Книга - Aryans and We
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Aryans and We
Archi Devi Dasi (Ekmekchjan Adelaida)
Community living arrangements require correct understanding of human psychology. Daily wants of a human are not different from those of animals, but a human inherently is gifted with much more developed intelligence. If a human is another species with the purpose to assure existence by means of natural selection, then the question arises: why are we given the intelligence and the emotional life which do not stop searching for recipes of happiness and justice? Every nation at some point of its evolution feels as having found this recipe. What was it like for the Aryans? The Aryans are among those rare nations with the culture addressing the inner life of all living beings in this creation. This Book invites you to travel to the world of the Aryans. Hope, it will be enjoyable and helpful. We are sure that every traveler will be delighted at and respectful of the inner life of the Aryans and will find solutions for many psychological problems which hitherto have seemed nonsolvable.
Archi Devi Dasi (Ekmekchjan Adelaida)
Aryans and We
FOREWORD
If due to faults in its ideology religion fails to ensure the process of natural purification to give one happiness, it turns to violence forcing to follow its system of restrictions, thus, turning from the source of happiness into the source of sufferings.
The Author
The human history So many nations and states rose and fell before its eyes. Our planet has always been the battle ground for the dominance of one person over the other, one tribe over the other, one nation other the other, one state over the other. People destroyed each other. For the sake of what? Who can give the answer? It is only clear that ever and again different nations generated certain doctrines and then by implementing them sought for the global domination. Ancient Egypt, Byzantium, Greece, Rome, Germany, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and now the United States of America. Each of these states offered the world an individual life style. But all of them had one thing in common. They enforced their life styles to the world by the sword. By the blooming history, any nation understands the time when by its sword and rape it had the domination over all others.
Mankind has entered the 21st century with a record of achievements in technology, the overpopulated planet burdened with the unprecedented scale of weapons, the evident inequality of living standards between developed and pauper countries, ethnic and religious conflicts, formed supercountries seeking for the world hegemony. Obviously, today like thousand years ago the decisive role is in the preponderance of force. Powerful, wealthy, armed and as a consequence protected nations are trying to expand their spheres of influence in order to achieve high living standards and enrich their people.
On the hard path of development, mankind has reached a level of democracy. We see that European countries have made significant advances in this field. The matters in hand include problems of human rights, uniqueness of and rights to life, economic health and other issues which these countries are trying to solve. At a first glance, achievements are rather great. Anyway, when citizens of underdeveloped countries come to European states, they feel socially secured. Taking into account the recent history of mankind, it is a great achievement.
The beginning of the 21st century sees rapid processes of the world reorganization. The main tendency is in the efforts of so called developed countries to release mankind from the yoke of religious and ethnic traditions and to spread the secular kind of society all over the world. Based on the sad experience of ethnic and religious conflicts, this approach could be called right because the more differences there are, the more causes of conflicts appear. But the practice has shown that nations rejecting their religious or ethnic traditions experience the rapid decline in reproduction which as a consequence eventually results in the problem of existence of such nations. And this problem is very serious. Democratic countries have followed the way of the actual rejection of religiosity. This has led to the fact that the population growth of so called civilized nations has stopped with simultaneous sharp increase in population of nations having respect for traditions: the Arabs, the Hindu, the Chinese.
Currently, the Muslim tradition is experiencing serous attacks with the aim of its democratization. No one knows how it will all turn out. The fact still remains that propaganda of democratization of the overall mankind burns out traditional thinking. Therefore, this is about a new doctrine which is striving for global power. Another experiment impending mankind. How much blood will be required, who can answer this question? A commoner simply wants to live a quiet life, experience all the happiness which is given to a human, do things he likes, live with his beloved woman, take care of children born by her, try to secure their future and peacefully and in due time leave this world. But at the same time there are other people who need to get more from this life; they are like a thorn in mankinds flesh they do not leave either people or the planet in peace, for satisfaction of their ambitions they develop plans on which lives and destinies of millions people are dependent.
There are two models of human society: traditional and free (democratic). Though, certainly literally there is no freedom. What seems freedom today, already tomorrow it turns into an enforced tradition. Usually the tradition means the life style rested on customs coming from the past and religious and moral precepts. Originally, religion is to provide people with morality and their connection with God. Religion implies the process of stable purification during the whole life.
If due to faults in its ideology religion fails to ensure the process of natural purification to give one happiness, it turns to violence forcing to follow its system of restrictions, thus, turning from the source of happiness into the source of sufferings. Traditions founded on such religion eventually have become a heavy burden for common people. Why did it happen? It can be baldly stated that nations following traditions have the structure which is designated for protection of inheritance privileges without allowing persons with the talent but of low birth to realize the talent. Such approach becomes the cause of numerous destroyed destinies and ultimately the entire society suffers. To overcome such a flaw (when a nation or society loses its potential due to religious conservatism), mankind has gone through a hard and sometimes slaughterous path for an individual to get the opportunity to realize the natural potency regardless the origin. In the traditional society when a person is a low-class representative, all doors of success, education, opportunities to show talent and move society forward are closed on him/her. All opportunities are given only to high-class people as the saying is what is legitimate for Zeus is not legitimate for the ox.
But democratic countries also meet a large amount of problems for which no solutions have been found as of today. Where is the psychological root of these problems? What is awaiting mankind ahead, well above the religion line? The Eastern wisdom tells us that trying to solve the problem without knowing its origin is like trying to do good for a tree by watering its leaves. At first, the leaves seem to have been cooled and fed, but later the wet leaves are turned out to burn from direct sun rays. To feed the tree, the roots should be watered. For this one needs to know where they are.
Thus, strong, scientifically and economically developed countries are striving for the power. Each of them has got its own model of life and each tries to expand it as much as possible. In this regard, the Aryans managed the whole planet and in our opinion it is very interesting which principles they followed and what they offered to all those who were under their protection (not the yoke).
The Aryan literature states that the Aryan civilization is original. All other civilizations appeared on its foundation. We will try to present the principles which guided the Aryans while arranging their society and we will also try to trace origins of different civilizations which put themselves on the record of mankind. But all these will be viewed from an angle unusual for the reader psychologically. We wont be interested in the historical point of view. This historical view of the topic can be presented by experts who are much more learned than your humble author.
The psychological view of the Aryan civilization is presented directly in its literature which secrets are understood only by those who study it maintaining the purity of this knowledge, following the traditions of the Aryan disciplic succession still presented on our planet to this day. The historical view wont allow to understand the moral values of the Aryans and their intrinsic meaning. While the psychological view allows to conceive intrinsic regularities of life of the Aryan society, the knowledge of them can be the basis for one who is willing to replicate them.
The human history consists of a sequence of unjust societies. Heaps of people were ruled by cruel kings, untruthful religious figures, greedy merchants and unqualified laborers. One person replaced another. The human history is like a carpet which is made of people sufferings and colored in red primarily (the color of human blood).
The foundation of injustice was religious societies containing violence and forcing to follow certain principles regardless of peoples desires. Unqualified but powerful people are the ground for injustice, the source of the overall poverty and dissatisfaction. European nations have tried to cease this injustice and give all members of society the possibility to show their capabilities, become useful for the community and in return enjoy all benefits which can be provided by such community.
The main concept is the Christian idea that everybody is the child of God and has the right for a decent and happy life. This idea seems the foremost desired and perfect. But its realization faces different problems. For instance, society protects homosexual freemen rights. The argument in their favor is that the most talented people have been like that. Further, having protected their rights, homosexuals begin to pervert everyone they can and already then society does not know how to defend itself from them. There are some efforts to settle all arising problems within legal frameworks. But no law can annihilate vice. It only makes vicious people to search for more intricate methods of realization of their desires. Currently, none of the global applicable doctrines possesses methods to extirpate vice and that is why the world is pursuing the path of its propagation.
The community, however, can have the sustainable prosperity when people living in it are pious. The fact is that human relationships are full of faults. These faults create a great number of problems which at all times have been the focus of mankind to solve. It is the undeniable fact that any relations, whether parental, work, friendly or loving, include both pleasant and unpleasant moments. We enjoy pleasant moments and do not know what we can do with unpleasant ones. There are three ways out:
1) taking positive moments as the basis, tolerate negative ones.
2) enjoy positive moments in relationships and with occurrence of negative ones, cease any relationship taking some responsibilities upon oneself.
3) only enjoy positive moments without any responsibility for relationships.
The problem is that for a peaceful life there should be a system regulating desires. Contemporary civilizations are trying the approach of their satisfaction (point 2 above). The Aryans compare such approach with attempts to put out a fire by adding wood to it. At first, the great amount of fire wood makes the fire choke, but in a minute the fire blazes greater. One can see that such solution to the problem creates many psychological problems which extremely complicate communication. At the beginning people are happy to be free but a bit later they find out that together with freedom there comes loneliness. Without right methods for regulating human relations people start to avoid communicating. This is a dangerous situation when everything serves the principle of profit.
Depending on the purpose sought, human society accepts -standards regulating behavior. There are two tendencies: to lay special emphasis on happiness of an individual or the prosperity of the entire society. When the nation is powerful and wealthy, happiness of an individual becomes of primary importance. Otherwise, society has to sacrifice the well-being of people to become powerful and protected. These are inevitable processes containing many other problems. For instance, if the emphasis is laid on personalitys happiness and abilities to enjoy life, there appear people avoiding public duties even those concerning the family because childbearing implies the need to refuse pleasures. And a pleasure-prone personality does not want to forgo any pleasure. This in turn leads to decrease in natural birth rates. One can see that nations keeping religious traditions do not have problems with their population number.
But those nations which have accepted the so called liberty principle are practically all dying out. They replenish the shortage of their population growth by means of traditional nations. From this point of view we are likely seeing formation of new ethic groups in the situation of peaceful intervention of some nations over others which in the past used to happen via murderous wars. It can be easily taken if the target is to maintain the power of a group of people over a certain territory, but if the target is to keep a nation, then this is something to think about before accepting the European system of values. Since in this case not only can we have their achievements, but we can also have the bunch of problems inherent in this culture. Therefore, simply the level of the economic growth can be followed but a different life style is laid in the foundation.
We do not aim to criticize one system and oblige to accept the other. Those who find the contents of this book unacceptable can put it aside and forget about its existence. On the other hand, we will be happy to be useful for all those who will be enabled by the contents of this book to formulate acceptable individual and societal principles of a pious life which in our invincible belief is the only source of prosperity.
Any intelligent person is concerned with the accurate realization of national and panhuman interests. Life brings variety of problems. Being able to find the proper solution to these problems is important for an individual, a nation and the whole mankind. The Aryans held a rather interesting support system of the economic prosperity of their country. The description of details of this system could be impractical for an unprepared reader. Therefore, this book is compiled in a popular science fiction format. As required, the Aryans doctrine can be presented more completely and expertly, but meanwhile we will only review the possibilities of the Aryans philosophical concept of society building.
We intentionally omit external traditions of the Aryan society as they are practically not applicable in the todays world. It is referred only to the principles of the Aryans inner lives which can be always applicable both for a persons life and the entire society regardless of the time, place and circumstances. We will see what psychological patterns were used by the Aryans as the basis for arranging their social life. We will also discuss the process of breakdown of the Aryan system. Learning these psychological mechanisms will ensure application of the principles of the Aryan society with the clear understanding where to start their reproduction.
Community living arrangements require correct understanding of human psychology. Daily wants of a human are not different from those of animals, but a human inherently is gifted with much more developed intelligence. If a human is another species with the purpose to assure existence by means of natural selection, then the question arises: why are we given the intelligence and the emotional life which do not stop searching for recipes of happiness and justice? Every nation at some point of its evolution feels as having found this recipe.
What was it like for the Aryans? The Aryans are among those rare nations with the culture addressing the inner life of all living beings in this creation. We invite you to travel to this world. We hope that it will be enjoyable and helpful and we are sure that every traveler will be delighted at and respectful of the inner life of the Aryans and will find solutions for many psychological problems which hitherto have seemed nonsolvable.
The Author
INTRODUCTION
One person can lead the horse to water, but even forty people cant make it drink.
Eastern wisdom
The Aryan civilization The Vedas
For thousands of years, this mystery attracted minds of the greatest thinkers of mankind. Many nations tried on these beautiful attires and the same number of nations suffered defeat after touching this eminent ideology. One cannot dally with the Aryan concept; it is a holy thing which shall be treated reverently to unveil its mysteries merged with eternity.
The value system of the Aryan civilization and its history are described in the Vedas, the Puranas, the Mahabharata and the Shrimad-Bhagavatam. These scriptures were composed five thousand years ago by the great ascetic Shrila Vyasadeva, the incarnation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. We are sure that for traditional Christian nations this truth is unacceptable as they do not admit that in this world God can have other incarnations than Christ. Anyway, every book gives the exhaustive information about itself. According to this information, in the world there is no any other most ancient and complete ideology than the Aryans. Straight away we need to express a reservation that it is not our purpose to prove in our book the ancientry of the Vedas compared to other scriptures because neither ancientry nor the ethic background can be the criteria for perfection. The standpoint can be very ancient but absolutely incorrect or unacceptable for todays realities. For instance, the Aryan society had the external structure which can be hardly applicable today due to the modern high technology and the life style dictated by this technology. When approaching the Aryan civilization, typically know-nothing people take this very external structure. They, thus, conclude that being an Aryan is the matter of origin or being an Aryan means to be brave and predominant over the rest. And to achieve these, it is enough to have the white skin, the relevant scaffold of skull and so on. According to opinions of such people, the nation which will prove its Aryan origin owing to the superiority of its blood will get the right to instruct others and seal their fate.
To put it mildly, this conception is not very correct. Being an Aryan is not a matter of origins but of life style. Those unable to get the insight of the psychology of this life style do not understand what it means to be an Aryan. We will try to present to our readers the basics of the philosophical concept of the Aryan civilization and implied social and public traditions, will try to describe those requirements which were laid out by the Aryans for members of different social classes and then it will be up to the reader to decide if he/she is an Aryan or wishes to be an Aryan.
Any civilization is connected with the prevailing ideology by invisible strings. In return, the ideology should as much as possible address in detail the set of the following issues:
1) How did life originate?
2) What is the meaning of life?
3) What laws govern the material world?
4) How to extend life?
5) How to build a society where everybody could be happy?
6) Why are all living beings born in different conditions?
7) How to protect lucky people from envy and intrigues of unlucky ones?
8) How to protect unlucky people from contempt and violence of lucky ones?
9) What social framework is required for the right interaction in human society?
10) What purpose does the community development serve?
11) What is death and how to meet it?
12) Is there anything beyond the death strip?
The answers on these questions become the basis for the behavior both of each individual and society in general.
On the one hand, one can say that to sustain the existence a living being (or a nation) should ensure:
1) food,
2) rest,
3) reproduction,
4) protection.
To achieve these four conditions of existence, all living beings behave differently. What does the choice of this behavior depend on? The experience shows that this choice determines the further destiny both of an individual and society in general, and the answers on the raised questions have a great impact on aspects of the behavioral choice. In this respect, the Aryan culture is of great interest as it possesses the complete philosophical concept for dealing with the above mentioned questions
We will try to present the Aryan philosophy, the system of values and the social and public structure in order to understand their psychology with the resultant life style.
CHAPTER 1. PHILOSOPHY
It is vitally important to study the nature and the psychology of soul as only knowledge of its nature and understanding of its needs can resolve all differences in what is called life.
