The Economy of Permanence: A Quest for a Social Order Based on Non-violence (स्थायी अर्थतन्त्र)

Economy of Permanence
PREFACE
In a previous study, 'WHY THE VILLAGE MOVEMENT? the conditions prevailing in
India in comparison with the orders obtaining in leading western countries were
considered. In this booklet, an attempt is made to present a positive outlook
that will suit the genius of the people of our land.
Religion, as practised today, is largely institutional and ritualistic. It has lost its
grip over the everyday actions of men. Hence there are many who have lost
faith in it and regard it as a superstition to be shunned. As the natural
consequence of excluding religion from life, economics has been divorced from
moral considerations on the plea of business being business. In the traditional
archives of knowledge, religion, sociology and economy jhave all been reserved
their separate and exclusive spheres. Man has been divided into various
watertight compartments. The left hand is not to know what the right does.
Nature does not recognise such divisions. She deals with all life as a whole.
Hence, in this' little book an attempt is made to co-ordinate the various
principles governing different departments, and to focus them all on, the many
problems of everyday life of man as an integral undivided unit.
The object of the present quest is to relate our spiritual and higher self back to
life so that the daily routine of mundane existence may be regulated in
accordance with the dictates of our better self, and to find a way of life that
will lend purpose for existence and action to such as have no use for the
present day traditional religion because of its other worldiness from humdrum
everyday life. An effort is here made to bring all walks of life into alignment
with the universal order. What men of religion term 'eternal life' or 'Union with
the Godhead' has been interpreted in relation to the everyday life of man in the
title of this book as 'The Economy of Permanence'.
The approach may be novel, but if it sets others thinking on the ways and
means of achieving the end aimed at, this venture would be amply justified.
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