (e.g. mosquitoes,
competitors, superiors, relatives), and miseries from nature (e.g. extreme
heat or cold, floods, earthquakes) periodically torment us throughout our
life.
The Vedic texts explain the cause and cure of our suffering. We are
spiritual beings entrapped in material bodies. We belong, not to this
temporary and miserable material world, but to an eternal and blissful
spiritual realm, where we live forever in loving harmony with God. Due to
our desire to enjoy independent of God, we are placed in this world, which
is an arena for experimentation and rectification. In this material world, we
transmigrate through different species of life, searching for pleasure by
experimenting with matter in various ways, but getting only misery and
death. In the human species, we are given advanced human intelligence to
recognize our unfortunate predicament. For such intelligent humans, the
Vedic texts offer a systematic program of spirituality that enables them to
re-harmonize with and return back to eternal life with God.
This spiritual program is based on recognizing our intermediate position in
the cosmic hierarchy. As spiritual sparks we are superior to matter but
subordinate to God, who is the controller of both matter and spirit. In our
natural harmonious state in the spiritual world, we live in loving harmony
with God and have nothing to do with matter. And when we are in the
material world, the Vedic scriptures recommend that we focus on devotion
and service to God – and take care of the body only as much as is required
for it to serve as an efficient vehicle for our service to God and our
spiritual journey back to Him. This life of simple living and high thinking
will permanently free us from our present entanglement in material
miseries and help us to easily and swiftly re-achieve our rightful eternal
happiness. Thus spirituality offers the real cure for our suffering. In this
program for spiritual reclamation, material technologies were used mainly
to assist in achieving the ultimate goal of life.
In our modern times, the human intelligence has been used primarily to
develop materially – especially technologically. Technology gratifies our
senses, inflates our ego and makes us feel comfortable and proud.
However, technology provides entertainment, not peace; comforts, not
happiness; medicines, not health; cosmetics, not youth; life support
systems, not life. Thus, technology is like the painkiller that covers, but
doesn’t cure, our suffering in material existence. Worse still, it creates an
illusory sense of well-being, which makes people feel that a spiritual
solution is unnecessary. Instead of simple living and high thinking, people
start simply living and hardly thinking. Infatuated by promises of a hi-tech
paradise, people don’t even think about the spiritual purpose of life,
erroneously considering it to be unscientific and outdated. Thus,
technology steals our opportunity to attain eternal life and condemns us to
stay on and suffer in this world of birth and death.
Therefore, the basic difference between ancient technology and modern
technology is that the former helped people to achieve the goal of life,
while the latter causes people to forget the goal of life. Great thinkers
explains the regrettable direction of modern technological advancement:
the intelligence that is meant for solving all problems permanently is
misused to convert a castor oil lamp into an electric lamp.
Spiritualizing Modern Technology
A question may therefore arise, “Do we have to give up technology and
return back to village life?”
We don’t have to give up technology; but we do have to give up the
illusion that technology can make us happy. If we are diseased, we don’t
have to give up the painkiller; but we do have to give up the illusion that
the painkiller can cure our disease. We have to adopt the cure of
spirituality for attaining real happiness.
And as the modern world is almost completely pervaded by technology,
we can use the Vedic principle of yukta vairagya, devotional renunciation:
without being attached to material things for personal enjoyment, use them
for the service of God as required. Srila Prabhupada gives an analogy to
explain the application of this principle with respect to technology.
Suppose a gang of thieves have robbed a bank and are fleeing in a car at
the speed of 80 kmph on a road with a speed limit of 40 kmph. What are
the policemen chasing the thieves to do? Stick to the speed limit and let
the thieves escape? Or break the speed limit, drive faster than the thieves,
arrest them and retrieve the stolen wealth?
In our modern times, the wealth of spiritual knowledge of people is being
stolen away by hi-tech propaganda of atheism, materialism, consumerism
and hedonism. Therefore, it is incumbent on all genuine spiritual scientists
to use the same technology to spread knowledge of spirituality and
harmonious living and help people reclaim their wealth of spiritual
wisdom and happiness. Thus, the principle of yukta-vairagya enables us
spiritualize modern technology, as can be seen in the following examples.
● Spiritual oranisations splendid temples equipped with state-of-the-art
animatronics, robotics and multimedia theaters to kindle the interest of
people in the message of the Bhagavad-Gita.
● Spiritual organisations are offering children a positive alternative
comprising of devotionally-oriented toys, games and movies, which
engender virtue and nobility, instead of the vice-producing media images of
violence and sensuality.
● Many spiritual thinkers faculty members give presentations using slides
shows, VCDs and other state-of-the-art technology. Even the article you are
reading is an example of the yukta-vairagya principle in action.
This spiritual utilization of technology is attracting millions of people
towards the service of God, and helping them to find inner fulfillment and
achieve their right to eternal life and happiness.
But much more remains to be done, if we want to steer our planet out of
the mess we have landed it into by our indiscriminate adoption of
technology. For our modern times, there is need of East-West synthesis;
spreading Indian spiritual wisdom with Western material technology. It
can be compared to the coming together of Vedic spirituality and modern
technology to the coming together of the proverbial blind man and the
lame man. But for this synthesis to take place, the technologically
advanced West has to recognize that it is lacking in spiritual vision. And
the financially-crippled India has to shed its deeply-ingrained inferiority
complex arising from material poverty and recognize its wealth of spiritual
knowledge. If we acknowledge our respective endowments and
deficiencies, we can become pioneers in bringing about an international
spiritual revival. In our sadly misled modern world, this may be the only
hope to usher in a new era of harmony and happiness. Are we ready?