Pongal / Sankranti / Baisakhi

On the social plane, the Sankraanti carries a vital significance for national welfare. It is the warmth of love and fellow-feeling among the people of a country that ultimately makes them stand up in unison in adversity or in prosperity. It is the necessary lubricant to make the nation's machine work smoothly without friction. Even the great precepts of `liberty' and `equality' lose their meaning without the basic requisite of `fraternity' among the people. Fraternity alone will ensure a spirit of selfless service and sacrifice in the cause of fellow countrymen. Selfishness - the ultimate destructor of the social fabric - is cured and social consciousness generated where a spirit of fraternity is alive.

Sankraanti, signifying light, also gives the message of intellectual illumination. It is the capacity to discriminate between the right and the wrong, the just and the unjust, truth and falsehood, virtue and vice. It is this discriminative wisdom - Viveka - which leads the individual on the path of human evolution and human happiness. Mere dry reasoning power devoid of this insight will be like the charging of a wild horse without the stirrup and the rider.

The present-day galloping race of science and technology is indeed turning the modern civilization into such a `wild horse'. The looming and growing catastrophic consequences of air, water and soil pollutions are a few instances of how far our modern intellect has strayed away from the true path of intellectual enlightenment. Mahabhaarata defines pursuit of truth and real knowledge as that which leads to the welfare of all living beings - Yad bhootahitamatyantam tat satyamiti dhaaranaa.

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