The Author
This is a must for any society to have a philosophical concept based on which it forms its life style. The Aryan philosophy is presented in their Bible, the Bhagavad-Gita. It is the earliest scripture which complete presentation here may not be appropriate. In general, the ideology presented there may be described as follows.
One is born in this world and at first sight it does not depend on him/her in which conditions he/she is born. Someone is born dark-skinned and lives in Africa, someone is red-skinned and lives in America, someone is white-skinned and lives in Europe. One is born in a poor family, another is born in a rich family, one is beautiful, another is ugly, one is healthy, another is ill. All living beings are born in different conditions and they do not have an answer on the question: why does this happen? Despite differences in living conditions, all living beings in this world show three common tendencies:
1) The intention to exist eternally and have the perfect body.
2) The intention to be happy (via pleasures and power).
3) The intention to develop the knowledge (or be always able to acquire it).
By contrasting these three intentions to real conditions in which we live (a temporary and completely defective body; the whole chain of sufferings: birth, illness, ageing and death which cannot be escaped by anyone; imperfect senses which are not capable to give the objective information on the surrounding world), the Bhagavad-Gita leads us to search for a certain element which is the source of the above mentioned intentions of any individual.
This brings up the question: if we are only these bodies, then why are we striving for eternity? Be that, our consciousness would indifferently refer to the idea of disappearance like the dead (inanimate) matter. Why do we resist the idea of disappearance? Why did the Mother Nature (of course, if it was its initiative) have to give us temporary bodies and the desire of eternal existence? Where do these contradictions between our desires and capabilities come from?
Everything in the material world is imperfect because it is temporary. Nothing that is temporary can ensure in contact the perfect happiness which we are so striving for. Where from do we take this strive for continuous happiness? In fact, we do not stop to desire happiness even a single second. It never happens that a living being in the material world is looking for sufferings! On the other hand, though, in this world no living being has got the experience of such happiness. Where do we take such striving from? And why cant any amount of suffering and disappointment make us stop to desire happiness? A comprehensive consideration of the given questions shows that striving for continuous happiness is the integral part of consciousness (i.e. life) irrespective of conditions of material body.
Our senses are so limited and imperfect that actually no one can tell which portion of truth related to the external world they might convey. For instance, the Sun seems to us the circle with the size of a simple coin but actually it is huge. Similarly, we are not able to hear certain sound frequencies, not able to see subtle energies, etc. Our body, therefore, is a very fragile and imperfect data transfer instrument, but our consciousness always strives to be knowledgeable about everything going on around us.
Having investigated the strivings coming from consciousness and having become convinced of their full contradiction with the abilities of the body, the Vedas came to the conclusion that consciousness (life) was not the integral part of the body (the dead matter). The Vedas put forward the idea of the soul, namely of an element which differentiates an alive body from a dead one and which is the carrier of consciousness. At a time when soul leaves body, the latter becomes the harmonic part of the nature (a corpse) with no any contradiction of it. A dead body like matter in general is absolutely indifferent to whatever is done to it. It has no more strivings for happiness, existence or knowledge. Consequently, it is vitally important to study the nature and the psychology of soul as only knowledge of its nature and understanding of its needs can resolve all differences in what is called life. In return, when the idea of soul is accepted, it means to answer such questions as:
1) What are the nature and characteristics of soul?
2) How did soul appear in the material world?
3) Where is its true home?
4) How can one return there?
To be fair, it should be noted that no other religious or philosophical concept in the world than the Aryans has got a more complete system of answers on the given questions. It is likely the reason why it has got a close attention of great minds of all times ever.
Now, according to the Aryan concept, if a living being is a spiritual parcel which is striving within us to eternity (as it is eternal), happiness (as it is blissed) and knowledge (as the knowledge is its integral part), consequently there should be the world where it possessed all these. Otherwise, where do all its strivings come from? And why did the nature endowed us with qualities which are absolutely unused in this world? A living being cannot strive for anything which is not known by it. Everything we are striving for is the proof that we are aware of it.
On the other hand, if a living being is of spiritual nature, why did it happen to be here? The answer on this question is in those intentions which a living being is trying to realize here. As have been already said, by its characteristics a spiritual parcel is eternal, blissful and full of knowledge. At first sight, this statement sounds contradictory. If soul is eternal, why did it come to this temporary world where it has to obey the inviolable law of birth and death? Here one is suggested to carefully examine what soul strives to realize in the material world. This striving explains the reason of our appearance in this world which has become for us more important than eternity.
If we are attentive, we can notice that in the material world all living beings have the thirst for domination and enjoyment. To enjoy means for us to use all encountered objects (both animate and inanimate) for our pleasure. In fact, there is no one single moment when we stop striving for enjoyment. The term dominate means that we are able to obligate everybody (both animate and inanimate) to fulfill our will. In this situation, our attitude is rather interesting. Each of us thinks that his/her mentality is so perfect that by obeying it everyone can be happy (Freud called it the sense of worth).
If we are attentive, we can notice that if we do not make any efforts (based on upbringing and rules of conduct), we spontaneously radiate these very two moods. If we try to realize here our desire to bend other living beings to our will and use them for our pleasure, it means that we did not have such an opportunity in the spiritual world. At first glance, this statement sounds contradictory. This brings up the question, if we did not have any opportunity either to enjoy or dominate, then where does our striving come from? As a living being can strive only to the things which were seen or known.
At the beginning we have told that consciousness of living beings expresses the constant desire to be happy; then we noted that in the material world we try to realize this desire by means of power and pleasure. This fact points out that we did not have such an opportunity in the spiritual world. This, in turn, means that the bliss of living beings in the spiritual world did not depend on both abilities to dominate and enjoy. But then where do we take this striving for power and pleasure?
We were to know the One Who was able to enjoy and dominate in order to start striving for these by ourselves. Hence, we can make a conclusion, that in the spiritual world there is some living being who dominates and enjoys the possibility to associate with all other living beings who do not dominate but serve Him and feel the bliss from it. This personality is usually called the Supreme Personality of Godhead or God. According to the Aryan philosophy all living beings are inherent parcels of this Supreme Personality. They have the same qualitative nature as He does, but differ from Him quantitatively. This quantitative difference does not allow living beings to take upon controlling functions without creating disharmony. But the qualitative unity maintains this tendency in all living beings to take controlling functions. When this demand from living beings arises, God, so to say, has got two choices:
1) suppress this desire and bring into line with His will (violence).
2) give the opportunity to realize this desire (generosity based on the absence of envy).
One of the qualities of the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the complete freedom from envy. By virtue of this pure and sublime nature, the Supreme Personality of Godhead gives all living beings free choice. Those living beings who misuse this freedom and prefer the material existence come to this world. The point is that the Aryans consider the material world as the place where living beings realize their desire to live without God. Where does this desire appear from?
According to the Vedic scriptures, the Lord in the spiritual world is surrounded by numerous devotees who have special feelings for Him. Many of them are called personal associates. They have got particular close relationships with the Lord. This intimacy depends on the extent of love they have developed for the Lord. The Lord treats all living beings equally and fairly. This means that He always exactly sees the amount of living beings love for Him and always fairly responds everybody according to this criteria. It would not be possible that a novice devotee should receive the special attitude of the Lord and an elevated devotee the neutral one. This is the true criteria of justice.
Living beings are very small and the Supreme Lord is infinitely great. Therefore, a tiny spiritual parcel is not always able to understand or correctly assess the Lords behavior and the motives of His deeds. This limited perception becomes the reason why some spiritual parcels fall into a state of disagreement with the Lord, rebel and feel hostility toward Him. Thinking that the Lord is unjust, these jivas (living beings, spiritual parcels) feel the need to appear in such a place where He is not there and try to confirm their own ideas of justice. Such justice as a rule consists of the fact that a personality desires to see him/herself in the center of all events (the feeling of own sense of worth). This way, some part of eternal inhabitants of the spiritual world shifts their God-centered consciousness to self-centered. As said, the Supreme Personality of Godheads nature is completely free from envy. This means that when someone does not want to associate with Him or connect his/her happiness to Him, it does not make Him angry. He does not punish such personalities or taking advantage of His power force them to conform to His absolute power, but He gives them an opportunity to make their own society and realize their ideas of justice. For the Supreme Personality of Godhead it is not worthy to have a humble behavior and a psychologically browbeaten condition at the point of the sword of His power. He values only and only free ostents of love.
Being parcels of the Supreme Personality, living beings possess His qualities. The Aryan literature is the only one on the planet which contains comprehensive details about the Supreme Personality of Godhead: descriptions of His appearance, character, environment, behavior. This takes place because only they really communicated with Him! This is the uniqueness of this literature! The Vedic scriptures state that the Lord demonstrates 64 qualities:
1. His features are beautiful,
2. all auspicious marks can be found on His body,
3. His features are pleasing the eye,
4. He is effulgent,
5. He is strong,
6. ever youthful,
7. wonderful linguist,
8. truthful,
9. talks pleasingly,
10. fluent,
11. highly learned,
12. highly intelligent,
13. genius,
14. artistic,
15. extremely clever,
16. expert,
17. grateful,
18. firmly determined,
19. an expert judge of time and circumstances,
20. sees and speaks on the authority of Vedas, or scriptures,
21. pure,
22. self-controlled,
23. steadfast,
24. forbearing,
25. forgiving,
26. grave,
27. self-satisfied,
28. possessing equilibrium,
29. magnanimous,
30. religious,
31. heroic,
32. compassionate,
33. respectful,
34. gentle,
35. liberal,
36. shy,
37. the protector of surrendered souls,
38. happy,
39. the well-wisher of devotees,
40. controlled by love,
41. all-auspicious,
42. most powerful,
43. all-famous,
44. popular,
45. partial to devotees,
46. very attractive to all women,
47. all-worshipable,
48. all-opulent,
49. all-honorable,
50. the Supreme controller,
51. changeless,
52. all-cognizant,
53. ever fresh,
54. sat-chid-ananda (possessing an eternal blissful body),
55. possessing all mystic perfections,
56. He has inconceivable potency,
57. uncountable universes generate from His body,
58. He is the original source of all incarnations,
59. He is the giver of salvation to the enemies whom He kills,
60. He is the attractor of liberated souls,
61. He is the performer of wonderful varieties of pastimes,
62. He is surrounded by devotees endowed with wonderful love of Him,
63. He can attract all living entities all over the universes by playing on His flute,
64. He has a wonderful excellence of beauty which cannot be rivaled anywhere in the creation.
Among these, 54 qualities also belong to jivas (His inherent parcels, namely all the living beings). Depending on the extent of their love of God, these qualities are manifested in jivas fully or partially. Those who fully manifest these qualities, never come to this material world because they are protected by the amount of their love for God.
Those jivas whose attachment (trust) is not so strong often become unsatisfied as a result of misunderstanding the motives for His actions. In fact, no one can understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead a limited spiritual parcel cannot perfectly understand the intrinsic motives for actions of the infinite Lord. The difference is that the close associates never mistrust God.
In general, it is the topic of very confidential talks which would be reasonable to discuss only with advanced believers. Here we will present the main concepts of the Aryan philosophy simply to have the opportunity to correctly understand their life style. Being qualitatively equal to the Lord, but quantitively infinitely small, some living beings feel envy of Lords confidential devotees. This is a specific feeling which appears when the Lord brings some of the devotees near to Him.
Very provisionally, it can be described as follows: aliving being who does not possess such a potency to serve the Lord as a confidential devotee cannot understand why He has brought closer this devotee. This feeling becomes the basis for dissatisfaction or roughly speaking the feeling of injustice. A living being thinks that God does not see how he/she is devoted to Him. If He saw, then he/she would have been chosen as a confidential person not another one. Actually, this explanation is very rough and provisional. In the spiritual world the consciousness cannot be so rude. This is just a transient feeling, very keen but it is already called envy and with this feeling in the heart a spiritual parcel cannot keep staying in the spiritual world where everything is enlightened with love and no negative things can take place. Once such negative thing appears, a personality is already not in the spiritual world, practically this change of existence does not take any time once envy appears.
Envy lies in the basis of the material existence. This feeling devours all good qualities of jiva. Everybody in the material world is envious. Those free from envy do not come to this world (the exception is only for Lords servants sent by Him to open the way back home to all willing it). "Im better, Im more worthy". With this spirit, jiva cannot stay in the spiritual world any more. From these personalities, the Lord immediately hides, hides His devotees and gives the former the possibility to make their own society. This possibility is this very material world. One who does not understand the nature of envy will never be able to become an Aryan. One who does not accept this truth about the material existence will never be able to develop this system of values common for the Aryans. Therefore, having created the material world and given us the possibility to realize our desires, the Lord in fact becomes our servant putting at our disposal His material energy with which we can do whatever we want.
But this freedom of action becomes a heavy burden on the shoulders of a small living being who immediately loses the culture of relationships with other living beings attributable to the spiritual world and understands how in fact the Lords job is difficult. Trying to imitate God but not capable of being just, a living being gets entangled in the knots of sinful activities and becomes an eternally conditioned (i.e. deserving to stay in the material prison) jiva (soul) doomed to sufferings for causing sufferings to other living beings. Figuratively, the Aryans see the material world as a prison designated for envious souls. One way or another, this concept is supported by all religious movements.
There is one more question to be answered. What determines unequal birth conditions of all living beings? How to explain that one is born rich, another is born poor, another is healthy and another is ill and so on? The answer on this question is given only by the reincarnation concept. By nature, jiva is eternal. Having descended to this material world, it stays here for a very long time, practically eternally. As the result of various activities it gains certain amount of reactions becoming the author of its own destiny. For instance, in this life we eat bodies of many animals and in next lives these animals will have the possibility to eat us. Thus, the rule as you sow so you reap is implemented, not within one life, but from life to life. The fact is that in practice we can often see that a person commits what is known as sins without any punishment. The secret that lies beneath is that the punished for committed evil are all those who are born in poverty, born to bad parents, without opportunity to get education, who are ugly, have congenital diseases, who are under malicious state prosecution, etc. But that brings up the question: why cannot we remember our past lives? The answer should be found in the Lords noble nature. The Lord is merciful and He is not interested in artificial processes of jivas return to Him. Jiva itself is so much entangled in its efforts to take the Lords position by trying to predominate and enjoy that it is practically doomed to living in the material world forever. And yet, despite the amount of sufferings jiva does not stop wanting power and enjoyment, therefore it still desires to be in this world. To satisfy this desire, the factor of the memory loss about past lives is simply a must.
As an example, we can imagine that in the past life one was a man and he was very attached to women. Attached so much that at the time of death he was thinking about them. According to the reincarnation law, in the next life he will be born in the body of a woman. And now imagine that in the womans body one remembers the past mans life. Could it be possible with this memory be a sane woman? Therefore, the Lord arranged it so that a wise person who eyes are balmed with the Vedic knowledge can clearly see the reincarnation law, but an ignorant and attached to material existence person simply reaps the fruits of actions enjoying their good and bad consequences. The memory loss, thus, is necessary for us to peacefully enjoy these fruits. The presence of the memory would cast us in horror. Paralyzed by the memory, we would immediately strive back to God but at this point we would not have solved the paramount problem: the problem of envy. Then getting to the spiritual world and coming to ourselves, we would promptly repeat the same mistake and have to return to the material world again.
