Charavak, Millennials’ way of life

In a quest to seek knowledge, I come across a variety of books from multiple different genres.

In pursuit of the same quest, I know I should be pragmatic, which means I need to keep my mind open for all schools of thought.

Recently, I started studying the Charavak Philosophy, ancient school of Indian materialism. The Charvaka epistemology states that whenever one infers a truth from a set of observations or truths, one must acknowledge doubt; inferred knowledge is conditional.

This school of thought actually appealed to my intellect.It just meant that now my mind and my intellect can be on the same page for once.

I believe, the practicality of all the things will also give way to a simpler lifestyle, though it might also take a toll on the emotional aspect of life. For eg. If you have a 6-year-old, asking how he gets a gift or a cash gift every time he keeps his tooth for the tooth fairy, it is better to lie to him out of love, rather than explain the dynamics of how economy works or how his father/mother replaces the tooth in the middle of the night.  Maybe, that is a practical thing to do, but it is still driven by emotion.

I know of how the practical approach to life fails, but I also know of how it succeeds in life. In Hindu literature, it is brilliantly explained with the notion – Ram Rajya. Named after the famous, godly king of India in 3400 BC, a kingdom, wrought in Chaos and corruption was morphed into a beautiful and law-abiding place almost similar to the concept of Eden. The citizens were very strict in following the laws which were laid down by the great Lord Ram.

Yet, the practical way of life was flawed, as the emotions came second to practicality. Over the centuries, there grew a discontent and that became the downfall of this once great philosophy.

Does it mean that the philosophy itself is wrong ? perhaps not. Each person has his own thought process. Hence the individuality of humanity comes into picture.

Now a days, due to social media, it seems like the next generation would rather “google” the answers and accept the first result (or the most convenient one)  than actually  think on whatever task they had at hand. In such a scenario, wouldn’t it make sense that we have the Charavak Philosophy integrated into the lifestyle ?

The only word which the millenniums seem to have integrated is materialism.  They think a fancy mobile, expensive clothes and fast cars is the ultimate aim of life. Hence, they spend truck loads of money on items, just to post it on social media, and then go into an endless pursuit of checking how many people “like” it. Have we become so needy ? If we are, when will we start liking our inner self ? When will we get in touch with our inner self ?