Ray Singh Ji: Working for Society with Full Potential

Krishna once asked Duryodhana, you are one of the most powerful person,

Crammed with knowledge, learned the lessons from the greatest gurus,

 Don’t you know that

The things you are doing are evil?

Duryodhana replied, “Of course I know, I know that I am doing very wrong things,

But I will have to do that, it’s my character,

It’s in my nature and I can’t stop myself from doing it.”

Have you ever imagined why all the smokers smoke even when they know it’s bad for their health, or why the corrupt people are still doing scams when they have money so much that they can’t spend in their lives?

The story of Mahabharta was exhibited to me, when I asked those questions to the Person I Admire – Ray Singh Ji.

Why bad people do bad things, I thought was the biggest question I had, but as soon as I got the answer, I realized that it was the second biggest question and how to stop them from doing wrong things took the position of the biggest question.

Well let me tell you that Ray Singh Ji was born in Delhi, holds a degree of LLB from Mumbai University, and for last six years has been working as a full time social worker, under the banner of ABVP.

Need of Social Work

The main motive to write this article is to provide deeper insights of the philosophy of Social Work, and why it is needed. I had a discussion with Ray Singh Ji on this topic and I am trying to write the things I learned from him.  

Formation of Society

Ray Singh Ji imparted me that the society forms with all the people; old men, children, rich families, poor families, male members, female members, etc. If we want a pleasant society then wise people should educate children with life lessons, rich people must help poor people to survive, and as men are physically stronger than women, they must help women with laborious work. But doing all these things are not the duties but the moral responsibilities of a person (I am writing about duties and moral responsibilities in the latter part of this article) and things done with the moral responsibilities can be stated as social work. So, with the formation of Society, the need of Social Work is evolved.

Interdependency

Society is formed due to interdependency; everyone is dependent on other members, one or the other way. I heard many rich people saying that they are independent, but they are dependent on farmers, if farmers don’t cultivate crops, the rich people can’t eat. The famers too can’t say that they are independent, as they need many other things, one of which is ‘Rain’. Now as rain falls due to good climate, and climate remains stable when the vegetation is intense. So, if we want plenty of rainwater, farmers to cultivate, then we must all plant trees. This is one of the million loops which need to work precisely for our survival. So, every person has many responsibilities towards society if he wants to survive.

Who becomes a Social Worker?

I have stated only two reasons for the necessity of the social work, but there are infinite reasons for a person to start working for society.

But I observed, and you all would agree that not many of us believes or actually make efforts towards betterment of society. So, I asked Ray Singh Ji about the reasons that all people don’t do any social work, or what is the reason some people start working for society with all their resources.

He told me that the only people who are sensible towards these areas experience the urge to work for it. Some people are remorseful because they are not rich so they run to earn more and more money, some people do that for popularity, but some people feel bad for the people who can’t help themselves, or don’t have enough resources to live. Some people are very sensitive towards gender domination, so they work against gender domination, and some people educate poor children because their heart gets filled with sorrow when they see those children.

Degradation of Social Work

Today there are many communities who claims to work for humanity, but has other motives behind it, in reference with this, Ray Singh Ji taught me that, Social work is a thing which is done without expecting anything in return. And if any other intention remains behind doing social work – to gain popularity or to create political influence – the intensity of social work would eventually get degraded with the fulfillment of the other necessity.

The way a mother and a father helps his child to become self independent or capable to do things he want to do with his life, without expecting anything in return, a social worker must help others to become capable to gain the resources to live his life.

Duty and Moral Responsibility

When I talk to people around me about social work, they often use phrases like, “I do pay all the taxes, which are meant to provide resources to our government to provide everyone, so why do I need to make extra efforts!”

When people said that, I got found some sense in this, many people are contributing in this way, so why should they do further work.

When I told these things to Ray Singh Ji, he told me that things like paying taxes and voting in the elections are the duties of a citizen; it can’t be identified as a social work. Even if you don’t want to do anything for the betterment of society, you must pay taxes, not for others, but for themselves, to get the resources – like providing public transport, constructing dams and highways, etc – the nation provides you.