But God does not need our forced return and as long as we want to live without Him, He will create all conditions to fulfill this desire. That is why He helps us to forget our past lives for us to peacefully reap the fruits of our activities and enjoy all those things which we have deserved in our past lives. This path is as eternal as spiritual existence. The spiritual life is directed to eternal ascension and the material life to similarly eternal degradation. Once falling into this world, soul is so much entangled in causes and consequences of its activities, that there is no other hope of deliverance but the mercy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and His confident devotees. The hope which is like a helping hand given to a drowning man in the sea.
Therefore, to sum it up:
1)There is the spiritual world which is the dwelling of spiritual parcels and God. There everyone is eternal, blissful and knowledgeable. Eternity is the consequence of the uniformity with the Lords nature, the bliss is the association with Him by means of devotional service and the knowledge is His mercy.
2) Spiritual beings have always got a free choice. Envying the absolute position of the Supreme Personality of Godhead or a more superior position of another jiva, some living beings express the desire to separate from Him in order to satisfy their desires, do justice instead of God. But because living beings are inherent parcels of God, such separation is not possible in fact. Being free from anger and envy, the Lord creates for such persons the material world where they get the opportunity to act according to their desires. In fact, the Aryans look at the material world as the evidence of the humble and generous nature of the Lord. The Lord creates this material world, places us here to fulfill our desires rejecting God and hides from us in order not to stir our hatred.
3) Losing the visual presence of the Lord, a living being enthusiastically tries to realize its desires to enjoy and dominate. It does it by imitating relationships of the spiritual world. According to the Aryan philosophy, everything existing in the material world is only the perverted reflection of the spiritual world when we try to recreate spiritual relationships simply placing in the center ourselves not God. All beings who happen to be in the material world try to imitate Gods actions. The concept of God means the idea of uniqueness which is inherent only to the Absolute and One Truth. As long as there are too many beings willing to be God, there emerges the necessity of the sequence. Actually, time is the factor which puts on the queue all those willing to be God (the leader), so there appears the need of death (temporary), i.e. the sequence. Today the leader is me, tomorrow this opportunity will be given to you.
4) The material world is the prison of the spiritual world where envious and rebellious souls are placed. All laws applicable in the material world are intended to return us to our spiritual consciousness. Though the punishment enforced by God is very peculiar. He punishes us by granting all our desires. Our desires diverge from their spiritual harmony and thus are not able to bring us happiness we had in the spiritual world. Just to prove this truth, the Lord grants all our desires desires fulfillment of which means violence against others with resulting sufferings. The original neutral material substance is called pradhana. Living beings come in contact with pradhana by their desires and as the result of this the material diversity appears. The material world is only the reflection of desires of all living beings existing in it.
5) Depending on the rudeness of consciousness, living beings in the material world are bound by three ropes (the gunas): ignorance, passion and goodness. These bonds are created by cause-effect relationships of actions of living beings, i.e. they form the time the principle of the sequence.
6) Together with creation of the material world, the Lord takes care of our returning home, to the spiritual world. For this purpose, He gives inhabitants of material worlds the Vedas which contain the knowledge how to live happily in the material world and return back home to Godhead. Ones who follow instructions of the Vedas are called the Aryans (those going to God).
These are the general provisions of the Aryan theory. As said, the Vedas see that the most important psychological problem is the envy of the position of God and of other living beings in the spiritual world. This world where we all live is meant to solve this problem. This is the Aryans answer on the question: Where does life come from and what is its meaning?
A living being comes to this world to realize its desire to make decisions and independently enjoy in Gods capacity. In reality, it cannot be independent as it is the eternal inseparable parcel of God and is eternally dependent on Him. After leaving the spiritual world, this dependence is shown as the dependence on the material nature. The energy supplying living beings with all necessary things is called yoga-maya. When a living being does not want to associate with God, this energy covers consciousness of a living being with ignorance and creates the apparent independence imitating the semblant separation from God. The energy having this function is called maha-maya. It shows things that are not real but that we want to see, that is our independence from God. This is the transformation of the same energy, yoga-maya. While yoga-maya is the energy acting to give pleasure by revealing us more and more the sublime and attractive nature of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, maha-maya deceives, i.e. moves away from God and educates by means of sufferings.
Further we will see how the Aryans describe the laws applicable in the material world. The principle function of the material world is to correct the wrong desire of a living being to function as God (to control, dominate and enjoy). Any time when we try to realize the principle of our independence, the material world acts so as to prove how we are dependent as we are insignificantly small. Most insignificantly a living being feels under the influence of time (death). For an eternal spiritual parcel, there is no other more humiliating situation than to accept the necessity of destruction (death). Thousands and millions of people dreamt and tried to overcome the influence of time (death), but in due time death knocked at their doors regardless of their desires and plans.
The material world is described as the liaison world of the three gunas of nature (bonds of attachment and hatred). The nature obeys cause-effect laws. The spiritual world obeys the parallel law, there is no time factor there. In other words, there is always the present time there, where any event exists eternally. This is so because the spiritual consciousness never treats any one so that a reaction would be needed. For the unprepared reader this subject is very serious and difficult to understand. The material world obeys the law of sequence (the queue) as here contradictory desires should be realized. Such desires could not be fulfilled simultaneously. We all want to be God, but God is only one, therefore there is the need for the queue: today I have the chance to be God (the controller), tomorrow someone else will have it. Therefore, there is no present time here. Only the past and the future exist in the material world. The old has gone like the water running through fingers.
In the spiritual world, living beings show attachment to other beings and God. There such attachment is the source of bliss as it is addressed to perfect personalities. While in the material world, a living being remembers that the attachment was the source of the infinite bliss and tries to feel the bliss here by attachment to different personalities. But in the material world consciousness of all living beings is contaminated. This contamination makes them imperfect, but an imperfect personality from its inception is not able to give happiness. Soul cannot get rid of its ability to develop attachments. In fact, soul can never get rid of its nature of eternity, enjoyment and knowledge. In the spiritual world, all living beings associate with each other and the Lord. This association brings happiness. We subconsciously remember this happiness and remember that we got it via association. In the material world, this attachment trait puts us on the spot. The Bhagavad-Gita describes this process as follows (chapter 2, verses 62, 63):
While contemplating the objects of the senses, a person develops attachment for them, and from such attachment lust develops, and from lust anger arises.
From anger, delusion arises, and from delusion bewilderment of memory. When memory is bewildered, intelligence is lost, and when intelligence is lost, one falls down again into the material pool.
Thus, the material absorption starts with the misuse of our ability for attachment. Happiness of soul is infinitely dependent on its relations with the Lord. This very inclination to associate causes sufferings to conditioned persons with material consciousness. Egocentric material consciousness makes a person lose the spiritual perfection. In the material world, a person can be attracted by another person but in the process of association it is doomed for disappointment. Indeed, any time when we look for happiness in association, we want to experience that feeling which we had in the spiritual world associating with the Lord and His devotees. Dissatisfaction which appears as the result of imperfect association degrades to violence via which we want by all means to get that spiritual enjoyment which we remember of. This state is like certain madness when we take someone by the scruff of the neck and say, Give me happiness, hear me? Give it, just as you choose! Ah, do not you give it? Well, then take that! And that!", and there starts the chain of violence. While a conditioned living being has some hopes for happiness, it flatters, but when it loses the hope, it goes beast-mode when it is under the influence of ignorance; or becomes a philosopher if it is under the influence of goodness. In the material world, a living being gets entangled as it develops incorrect attachments and as a consequence becomes disappointed. This is what the material world is for, for us at every step to realize a simple truth: happiness came to us only from association with the Lord and His devotees. Although not all living beings come to this conclusion when disappointment or suffering (which is the same) knocks at the door. Personal attitude to suffering depends on which condition (the guna) one is under. Here we will try to briefly and easily explain the Aryan view point on cause-and-effect relationships functioning in the material world. Cause-and-effect relationships of the material world are called gunas. The guna means the rope. The guna, thus, is that law with which the material world ties us to the particular cause-and-effect mechanism of the nature according to our merits. To begin with, all living beings in this world have got four defects:
1)Imperfect senses.
2)The tendency to commit mistakes.
3)The tendency to cheat.
4)The tendency to be illusioned (be ignorant).
Our intelligence is imperfect. This is an unquestionable fact. Anyone based on intelligence can understand only part of the truth. One-sided perception of the truth cannot fully reflect it all and so a person based on own intelligence cannot make right decisions. We draw the special attention to intelligence as intelligence is the principal sense. The intelligence can be said to be the reservoir of our beliefs. The system of values available by it has spurs on to one or another action. As for other senses, the Aryans specify the two following levels of them:
1)Gross senses: the eyes (vision), nose (smell), ears (sound), tongue (taste), skin (touch). These five are called sense perceptions. There are also working senses: hands, legs, anus and genitals.
2)Subtle senses: mind, intelligence, false-self (false ego).
Gross senses serve to form perceptions of the material world and of objects of sensory pleasures which exist there. Gross senses do not qualify the information. They are just its indifferent conductors. This is evidenced by the fact that the same information has got a different value for different beings. For instance, a pig finds feces tasteful but for a human it is something disgusting. It means that acceptability of the information does not depend on senses but on preferences of the certain personality, therefore subtle senses are of more crucial significance.
Mind. Mind has got five functions: to desire (want, do not want) (1), to feel (2), to think (3), to plan (4), to regret (5). A person communicates with the external world with these functions. The first and deciding function is to desire. Mind causes sense organs to contact with one or another material object according to its desires. To fulfill its desires, mind starts planning (dreaming). If plans (dreams) fail, it regrets or grieves. Grieving, therefore, is the function of the past, desiring is of the present and planning is of the future. Senses executing orders of mind contact with certain objects of the material world. Mind decides to what extent this object meets its desires. When mind has made its choice, the game is started by intelligence which is the most important element.
Intelligence. Intelligence has also got five functions: correct understanding (1), doubt (2), incorrect understanding (3), sleep (rest) (4), memory (5). Intelligence develops correct understanding only when it is based on the Vedas. The Vedas are Gods opinion on all of the issues related both to the material and spiritual worlds. The Aryans are very humble and modest personalities and they, thus, do not trust their experience and intelligence and refer with all issues to God. To defer to His opinion, one should know Him well. It is remarkable that the dominating belief in the Aryans society was that God never leaves living beings without His care in any matter. Indeed, we can find that practically for any matter the Vedas have got the respective sections with the comprehensive knowledge presented. The main idea is that an imperfect living being cannot create a perfect knowledge. Such knowledge can be given only by the One Who has created all these because only He or the one authorized by Him perfectly knows how He has done it. The Aryans, therefore, made great efforts to put intelligence of all members of society from the very childhood under control of the Vedas. Such dependence ensured noble human qualities which were very important for the Aryan society. The knowledge which was not based on the Vedas was considered incorrect. At first glance it seems that such approach actually limits human capabilities to experience. But there arises the question: what is the pleasure of thinking unlimitedly free but equally unlimitedly wrong? The fact is that the Aryans knew how to bring up personalities with very noble qualities and developed intelligence. When we read about such personalities, from the position of our development, we can say only, It is a fairy-tale. It cannot be true. In this way we endorse our infirmity.
The other very important function of intelligence is doubt. When mind and senses present new information to intelligence, the latter meets it with the function of doubt. Further, to develop the correct understanding of the information received, it is necessary for intelligence to have the correct system of values. The Aryans, therefore, laid special emphasis on education. Education determines the system of values which enables to correctly accept or reject the information received, and a correct choice determines the whole life of a person. The quality of intelligence determines actions, the destiny, the place of stay after death. If consciousness is poorly armored, it becomes a toy in the hands of mind. Such personalities happen to be slaves of their tongue, stomach and genitals; they do not have any system of values except for satisfaction of the needs of their bodies. The Aryans did not accept such personalities in their society, they called them mlechkhas, yavanas, rakshasas, i.e. persons who were dependent on the dictate of senses being at the level just above animals.
In the Bhagavad-Gita (chapter 15, text 15) Lord Krishna says:
I am seated in everyone's heart, and from Me come remembrance, knowledge and forgetfulness. By all the Vedas am I to be known; indeed I am the compiler of Vedanta, and I am the knower of the Vedas.
For correct understanding of the Aryan civilization, this text is very important. When we understand the importance of knowledge (the system of values) for making society and try to make all members of society learned, we face an interesting phenomenon. People turn out to have different perceptive apparatus. The modern science cannot give reasons for or likely tries to explain this phenomenon with genetics. Here one can find the answer on this question. As already said, one of the backbones of the Aryan philosophy is the concept of reincarnation. We have mentioned this concept but have not given it enough consideration. In fact, this concept is the basis of the behavior of the Aryans. Now it is time to discuss it in more detail.
We have noted above, that there is no any other concept in the world but for the Aryans that answers the question: why living beings of the same form of life are born in different conditions. For instance, people are born in Russia but one is born in a rich family and another is born in a poor family, one is beautiful and another is not, etc. It is a very important point. The correct understanding of this aspect determines the correct direction of our efforts. What does the concept of reincarnation change when accepted? The most important thing the object of accusation. When a source of problems is known, it is easy to find how to settle them and get rid of troubles. Usually when we are happy, we do not raise the question why we are happy, maybe we do not deserve this happiness? On the contrary, we always think that the destiny has finally estimated us according to our merits. But in trouble, we very often think that we have not deserved this suffering, why is it chasing us? When the concept of reincarnation is accepted, all these questions are removed from the agenda and become pointless. I exist. There exists the material world, my desires, efforts focused to fulfill these desires, sins made during this process. And there exists the Witness of my actions, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who silently and patiently looks at what I do. The Supreme Personality of Godhead is not responsible for pious or sinful actions of living beings. A person can be pious and get to heaven or can commit sins and go to hell. Based on personalitys actions, He decides who this personality will be in the next life, what will be his/her destiny, what body he/she will be born in, whom to be born with, what kind of children he/she will have or he/she will have no children. But all His decisions depend on this person. There exist I, He, my actions in this life and past lives, this world and eternity. Such mentality has a significant impact on the humans behavior. This very behavior was the distinctive feature of the Aryans. They did not believe that they were eternal but they lived this way. Consequently, the idea of the eternity refers us to our own inner world to seek for reasons of our sufferings. It is not the escape from life as some incompetent people assume but the correct approach to it. Neither personality nor situation can accidentally come to our life. Everything what happens to us is the result of our pious or sinful activities in our past lives. We get consciousness in accordance with these activities. The level of consciousness acuity depends on memory and the memory is granted by God. He specifies the power of our consciousness in accordance with efforts and actions made in past lives.
Sleep (rest) is required for consciousness to remove the excess information collected during a day. The more one is concentrated on some topic, the less sleep is needed. Sleep is the aspect of the guna of ignorance. The more goodness affects a person, the better his/her consciousness performs. The guna of goodness is favorable for development of the true knowledge moving us closer to God. Thus, the system of values of consciousness is gained via upbringing. And the extent to which everything given by upbringing is perceived depends on the pious reserve coming from past lives. This perception allows us to accept or reject impulses received from our sense organs and mind. When acceptance or rejection has happened, there is the turn of the false ego.
