Today’s world usually equates progress with economic development and prides itself on the number of people raised above the poverty line. 

Undoubtedly, efforts to help the poor are essential and laudable. While we pursue economic development, however, we may overlook a politically incorrect secret about poverty: people are poor not just because they lack money, but also because they abuse whatever money they have in pandering to vices such as alcoholism. 

As long as such vices aren’t addressed, providing financial help — either through charity or employment — is like pouring water into a leaking bucket. Even if substantial economic development in a society raises all its poor people above the poverty line, the problems of poverty will merely give way to the problems of prosperity. Prosperous people have their own set of vices, which often include poor people’s vices in tuxedo. The poor might be addicted to cheap liquor, whereas the rich might be hooked to expensive wine. 

All of us, poor or rich, have within us a self-destructive instinct, as indicated in the Bhagavad-gita (03.36). That instinct is the root of all vice; it expresses itself to different degrees in different people. It exists because we all are spiritually disoriented; we are seeking in matter the meaning and fulfillment that can only be found in spirit, in a loving relationship with the all-pure divine, Krishna. And developing that inner connection is the essence of spiritual development. Facilitating such development, Gita wisdom provides various time-tested processes to access non-material sources of happiness, thereby increasing our resistance to the self-destructive instinct. 

When we complement economic development with spiritual development, we can progress toward holistic human welfare.

One-sentence summary:

Economic development without spiritual development often replaces the problems of poverty with the problems of prosperity.

Think it over: 

  • Why does economic development not lead to human welfare? 
  • What is spiritual development? How does it complement economic development?
  • What problems of prosperity have you witnessed? How can you use those experiences to redirect your life’s focus?

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03.36: Arjuna said: O descendant of Vrishni, by what is one impelled to sinful acts, even unwillingly, as if engaged by force?

 

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