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Independence Week | Not just 'Sone Ki Chidiya', but 'Bhavani Bharati' too: How freedom lies in the thought process

This Tuesday we are celebrating ‘Independence Day’, it is time we take charge of our own mindsets, our own narratives and do not allow any foreign influences to come in our way

Sri Anish|Aug 13, 2023, 16:11:46 IST

History plays an important role in shaping the destiny of a nation. Any civilization, if it has to move forward and evolve, it has to look deep into its past, feel pride in all the historic achievements, learn from past mistakes and build on past strengths. This becomes the necessary foundation for the future evolution of its people. And for some reason, if this does not happen, then that civilization loses its heritage, its roots and starts to follow anything that is offered to them, almost blindly. Then, the deep learning from the collective wisdom of hundreds and thousands of years of evolution is wasted. Something similar happened to our great civilization when foreign invaders started getting attracted by our material wealth. At one level they were keen to come and trade with us, but at the same time, they were also jealous of our spiritual wisdom and wealth. Some of them came with a view to rule us and settle in Bharat, but many came to plunder and destroy our civilization values. Amongst them, maximum loot and plunder was done by British Raj. They did not want to enslave us physically alone but mentally, emotionally and spiritually as well. But Bharat Bhoomi is always blessed, as this is the land of Dharma and of Rishis. British Raj did much damage but could not enslave the spirit of Bharat. Bhavani Bharati took a hit but we did not lose the accumulated wisdom of our past.And we are rising, but we cannot take our ‘independence’ for granted. If we do not understand our own heritage, and our civilizational values, if we do not work towards protecting and nurturing it then that will be a great loss and a big mistake on our part. Then the celebration of ‘Independence Day’ will just be a ritual of blowing our own trumpet cyclically every year, without any ‘resolve to transform and transcend’.Thousands of years ago, our great Rishis of Bharat built an extremely strong civilization, which was rooted in the highest Dharma, we can call it spiritual wisdom as well. From this ‘Dharma’ came all the great discoveries and inventions. This civilization pioneered the work in subjects ranging from Astronomy to Aircraft, Arthashastra to Ayurved, Maths to Metallurgy, Silk to Surgery and Physical to Meta-physical. The list of all these scientific, social and spiritual inventions is endless. Actually, the architects of our great civilization did not leave any field of study untouched which could contribute to human well-being in some way or the other. And that is the reason, Bharat gained the title of Sone Ki Chidiya. These scientific discoveries which were rooted in Dharma, made us a nation of abundance not only in terms of material wealth but also in spiritual wealth.Since the last thousands of years, Bharat’s brand identity has remained the same, ‘a country of spiritual wisdom’. From across the globe, people still come to Bharat in search of peace and spiritual wisdom. But it is unfortunate that we the inheritors of these great knowledge systems are forgetting it and are ignoring our own Dharma and civilizational heritage. Though we gained political independence 75 years ago, but in many senses, we are still trapped and slaves of Western mindset. Here are a few examples from our daily life to support this:

We still say ‘hello’ on phone, rather than our traditional way of greeting ‘namaste’ or whatever else we say in our respective local languages
We promote hand-shaking instead of the gesture of ‘namaste’ which is known to stimulate the ‘Vagus nerve’ that controls a majority of our body functions. So, this gesture of ‘namaste’ is actually very good for our well-being as well
In our food plate, our traditional and very nutritious millets are replaced by Western concept of ‘white flour or maida’. Our traditional millets are known to have tremendous health benefits and are also much more ecologically better than our staple food of wheat and rice.
We are still taught that John Dalton (an English chemist and meteorologist) found atoms and created atomic theory in the 18th century, he is considered the father of atomic theory, but the reality is our ancient Rishi Kanada had already developed the understanding of atoms about 3000 years ago.

There are numerous such scientific discoveries and great achievements that our Rishis did but modern education and all Google searches would invariably give credit to some Western scientists for these discoveries, and we believe that easily because we just cannot reach the heights that this great civilization had attained.This Tuesday we are celebrating ‘Independence Day’, it is time we take charge of our own mindsets, our own narratives and do not allow any external/foreign influences to come in our way. This era belongs to Bharat, our Sone Ki Chidiya is flexing her wings once again and this time, she is strongly supported by the awakening spirit of Bhavani Bharati as well.The writer is an ex-corporate CEO and a successful entrepreneur. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News,India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.