False ego. False ego is a very interesting component. In fact, this is the very component with which the material world deceives the spiritual parcel. False ego means such consciousness by which an eternal soul identifies itself with a temporary material body. This consciousness by means of the concept of death brings soul the sense of fear. This very fear becomes the force driving actions of soul in this world. There starts the struggle for existence which is expressed as the belief in superiority of the own right for existence. Such belief allows a living being to keep its own life by the means of life of another living being without any feeling of guilt. The roughest occurrence of this mood is meat-eating. In the Aryan society, meat-eating was only attributed to members of lower social strata and only in the strict compliance with certain limitations. Those attached to uncontrolled meat-eating lived outside of the Aryan civilization and were considered uncivilized tribes. Identification with false ego divides all beings into well-wishers and enemies. Enemies are all those whose actions threaten our existence or pleasures, and friends are those who maintain our existence or pleasures. So living beings become slaves of desires and dislikes. This is the greatest problem for a conditioned soul. To solve this problem is the intention of all Aryan (like any other) philosophy. The Aryans understood that attachments (desires) and hatred (envy) would destroy in a personality in particular and in society in general the principle of justice. Therefore, the Vedas focus on the way how to solve this problem. Violation of the principle of justice leads to unjust sufferings and the subsequent desire for revenge.
In the Bhagavad-Gita (chapter 3, Verse 36-37) Arjuna asks:
O descendant of Vrsni, by what is one impelled to sinful acts, even unwillingly, as if engaged by force?
And the answer is:
It is lust only, Arjuna, which is born of contact with the material modes of passion and later transformed into wrath, and which is the all-devouring, sinful enemy of all beings in this world.
The Vedas describe three gunas (modes) of the material nature: goodness, passion and ignorance. Goodness is the preserving principle of this world, passion is the constructive principle and ignorance is the destructive power. The Universe is divided into three parts: higher (the place where pious persons live), middle (the place for those who are guided by desires) and lower (the place for those who deserve suffering only) planetary systems. Higher planetary systems are the home for demigods, the middle ones are for people and the lower ones are for demons. But this is a schematic description. Let us now see the internal structure of gunas.
The main guna of the material nature is passion (desires). All living beings communicate with the material world by their desires. There are two ways to fulfill desires: divine and demoniac. The divine method is applied by pious people who subordinate fulfillment of their desires to the Lord and following His instructions they achieve fulfillment of desires without troubling others. Demoniac persons always put hopes on their own strength. To raise possibilities to fulfill their desires, they develop science. Their only goal in life is sensory pleasures. To get pleasures they do not consider whom and how much trouble they give. Such pleasures are of extreme temporary nature and sure to bring to the material natures measures aiming to break in a person his/her tendency to violence. We think that this world has been created for our enjoyment. In fact, it has got only one function, the function of reeducation. Influenced by passion, people impelled by desires develop the attachment to fruitful activities. Such persons are very active. Uncontrolled senses push them to illegal activities. Regardless of sufferings and troubles giving to others, they are busy only satisfying their own desires. They always search for the ways to fulfill their desires. They create anxiety, suffering and disorder in society. At the beginning they hope for happiness and then suffer. The material world is the jail and its main function is to restore the deviated consciousness of a living being. In our zeal for happiness without God we must suffer until we understand that we are not able to find the recipe of this happiness. This function is never tiresome for the material nature. What helps to restore the deviated consciousness? First, it is willingness to be responsive to desires (needs) of other living beings; secondly, sympathetic attitude to their sufferings; and finally, acceptance of the own quantitative nothingness (as an eternally small fragmental part of the Supreme Personality of Godhead) and dependence. The first goal can be reached when a person understands that other living beings similarly look for happiness and avoid sufferings. This happens when a person suffers. By suffering, one understands what the other felt when he/she caused this suffering. And by being happy, one understands that the other did not want to lose it like he/she does not want to lose it now. When one understands the necessity not to cause others sufferings, he/she passes to a realization of a higher condition: not to hurt even after being hurt (the ability to forgive) and let others be happy when you are yourself unhappy. Such behavior is only possible when we understand that those who cause us sufferings and make us happy do not do it incidentally. There are some higher powers allowing us to do it in accordance with our deeds in past lives. This mindset lets us subordinate our existence and behavior to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Let us see the example from the life of the Aryans. Five thousand years ago on our planet there lived the family of the spiritually elevated Aryans, the Pandavas who were the children of King Pandu. They had one wife Draupadi. For modern people this fact would be difficult to accept. But this fact has got its own background. Young Draupadi worshiped demigods with some religious rituals with the aim to get a good husband. When demigods were satisfied, they appeared before the princess and asked what she needed. The confused princess repeated her request five times. Then demigods blessed her to have five pious husbands. When it was the time to select a fianc, there was also Arjuna, the middle brother of the Pandavas among the aspirants. He won the contest. Having got the beautiful Draupadi as his wife he came home with her. Coming to his mother, he said, Look, what treasure Ive brought. No turning back, Kunti answered her son, Good for you, all that you have brought equally divide among your brothers. Saying so, she looked back and saw Draupadi and the confused Arjuna. A problem ensued. For the Aryans their word had a special meaning. The mouth of mother Kunti had given the order that was meant to happen: Draupadi was to become the wife of five brothers. But Draupadi herself did not agree to it. All disputes in the Aryan society were settled by seeress brahmanas (priests). They could give an advice for any situation. The same thing was also done at that time. They cast Draupadis horoscope and said, This girl worshiped demigods and was blessed by them to have five husbands. This was the decree of providence for this blessing to fulfill. Everyone became quiet and Draupadui agreed to become the wife of the five Pandavas. Later she gave birth to five children from the brothers. When the war on the battlefield of Kurukshetra started (it was the bloodiest battle in the human history where religious and demonic persons confronted each other), the son of Pandavas spiritual master beheaded Draupadis five sons while they were innocently asleep. Arjuna chased Ashvatthama and captured him. He brought the captive to the feet of the great Draupadi who was in the inexpressible grief and wanted to behead the offender. Mother Draupadi stopped her husband by saying, He is the only son of his mother and I do not want her to feel the same pain like me. This is the example of nobleness of the Aryans. In their practical life they showed great soul qualities which were based on the perception of the equality of all living beings in the face of sufferings and happiness. Nowadays the patience is called on when someone else has suffered and measures to revenge are taken when we ourselves have suffered.
For the human form of life, the Aryans highlighted the great meaning of devoutness. They thought that when suffering would knock our door, the destiny would treat us the same way as we treated those in suffering around us. The Bhagavad-Gita notes many times the importance of the attitude to sufferings and happiness of this material world. A commoner differs from a self-realized person by the attitude to these two aspects.
In life we often have to encounter sufferings of living beings. When we express our compassion to them, we gather the so called pious reserve which gives God the ground to be compassionate to us when it is our turn to suffer. A pious person is able to overcome the desire for revenge when suffering comes (and it is typically caused by other living beings) and to rise to the guna of goodness (that is when one gets the ability to forgive). This is how a person progresses. But if while satisfying passions one only enjoyed and ignored others suffering, then when he/she suffers, God does not offer His hand to him/her and the person degrades to the guna of ignorance by means of envy and anger and refers to violence in attempts to keep enjoying. Thus, devoutness (compassion, mercy) is the basis of advancement but uncontrollable pleasure of senses accompanied by arrogance, that is the callous attitude towards other living beings (including animals), is the basis of degradation.
In the material world a living being appears in a difficult situation. On the one hand, one wishes to enjoy independently from God, but on the other hand one has got the nature of His eternal servant, that is dependence. This contradiction is the underlying cause of all sufferings of a living being.
Caged in this material world, living beings choose methods of fulfillment of their desires and accordingly get under the influence of certain gunas. The Bhagavad-Gita describes gunas as cause-and-effect mechanisms of this world. As it has been said, the Aryans consider the material world the place where living beings try to fulfill their desires to enjoy and prevail independently from God. And they try to realize these two desires via the three modes. The most spiritually elevated persons get the power in order to enjoy a little by themselves and do few good things to others, those lower than them strive for power in order to enjoy and acquire wealth by using other living beings and persons with the lowest level of consciousness take away the power to abuse. How can all these be understood? It means that pious people are very attached to ethical principles and understand that only by means of such principles in this material world a relative quiet and prosperous life can be provided. By ethical principles the Aryans did not mean those principles which are set based on the history or the experience of some or other nation, but the principles which are set by the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself. Such mindset is natural for people who accept existence of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, dependence on Him and who give special importance to His opinion. Pious persons are always focused on the Vedas (the art how to connect in different situations to the Lord and solve problems via Him) and their consciousness is enlightened by this knowledge. They understand well characteristics of the material world and know how to govern society for it to be happy as far it is possible in this world.
The basis of the activity of pious persons is the sense of duty, the external regulating force is honor and the ultimate goal is liberation. What does the sense of duty is the activity basis mean? When one is sure that he/she is the eternal spiritual parcel, he/she can easily understand all delusiveness of the connection with this world. From this point of view, ones attitude to life and situations formed around the life is greatly different from the atheists attitude. When one knows his/her eternal nature and understands the reincarnation concept, such person becomes free from miserly thinking which is generated by the death (destruction) anxiety. The concept of our own eternity gives us the strength to sacrifice our one life without degradation of our virtues, if the life has not happened to be very successful from the point of view of material happiness and welfare. It is a very important mood and it is not be possible to be an Aryan without it. The atheists heart is filled with envy and the consecutive hatred which one starts to nourish to all people successful from the point of view of material welfare. The ultimate goal of an Aryan is to restore the spiritual consciousness. Such person has to solve various psychological problems which require balanced condition. Such person understands that the more his/her behavior is instable and heedless, the more he/she will be entangled in material existence, in the cycle of birth and death. That is why, on the one hand, one tries not to have extra false attachments to temporary (from the point of view of soul) objects of sensory pleasures (as we can see it is the internal attitude); on the other hand, one sets a high value on the necessity to fulfill duties (the external behavior). Such person understands that it is not by mere chance that he/she has got into a certain situation and he/she tries to behave in a way so as not to attain such outcomes which could cause sufferings to him/herself and others. Activities of really virtuous people are based on their high conscience of their own duty. We need to highlight that the Aryan society was different from all other civilizations by its ability to bring up these very personalities. Nowadays the ability to bring up well-doers is also the main problem which people are trying to solve but to the best of our belief they have selected the incorrect route.
The Bhagavad-Gita (Chapter 3, Verses 18-21) says:
A self-realized man has no purpose to fulfill in the discharge of his duties prescribed by the Vedas, nor has he any reason not to perform such work. Nor has he any need to depend on any other living being.
Therefore, without being attached to the fruits of activities, one should act as a matter of duty; for by working without attachment, one attains the Supreme.
Even kings like Janaka and others attained the perfectional stage by performance of prescribed duties. Therefore, just for the sake of educating the people in general, you should perform your work.
Whatever action is performed by a great man, common men follow in his footsteps. And whatever standards he sets by exemplary acts, all the world pursues.
As we see, the determining factor in peoples upbringing was the example given by the leaders of society. Society can never be virtuous, if its leaders are not. Therefore, the Aryan society paid a great attention to the purity of religious figures and state leaders. The higher caste which a person belonged to was, the stricter requirements were applied to him/her in terms of qualities of this person. The least significant requirements were applied to commoners.
As said above, the external regulating principle of the Aryans behavior was their honor. This factor played a great role in the Aryan society. When Arjuna refused to fight, Krishna told him (the Bhagavad-Gita, Chapter 2, Verses 31-36):
Considering your speci?c duty as a kshatriya, you should know that there is no better engagement for you than ?ghting on religious principles; and so there is no need for hesitation.
O Partha, happy are the kshatriyas to whom such ?ghting opportunities come unsought, opening for them the doors of the heavenly planets.
If, however, you do not perform your duty of good ?ghting, then you will certainly incur sins for neglecting your duties and thus lose your reputation as a ?ghter.
People will always speak of your infamy, and for a respectable person, dishonor is worse than death.
The great generals who have highly esteemed your name and fame will think that you have left the battle?eld out of fear only, and thus they will consider you insigni?cant.
Your enemies will describe you in many unkind words and scorn your ability. What could be more painful for you?
These texts in fact give the component by which one can reach eternity in this material world. In the material world our eternity is the glory. A virtuous person understands that he/she does not possess independence in this world. We are connected with people by familial bonds and our glory is their honor and our disgrace is their dishonor. Upon a closer view, it can be seen that actually in human society honor plays a great role. The sense of dignity which is felt by a well-reputed person cannot be changed for anything. Good reputation makes the life of a person and his/her family comfortable. Honor, thus, in the Aryan society was more valuable than wealth. For the sake of honor, people without a moment of hesitation gave their lives. The most disgraceful act of the Aryans was so called civil death. This ceremony was very humiliating. In the Aryan society, honored men wore ancestral jewelry, grew long hair and moustache. When a man acted inappropriately in his position, he was taken off his jewelry, got bald-headed, got his moustache and eyebrows cut off. This ceremony was very difficult to pass through. Mostly such persons left the Aryan society and became members of less developed communities. Aborigines found these persons divine but in fact they were only human driftwoods of the Aryan society. It took only a little time for such outcasts to exhibit their vicious nature. As a rule, these persons mixed with natives and eventually completely lost their pious (Aryan) nature. But natives composed legends about them and handed them down from generation to generation. The Eastern wisdom tells, The camel, even when dead, is the burden for seven donkeys. Similarly, these persons even though they had been expelled from the Aryan society and could not fit to live in it, for those who lived outside the Aryan society were simply gods. There are many examples when such fallen Aryans came to some societies and impart to local aboriginal people the knowledge that they had got and became authoritative persons alongside with gods. In some cases such an event even became the basis for the whole civilization still in existence until now. We would avoid giving specific examples in order not to raise discontent of representatives of this civilization. The greater importance is placed on the positive attention to the values of the Aryan society than the necessity for an unprepared person to accept an unusual truth requiring historical evidences. We have mentioned it only for the purpose to note this very fact as we are interested only in the ethical value system of the Aryans. Therefore, please kindly forgive us dear readers that we have not proved the above said by examples.
What is the reason for loss of sublime qualities? It usually happens under the influence of pride or lust. The guna of goodness gives rise in a person a peculiar superiority complex and it is dangerous. If a person does not use the power of mind to overcome this superiority complex (pride), he/she becomes vulnerable. Pride or, in other words, contempt to other living beings makes a person cruel. Acts of cruelty cannot keep one under the influence of the guna of goodness. Ones heart is filled with improper amount of lust which triggers degradation. This happens because the material nature has got the educational function. Once a living being in the material world overestimates some fact, the nature acts in such a way so as to devaluate it. It is a very important secret when perceived it helps a person to be fixed on the guna of goodness. The pious activity starts from the self-control when one freely accepts instructions of the Vedas as regulating principles for behavior. If one uses happiness and enlightenment coming from the guna of goodness as the privilege and the chance to humiliate and despise others, he/she degrades.
