Spiritual development

Dear editor,

I read an April 15 opinion piece, “Patience index,” with a great sense of responsibility as an Indian academic ― an advocate of enhancing the emotional quotient (EQ) which includes patience as one of the indicators along with motivation (self and others) and empathy (not sympathy).

To become happier and prosperous, we need peace. To get peace, one needs to understand “needonomics” as an economic discipline confined to needs only. Let us remember that we have enough resources in India and Korea to satisfy the needs of our people. “Greedonomics” with greed as its guiding principle in economics is the cause of impatience for any one including Koreans.

Spiritual development is essential for the removal of stress and strain as well as the social and economic health of society. Spiritual development must be performed in order to convert human beings into human capital. Besides the development of senses and mind, there is one thing more that is most important ― spirit, soul or atma.

The spiritually guided materialism strategy flowing from our epics like Bhagavad-Gita is the need of the day for solving all of our problems including impatience. I firmly believe that the rate of progress in spiritualism is faster than the rate of progress in materialism, therefore, there is a need to accept spiritually guided materialism as a solution to various problems in the economy.

To cope up with the negative effects of impatience, we need to become shock proof with a higher EQ including patience, motivation of self and others, empathizing and not sympathizing with one and all by understanding, analyzing and adopting Bhagavad-Gita in totality.

Dr. M.M. Goel

Professor of Indian economy

Seoul