Identifying with the physical body. We think we are our bodies. With this belief begin all the attitudinal problems. It makes us feel that we are islands. When we see people dying, our ego rebels since it wants to continue. Continuance implies continuance of the body, which we identify with. The need for continuity breeds the need for security. Deep down we are eternal beings-omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. In our search for pleasure, we become greedy. Greed gives rise to fears-of not being able to fulfill our needs. Fears give rise to the need for false psychological protection in beliefs. We have convinced ourselves that money is the solution to all our problems. However, money is only a manifestation of and flows from abundance, not vice versa. Prosperity is a vector. It has magnitude and direction. Most people focus only on the magnitude, not the direction it may take one's life towards-happiness (if one is rich spiritually too) or misery, stress and insecurity (if one lacks inner purity).

"When the heart is empty it collects things. And the one who dies rich lives in vain," said Jiddu Krishnamurti, Indian philosopher. Today, we are looking for happiness where it is not. Cut off from our inner being, there is a constant dependence on, and struggle for, external things for fulfillment. People, therefore, often amass wealth through unethical means but fail to remove their inner poverty. We fail to realize that the most precious things are those that money cannot buy. When one focuses one's attention exclusively on external success, one may get there faster only to find that the one who was supposed to enjoy this success has already been lost somewhere on the way.

It is in vogue these days to abort discussions and concerns regarding the degrading values in our society with the question: "Right according to whom?" This may give us a transitory feeling of intellectual superiority, but deep within we all know that primary values like honesty, sincerity and commitment to family, society and humanity as a whole command respect wherever they exist. We may not be able to define honesty, but we know what it is.

If values were so subjective, why would Mother Teresa have commanded such universal reverence? Why would a thief or a murderer be imprisoned? How these values are defined, interpreted and applied in real-life can be debated-but their intrinsic correctness is universally accepted. They are not so subjective that we cannot decide, for example, whether honesty is more desirable than dishonesty, or whether killing fellow humans for money should be punished.

No society has ever respected cowardice over courage. Fairness, kindness, dignity, charity, integrity, honesty, concern for others, patience, empathy, compassion, justice, integrity and commitment are among the desirable primary values that have been accepted universally in every age. Values may be subjective, but not the principles of Nature. For example, Hitler was value-driven but not principle-driven. He followed certain personal values, which were out of step with the principles of nature.

What inferences we draw from what we observe depends not on what actually transpires but on how we perceive or process it, which depends on our state of consciousness. A person who relies merely on the senses takes every event to be a result of sheer chance. He is bound to choose different values from the one who appreciates that there is an underlying interconnection and order in the events of our lives.

The greatest tragedy of the modern world is that it has given us enough to live with but nothing to live for. Today, our purpose of life has become hazy. Existence has become more important than living. People today do not ask themselves what they feel concerned about and what they would like to dedicate their lives to; they ask which field has better 'scope'. They seek to take decisions on the basis of what lies in the external world, instead of being driven from within. But unless we find a cause to live for, we are not fit to live.

With increasing distances to commute to our workplaces and devoting more time to work, we are left with little time for ourselves, to acquire calm and stillness. In the absence of this calm we find ourselves unable to take stock of the direction of our life vis-à-vis our core values. So the lack of intention to interact with our inner selves, too, is at the root of the problem. We hardly have time to look up and admire the beauty of the sky or appreciate the mysteries of Nature. We have lost the capacity to enjoy small 'nothings' of life. Like antibiotics, we seem to need bigger and still bigger doses of excitement to make us feel happy.

We seem to be driven not from our strong will to act correctly, but more from our reaction to others' behavior. "I will teach him the lesson of his life", has become the motto for many. The scale to which we can harm and hurt others has become an index of our supremacy. The saner alternative of forgiveness has taken a back seat and is considered a sign of being timid, weak and lacking in self-respect. If everyone starts reacting without giving a chance to one's higher values, you can imagine the consequences.

"Today, our need for self-preservation and material gain takes precedence over concern for society and the community," says Aura Riana, freelance writer. Many of us are unable to see beyond our own interest. We feel bad about this only when we are at the receiving end. This happens because we fail to see the same 'self' in others that has the same needs, expectations and rights. If only we could perceive the Big Plan of the cosmic mind that interconnects all living beings, we would learn that when we give, we give to ourselves and when we hold happiness from others, we hold it from ourselves. The greatest paradox of life is that when we hold on to life for ourselves, we inevitably lose it, but when we decide to use it for 'giving', we regain it.

Mahatma Gandhi used to say that there is enough in this world to satisfy man's need, but not his greed. S.B. Gogate, an Indian interior designer-turned-corporate trainer, feels that "conversion of needs into greed prevents right values from prevailing in our society". Greed manifests itself as absence of trust in the Big Plan, belief in scarcity and a general feeling of insecurity.

The fact that corruption is a universal phenomenon and ours is not the only nation facing it, should not be a source of solace to us. Nor keep us from finding solutions to our problems. Think of whatever little you can do, and do it. It is easy to shift the blame on a faceless agency or the system, but it makes the problem persist. Accepting that change is required and we alone can bring it about, is the first step towards change.

We think worshipping God or great people can be a good and easier substitute for following values. Often those who feel guilty of making money through dishonest means, think that they can ward off karmic repercussions by building temples or making donations. They fail to realize that Nature is not interested in punishing them, only in making them learn the correct values. And if they refuse to learn voluntarily, they will leave no option for Nature or God but to make them learn the harder way. We apprehend that upholding right values may go against pecuniary interests. Is our economy suffering because of values or for want of them? Any company that creates trust along with its products is bound to perform better financially. People do not buy the product; they buy the trust. "Ethics can play a major role in making our nation great. Industry, vested with higher credibility, will get a boost both in the domestic and international markets," says M.M. Luther, former secretary-general of FICCI and a management consultant. Karthikeyan states: "Ethics alone will make ours a great nation." An attitude towards life, which is in harmony with the laws of nature and hence imbued with strong positive values, is the only possible source of sustainable bliss and prosperity. No amount of material planning, wealth and connections with people in high places can be a substitute for that. Dr M.B. Athreya, management guru, asserts: "In the medium to long-term phase, ethics make sustainable riches. Dharmo rakshiti rakshtah: Preserve dharma; it protects."

We conceive that trying to uphold values may be frustrating. However, frustration and upholding values are two different things. Frustration follows one's inability to fulfill some expectation; take away the expectation and the frustration will cease. Frustration accompanies upholding of values only when we are using values as a rational strategy towards an end or to seek approval. When values are exercised as a choiceless response from one's intrinsic nature, where does the question arise of getting frustrated? We think that we cannot afford values since the rewards of upholding them are intangible, whereas those of breaking them are concrete. That may be true, but there is another higher truth: the tangible, manifest world comes from the unmanifest. Focus on making your inner, intangible world great by purifying it with strong values. The external world shall change accordingly.