Virtuous people understand that everybody wants to realize his/her desires. But they also understand that one should not be ruled only by animal instincts because one has got the intellect. Impious people use their intellect to achieve more perfect methods for fulfillment of their desires but pious people use it to get relief from the claws of material miseries and have successful ending of life in the human form. What did the Aryans consider as successful ending of life? They thought it was the successful performance of their duties in accordance with their social position and reaching a higher position in the next life. Aryans holy scriptures state that one who has lived the life in goodness after death will go to heavenly planets and live there enjoying justly from the viewpoint of a human life nearly eternally. Heavenly planets also are located in the material world, they are simply a place where there are born virtuous people, sages, ascetics, religious people who strive for piety (they are not transcendentalists who deal only with the divine, spiritual energy). They receive rather comfortable bodies which remain healthy for life, have various mystic powers (for instance, the ability to fly, to appear in any place, to dictate desires to others and affect others desires, to become lighter than a feather and heavier than a planet and so on), that means that demigods have such bodies which practically do not give them any trouble. The only suffering they have got is mental anxiety. Demons constantly claim possessions, positions and powers of demigods. For this reason demigods are sometimes concerned how to maintain all these. There are multiple descriptions coming from the remote past which point out that demigods visited our planet very often and even had children with earthly women. Generally, descriptions of such events are called epics, though it is not very clear to us why ancient scriptures known as the Old Testament are accepted as descriptions of true events but similar scriptures of other nations are considered epics. This violation of principles of equal acceptance of ancient scriptures does not contribute to uncovering the truth. Meanwhile, we only acknowledge that according to the Vedic scriptures the best of the Aryans were descendants of demigods from heavenly planets.
As for people who are under protection of the guna of goodness, it can be stated that knowledge, enlightenment, modesty, soundness, justice are the best jewels of the character of such persons.
This guna appears in consciousness from the moment when one understands that dependence on feelings leads only to suffering and chaos. It is very important to understand inevitability of suffering as a consequence of uncontrolled sensual pleasures. If a living being suffering from life to life simultaneously accumulates a reserve of virtuous activities, he/she is able to accept regulating principles of behavior. This system of principles is called varnashrama-dharma. It is the basis of the social order of the Aryan society, but when misunderstood and applied incorrectly, it forms the unjust caste system of privileges and humiliation. This happens because of the wrong perception of internal values of the Aryans when there are only attempts to imitate external form of behavior. In such case in the value system of the Aryans there appear components of passion (the desire to use the system to affirm ones own superiority) and ignorance (the system is used to apply force) which will turn it (varnashrama-dharma) into a source of suffering for those whose position is lower. And sooner or later suffering leads to rebellion which as a rule ends up breaking the system. The basis of varnashrama-dharma is knowledge and development ways given by the Supreme Personality of Godhead for harmless existence in this world and its goal is to satisfy this very Personality. That is, the Aryans were well aware that without religion there would be no piety or virtue. But by religion they meant the desire to satisfy the Lord. The Bhagavad-Gita (Chapter 17, Verse 2) says:
According to the modes of nature acquired by the embodied soul, one's faith can be of three kinds-goodness, passion or ignorance.
Depending on the type of the developed faith, a living being goes to the respective region of the material Universe. Ones who worshiped demigods (worship in the guna of goodness) would go to heavenly planets. Those who worshiped demons (worship in the guna of passion) would go to middle planets, those who worshiped ghosts (worship in the guna of ignorance) would go to hell. And those who served the Lord (but did not try to use Him) would raise to the Lords abode.
The Vedas only provide connection between the Supreme Personality of Godhead and His immediate surroundings. The guna of goodness, therefore, serves as a serious platform for restoration of the communication culture present in the spiritual world. The key mood is the sense of duty, the ability to be responsive to wishes of other living beings and patient while suffering.
The material world includes three types of anxiety (suffering):
1)Anxiety (suffering) that comes from body and mind. Various congenital diseases, infirmities, unfulfilled desires.
2)Anxiety (suffering) that comes from other living beings. During our material existence we meet different living beings. They can be envious living beings under the influence of ignorance, violently inclined for the sake of fulfillment of their desires, or just wild animals and so on.
3)Anxiety (suffering) that comes from natural disasters. Floods, earthquakes, tsunami, volcano, twisters and other phenomena.
We are doomed to contact with these types of sufferings during all our material existence. Virtuous people know that sufferings that come from nature take place due to violation of nature laws. For instance, during the Vedic period people knew that weather depended on satisfaction of demigods. Priests made different sacrifices for their satisfaction, that is why even the weather was known beforehand for the whole year. If some deviations happened from the expected plan, people understood that priests and the king had not been able to satisfy demigods. Sacrifices play a great role in the guna of goodness. Through them the Aryans contacted with demigods and the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The guna of goodness is mainly the guna of demigods, but when the Aryan civilization was present, goodness also prevailed on our planet and people developed qualities and strength worth of demigods. There are plenty descriptions of splendid victories of the Aryans over demigods in consequence of which the latter endued the Aryan warriors with their divine weapon and blessings.
Piety, therefore, is the main guna of the Aryans. Attachment to duty fulfillment was raised from childhood. And the wish fulfillment technique was sacrifice made by priests (brahmanas).
Virtue supposes strictly regulated behavior. That is why at first it requires efforts and then rewards with happiness. Truly virtuous persons distinguish well religiosity from irreligiousness. They know well that religious are not the ones who show compassion to improvement of the material welfare of living beings, but those who are free from the impact of material concepts, who have felt the taste of liberation and eternity and are capable to guide all those who are willing to go this way by showing compassion only to the need of soul. That is, they address a person to such activities which do not refer to mundane values, whether be it a beloved one, a child, family, nation or others. All kind of material situations were considered by the Aryans temporary and problematic. The Bhagavad-Gita teachings start from this very point. The Pandava brothers were involved in a large-scale war. On the surface, it seemed they had to fight for the sake of the power. King Pandu had to die, he left the kingdom to his blind brother and went to the forest for self-improvement. He had five sons. The condition was that Pandus brother was to reign till the adulthood of his sons. When it came time, Pandus brother refused to hand over the power to its real owners. He started intrigues in order to kill his nephews and hand over the power to his sons. Krishna interfered in the situation and His opinion was deciding. When all diplomatic methods of settlement of the conflict were exhausted, Krishna arranged the war in the consequence of which according to His intention its participants had to die. Everybody except for the Pandavas. And now there is the battle field. Pandus middle son, Arjuna, in his chariot is preparing for the battle. Krishna does not take part in the fight. He has sworn not to take weapons in His arms. Even from the material point of view, He was so powerful that the party which He would fight for would have won. To avoid causing the unbalance, He decided not to fight but He took the place of the charioteer of His friend Arjuna. When before the battle Arjuna saw his teachers (whom he adored and who wanted him to win despite their necessity to fight against him as his enemies), brothers, relatives and other folks, his firmness was shaken. He wanted to refuse fighting and lay down his arms. He did not see the sense in the battle. He was ready to concede the kingdom to his cousin brothers and become an anchoret. His arguments were very interesting. The principal point was that he doubted: if there was any sense in taking the sin of killing so many people upon himself for the purpose of gaining the power? And his answer to himself was no. For Arjuna it was important that his actions should be right. He did not state that he had got such a number of valuable ideas by which the prosperity of the country could be achieved (though it was the absolute truth) and for the sake of which it was worth to sacrifice human lives, but he placed great importance on that price which should be paid for it. In that case, Arjuna found this price unacceptable and he refused to fight surrendering to Krishna with the hope to get His advice how to correctly come out of the existing situation. And Krishna answered. This answer became the most abstruse instruction for our epoch providing liberation to all who want it.
Everything which seems important to us has no value from the point of view of the eternal soul. Krishna explained to Arjuna that one who understood the nature of soul would be never indulged in the influence of desires (attachments) and hatred (envy). The key mood in this world should be patience. There is a more sublime condition than serving material values. This condition restores the spiritual consciousness of a living being and affirms ones spiritual bliss which lies in serving the interests of the Lord. What are His interests? Restore the harmony with the Lord through revival of the spiritual consciousness of all living beings who are materially captive. Those who try to use religion to fulfill their material desires are only virtues people and those who use religion to restore their spiritual relationships with and satisfaction of the Lord, are transcendentalists and have already nothing in common with this material world full of miseries. On the surface, it seemed that Arjuna had good feelings. But when Krishna expressed His opinion, it became clear that Arjunas arguments referred only to the material compassion and respectively they were limited by material values but the intended purpose of religion is to end the material existence of a living being.
We have presented these all in order to show the difference between piety and transcendence (the true religiosity). The common religiosity, in the initial stage, aims to affirm a person in piety by following the system of religious prohibitions and incentives. And the second stage of religiosity pursues the aim to remove a person from material existence and restore his/her spiritual memory. This level of transcendence played a significant role in life of the Aryans.
We highly appreciate our various attachments to other living beings. Parents, beloved ones, pets, friends, business partners, children, nation, motherland this is the incomplete list of those values for the sake of which we do good or evil deeds often sacrificing ourselves or devoting them all our lives. Influenced by illusion, indulged in temporary values and serving them, we forget the certainty of death. Once the greatest Aryan king Yudhishthira met the incarnation of the religion Dharma and answered his questions. One question was very interesting. He asked, What is the most wonderful thing in this world? King Yudhishthira answered, The most wonderful thing is that all people see that all die but everybody lives in such a way as if they were to live forever. Soul perceives it is eternal because it is indeed so. The material mind influenced by soul acts in such a way as if a material body was eternal. Dreams, plans, regrets and sorrows under the influence of mind are our typical conditions. The Bhagavad-Gita considers all these processes of mind as our most dangerous enemies. In fact, egocentric desires of mind are the flow of time. By desires of mind, a living being activates the latent material energy and creates different situations. If one manages to stop this activity of mind, this person is not influenced by the time anymore and becomes a liberated person. The more we try to use this world to oppress other living beings, the more suffering we get. The world seeks the equilibrium (that is to restore the spiritual atmosphere). One who breaks this equilibrium provides the basis for appearance of the counteractive force and it is only the matter of time for this force to appear. That is why virtuous people make efforts to balance fulfillment of own desires and desires of other living beings. Such efforts create an atmosphere of total peace when a person can ensure the right course of life.
The main characteristics of the guna of passion are out-of-control desires. This is the very central mood of this world to see the world as the source of sensual pleasures and make more and more efforts to get them. The Vedas call such people mudhas, that is, pardon us, donkeys. Customarily, to make a donkey walk faster, a rod is tied to the donkey collar with some carrots and grass. Seeing food in front of its eyes, a donkey starts to walk faster with the hope to get the food but the food remains at the same distance, a donkey tries to get the food but in fact it carries the cargo faster. With our common negative attitude to a donkey, this comparison is not pleasant for us but this example clearly reflects the reality. Therefore, not aiming to offend the dear reader, we would propose to look at this as the most accurate example of the psychology of living beings in the material world.
In the material world all objects are imperfect, but we approach them in accordance with our memory about the spiritual reality where all objects are perfect and any contact with them gives pleasure. Thus, in the material world we also approach all objects with the hope to find happiness (same like a donkey hopes to reach food). When finally the contact with the object happens, it begins to expose its deficiencies and then we see that happiness has remained at the same distance as before when we had reached this object. Sensible persons understand it well and therefore as a rule they are more pragmatic. More sensual persons get disappointed and suffer from the dissatisfied longing for perfection. With this, we usually expect perfection from others (this is that very real demonstration of the memory of the perfection of the Lord). One can notice that pragmatic persons as a rule are more successful in material aspects. Why is it so? Because they do not overestimate any material occurrence and only try to enjoy the material energy insofar as it can give pleasure and ideally adapt to the imperfection of the material world. Such attitude is a good basis to avoid the necessity for the material world to break the overestimated system of values. Any aspect (either a woman, a man, a child, a family, humanity or other) if overestimated by us becomes the source of our sufferings.
The Bhagavad-Gita (chapter 2, verse 57) says:
In his material world one who remains unattached under all conditions, and is neither delighted by good fortune nor dejected by tribulation, he is a sage with perfect knowledge.
In this, the word dejected by is presented by dveshti which means envy. The latter is the main mood of people in the guna of passion: neglecting others sufferings when happy and being envious while suffering.
We have already mentioned that the Aryans considered that the foremost problem of living beings in the material world was their misuse of their ability to become attached. This very inclination makes the basis of the guna of passion. Sensual pleasures, the flow of desires constantly heard in our mind: want to be beautiful, do not want to become old, want to be the strongest, want to be the richest, want to be a president or a movie star, want everyone to love me, want, want, want, all these various wants are the basis of our behavior. If in goodness one uses his/her position to protect others and agrees to follow divine rules to satisfy desires, in the guna of passion the situation is quite different. Notice that the guna of passion is usually not God-centered. Here one is ruled only by endeavors to satisfy own desires. The modern civilization develops under the influence of this very guna. Even if people in the guna of passion approach the Lord, they do it only to satisfy their desires. The consciousness of such people thinks that even the Lord is supposed only to serve them. If a virtuous person tries to coordinate desires with requirements of the Lord, a person influenced by passion is guided only by fulfillment of own desires. Behavior of such people is very chaotic. This happens because based on their opinion they try to regulate their lives and the life of society.
Lust (endless desires) pushes a person to a very vigorous activity. This activity very often evades the Laws of the Lord. Influenced by passion, a person makes laws for others and always foresees back channels for him/herself. The main desire of such people is to get the pleasure from everything surrounding him/her, be it a cheerful conversation, wealth, sensual pleasures and others. The axis of their activity is sexual pleasure. With this, sexual pleasure does not mean only sexual relationships literally, but also everything providing them. Absorption in these pleasures makes problems.
In the Vedas there is one story which clearly describes the attempts to solve problems by satisfying needs. In a small hut there lived one yogi (a person who tries to reach perfection in self-realization through physical and breathing exercises). A mouse intruded into his hut and started to distract him from meditation process (mind concentration). Once he met a friend and complained to him. The friend advised to get a cat which could catch the mouse. The yogi did as said. After a while he met the friend again. The friend inquired about his things. The yogi complained that then the cat mewed all day long in his ears asking for milk. The friend advised to get a cow. The yogi did as said. But the care for the cow took much time, then the friend advised to bring a wife who would take care of the cow. The yogi, thus, got married. Soon the wife gave birth to children and the yogi left his practice and immersed in activities to support them. One day sitting on the porch he thought, Id rather have tolerated the mouse. This is a good example showing which circle of activity one will get trying to solve problems by satisfying needs.
Passion, therefore, is based on envy and lust and grants temporary pleasures and constant worries and miseries. In this guna one cannot distinguish religiosity from irreligiosity because he/she does not see any difference between them. For such person all living beings are simply different material bodies with the need for food, rest, sex and self-defense and that is why any talks about perfection are not serious.
The guna of ignorance is based on illusion. This guna leads to violence, madness, laziness. This is the guna of people who reject any behavior restrictions (ethics). Violence, stubbornness, rudeness, habits to hurt others, vengefulness arising from self-righteousness is the short list of the qualities of people influenced by this guna. If the intellect in the guna of goodness distinguishes well religiosity from irreligiosity, the truth from a lie, and in the guna of passion the intellect does not distinguish these, then the intellect in the guna of ignorance is confident that it is right though it takes irreligiosity for religiosity, a lie for the truth and so on. This is the type of existence when the truth is hidden from a living being to the uttermost. The most typical specimens of this type are animals.
The Bhagavad-Gita sees lust (desires) as the most important defect and the state of a living being is defined by its availability. A virtuous person satisfies innocent desires and keeps those desires which can cause inconveniences to others. A passionate person looks for ways to satisfy all desires. An ignorant person without a second thought satisfies desires using violence. A virtuous person follows godly laws, a lustful person considers in his/her actions opinions of necessary people, an ignorant person just do what he/she wants not keeping with any law. Thus, a virtuous person builds a God-centered society, a lustful person builds a secular or pseudo-religious society and an ignorant person builds an atheistic or demonic society. A virtuous person likes to follow the laws of the Lord, a lustful person likes to use the Lord for satisfaction of desires and an ignorant person simply does not believe in His existence and acts as he/she wants to.
