Maya-2: The fight against lust

A key factor generating Maya or illusions is lust. Lust, for money, power, prestige and so on are a key factor in degradation of once powerful societies, and their eventual conquest and extermination by barbarians with little social values standing at the gate. They too are guided by lust, a lust for the riches and booty that a rich society can give.

But there is a difference. The barbarians have some sort of unity between them. They are united by their lust for the opponent's wealth. On the other hand, the opponent, the rich and powerful society has fights in between itself. So, it's house is divided.

Sounds familiar?

Sounds like current affairs?

It should. The same situation has played over and over, generations after generations, centuries after centuries, millenia after millenia. It seems that mankind can never permanently evolve beyond a particular stage. The end of times (good/bad) also seems to be a rule along with the ultimate truth in the world.

Avoiding lust is simple. We must be able to draw a line, between what we can achieve, how much to achieve so as to be able to live a comfortable life without damaging the self, or the fabric of the society. For if the lust to get wealth or power grows beyond a certain extent, it will start affecting the society. It starts coming in the line of duty, and when duty is neglected for one's greed, the system starts to fail.

Breach of duty doesn't happen all of a sudden. And so doesn't lust. It happens unknowingly. It starts with a trickle. Say, one day a policeman happens to spend his day's earnings from the police station on booze. He needs to give the same amount of money to his wife who was expecting to buy something that day. He's in a fix now. For once, he accepts a bribe from a person who breaks a rule and sets him free. The cop gets the money, gives it to his wife . Case closed.

That is if he feels guilty for what he has done. The chains of duty are sometimes very feeble on people. It involves sacrifice, selfless labor, doing that extra hour to ensure that something has been done correctly. In comparison, breaking the call of duty is so attractive and soothing for the mind. Once greed/lust has been tasted, it keeps growing until it devours the man as a whole. If this is replicated on a larger scale, the whole society is at stake.

A second place, apart from the specimen of corruption described above, where lust is particularly discerning is Indian politics. It is known by all that for far too long, politicians have indulged in the lust for the power. Coalition politics is a natural outcome of this lust. Parties with like ideologies but differing in matters of governance unite after the elections to form the government. In this, they let governing the nation on the backburner. Policy making becomes insanely difficult since the policy has to cater to all the members of the coalition. Time taken to form the policy also increases dramatically as a result. Moreover, ideologies of political parties that are not the interest of the majority populace of the nation are enforced into decision making only because that party has got some seats in the Lok Sabha. Another place where one finds lust in the 'largest democracy' is when we find regional parties mushrooming in states instead of having few large national political parties that rule the nation.

These regional parties are (IMO only) born when a national party doesn't give local candidates a preference over their loyalists. Again, lust for power and nepotism from the national party come into question over here. Now what happens is that the regional party might not have very vast resources compared to a national party with nation wide reach and a larger number of fund-raisers. So how do they set out getting votes? They then resort to caste based politics by propping up somebody from a majority caste of the region. Caste issues then triumph over public issues. Throw in religion based politics, quota demands, and voila! we get a lip smacking recipe for disaster.

These are the enemies within the Indian state that our nationalist minded folk have to root out. We might explore the solutions for the above impasse in another post.

As far as barbarians at the gate are concerned, India is safe only as they have their own troubles to tend to. The moment they convince each other to unite for the booty, for our resources, we'll be done.

Consider as well the following dialogue between Shri Krishna and Arjuna about solving the problems of lust. The focus is on controlling the senses, knowing that mind and intelligence are above the senses. I wish that no call of duty is averted just for the short term comfort of the senses. It would only bring long term disaster.

1)

Chapter 3:
३६
अर्जुन उवाचा
अथ केना प्रयुक्तो ’यम्
पापं करती पुरुषः
अनिच्चान्न अपि वर्स्नेया।
"Arjuna said: O descendant of Vrishni, by what is one impelled to sinful acts, even unwillingly, as if engaged by force?"

३७
श्री-भगवान उवाचा
कम ऐसा क्रोध ऐसा
रजो-गुना-समुद्भावः
महासनो महा-पाप्मा
विद्ध्य इनाम इह वैरिनाम।
"The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: It is lust only, Arjuna, which is born of contact with the material mode of passion and later transformed into wrath, and which is the all-devouring sinful enemy of this world।"

३८
धुमेनावृयते वह्निर
यथादार्सो मलेना का
यथोल्बेनाव्रतो गर्भास
तथा तेनेदम अव्र्तम ।
"As fire is covered by smoke, as a mirror is covered by dust, or as the embryo is covered by the womb, the living entity is similarly covered by different degrees of this lust।"

३९
अव्र्तम जनानाम एतेना
ज्नानिनो नित्य-वैरिना
कम-रूपेण कौन्तेय
दुस्पुरेनानालेना का।
"Thus the wise living entity’s pure consciousness becomes covered by his eternal enemy in the form of lust, which is never satisfied and which burns like fire।"

४०
इन्द्रियानी मनो बुद्धिर
अस्याधिस्थानाम उच्यते
एतैर विमोहयाटी ऐसा
जनानाम अव्र्त्य देहिनाम।
"The senses, the mind and the intelligence are the sitting places of this lust. Through them lust covers the real knowledge of the living entity and bewilders him."

