We have read in our childhood-“If wealth is lost nothing is lost, if health is lost something is lost and if character is lost everything is lost.” Today we have lost our character that is why our nation is not growing in spite of all our good planning. The insect of selfishness is eating away our personal, social and national life. How man has become so selfish we are unable to understand. Our country is such a country where we had always stressed on moral and spiritual values from the very beginning. In spite of that how much we lack in moral values not those westerners who never make a show of their religion and spirituality.

It is not difficult to find cause of this downfall – it is selfishness and greed of a person, which destroys all his human values. Character stands for commitment towards human values, and human values comprises cooperation and sympathy of a man towards other. Propensities of greed and selfishness swallow up our spirit of cooperation and sympathy. We want to toe and push others to gain an upper hand in the race of life but we often forget that in real sense winner is the person who helps other to win. We have learnt this lesson so many times but we forget it again and again and it seems that during these many years of independence we have forgotten it completely. Otherwise there is no reason why those persons who had been known for their self abnegation before independence, never cared for their children and their loved ones, had been jailed for several times for blowing the bugle of war of independence suddenly after getting ruling power have become so corrupted. The history of our country after independence tells us this only. There are only handful of persons who did not suffer from hysterical greed generated by the stung of power. Let us leave them as exception. Rest all have changed completely after getting the ruling chair. As soon as they got power and money started flowing in, a renouncer stopped thinking about renunciation as any important thing because they had got a taste of fruition. If someone gets a taste of enjoyment along with power, then every remarking limit of enjoyment vanishes away. He starts looting with both hands. Those who always echoed ‘yes’ with the ‘yes’ of English government, who never felt pained when their Indian accomplices were stuffed into jails or were shot dead, after independence sneaked inside ruling party by their wealth power. That resulted a shift of political power from the hands of good all renouncing persons to the wealthy persons and all policies of our country started to take shape under their guidance. Since we have adopted democratic state administration system which depends on vote casting by adults, now they started purchasing vote by their power of wealth. The result of this was that the prosperity of nation had slipped from the hands of poor and held by corrupt.

Then people thought that our villagers are illiterate and simple and so don’t know value of their vote. Once they will become educated, they will come to know value of it and never sell it. They quoted famous political thinker, third president of USA Thomas Jefferson, who says,” Education holds the key to the stability of a democratic order” but they have forgotten that if a simple illiterate man of a village sells his vote then a well educated man coming from a town is also not an exception. Difference is that an illiterate person sells his vote worth of Rs 100 plus a bottle of wine while an educated knows the real cost of his vote and in this business he sells it for lakhs of rupees. This practice in the field of politics has given birth to a new group which is known as ‘group changer’. This group has destroyed all the dimensions of character and created a disorder in our country which is known as ‘crisis of character’.

Today we are passing through a period of crisis, where human values disappear, faiths dissolve away, man becomes a symbol of selfishness and fulfilling it somehow becomes summum bonum of his life. His each and every action is defined by his propensity of self attachment. He becomes a hog. When we look back in our seventy years old national life, it seems like a dream. Then we are forced to think that did our old sacrifice was just a show? But our conscience never accepts this, because then we were burning with fire, there was an yearn within us to break the chain of slavery, we had self esteem and we wanted to make our country free at any cost. There were two types of men who jumped into battle of independence – first were those who fought, propelled with force of motivation and second were those who worked with mob psychology. In this second category there was no idealism, they simply fought seeing others doing this, since no one could blame them. But as soon as we got independence, that inner motivation got dissolved, which had motivated them with self sacrifice and men from these both categories started trying to encash the royalty of their self surrender. This is the history of our character crisis. Today we have surrendered all our desire to make our country prosperous. We utter great talks through our lips, but they are just to impress others, our own heart never vibrates with these words. We advocate morality and character in very strong word, not because we are convinced with these attributes, just to pretend us to be like this before others. We are always eager to show ourselves truthful and honest never to become like this. We shall tell lies, but we expect that people honour us as truthful.

I want to narrate a story I read in my childhood. One king was very proud of his subjects that they loved him so much and always ready to carry out his orders. His teacher was a saint. He wanted to remove his delusion. He asked king to test his subjects for the same. A big reservoir was constructed in a field and an announcement was made that on the night of mew moon a person from each family will come with a seer of milk and should pour it into the reservoir. The king imagined that reservoir will be full of milk but next morning it was seen that it was nothing but water filled. Each person thought that all other will be pouring milk and if he alone mixes a pot of water there then none could identify this small amount of impurity, moreover who will come to know of him doing this act in that dark night. Thinking this way all poured water only. Is not our mentality has become like this today? Don’t we try to achieve our selfish motive like this? We always expect that all others will follow the path of truth, be honest and I myself should be considered as exception. We want to accept philosophy of Kaikai, the queen of Dasharatha, who sought dominion for her own son and exile for other’s son. We speak great about renunciation but wish that others should follow it. We condemn fruition verbally but want an exemption for own. It is impossible to elevate our character like this. If our own character is not moulded how can we raise our nation?

Therefore if we want that our country should emerge as a most glorious nation on world’s stage then we have to stress most on character building. Without that everything is vain, our talks about progress and development of country are of no use. The first condition of character building is discipline. Strict discipline only polishes our jewel of character and makes it shine. There are two sides of discipline- one is internal, which grows from our own impulse within and this only is right discipline. Second one is external which society or nation forces on our head. We have to work synchronizing these both faces of discipline. Then only we can have any hope for character building. There are few who can restrain themselves using their conscience and continence and like this exhibit their character strength. But there are few, to discipline whom, there is a need to stick. The lesson of character building comprises these both.

Moreover, this building of character descends from above to below. If everything is right at top, the persons working below in hierarchy automatically improve themselves. Conduct perverseness spreads in society from higher stripe. There an immediate need of improvement is necessary. If we treat higher limbs of society, lower limbs will automatically get free from disease.