According to the Aryan philosophy, respectively, virtuous persons on death go to heavenly planets awarded by the highest material pleasures. With the help of these pleasures, they burn the piety reserve and return again to the middle planets (like the Earth) to proceed with their material existence.
Those in the guna of passion are born on the middle planets like ours in order to be able to build their future by means of a vigorous activity. And ignorant persons are born on hellish planets. Having passed through the purgatory, they are born on middle planets in the animal world and going from life to life through the evolution process are born again in the human form of life.
Speaking mathematically, the truth is similar to the sequence of natural numbers, where minus infinity is a form of life under the influence of the guna of ignorance and violence reigns there. Rudeness, unwillingness to consider others, rejection of other ways of thinking, enforcement of own way of thinking, enjoyment of violence, causing others sufferings for the sake of power is the incomplete list of qualities inherent to such people. From the influence of this guna, animals get away by evolution from life to life passing away different forms of animal life up to the human form and people get away by a more elevated communication. This way they get to the guna of passion. The guna of passion appears in the vigorous activity, various desires, satisfaction of needs of the tongue (want delicious food), the stomach (want much food) and genitals (want physical intimacy with the opposite sex). Hunger for love, pursuit of passion, need for wealth, envy, arrogance, contempt, intrigues are the qualities inherent for people living in the guna of passion. The initial dream eventually becomes a misery. As the result of miseries via envy and anger a person descends to violence, that is the guna of ignorance. With the same miseries, a person via compassion (do not want the other to suffer like me) goes up to the virtuous state. Virtue (piety) is based on the sense of duty and knowledge (wisdom). Patience, care, compassion, reasonableness, purity, good morals (decency), justice are the qualities inherent in this guna. Development of these qualities first requires efforts (internal work, especially to learn to consider others) and then they bring happiness. In the material world this is the elevated condition ensuring a quiet life. Degradation from this condition to the state of passion happens via the sense of superiority (to the point of contempt).
Realizing worldliness, a person in piety starts to strive for liberation. The basis of liberation is the realization of ones spiritual self. Oppressed by the material world, soul gets a great pleasure realizing that in fact it is eternal. When one perceives that he/she is an inherent parcel of the Lord, he/she enjoys the own eternal nature but it is not yet in the position to accept the Lords will. Actually, this is a condition when one is free from the material world but without the access to the spiritual world yet, the zero state which is called liberation. At this level, the material sense organs and mind are passivated but spiritual senses have not been activated yet.
The next stage is when the all-pervading and all-controlling aspect of the Lord is realized. At this stage, soul restores its knowledge and the resultant feeling of respect and fear of the Lord. One sees everything depending on the Supreme Personality of Godhead and realizes His power and capabilities. The next stage is to overcome the feelings of worshiping and respect and restore close relationships with Him which can be only by means of the devotional service to the Lord. At this stage, a living being perfectly restores the entire nature (eternity, knowledge and most importantly fullness with bliss). This is the way to the infinite bliss the nature of which cannot be understood by our poor material intellect. A living being through the Lords mercy restores the relationships with Him; and His beauty, perfection, pleasure of communication with Him again and again grant us with happiness with no limits.
We have outlined the philosophic concept of the Aryans. It should be noted that each feature of this concept can become a topic of a comprehensive book. Not aiming to reveal the Aryans philosophy in depth and to give arguments which could support this concept, we have limited ourselves just to the sufficient description of their world view. Though, it should be mentioned that for a thoughtful reader the given information contains rather deep secrets of psychology. One who possesses this secret can become an Aryan him/herself and make the same anyone with who he/she gets in contact.
In order to return from the material world to the spiritual world, the Aryan literature provides four ways which are called karma-yoga, gyana-yoga, dhyana-yoga and bhakti. The word yoga means the union with the Lord. The processes uniting with the Lord are, respectively, actions, mind, intelligence and emotionality (soul). Karma means actions. This is the process when one tries not to control senses but to satisfy them with religious methods, in other words, this way is to unite with the through actions. Alternatively, karma-yoga is called varnashrama-dharma which is the social system regulating behavior of an Aryan. Living in the system of varnashrama-dharma, one finally comes to renouncement. At this level one is based on the knowledge and tries to control desires refusing to communicate with objects of sensual pleasures. This process is called gyana-yoga. When a yogi has attained perfection in renouncement and sitting in one pose he focuses the mind on the Lord it is called the process of dhyana-yoga. But all these processes ultimately do not solve the main problem. Soul gas got an active nature. In the material world this activity is misdirected. By subordinating activities arising from the active nature of the soul to the laws of varnashrama-dharma, one regulates activities but misdirected desires still remain. With the help of gyana-yoga one restrains material desires but then the active nature of soul remains unsatisfied. The active nature of soul is satisfied only with bhakti-yoga. This is the perfect system where both activities and desires attain the right direction through the devotional service to the Lord.
CHAPTER 2. VARNASHRAMA-DHARMA
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF THE ARYAN SOCIETY
The peculiarity of the Aryan society was that it was God-centered on the basis not only of faith in God but the real communication with Him. This statement sounds for modern people as if mocking their life experience. But until this difference is understood we wont be able to comprehend why the Aryan system of values and their social structure are more preferable. The unique trait of this society is in this very fact that it is in the position to assert the real connection with God and His servants (demigods) and solve arising problems with their help; this indeed makes the Aryans unique (not the type of the head, skin tone or heroism).
The Author
2.1 Social Classes and their Interaction
The toughest problem of a human life is the desire to avoid reactions in response to free activities. One wants to behave freely and to be happy. But the material world has got the cause-and-effect structure and there works the law of respective reaction to certain activities. We do not always see how it works because it functions from life to life and appears in the form of destiny. Due to ignorance, one has got the impression that the law in force is: the one who is stronger wins, the one who wins enjoys. The Aryans prove the unfairness of this view by pointing at initially unequal conditions of existence which indicate the cause of their appearance in the past life. We make sinful and saintly deeds which make up the basis of our destiny in the future life. In general, this is the idea of destiny which can be explained only if the reincarnation concept is accepted. Otherwise, we have to accept that either conditions of our life are given to us incidentally (by the blind nature) or God, if He exists, is cruel and inexplicably gives such different starting conditions which doom one to a certain life. Some concepts suggest the idea of reactions for sins of the forefathers which cannot be accepted because it violates the principle of justice: the one who committed sins should suffer.
There is the contradiction between the blissful nature of an eternal soul and endeavors to satisfy it by violence (major or subtle). Ones who behave freely suffer next life from bad living conditions. Those willing to get rid of chains of miseries shall learn to consider other living beings. As mentioned above, for the Aryans the material world is the place of residence for those envious souls who cultivated the desire to enjoy and to rule without God. For these persons, the desire to act independently is practically insuperable. In the spiritual world, living beings naturally subordinate their desires to Gods wishes. Being the perfect Personality, He is capable of giving anyone everything that brings happiness. When actuated by endeavors to act independently, a living being starts the material existence, initially it seems that one will be able to compel to his/her will the Lords energy called maya-shakti (as was already mentioned, this energy hides the existence of God). This energy, with any activity which is not connected with Gods will, acts in such a way that we would understand how much we are not able to control Gods energy so that it would give us pleasure. Simultaneously, we get entangled in reactions of our activities which so far do not let us exit the material world.
The soul is blissful and finds no suffering acceptable. In the spiritual world, all desires of the soul are fulfilled but they are not fulfilled in the material world. In the material world, everything deviates from the truth and lacks harmony, is full of anxiety because of the contradiction between the nature of the soul and materia (a temporary body and the subsequent fear, power-hungry living beings and suffering resulting from competitiveness, ignorance and subsequent violence).
The soul is active and therefore it wants to communicate. Various desires are souls inherent nature. The spiritual body is eternal and that is why when interacting no living being can harm it. Spiritual communication is harmless for existence and therefore it is blissful. In the material world, the soul gets in a very difficult situation: to reach happiness, it seeks communication but a vulnerable body itself contains the danger of death (or suffering). This contradiction causes the need to divide all living beings into friends and enemies. Everyone who contributes to pleasures of a material body is a friend and those who may be dangerous for its existence are enemies.
Communication takes place on the basis of knowledge. Any communication includes knowledge, communication on the basis of this knowledge and the level of doer. Depending on which laws of nature these three components are, various types of communication appear:
1) communication full of goodness, bringing peace;
2) mixed communication, causing either joy or disappointment;
3) destroying communication, causing suffering.
Respectively, if one cultivates knowledge in goodness, then applying it during communication, such person certainly gets results of goodness. This is the endeavor of any individual, any society. However, the reality is much more difficult. It is the greatest problem to instate one on the platform of goodness (acquiescence). Material consciousness is egocentric and a temporary body is the guarantor of development of greed. Therefore, mostly doers are influenced by the laws of passion or ignorance. Such doer even if given the perfect knowledge or a correct activity will treat all these in accordance with the own performance level, i.e. in accordance with his/her desires. The material communication lacks harmony and this causes the need for patience which is absolutely alien to the soul. Spiritual communication is spontaneous, free and blissful as all spiritual beings are perfect and free from the desire of mutual exploitation. In the material world, these very jivas strive for superiority, hence exploitation. On the other hand, conditioned souls are of the imperfect nature and therefore any communication at first gives them some hope and then brings disappointment. One is given the possibility to rise to goodness just when such person appears to be able to endure this disappointment. Less reasonable persons try to search for another communication hoping to reach happiness. But reasonable persons realize that this problem is initially unsolvable in the material world. They understand that it does not matter (or to be exact it matters very little) with whom to communicate, all objects are imperfect anyway. Less reasonable persons at first think they have met some pleasant communication and then lose their temper because of faults. A wise person knows that everyone has got some faults and tries to rely on advantages (the principle of a bee collecting only nectar from all flowers) looking for good qualities in everyone and being forbearing toward deficiencies. This is the psychological condition which ensures the peaceful existence of all imperfects beings in the material world. But living beings want to enjoy. When consciousness is secular, namely self-centered, and one thinks that he/she lives only once, such person does not understand the reason for enduring. Such people are able to sacrifice everything for the sake of their own pleasure and then society is composed of lonely people where everyone looks for acceptable objects of sense pleasure. Such society is based on the race or competition in the struggle for the greatest sense pleasure. It seems to such person that he/she gets more pleasure when fighting for them. But the experience has shown that both success and defeat do not depend on the amount of effort. They depend on luck. And what is luck if it is not Gods will which is displayed in accordance with our merits?
Patience is the basis for communication of pious people, and society formed on such basis is called varnashrama-dharma. What does this term mean? Varnas are different social classes:
1)monks (priests) brahmanas,
2) rulers and warrior kshatriyas,
3) farmers and merchants vayshyas,
4) laborers and servants shudras.
Ashramas are also divided into four categories but they refer to different stages of life of the same individual. These stages are the following:
1) learning process brahmacharya- ashram,
2) householder life grihastha-ashram,
3) partial renunciation vanaprastha-ashram,
4) full renunciation sannyasa.
1) Learning. The Aryan system started education at the age of five. In the process of learning, one received the Vedic system of values, studied the essence of the material nature and its structure, developed the deep knowledge of laws of gunas of the material nature and, mostly important, formed the correct impression of the meaning and value of life which later became the basis for patience. The knowledge was transferred verbally and carriers of any knowledge held a very high position in society.
2) Householder life. Ahead of this stage of life, one carefully analyzed own desires. If the Vedic knowledge contributed to understanding the worldliness of this world, then right away a brahmachari accepted renunciation and the life style suitable for this stage. Such persons were called naishtiki brahmachari, i.e. ones who never ejaculated semen. These persons are special, strict, renounced and their meaning of life is only to comprehend the nature of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and own relationships with Him. Naishtiki brahmacharis take sannyasa (renouncement). The presence of this ashram is very important for society. There are just very few renounced persons but they ensure the purity of the spiritual knowledge by means of their own realization. The spiritual knowledge at its highest level always assumes renunciation from this world and restoration of the spiritual consciousness. Very rare persons are able to follow this way till the end. A sannyasi is not the one who just reads spiritual literature, learns it by heart and declaims it before the unsuspecting public earning cheap glory. A sannyasi practices the spiritual knowledge in full renunciation from worldly fuss and really restores the lost connection with the Lord. Having proved the truth of the Vedic statements by own experience, sannyasis keep the spiritual knowledge without deviations. The purity of knowledge creates a real connection to the spiritual world, the connection which is the source of the strength of society. When society (nation) has no ascetics, it lacks the divine power and it is doomed to follow the path of sin, ignorance and suffering. Being sannyasi-conscious, the Aryans showed a special respectful attitude for them. The respectful attitude for all social classes was the characteristic feature of the Aryan society, but recanted persons were specially honored. When varnashrama-dharma is destroyed, there appear pseudo-recanted persons who are engaged only in work for their prosperity and glory hiding behind the recanted status. The great Aryan Bhaktivinoda told that there was nothing worse in this world than a religious hypocrite (a recanted person) who used that position only to get the material gain (money, fame, authority).
Ones who felt that during their learning period they could not overcome their material desires (both mind and body what is called claim rights) addressed the other stage of life, domestic (grihastha ashram). Regularities of this stage will be discussed separately. But meanwhile we can say that at this very stage there was effective the social structure arranged in accordance with individuals qualities. The majority of society was composed of family people. All other ashramas were under the care of this ashrama.
3) Partial renunciation. At the age of fifty, religious figures and leaders left their families and went to the forest to get to self-realization. That allowed to keep society constantly in hands of young people protecting it from rigidity (conservatism). Though it has to be said that certain conservatism is always needed for society not to lose its achievements, but from time to time even scriptures are commented according to time and circumstances. The key truth does not change, but methods of its presentation can be modified. The ways to do it without any distortion are known only by very lofty recanted persons. At this stage a man started his renouncement. He left his social duties (retired) and started his self-knowledge far from his family but he would receive food from it while undergoing adaptation. At this stage, a man could take his wife with him.
4) Renunciation.Via partial renouncement, a man got used to ascetic life and became a pilgrim. Walking around holy places, he met saints and got spiritual knowledge from them. Recanted persons communicated with people of the worldly mindset only for preaching purposes. The luckiest among them met the Lord.
The Bhagavad-Gita presents characteristics of different components of activity which our happiness and suffering depend on (Chapter 18, verses 18-28):
Knowledge, the object of knowledge and the knower are the three factors which motivate action; the senses, the work and the doer comprise the threefold basis of action.
In accordance with the three modes of material nature, there are three kinds of knowledge, action, and performers of action. Listen as I describe them.
That knowledge by which one undivided spiritual nature is seen in all existences, undivided in the divided, is knowledge in the mode of goodness.
That knowledge by which a different type of living entity is seen to be dwelling in different bodies is knowledge in the mode of passion.
And that determination which cannot go beyond dreaming, fearfulness, lamentation, moroseness, and illusion-such unintelligent determination is in the mode of ignorance.
The regulated activity when done without any attachment, love or hatred or desire to get back anything is considered action in the guna of goodness.
Activity which requires many efforts aiming to fulfill own desires and dictated by the false ego, is called action in the guna of passion.
Activity caused by misbeliefs and in contradiction with instructions of holy scriptures without consideration of its enslaving consequences or activity with violence which cause suffering to other living beings is considered action in the guna of ignorance.
