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September 11, 2001. One of the darkest days in the history of the modern world

Martin Luther King, Jr, stated in his From Strength to Love, "The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

" Little did he know how prophetic his words would be in a literal sense several decades later. 

A COMFORTABLE STATE OF MISERY

In the modern times, we have achieved considerable ability to manipulate our external environment with the help of science and technology.

Technological gadgets have helped make life comfortable and easy to a large extent, relieving us of many of the discomforts and inconveniences associated with a traditional way of life.

The ads go so far as to claim that the world is now at your fingertips.

Yet have all these comforts made us more peaceful or happy?

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared that mental disease will be the greatest health challenge of this century

People of the past hardly ever complained of stress or depression, but these have become almost synonymous with a modern way of life..

Worldwide addictions are on the rise. WHO statistics indicate that tobacco alone kills nearly 10,000 people worldwide every day. There are around 1.1 billion smokers in the world (about one-third of the global population aged 15 and over).

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By 2020 it is predicted that tobacco use will cause over 12% of all deaths globally. This is more deaths worldwide than HIV, tuberculosis, maternal mortality, motor vehicle accidents, suicide and homicide combined. And smoking is a relatively mild form of addiction as compared to alcoholism and drug abuse

With the rapid rise in promiscuity in modern times, the family, the basis of a steady and sustainable society, is breaking apart. A survey showed that two out of three marriages in the US end in divorce within three years of marriage.

with the children of today's disturbed, ruptured and addicted generation being the leaders of tomorrow, the future of the world is quite frightening to even contemplate upon.

The school massacres in Littleton and other places in US give us a glimpse of things to come.

So despite the bluff and the bravado of the comfortable life, most modern people find themselves in mental distress. They thus live in a comfortable state of misery. And the tragic irony is that most of this misery is self-inflicted.

For example, no one needs to smoke to survive but still people smoke and bring disease and suffering upon themselves.

What is the cause of this unfortunate, indeed tragic, state of affairs - guided missiles and misguided men?

THE ENEMIES WITHIN

An analysis of the current world scenario from the Vedic perspective provides thought-provoking insights.

The Vedic texts explain that within the human psyche are six formidable forces which misguide a person constantly and impel him to self-destructive behavioral patterns.

These are lust, anger, greed, pride, envy and illusion.

Among these, lust, greed and anger are the most dangerous and are declared in the Bhagavad-gita to be "the three gates to hell". Let us see how these relate to the problems plaguing the present-day world.

It is the source of all kinds of sexual drives. While regulated sex is necessary for procreation, lust tends to create uncontrollable sexual urges within a person.

lust

While modern media - and practically the entire modern society - portrays passionate lust as a gateway to unlimited bodily pleasures, such a conception is in reality short-lived and treacherous; it is individually frustrating and socially disastrous

Enamored by erotic fantasies, a person tries to enjoy in newer ways and with newer partners. But each successive experience leaves him increasingly disappointed - and craving for more.

For the highest pleasure the body can offer is heartbreakingly brief. Frustrated in his quest for erotic enjoyment, such a person turns in despair to perverted sources of pleasure like smoking, drinking and drug abuse.

Greed:Greed makes one crave for far more than what one needs. A person victimized by greed does not find satisfaction no matter how much he accumulates. At the same time, his greed forces him to exploit others and strip them of even their basic needs in order to achieve his selfish ends.

During a morning walk through a slum area, Srila Prabhupada noticed some stout people jogging along the road. He poignantly commented that in the huts people did not get enough to eat, while the wealthy tended to overeat and were therefore forced to jog to decrease their weight.

Consider the following UNICEF statistics about the world hunger problem:

Hunger kills a person every 3.6 seconds and over 15 million children every year . To satisfy the world's sanitation and food requirements would cost only US$13 billion- what the people of the United States and the European Union spend on perfume each year.

angero Anger arises when

one's lusty desires are frustrated. Anger leads to all forms of violence

ranging from petty quarrels to world wars.

o The modern media with its vivid depiction of

violence portrays anger as a heroic quality. This is a major cause of the

spiraling rates of violent criminality in

modern societies..

o While most people recognize

that in real life anger is not a desirable emotion, they savor the violent scenes in the movies. And then strangely enough they wonder why they themselves, in fits of anger, speak such words and do such deeds which break the hearts of their loved ones and which they themselves bitterly regret later.

Anger thus destroys relationships and ruins lives