That is why social work is more like a moral responsibility, to help others because you have better resources, and resources does not only refers to money, it refers to your capability! And as it is a moral responsibility, no one will force you to do any such type of work, but some people may motivate you to make efforts.

A Bigger Pleasure

I have told you much about Ray Singh Ji, so it is my pleasure to tell you that all this wisdom he shared with me, he achieved while working for society, leaving behind his personal and professional life.

Dedicating his full time for betterment of society, I asked why he did it, and what about his parent’s expectations and what are the difficulties he is facing to play this role.

As he told me earlier, a social worker is born when he becomes sensitive towards this issue, so same happened to him, he says he had the capabilities and so he is utilizing them for a greater cause.

But you could do social work while balancing your personal and professional life, why to jeopardize that? I asked. “Because I wanted to use my full potential, I wanted to have my whole focus on this. I don’t know for how long I will work like this, but until I am a full time worker I could use all my strengths towards this. And more than that it brings happiness and joy to me, I feel satisfied while helping people.”

He told me that he faces many difficulties in the journey he chose, he has to eat at local social workers, while he travels. He has to travel by bus, he don’t has any money for the pleasures of life; all the pleasures he had before coming to this duty, he don’t have any more, and will not get any till he is working. But he finds bigger pleasures while helping others.

Motivating others to do Social Work

As I have described at the beginning Ray Singh Ji works under the banner of ABVP – a student’s organization, which has the main motive to encourage students to do social work and stimulates the feeling of nationality into them.

But as I also repeatedly mentioned that he said me people who are sensitive towards society are the only one who works for it, then why does ABVP tries to motivate people?

He explained that even to realize what you want to do something, you must get basic knowledge of that thing or exposure to its environment. How do we know that we want to do some specific things? Some people feel that they want to work in the science field for their life, but for that, they must be educated with science, so that they get involved in the field, which further motivates them to go deeper in that area. In the same manner, people must get involved in the social work to understand either they feel the moral responsibility towards society or not.

He explained me that man’s true instinct is like a lamp, a flame covered in a glass. But often that glass get dusty due to reasons like money, popularity, living standards, etc. Even most of the students don’t choose carrier based on his interests or his instincts, they choose it because of the carrier opportunities. This is where ABVP helps people, to increase the involvement of students in all the different fields and encourage them to do what their inner self tells them to do. And in this process many students feel socially responsible and start contributing towards society.

Answer to the Most Important Question

At the very beginning of this article, I wrote about how I got the answer for my biggest question, and how I got hit by the other big question. Ray Sigh ji didn’t only raised the question that, if people act according to their character and instincts, how to stop people doing false things, he also provided me with its answer through this discussion.

He said that if people do bad things, there could be two reasons, that the person has the instinct which forces him to do those things, or a person is influenced by other things to do those things. For the person who got influenced by the environment to do bad things, you must imagine why his inner-self is allowing him to do such things. Because his glass got covered with dust, as I explained earlier in this article. And this dust can be cleaned by motivating him and showing him his own inner self.

But the bigger part of the question remains how to stop other people, who do bad things because of their nature. Ray Singh Ji told me that you cannot completely stop them as you cannot extinguish or destroy his inner flame. But, we can make his glass dusty, so that he can’t reach his inner self. Like a good person can do bad things because of wrong influence, a bad person can do good things with the right influence.

For this everyone around him must always encourage him to do good things. Issuing strict legal rules for such things, so that fear helps to further encourage him to do better things. And most importantly a good social environment can all together help a bad person to do good things, which will be good for him and for the society too.

Editor’s words:

Talking to Ray Singh Ji always motivates me to do things for betterment of society. And it’s my pleasure that he allowed me to write an article on his philosophies and I am thankful that he discussed with me about few major strands of Social Work.

I know that every person has Personal Goals and Professional Goals in his life, but personally I feel they all must all have Social Goals too, which will make them understand and enjoy their life more, and which will also help whole society to stand firm on the good terms.

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