One who does ones duty being free from influence of gunas of material nature and the false ego with great determination and enthusiasm, equally firm in success or misfortune acts in goodness.
If one is attached to activity and its results, spurred on the desire for enjoyment of ones labor, being greedy, envious, impure, exposed to happiness and grief, he is said to be influenced by the guna of passion.
One who is constantly absorbed in activity which contradicts instructions of holy scriptures, being material and stubborn, cheating and constantly insulting others, lazy, all gloomy, postponing for the future, acts under the influence of the guna of ignorance.
Any cause-and-effect relation appears due to interaction of these factors: the knowledge, the known object and the knower.
The structure of society should be such that the above mentioned three factors would be in the guna of goodness. This is the only recipe for real prosperity of society. If any of these components advances towards the guna of goodness it moves up all the rest with it, and soon there appears the result in the form of happiness, prosperity, peace and so on. In fact, this knowledge is very comprehensive. Our aim is to show which particular regularities were considered by the Aryans for organization of their society. Everything begins from knowledge. As we have seen in the verses, goodness starts from awareness of the overall spiritual nature of all living things, consequently from the study of the relevant knowledge.
All problems arise from the point of view which makes us see the difference between living beings that hinders perception of their unity. The bodily concept makes to reject those who do not give us pleasure and seek for those with whom we can enjoy the world. This mood, in its turn, allows us to quietly kill those we hate and protect those we love. But perception of the uniform spiritual nature allows us to implement in practice the principle of justice. According to the above mentioned verses, when knowledge in goodness is developed, a person addresses regulating principles of behavior which control our sympathy and hatred (the basis of injustice). As a doer of activity, such person becomes resolute, exuberant and, mostly important, balanced in success and defeat. Such person is not proud (does no violence), when he/she wins (does not give rise to envy) and does not revenge when he/she loses (does not cause troubles).
Influenced by the guna of passion, a person differentiates living beings according to their bodies (not beautiful so not comfortable for pleasure, etc.). Under this condition, the basis for evaluation is pleasant/unpleasant people and whether happiness and grief, pleasures and danger are coming from these people. Such person is greedy, envious and impure (due to differentiation of living beings). Victory makes such person keep acting with great pains and defeat completely destroys the interest in activity. For purposes of society protection, such people cannot be relied on as their resolution is unstable. The main feature of a person in ignorance is that he/she considers his/her activity to be the only important thing. Such approach usually causes plenty of conflicts. Being doers, such personalities are materialistic, stubborn (in the negative meaning of this word), they like to resort to different types of force (for everyone to do what they want) and like to humiliate (give troubles). For the sake of their goal, they do not consider the amount of force they need to resort to and which suffering they cause to others. In society, such persons introduce the principle of the utmost injustice (a dictatorial regime).
Society is always composed of good, passionate and ignorant persons. Religious figures are truly full of goodness, rulers and warriors are of the mixed nature of goodness and passion, the mixture of passion and ignorance is inherent in merchants and producers and ignorance is inherent in servants and laborers. Accordingly, the first ones use their intelligence and control their senses; the second ones appeal either to intelligence or senses; the third ones appeal mainly to senses and sometimes to intelligence and the forth ones appeal to senses. And, respectively, they can be trusted certain types of activity. Advisors of society must be those who are strong in goodness. Protectors of society shall be persons who are of the passionate nature and like to act, but they are able to listen to advices and obey them. Producers shall be those who are apt to create material values and, thus, to money-making but at the same time they shall be ready to distribute accumulated wealth. And laborers and servants are those who lack the creative intelligence and can be only performers of someones will (constantly need guidance). These four types of people need each other. This need makes them cooperate for purposes of creating a harmonious society.
On the other hand, if people let themselves go (for the sake of enjoyment and power), then competition becomes the reason for a hard-fought battle. A person happens to accept cooperation and at the same time shows the mood of competition. This makes ones life dangerous and full of anxiety with resulting suffering.
In the material world, a living being has got two forms of egoism. One is called concentrated egoism and the other is extended egoism. When a person fights for satisfaction of needs of own body and mind, such egoism is called concentrated. But when a person based on own attachments fights for well-being of the family, loved ones, members of society, nation and, finally, mankind, it is called the extended egoism. Any material activity is based on these two forms of egoism. When considering this fact from the point of view of the gunas of material nature, it can be said that those influenced by ignorance are interested in satisfaction of needs of their bodies and minds only. Those whose life is influenced by passion are interested in satisfaction of their needs and the needs of their loved ones. Those in goodness worry about well-being of society, nation and mankind in general.
Individual satisfaction depends on the external world and that is why one is in want of communication. Originally communication is the source of bliss of the soul. Bliss comes from the contact with perfect living beings, and in the spiritual world everyone is as such . Whatever our emotions might be, when we approach the Lord and His confidential servants, the result is the bliss only. In the material world, according to the principle of reflection, the emotional approach to any object causes many troubles, disappointments, tension and other negative feelings which are not inherent in the soul. This happens because of the imperfect consciousness of living beings in the material world. Expectations of sense pleasure, self-centered consciousness make communication devoid of bliss. In the spiritual world, the soul strives to satisfy everyone approaching it and in the material world it strives to satisfy the self using capabilities of other living beings. In the material world, therefore, there appears the need for regulating principles of behavior which are called the etiquette. This happens for the simple reason that material consciousness in the uncontrolled state strives to subdue everyone to its will. When all are obsessed with this desire, there appears the need for the queue. The Aryan philosophy states that the queue acts from life to life: today Im a master you are a servant, tomorrow it will be vice versa.
The low position or, in other words, bad destiny causes envy. The superior position or good destiny causes arrogance. This is the basis of all psychology of the material world. These two positions transfer human relationships to the field of enmity and humiliation. Psychology of a living being in the material world is the expression of the desire to be God and includes the aspiration for leaderiship battle and the inability to accept higher position of another individual. What does leaderiship provide? The pleasure to be the supreme enjoyer and ruler. And what is unwillingness to accept anothers position driven by? By the desire to be in his/her shoes. Those who reach leaderiship develop pride and enjoy the pleasure to dictate their will to others. Those who fail develop envy and hatred to lucky ones. If society does not follow certain rules of behavior, these two feelings will make society filled with violence and make peoples life impossible. When people are uncivilized, the natural selection law is in place where the strong oppress the weak. Subsequently, the weak understand that by uniting they can get the strength to overthrow the strong. The weak, therefore, try to unite and the strong do their best to prevent it. This happens when society is secular or pseudo-religious. According to the Aryan concept, humanity does not make progress but degrades from God-centered, and consequently from the civilized society, to society that has rejected God and, consequently, is uncivilized. This topic will be considered in the chapter Epochs and Qualities Manifested in them.
Material consciousness seeks for power and enjoyment; if no regulating principles of behavior are accepted, it gains the liberty to get desired things through violence. If behavior rules are accepted, they always focus to put envy and arrogance under control. A secular society solves this problem with the help of two ideologies:
1) Power and enjoyment belong to the elected and commoners are meant to serve the interests of elected ones. The basis of this concept is violence (a dictatorial regime which inevitably implies revolutions).
2) Power and enjoyment belong to the strong, gifted, skillful, rascals (depending on the social system) and are available to all those who are capable to take possession of them (democratic states which often change their leaders giving the possibility for many to enjoy the power).
Piousness contains the component of awakening the spiritual consciousness which is based on faith. With such consciousness, a person can quietly face the others superiority and when meeting such personality think that the Supreme Ruler had some grounds (past lives) to reward that person with one of the six opulences: beauty, noble birth, education, strength, wealth, renunciation.
The Aryan society was based on the guna of goodness and searched for satisfaction of needs of all members of society but since it was God-centered it subordinated such satisfaction to Lords satisfaction. When there is no any personality capable to focus everyone on the self due to unique qualities (God), the fight for sense pleasure gets started which excludes the principle of justice. A strong individual attains the power and then begins to use this position and power to keep it. The God-centered society has got very interesting specifics. In the secular society, the one who is in power loses fear and develops the mood of all-permissiveness. But the God-centered society due to the real communication with God does not let such mood be developed even by world rulers because everyone understands the dependence on God. Such consciousness significantly reduces the competitive spirit. People with the secular habit of mind destroy each other in this competitiveness, but to get the same result a God-centered person tries to be pleasant to God. To destroy rivals, vicious qualities are required but to satisfy God pious qualities are required. In one case a person tries to destroy all pious qualities to be able to withstand harsh laws of competitiveness and in the other case a person tries to destroy all vicious qualities to be able to appease the Lord. From the point of view of the attitude and the target, these positions are absolutely different.
In this world, the material body obliges everyone to solve the problems of existence (food), peace, reproduction and protection. There are two types of activity which ensure the settlement of problems of existence: subtle (activity of mind) and gross (activity of body). Activity of mind ensures knowledge. And on the basis of this knowledge activity of body ensures existence. Influenced by different gunas, people refer to different knowledge and, respectively, solve problems by different methods and get different results.
Animals solve these problems according to their bodies in which they have appeared using that very little intelligence that is given to them and being under the power of respective instincts. Instinct is Gods help to those living beings who lost the possibility to use their intelligence as the result of their sinful activity.
Humans are different from animals in the level of development of intelligence and the ability to have faith in God. In all other desires, humans and animals are alike. They want to exist, rest, be protected and reproduce, but unlike animals humans base themselves on intelligence. For existence they develop agricultural and industrial sectors, for rest they build homes (motherland), for protection they make weapons, for reproduction they amass riches. When these four types of activities are done with the intention to enjoy and have domination over the nature, society is secular, but when the same activity is done in compliance with religious principles and for the sake of achieving the highest objective of religiosity, society is called the Aryan or God-centered. This is the difference between a secular and God-centered society. A secular society is focused on the search for all kind of new methods of sense pleasure, but a God-centered (the Aryan) society is focused on application of principles of liberation from this world. The only goal of a secular and pseudo-religious society is sense pleasure.
A real religious society is based on understanding of the soul eternity, the connection with God, temporality of the material existence and it is quite differently oriented. In this context, the material world is perceived as a temporary place to stay where living conditions are not very important and, respectively, tolerable. Society in general and each individual are centered on the idea of liberation from this material captivity. This intention restrains their malign desires. Today people have gained the liberty to act sinfully and virtue has lost its significance. Virtuous people feel oppressed. People are glorified not for virtue but for the ability to please senses as perversely as possible. In the real religious society, vicious people feel constrained (reserved), but righteous people are free to be in their nature of goodness. Society cannot encourage vice and hope for pious results. Such hope is absurd. The truth is that the material world is created for habitation of vicious souls, but it is also the truth that here God offered codes of conduct which would help us overcome our vicious nature and return to the spiritual world, our eternal abode. The eternal nature of the soul (freedom from the fear of death) in the spiritual world is the guarantee of a peaceful life of all living beings. A spiritual body is eternal and no one wants to do harm to it and, most importantly, no one can do it. A temporary body contributes to maintaining the atmosphere of struggle for existence because everyone who wants to do harm can do it and the reincarnation concept makes it possible to realize the need to consider each other.
From birth, people are usually gifted with certain qualities. There are those who possess the ability for mental labor, others for physical labor, others for manufacture and trade and others should be under the guidance of more skilled persons as they have no creative capabilities but can realize others ideas at a very high level. When persons mental abilities serve to satisfy the propensity for sense pleasure, such person is considered learned. When physical strength serves materialistic goals, a person starts abusing others, a nation does it with other nations in order to use others benefits and achievements for own interests. By means of power, they impose upon others their way of thinking. When creative power serves materialistic ideas, a person tries to impose upon others the own world perception which usually does not make anyone happy or solve any problems. When one is capable of simple work, such person tries to sell this work as dear as possible.
Any society faces the need to ensure the harmonious interaction of these capabilities of people. Harmony means the use of such mechanism which enables to control and if possible completely destroy arrogance of the strong (the propensity for humiliating the weak) and envy of the weak, their desire to make revolutions to destroy the strong and take their place. If society has got the mechanism which allows to solve this problem and at the same time to ensure peoples happiness both in this life and the next one, such society can be considered perfect. These problems cannot be solved by ordinary people because whoever they are they belong either to proud or envious men and, accordingly, protect interests of their group. Only the Supreme Personality of Godhead can affirm the principle of justice as He is unbiased. What is the nature of Gods equity? In fact, all living beings are Gods parcels and, respectively, are equally precious for Him. All other living beings are subject to cause-and-effect relationships of desire and hatred or sympathy and antipathy and therefore they are not able to be just. The Lord is the solely one who can cope with the need to develop mechanisms for satisfaction of those souls who have developed the desire of leaderiship (material consciousness) and at the same time to solve the problem how to restore the spiritual consciousness. According to the Aryan understanding, this is the main problem and the main difficulty.
In the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna says (chapter 4, verse 13):
According to the three modes of material nature and the work ascribed to them, the four divisions of human society were created by Me. And, although I am the creator of this system, you should know that I am yet the non-doer, being unchangeable.
When a person (or society) suffers enough on the way to reach sense pleasure, one (or society) tries to accept certain regulating principles of behavior. This attempt already contains the component of virtue. From now on, a person is able to accept the system offered by the Lord which is intended for step-by-step sequential transformation from material to spiritual consciousness.
The above mentioned capabilities of people in society provide execution of four social functions. Mentally-developed persons are usually thought leaders of society. Ones with physical strength and strength of mind are its protectors. Producers ensure economic growth and laborers and servants help other social classes realize their ideas. Figuratively speaking, these four functions constitute different parts of one body and have their own terms in Sanskrit:
1)Intellectuals religious figures (brahmanas) the head.
2)Leaders-warriors (kshatriyas) the arms.
3)Farmers-producers (vaishyas) the belly.
4)Laborers-servants (shudras) the legs.
No one can arrange functioning of society when neglecting these four classes. For harmonious functioning of society, there are required:
1)Intellectuals who advise and indicate ways of society development;
2)Producers (farmers) and merchants who create material values and provide food;
3)Laborers who do hard work;
4)Rulers who ensure the harmonious collaboration among these three classes and warriors who protect everyone from enemies from within and without.
As it is impossible to say which part of the body is more important, so it is impossible to say which social class is more important. Once the matter of priority rises, any system turns into the system of privileges and humiliation. Considering the psychology of persons influenced by the three gunas of material nature, it can be said that success of society depends on which guna persons carrying out these functions are influenced by. If, for instance, a person under the influence of ignorance executes duties of a counselor, society develops according to principles of violence and cruelty within the state and conducts an invasive foreign policy. If a counselor is influenced by the guna of passion, then such a person is sure to divide society into friends and enemies (clans). And if one is influenced by the guna of goodness, such a person will lead society to the overall equality and become the source of overall happiness (without creating unnecessary conflicts). People influenced by ignorance abridge peoples freedom because they think that only they have rights for enjoyment and domination over this world (dictatorial rulers). Those in the guna of passion lead society to freedom of senses (I can do what I want) for the sake of sense pleasure (democratic states). In goodness, moderation of senses is proposed for the sake of freedom from suffering and anxiety (the Aryan society). There is one more category of people, the Lords devotees, who suggest the freedom of senses but for the sake of the Lords satisfaction (inhabitants of the spiritual world).