४१
तस्मात् त्वं इन्द्रियान्य आदौ
नियम्य भारतार्सभा
पाप्मानं प्रजाही ही इनाम
जनाना-विज्नना-नासनम।
"Therefore, O Arjuna, best of the Bharatas, in the very beginning curb this great symbol of sin [lust] by regulating the senses, and slay this destroyer of knowledge and self-realization।"

४२
इन्द्रियानी परानी अहुर
इन्द्रियेभ्याह परम मनः
मनसस तू पारा बुद्धिर
यो बुद्धेह परतास तू सह।
"The working senses are superior to dull matter; mind is higher than the senses; intelligence is still higher than the mind; and he [the soul] is even higher than the intelligence।"

४३
एवं बुद्धेह परम बुद्ध्वा
सम्स्ताभ्यात्मनाम आत्मना
जाही सत्रुम महा-बहो
कम-रूपम दुरासदम।
"Thus knowing oneself to be transcendental to the material senses, mind and intelligence, O mighty-armed Arjuna, one should steady the mind by deliberate spiritual intelligence [Krishna consciousness] and thus—by spiritual strength—conquer this insatiable enemy known as lust."

Maya (It's Maya all around-2)

In the last post, I talked about how Maya can cloud the human mind. And one of the few ways to come out of Maya can be to create awareness among the people. And leaving the ambiguity of my previous posts, today I am going to talk only in the context of India.

On one matter the people of India seem to be relatively well united as compared to other matters. That the current condition of India is because of the continuing sack of the nation by the political elite. More than any other human population in the world, it is the political elite of India that has the ostrich syndrome, the temerity to hide the head in the sand, which it has been found recently, is not even done by ostriches. At best, it is a tactic by the bird to hide from the predators, but yet its head remains outside the sand and it will take flight upon seeing predators, often causing injuries by its powerful kicks which might even cause death.

Sorry for going OT for some time, but had to show that even the bird is better than our political elite and causes damage when provoked. In the context of India, it is needed that:

1) People are told that merely voting the government into power is not going to work. You have to be after the politicians till the time they do not retire from politics (which anyway happens only when they die). For this, they should be made aware of the 'Rights To Information' act of the government. As far as my understanding of this is concerned, the act is there to provide the people an answer of the government's policies regarding various matters, and our preference shoud be most importantly on matters like national security, education, employment and other public welfare.

2) People are made aware of their fundamental duties and rights. They should also be made aware of the structure of the government and its functioning. Rather than understanding that they just have to vote, they should be given a crash course in Civics to understand the structure of the government. After all, doesn't any worker, no matter what the skill level, know how to operate a machine? I bet that there are people out there who do not know how the government functions. Perhaps even I do not know it very well. If democracy is a government run by the people, for the people and of the people, they should also know how to operate it.

3) People should be made aware that voting, even by sheer impulses if not through intuition, is better than not voting at all. Politicians must be made aware that the only way that they are going to get elected and have power is to serve the people. I wonder, that inspite of the difficulties that India faces, why is there still not a 100% voting turnout? Or even in the mid nineties? Even in today's frustrated times, voting turnout is 60% or 70% and so on. Another worrying idea seems that some people who came up with ideas such as "Don't vote 09 campaign". Such defeatist initiatives should be ignored at the least, and stopped at the best by co-operation among the people.

4) Leaving the dogma of the Hindu/Jain/Buddhist/Zoroastrian/Jewish/Muslim/Christian caste system behind, whoever is in power needs to be told shamelessly that he/she/it has to serve the people like a kshatriya (a warrior). There is nothing to be shameful in it. It is simply impossible to lead the nation by being something else than a kshatriya. Leading the nation involves following the righteous path, doing what is necessary and not doing bits of everybody's will. A person must be ready to call someone's bluff and I do not see that happening in any other way then being bold, courageous and war-like, characteristics which are supposed to be found in a kshatriya.

Moreover, on occasions like today, people should force their supposed-to-be 'kshatriya' leaders to start aggressive posturing and actions, and make Pakistan face the retributions rather than to fold up on themselves. And now, there's also evidence implicating that nation in the Mumbai strikes. After all, as the great seer of the Bhagwada Gita says:

Chapter 2:
३२
यद्र्च्चाया कोपपन्नाम
स्वर्ग-द्वारं अपव्र्तम
सुखिनः क्षत्रियाः पर्थ
लभन्ते युद्धं इद्र्सम।
"O Partha, happy are the kshatriyas to whom such fighting opportunities come unsought, opening for them the doors of the heavenly planets."

३३
अथ सत त्वं इमं धर्म्यम
संग्रामं न करिश्यसी
ततः स्व-धर्मं किर्तिम का
हित्वा पापं अवप्स्यासी।
"If, however, you do not perform your religious duty of fighting, then you will certainly incur sins for neglecting your duties and thus lose your reputation as a fighter."

३४
अकिर्तिम कापी भूतनी
कथायिस्यन्ति ते ’व्यायाम
सम्भावितस्य काकिर्तिर
मरनद अतिरिच्यते।
"People will always speak of your infamy, and for a respectable person, dishonor is worse than death."

Dishonor seems to be the preference of India's leaders. And dishonor seems to be the preference of our people, over death, which is going to happen anyway when they elect such people to power or do not respond when such leaders are hoisted on to us from the powers beyond our reach. So, we end up getting both dishonor and death, while those responsible for the terror and carnage at the Taj that visited us get their supposed rewards in heaven for their 'martyrdom'.

"Splendid" is the only thing I can say of the current government's response to this provocation. The least we can do right now is to boot out the Congress and their allies in the next election so ruthlessly as to make an example before the other parties for them to understand what would happen of them when they do not follow the people's wishes.