Archi Devi Dasi (Ekmekchjan Adelaida) - Aryans and We

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.