What applies at an individual level applies at a collective level too. A certain influential section of the scientific community has however believed (and made us believe too!) that survival is best ensured by competitive struggle. The more capable one is in outdoing another form of life, the more likely one is to survive and live. Modern society (both capitalism and the present form of communism) built largely on this belief, is already beginning to see the ill effects both at an individual and collective level. So is modern medicine! For modern medicine unlike our more patient ancestors is trying to conquer death by violently crushing all that it sees as a threat to the body’s survival. It fails to note that what we see as threats is Nature’s challenge to stimulate and uncover latent potentials. The deer frolicking on the plains of Africa has survived and outlived the tiger, not because of its greater capacity for over-powering the tiger!
For Nature works on a plan of oneness and only that group and species which can base itself on this sense of oneness, will survive the onslaught of death. Missing this secret led to the downfall, disintegration and eventual destruction of the great Roman, Atlantic, Trojan and other empires. Knowing this secret led to the continuity and preservation of the great Indian spiritual traditions, despite outer conquest, domination and mass conversions! Here too, we see the same truth. Rigidity, fixity, narrowness, and separateness lead to death. Plasticity, co-operation, inter-change and oneness better ensure the group’s survival and growth.
