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Growth Online > Knowledge Base > Society's Growth > New Insights into the Nature of & Potentials for Prosperity
New Insights into the Nature of
& Potentials for Prosperity
On the Nature of Prosperity
-Prosperity is not moral or ethical; it can go to the robber baron or the ruthless.
-It comes from organization of power.
-It is not to be shunned.
-It reduces ignorance and illness, and provides, supports freedom.
-It issues from industry, responsibility, honesty, organization, common sense, and alertness in life.
-It is energy organized.
-It is indispensible for health, education, and happiness.
-It rises in scale of human values.
-Its greatest results issue out of spirituality.
-It can destroy peace of mind, whereas Spiritual Prosperity cannot.
-It reaches a point where it can self-multiply.
-It enables nations to lead the world.
-It promotes domestic peace.
-It promotes world union. (MSS)
Definition of Prosperity
-To be able to produce more by releasing greater energy and achieving higher results by determination and organisation and skills is prosperity.-Generation of greater energy in volume of higher energy in quality is achieved by espousing higher ideals. (MSS)
Prosperity Realized through Organization
Efficiency is the means by which the goal of prosperity is realized. (MSS)Cause of Prosperity
Prosperity is the result of intelligent industry which comes from education. (MSS)
Emerging New Energies of Prosperity During the Great Depression
Seventy-six years ago, the New York Stock Exchange crashed. Its influence spread all over the world. Thousands of businesses and families were ruined worldwide. Unemployment that should not cross the mark of 10% touched 25% in the USA. Economists all over the world have intensely analysed the cause, but have not arrived at an answer satisfactory to them. It can very well be explained from the Theory point of view. Here, I would like to spotlight another dimension of Depression - Prosperity!
America is a country where statistics are available as to what a taxi driver earned half a century ago. In our country, we cannot know such figures, even about today’s events. Below let me quote the facts about the two facets of the society, as reported in a book on American history: 1) Of the 86 legitimate theatres in New York City, only 28 had shows running; but O’Neill’s Mourning Becomes Electra had sold out even its $6 seats; 2) About 1600 of the 20,000 taxis dropped out, but the rest were much smarter and cleaner as a result of intensified competition; 3) Both the Ritz Hotel and the Pierre had cut their lowest room rates to a humiliating $6 but the new Waldorf, charging the same as before, was packed. 4) The new Empire State Building had only rented a third of its rooms, but 550,000 people had already paid a dollar to go up to the top; 5) The big transatlantic liners were cutting their suite prices by a third, but ’whooppee cruises’ beyond the twelve mile limit ban on gambling were a roaring success. The book contains some more facts and concludes, the Depression was the best time to make money. If the crash had been a real one where the society’s productive capacities sagged, we could not witness the above phenomenon of the lower sections of the population enjoying a Boom.
The crash was manmade consciously or unconsciously. One of my perennial arguments is society has an infinite power in potential. No society, it is my belief, can ever decline unless its ways of management strangles its sources of productive energies. It was a great truth in 1929. Half the world was ruined because of the crash. At such a moment, one section of the society exhibited the above vigour. In India, life is buoyant, society is on the move, all the springs of social energies are bursting forth. Every foreigner who comes here who has already visited India earlier is struck by the throbbing life. It is unmistakeable. Today India is invited to the G8 Summit in Scotland. India never had that position in the forum of international gatherings. The work done by the governments in the early decades of Independence and the sacrifice of millions of Indian patriots before 1947 are coming to fruition. This is an hour when we salute those heroes humbly and with patriotic gratitude. Long live Mother India. (MSS)
Right Attitudes for Prosperity
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On the Nature of Prosperity
-Prosperity is not moral or ethical; it can go to the robber baron or the ruthless.
-It comes from organization of power.
-It is not to be shunned.
-It reduces ignorance and illness, and provides, supports freedom.
-It issues from industry, responsibility, honesty, organization, common sense, and alertness in life.
-It is energy organized.
-It is indispensible for health, education, and happiness.
-It rises in scale of human values.
-Its greatest results issue out of spirituality.
-It can destroy peace of mind, whereas Spiritual Prosperity cannot.
-It reaches a point where it can self-multiply.
-It enables nations to lead the world.
-It promotes domestic peace.
-It promotes world union. (MSS)Cheerfulness and Prosperity
Cheerfulness is an excellent foundation for prosperity. This is true for the individual, the family, and society. For example, we see how the foundation of the Bennet family in the novel Pride and Prejudice serves them well as they move from their current condition to far greater prosperity at the end of the story.
