Archi Devi Dasi (Ekmekchjan Adelaida) - Aryans and We

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.