Agree to Differ

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Image: ACRI (2011)

Bali, Indonesia: showing love and universal parenthood to children of Indonesia and promoting oneness of humanity

to him or her. In doing so, the parent will have removed a

developing engine from the child. The child will, in that case,

record in his or her psyche that there is no need to struggle

– ‘someone will do it easily for me’. And that will perma-

nently harm the self-drive in the personality of the child in

later life. Parents and teachers have hitherto removed engines

from their children and thus created zombies of personali-

ties. By contrast, if a baby is struggling to reach a bunch of

keys, the parent or guardian should simply make it possible

for the child to reach the keys on its own. For example, one

would go to the struggling legs of the child and place a prop

at the feet so that the child can step on it and push forward

towards the keys. When this child reaches the keys, it will feel

such triumph! The child will record in its psyche that ‘all you

need to do is struggle without giving up and you will eventu-

ally succeed!’ Experiences of this nature will help the child to

eventually adopt the philosophy of survival in life and, hence,

he or she will be self-driven.

Integrity:

This should be the measure of a quality person-

ality. Today, what do we value as a measure of quality

personality? Wealth and prosperity, irrespective of how

one has acquired this. That means that even thieves and

criminals are considered quality persons because of their

wealth. It explains the nature of our global society because

we have thus glorified crime and immorality, and kept

vermin as kingpins of our modern civilization. The world

needs to make the virtue of integrity the yardstick for quality

personality. What is integrity in this case? It refers to what

makes a person respect him or herself and others, includ-

ing their rights. This virtue should be cultivated from the

earliest stages in childhood, all through the primary, second-

ary and tertiary levels of education and, indeed, through

the churches, temples and mosques, and all public places.

School systems, religious systems and political systems will

thus have to be engaged in creating a society based on integ-

rity, irrespective of wealth and prosperity.

Harmony:

This pillar of society unites people in every-

thing, including culture; people are supportive of one

another at work, not undermining each other and running

each other down. People stop discriminating others on the

basis of where they come from or what their complexion is.

For the rapprochement of cultures, people must reject tribal-

ism, ethnicity, sectionalism and racism – at local, national

and international levels – to make the world feel and act as

one. The campaign for this type of world citizenship should

start in the family and move up through the school system,

gree

iffer