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A happy optimism at the start of an emerging situation is a sure sign of accomplishment and success. We see this amongst the members of the Bennett family at the outset of Pride and Prejudice that ends in three marriages, and wealth accumulated for the family. On the other hand, a small internal squabble at the outset can point to an eventual doom. We see this at the beginning of the true-to life-film A Perfect Storm when two of the fisherman show great contempt for one another, only to see al members perish at the end due to coming together of two enormous storms.
There are always predecessor events that point to the bigger events. To know those smaller acts can help us control the bigger ones; turning them into great accomplishment and results.Prosperity of Society Where People Appreciate Other's Success
In societies where people appreciate another person's rise in prosperity, the country tends to prosper. In countries where people are keen to put the person down when an individual rises, they tend to remain poor.
Truth, Honesty, Integrity Accelerates Development
More than their genius or insights, it is TRUTH, fact, honesty, and integrity have fostered the development of science in the West. These elements are essential keys to many facets of human development, including the social and economic sphere. In those nations where these elements are lacking, their implementation will be a fast-track to vast and rapid economic and social development (Paraphrase of MSS)
Waste and The Unreality of Scarcity
... Man squanders, overdoes, unconsciously offends the laws of life and creates problems. He forgets he has infinite creative talents. His own survival is because he has infinitely adapted himself to the environment. Resources are plentiful when we approach them as they are. They become scarce the moment we insist on life rising to our occasion. In Israel where the rainfall is only 11, one finds the best agricultural productivity in the world, whereas Sirapunji in Assam with a rainfall of 454, the highest in the world, suffers from water scarcity in summer.
Waste, neglect, over-utilisation are ways of life that are unconscious. Prudence, attention, maximum utilisation are conscious ways of life. Human life on earth is a record that speaks of the infinite resourcefulness and infinite creativity of man. He must grow conscious of his environment and his own inner capacities to discover that there is no real scarcity in the world other than what man has created by his own unconsciousness. (MSS)
High Components of Prosperity among Peoples that Enable Great Prosperity
The Jews, the Chinese and the Indians are known to prosper wherever they are outside their native lands. The Jews are industrious, passionate about their faith, and extraordinarily intelligent. No wonder they prosper. The Chinese, apart from being industrious in the extreme, are clean to perfection. They are from a subtle civilisation and are loyal to their partners once they forge a partnership. Loyalty, cleanliness and industry are certainly high components of Prosperity. (MSS)Indians are very insightful, have a great theoretical grasp. Both arise from their spiritual understanding, which is beyond all others. If they throw off their inhibitions, become more free in their social values, the sky is the limit for them, as they too will have incorporated a number of necessary components for Prosperity. (Paraphrase of MSS)
Also See Importance of Availing the Social Boons Available to Us
When We Want, We Prosper
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Wanting More Enables Growth of National Economy
In the least of men wanting more is a silly superstition. In the enlightened man, wanting more of education, skills, and comforts is national aspiration, not to be frowned upon. This wanting more is the growing market of the expanding national economy. (MSS)
Development Occurs When We Take It in Our Own Hands, to Wanting It
It is a truism in the field of development that a society will really develop when its members take it into their own hands. Any work of the government or other agencies may do the initial spade work, but it is not capable of consummating the process of development - a high degree of Prosperity. It reduces to man wanting more and more as days pass by. (MSS)Power of Creativity in Society
Even more significant than our being an “information” or “knowledge’ economy is the fact that we [in the dynamic West] are a creative economy. We are becoming conscious of the power of creativity to enable success, and we are systematizing this fact in work and in our lives. It is the decisive source of competitive advantage.The economy by definition becomes creative when it self-generates jobs, service, and Prosperity. The Internet enables this.
On Value of Charity
Charity to other nations to poor nations is resented by the recipient. This type of help hinders those poor nations, causes other nations to resent us. There are better ways to help, starting with genuine concern for their plight rather than just dole of money.
Also See Thoughts on What We Individually Wants Achieves
Technology and Prosperity
(main)Digital Implementation Fosters Job Security
Employment growth has become more stable in those sectors of society adopting computer and Internet technologies. Such digital intelligence fosters economic security and well-being. It secretly fosters a multiplier of job generation, though that fact is invisible to us.
Other Causes of Prosperity
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What's Necessary for Extending the Gains of Society to All
-Suppose the economic gains of the society are to be extended to all, the society in greater part has to develop several institutions and the individual has to acquire a host of capacities simultaneously overlooking the original rule of individual to society and again to all individuals. This is a must. Solving this challenge even in theory is a major step forward.
