Archi Devi Dasi (Ekmekchjan Adelaida)
Aryans and We
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 God’s 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 Vedānta, 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 personality’s 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 human’s 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 nature’s 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 fiancé, 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 I’ve 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 Draupadi’s 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 Pandava’s spiritual master beheaded Draupadi’s 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, one’s attitude to life and situations formed around the life is greatly different from the atheist’s 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 atheist’s 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 а 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 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.