Housing, high cost of education, and consumer durables available through hire-purchase add a great weight or pressure on the middle class population to earn more. But their salaried jobs offer little scope to expand their income. In all rich countries, the salaried job is looked down upon. The government job is the least attractive there. Only those who cannot venture take a job. In the West the nation as a whole respects the entrepreneur. In India it is the reverse. Only those who cannot secure a government job open a shop. The situation has slowly begun to change.
Apart from the long subjugation, there is a deeper religious reason. The Vedas have two parts, one of rituals and the other of knowledge. Those who had followed the knowledge part ended as the Vedantic Rishis. That tradition is kept up by the sannyasis. Those who had taken to rituals became purohits who remained in domestic life which offered security. The Rishi is one who expresses great courage. His counterpart in domestic life is one who seeks self-employment on his own. Seeking security breeds timidity. Timidity seeks refuge in respectability and resorts to respectable lies. The high intelligence of the Mind is used to preserve the great respectability of the householder. During the past seven or eight centuries of foreign domination, the Indian householder has largely lost his initiative for venture.
Prosperity is the result of industry. Industry involves risk. It is full of risks. Every time one moves, he must risk everything. The self-employed man faces that all the time. Victory is for the BRAVE, not for the TIMID who relies on rituals. The question is, ‘Do timid people have any scope?' Yes, if they come forward to convert their timidity into courage and bravery. The formula is as follows: timidity + Truth = Courage. The Spirit is Truth. Let the timid person decide to be utterly truthful and call in the Spirit to achieve his aim, and he will witness the process of timidity being transformed into boldness. The Mother is the Spirit in life. She converts life into Life. It is for us to avail of Her GRACE.