-In the world conditions of this decade facilities of training, communications, follow up, organisational support, psychological milieu exist in enough measure to achieve this as the expectations have reached the very fringes of the society. The leadership should rise to the occasion to render this into an ordered transition without which the change will come about through chaos, breakdown, goondaraj, terrorism etc. The military stockpile will leak into the hands of the revolution completing the process. This is avoidable. The first step is Guaranteed Employment in the West, abolition of hunger in the East.-Should this change occur, we will witness initially a world without poverty, hunger and sorrow. (MSS)
The Rising Expectations Unfulfilled Will Attempt to Break the Present Structure
-Man expects the present society to fulfill his rising expectations and if it does not he will break its present structure.
-The society is poised for evolving an order of affluent joy of mental adventure. It will accomplish itself breaking the existing social structure unless by a conscious evolution a smooth transition is offered by the leadership. (MSS)Difficulty of Transition in Times of Prosperity
Periods of transition are full of stress. There are transitions for the better. Other transitions are for the worse. A war effort is one such. The whole population must sacrifice several conveniences to fight the war. Each family has to risk a life too.
When a nation is overwhelmed by waves of prosperity, the population that is overjoyed by that transition will also find it difficult to adjust to the new affluence. That too can generate a stress which is usually unseen or unperceived. It is nothing new for understanding, but we generally miss it. A change, especially a serious change, brings to the surface the hidden good as well as bad in us. First, the new prosperity requires a higher cultural behaviour to fit into the society.
... Most people adjust. Some who are unable or unwilling to adjust feel the stress on their nerves. Often the nerves give way. There is a slightly different version of it also. When prosperity enters a community, the hidden talents of many emerge and they all quickly rise. Those who are not talented and consequently are unable to keep up with the general rise in status are stung by jealousy.
They are driven to extremes. A symptom can tell us a message. It is for us to get the message straight. A good development can indicate a good consequence, or occasionally, the opposite. A bad development can well be a symptom of a good consequence in future. (MSS, extracted)Conditions for Nation's Prosperity
A nation can prosper if all doors are open to all kinds of talents, wiping off rules, regulations, degrees, conventions, etc.Institutional Wealth that Organizes, Not Individual Wealth Creates Prosperity
Individual wealth is NOT prosperity. Institutional wealth makes for prosperity. Man earns and saves. His savings are equal to his earning. He deposits his earnings in the bank. The bank multiplies that money nine times out of which collective prosperity issues. Printing is an institution. Printed book is in that sense an institution. They multiply knowledge of the society a hundred or a thousand or a million times. All ORGANISATIONS multiply resources. (MSS)On Revolutions and the Prosperity of the Masses
-Revolutions have changed the face of nations beyond recognition.
-Revolutions belong to the realm of politics. They arise even in the field of religion.
-Revolutions are periods of transition.
-Such periods offer the lowest member of the society the chance to rise to the highest status.
-The American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the Reformation, the technological revolutions brought about by steam, electricity, science in general and, now, the computer have opened up such apertures of PROSPERITY.
-As a result, those who were at the bottom of the society have started moving up and some have reached the peak to stay there forever. (MSS, extracted)On Low or High Taxation
-Low tax belongs to a primitive society. High tax is for the advanced society.-In the most advanced [spirit-based conscious] society contemplated by the Mother, all savings are taxes. (MSS, somewhat modified)
Also See Thoughts into the Cause of, Solutions to Poverty
Also See Thoughts on a New Economics
MSS Paper: Abundant Prosperity
Economic Opportunities and End to Conflict
When economic opportunities open up, Man has no time or energy for religious conflict, i.e. economics goes deeper into man’s existence than what he believes to be his religious conviction. If ethnic conflicts are to acquire life and virulence, it should be in USA, because it is there we find a great number of dynamic ethnic minorities, but the USA is more free from ethnic conflicts than elsewhere. (MSS)
How the Indian and Westerner Combine to Bring a Great Power to the World
The Westerner has material success in matter because he has applied true spiritual values to that endeavor such as honesty, orderliness, systemization, etc. Yet he knows practically nothing of spirit. Spirit on the other hand is in the body of the Indian, yet he is not prosperous because he lacks the spiritual values that the westerner has toward matter. If the Indian can learn to acquire this in the outer life of matter, then with the already existing profound spiritual insight of the Rishis that he embodies, he will in tandem with the West unleash a tidal wave of power on the world. (Paraphrase of MSS)For thoughts on how the individual can attract wealth and prosperity in one's life, click here.
Also See Solving Society's Problems Through Higher Consciousness
