Aryans and Us

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 people’s 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 specific duty as a kshatriya, you should know that there is no better engagement for you than fighting on religious principles; and so there is no need for hesitation.

O Pārtha, happy are the kshatriyas to whom such fighting opportunities come unsought, opening for them the doors of the heavenly planets.

If, however, you do not perform your duty of good fighting, then you will certainly incur sins for neglecting your duties and thus lose your reputation as a fighter.

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 battlefield out of fear only, and thus they will consider you insignificant.

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. One’s 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 one’s 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 Lord’s 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 Pandu’s brother was to reign till the adulthood of his sons. When it came time, Pandu’s 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. Pandu’s 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 one’s 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 Arjuna’s 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.