While performing activity, as said above, the result achieved depends on the knowledge. Development of knowledge is the duty of brahmanas. Due to God-centered system, the Aryan society especially valued development of the spiritual knowledge as it is the basis for a persons release from vice. Vicious persons cannot connect with the Lord. The Lord is the absolute purity and He does not contact with anything impure. The Aryan society was based on the Vedas which are composed of different parts discussing various material problems and specifying godly ways of their solution. The main idea is that all living beings depend on the Lord and have to satisfy Him or His representative to solve arising problems.
In the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna says (Chapter 3, verses 10 and 15):
In the beginning of creation, the Lord of all creatures sent forth generations of men and demigods, along with sacrifices for Visnu, and blessed them by saying, "Be thou happy by this yajna (sacrifice) because its performance will bestow upon you a life of ease and, eventually, liberation.
Regulated activities are prescribed in the Vedas, and the Vedas are directly manifested from the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Consequently the all-pervading Transcendence is eternally situated in acts of sacrifice.
To satisfy the Lord, it is required to make sacrifices and for these sacrifices to be accepted pure persons are needed. These pure persons are brahmanas. The condition of society was dependent on their qualifications. Where qualified brahmanas live, God Himself lives. Brahmanas have got different qualifications. The simplest brahmanas were those who studied the karma-kanda section of the Vedas, lived a pure life and made sacrifices for fulfillment of material desires by religious methods. They were responsible for material prosperity of society and the minimal spiritual development.
Sacrifices were the axis of the activity of the Aryan society. Here the subject for a serious discussion is raised. In fact, the Vedic literature is full of descriptions of sacrifices; for a modern man their process and especially the results are unclear and unreliable. So, there is the need for the answer on the most important question: what was God-centeredness of the Aryan society based on? The answer on this question hides the difference between pseudo-religious and the Aryan societies. The Aryan literature is full of descriptions of meetings with the Supreme Personality of Godhead. No any other ancient and even more modern literature contains detailed descriptions of the personality of Godhead, the demigods and other personalities coming to us from different planets. It seems so impossible that modern scientists declare such descriptions fiction or revaluation of really existing lesser mortals who had displayed some incredible capabilities and therefore were worshiped on the same basis as gods. On the one hand, the Vedic literature includes very serious knowledge and till now its secrets have remained inaccessible to modern scientists, philosophers and ordinary people. On the other hand, incredible events, from our view point, are described there. Such contradiction makes the Vedas something unclear for people with secular mind habits.
In order to look no fool, people try to select from the Vedic literature aspects which seem to them believable and clever and reject those things which look like a fiction. The chaos is created in which the final goal of the Vedas remains inaccessible to the majority except for those who study them under the guidance of a genuine spiritual master. The secret is the Vedas shall be conceived comprehensively for their intrinsic meaning to unfold. Otherwise, they cannot be applied but can only serve as the basis for different philosophic contentions. In fact, things in the Vedas which seem incredible are the results which one receives by following them. If one follows the principles described in the Vedas, such person really gets those results which are described by the Vedas and which seem incredible to us. In fact, if there are no such results, then there is no need to follow the Vedas.
If Vyasadeva (the author of the Vedas) was such a serious personality that he described the most innermost secrets both of the material and spiritual knowledge, then why at the same time would he describe events which make the Vedas look like fiction? If the persons goal is to be accepted and to create a serious scripture, then what is the reason to fill this scripture with fictions or exaggerations which can be appropriate only for sentimental people and might also raise doubts in the minds of pragmatists? If the author is a serious person and his goal is to be useful, he will try to write about the truth acceptable for serious people. So what is the reason that Vyasadeva safely writes that demigods and God (Vishnu) personally attended the sacrificial arena, if they became satisfied? Why did Vyasadeva need this senseless fiction? Either he is a lying swindler and one who believes him is a fool or he tells the truth and then we must try to understand him. With regard to the author of such philosophic tractate as Vedanta-sutra it is not possible to apply the term lying swindler. All that is left is to accept descriptions of unaccustomed events as real and then we have to try to understand why these events took place in the past and do not happen now?
Any civilization leaves behind the descriptions of that reality in which it existed. Nowadays, for instance, the Lord never visits the planet and that is why there are no such descriptions. If even in one thousand years our descendants find the remains of the modern literature or scientific tractates, they will never contain description of God as in the modern life there are merely no contacts with God by representatives of various religions. The Hebrew book (the Old Testament) describes as some ascetics heard Gods voice or saw Him as the flame, but there are no descriptions of His personality anywhere. The Ancient Greeks communicated with demigods and respectively described such communication but there are no descriptions of communication with God because there was no such communication, the same was with the Egyptian civilization, etc.
When describing the social life especially referring to ways how to settle arising problems, the Aryan literature says that the Aryans tried to solve these problems with the help of the Supreme Personality of Godhead or the demigods (aliens). There was the method by which the Aryans invited them to their planet and asked to resolve emerging problems. This method was the sacrifice. When it was accepted, the Lord together with the demigods visited the arena of sacrifice. What did Lords satisfaction depend on? First of all, it depended on the brahmanas qualifications. There was the requirement for their perfect purity, both external and internal. Secondly, there was the requirement for the purity of the environment and attributes offered to the Lord and the demigods. Gold is deemed to be a pure element and therefore for Vedic sacrifices it was needed in great amounts. During the process of sacrifice the Lord and demigods were offered gold, grains, melted butter, etc. In some cases there were sacrifices of a horse, a goat or a bull. But Vedic sacrifices were in principle different from modern ones. By sacrifice, not only material problems were solved but brahmanas proved their purity and the wonderful power coming from it. The peculiarity of the Aryan society was that it was God-centered on the basis not only of faith in God but the real communication with Him. This statement sounds for modern people as if mocking their life experience. But until this difference is understood we wont be able to comprehend why the Aryan system of values and their social structure are more preferable. The unique trait of this society is in this very fact that it is in the position to assert the real connection with God and His servants (demigods) and solve arising problems with their help; this indeed makes the Aryans unique (not the type of the head, skin tone or heroism).
The life of the Aryans depended on meetings with God. For His satisfaction, the purity was required. Such purity was possessed by brahmanas (priests). For ordinary people, the idea of God is mysterious. Christ was made to work wonders all the time for his preaching to have any effect. Ordinary people manifesting desires for sense pleasure are egocentric and as a rule have got a limited focus of interest. It is a very hard labor to direct such people to the sphere of the spiritual life. The system of varnashrama-dharma is proposed to living beings inhabiting the material world by God Himself and it exists in order to provide a happy life and the minimal spiritual progress. Brahmanas duty is to establish the connection between the society and God by means of sacrifices. Ordinary people do not like to accept regulating principles of behavior. We can see that typically a religion cannot keep people within virtue limits (certainly if it is not done through violence). But they are greatly impacted by a miracle. In the Aryan society, there also took place such a miracle which kept all its members within the limits of certain behavior. During the sacrifice, a horse, a goat or a bull could be offered as a sacrifice. If this sacrifice was accepted, before everybodys eyes the animal got a new body and came out of the fire.
One may raise an objection that it was simply fiction or fraud of cunning brahmanas striving for the power over people. But here it is important to consider that it was before the eyes of the whole society how brahmanas lived a completely pure and ascetic (full of deprivations) lives. They were usually very ascetic, lived in privacy and possessed otherworldly powers which removed the need for a lie or trick. They could simply affect people to get what they wanted like modern paranormalists do without showing any miracles. Then, there was no need for a lie. Here there is one very important circumstance. Material consciousness (strive for sense pleasure and power) requires a limiting factor. In the Aryan society, laborers-servants, producers-merchants were controlled by the power of leaders. Leaders were controlled by priests. And who controlled priests themselves? Priests were controlled by God. This point is very vulnerable. For hundreds of years, pseudo-religious persons made people unhappy in that very point. If a priest like a very common person is influenced by desires (attachments) and hatred (enmity), then religion is the most comfortable way to control people. All religious personalities did and do it this way except for ascetics. Ascetics take a renounced lifestyle and eventually their hearts are purified from binding ties of attachments and hatred. The Bhagavad-Gita describes the specific mood as the symptom of self-realization (chapter 2, verse 56):
One whose mind remains undisturbed amidst misery, who does not crave for pleasure, and who is free from attachment, fear, and anger, is called a sage of steady wisdom.
From the viewpoint of common values, this verse is very puzzling by offering to tolerate happiness just like suffering! At first sight, this proposal is very strange. Souls blissful nature instantly enjoys everything which brings us happiness and rejects suffering. What does Krishna mean? In fact, the material happiness delays the return of the soul to the spiritual world just as suffering. This verse suggests us that only one who is free from attachments and hatred can keep balance both in happiness and suffering.
Attachments appear in communication. An ascetic brings communication to the possible minimum. Due to it, ascetics heart becomes free from material impurity and gets a balanced nature. A human life can be entrusted only to this balance, while brahmanas were advisors of society and, consequently, they were responsible for the course and the result of a human life. When a brahmana reached the perfection in purity, sacrifices made by such brahmana were like a miracle, and this circumstance helped society to trust this brahmana. When the Lord together with the demigods visited the arena of sacrifice, He showed everyone that advices of this brahmana could be trusted. When the Lord or the demigods did not come, their dissatisfaction became obvious and society expected troubles. The Vedic literature also contains such stories. Hence, the chain of control became perfect, the assessment of the activity of all links in the social chain was given at that time. If the Lord was satisfied with the interchange of all society layers, He appeared and satisfied everybodys desires. When a brahmana is not pure, such person is not able to invite the Lord, and then society has to satisfy its desires by material methods. Contest and fight begin, thus the balance is broken. How do these religious figures act to hide their own deficiency? They declare that to see God is not possible .
The Aryan society had such number of pure brahmanas of the highest qualification, thanks to them people saw the demigods and God, so that no question came up regarding His existence. The only problem was that everyone understood: the meeting with God was possible only thanks to the perfect purity which was provided by the perfect religious process. The Aryan society gained fantastic results only due to close relationships with demigods and the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The brahmanas power was the basis for the prosperity of the whole society.
With powers available, there is always the danger to misuse them (apply unjustly). Therefore, no brahmana can be considered a person who possesses superhuman powers but has no self-control. Self-control means not to use own capacities to satisfy personal attachments and hatred. Self-control helps a brahmana to develop the forgiving nature. Brahmanas, thus, were focused to reach the Supreme Personality. They reached perfection of self-realization by restoring their spiritual nature and could accompany ordinary people to God and their superhuman powers were by-products of their ascetism.
In the life of society, brahmanas clairvoyance played a very important role. This is a factor without which no society can exist. In the material world, availability of superhuman powers is the undeniable fact. All that remains is to find the point of their correct application. A secular society also uses services of various clairvoyants whose advices are followed by many leaders. What is the difference between a typical clairvoyant and a brahmana? The difference is in the source of the power, the world view which is served by this power, the life style and respective results. Brahmanas affirmed in self-realization are persons who get their powers from demigods or the Lord. This is the guarantee of the truth of the received information.
Modern clairvoyants get their powers from ghosts or inhabitants of lower planets called asuras. Therefore, we can see that the life style of modern clairvoyants is no way different from the life style of ordinary people. All of them are under the influence of the gunas of ignorance and passion with respective habits and consciousness. Passion makes them have personal interests and ignorance makes them lie and do violence to satisfy these interests. A modern clairvoyant makes the best efforts for anyone who has got in his/her hands to feel the constant need for his/her services like a drug addict. At first, to get one proved in their powers, they very often make such person free from suffering and later entail new troubles for a person to repeatedly resort to them and be dependent on them. It becomes possible because society allows clairvoyants to live a secular life.
Brahmanas lived ascetic lives and the state of their minds was the proper one for religious people. As mentioned above, such life style allowed to become free from the impact of lower gunas of the material nature which in turn was the guarantee for their honesty and impartiality. The Aryan society required a very pious behavior from clairvoyants (priests). Those with superhuman powers but with low inclinations were expelled by society as dangerous persons bringing troubles. As a rule, such persons became ornaments of the demon society. The Mahabharata contains an interesting episode relating to this topic. Prior to the frequently mentioned battle between the Pandavas and Duryodhana, the latter unexpectedly faced some strange personalities from the lower planets (demons). At that time Duryodhana began to doubt the correctness of his behavior and right then they came up to him and said, Do you think it is your battle with the Pandavas? No, you are mistaken. It is our battle with demigods for the power over this planet. We are very powerful and you will win under our auspices. Go and fight coolly. Believing in their prophesy, Duryodhana fought until the last minute with confidence in his victory. When his mates came to him and told that the battle had been lost and there would be no sense to resist any more, he laughed in his mind and thought that they simply did not know things which were known to him. Similarly, for instance, Adolf Hitler, deceived by clairvoyants, believed up to the end in the prophesy they had made to him, but the result was ruination of Europe and his burnt body instead. A typical clairvoyant, therefore, brings anxiety in society (for instance, there was the prophesy from the most reputable astrologers that Britain in 1997 was to go under water), but a brahmana, on the contrary, brings appeasement.
Brahmanas advices always neutralized conflicts and promoted peace in society. They left their ascesis, came to the community in order to take out ordinary people from the influence of passion and ignorance and to validate virtue because brahmanas hearts were free from envy. That is why it is very important what powers are used by clairvoyants who rule human lives. This factor governs the destiny of an individual person, a nation and a country in general. Brahmanas were the source of virtue for society. No virtue can be distributed by one who is impure. The prophesy of such person is devaluated as it is not supported by his own experience and consequently is not able to assert anyone in virtue. The other important thing was that brahmanas did not strive for power. If society did not need them, they did not interfere in community affairs.
Thus, the Aryan society was headed by brahmanas. They were true religious persons having elevated pious qualities, knowledge and mystique powers. Their duties were to exercise ascesis to keep the purity of the body, mind and consciousness. Possessing elevated mentality, they developed incredible power (it is called the same way, brahma-teja, brahmanas power) which was used only to ensure the connection of society with God. The Aryan culture categorically forbade people with impure consciousness (impure habits) to study the Vedas. Nowadays it is thought that brahmanas did so because of their arrogance. But it was not the case. Study of the Vedic literature by persons with sinful inclinations was forbidden in order not to let them speculate on this knowledge to excuse their sinful inclinations. It is said that people approach the divine knowledge out of the three motives:
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, (https://www.litres.ru/pages/biblio_book/?art=65303751) .
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- Жанр: Духовная литература, Научно-популярная литература
- Теги: здоровое общество, идеология, книги для чтения на английском языке, Самиздат, ведическая религия
- Язык: Книги на русском языке
- Объём: 440 стр. 2 иллюстрации
- Дата написания: 2007
- Возрастные ограничения: 12+
- Дата выхода книги: 25 мая 2021
- Версия: 📚 Электронная книга
Community living arrangements require correct understanding of human psychology. Daily wants of a human are not different from those of animals, but a human inherently is gifted with much more developed intelligence. If a human is another species with the purpose to assure existence by means of natural selection, then the question arises: why are we given the intelligence and the emotional life which do not stop searching for recipes of happiness and justice? Every nation at some point of its evolution feels as having found this recipe. What was it like for the Aryans? The Aryans are among those rare nations with the culture addressing the inner life of all living beings in this creation. This Book invites you to travel to the world of the Aryans. Hope, it will be enjoyable and helpful. We are sure that every “traveler” will be delighted at and respectful of the inner life of the Aryans and will find solutions for many psychological problems which hitherto have seemed nonsolvable.
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