Aryans and We

59. He is the giver of salvation to the enemies whom He kills,

60. He is the attractor of liberated souls,

61. He is the performer of wonderful varieties of pastimes,

62. He is surrounded by devotees endowed with wonderful love of Him,

63. He can attract all living entities all over the universes by playing on His flute,

64. He has a wonderful excellence of beauty which cannot be rivaled anywhere in the creation.

Among these, 54 qualities also belong to jivas (His inherent parcels, namely all the living beings). Depending on the extent of their love of God, these qualities are manifested in jivas fully or partially. Those who fully manifest these qualities, never come to this material world because they are protected by the “amount” of their love for God.

Those jivas whose attachment (trust) is not so strong often become unsatisfied as a result of misunderstanding the motives for His actions. In fact, no one can understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead – a limited spiritual parcel cannot perfectly understand the intrinsic motives for actions of the infinite Lord. The difference is that the close associates never mistrust God.

In general, it is the topic of very confidential talks which would be reasonable to discuss only with advanced believers. Here we will present the main concepts of the Aryan philosophy simply to have the opportunity to correctly understand their life style. Being qualitatively equal to the Lord, but quantitively infinitely small, some living beings feel envy of Lord’s confidential devotees. This is a specific feeling which appears when the Lord brings some of the devotees near to Him.

Very provisionally, it can be described as follows: a living being who does not possess such a potency to serve the Lord as a confidential devotee cannot understand why He has brought closer this devotee. This feeling becomes the basis for dissatisfaction or roughly speaking the feeling of injustice. A living being thinks that God does not “see” how he/she is devoted to Him. If He saw, then he/she would have been chosen as a confidential person not another one. Actually, this explanation is very rough and provisional. In the spiritual world the consciousness cannot be so rude. This is just a transient feeling, very keen but it is already called “envy” and with this feeling in the heart a spiritual parcel cannot keep staying in the spiritual world where everything is enlightened with love and no negative things can take place. Once such negative thing appears, a personality is already not in the spiritual world, practically this change of existence does not take any time once envy appears.

Envy lies in the basis of the material existence. This feeling devours all good qualities of jiva. Everybody in the material world is envious. Those free from envy do not come to this world (the exception is only for Lord’s servants sent by Him to open the way back home to all willing it). "I’m better, I’m more worthy". With this spirit, jiva cannot stay in the spiritual world any more. From these personalities, the Lord immediately “hides”, hides His devotees and gives the former the possibility to make their own society. This possibility is this very material world. One who does not understand the nature of envy will never be able to become an Aryan. One who does not accept this truth about the material existence will never be able to develop this system of values common for the Aryans. Therefore, having created the material world and given us the possibility to realize our desires, the Lord in fact becomes our servant putting at our disposal His material energy with which we can do whatever we want.

But this freedom of action becomes a heavy burden on the shoulders of a small living being who immediately loses the culture of relationships with other living beings attributable to the spiritual world and understands how in fact the Lord’s “job” is difficult. Trying to imitate God but not capable of being just, a living being gets entangled in the knots of sinful activities and becomes an eternally conditioned (i.e. deserving to stay in the material prison) jiva (soul) doomed to sufferings for causing sufferings to other living beings. Figuratively, the Aryans see the material world as a prison designated for envious souls. One way or another, this concept is supported by all religious movements.

There is one more question to be answered. What determines unequal birth conditions of all living beings? How to explain that one is born rich, another is born poor, another is healthy and another is ill and so on? The answer on this question is given only by the reincarnation concept. By nature, jiva is eternal. Having descended to this material world, it stays here for a very long time, practically eternally. As the result of various activities it gains certain amount of reactions becoming the author of its own destiny. For instance, in this life we eat bodies of many animals and in next lives these animals will have the possibility to eat us. Thus, the rule “as you sow so you reap” is implemented, not within one life, but from life to life. The fact is that in practice we can often see that a person commits what is known as sins without any punishment. The secret that lies beneath is that the punished for committed evil are all those who are born in poverty, born to bad parents, without opportunity to get education, who are ugly, have congenital diseases, who are under malicious state prosecution, etc. But that brings up the question: why cannot we remember our past lives? The answer should be found in the Lord’s noble nature. The Lord is merciful and He is not interested in artificial processes of jiva’s return to Him. Jiva itself is so much entangled in its efforts to take the Lord’s position by trying to predominate and enjoy that it is practically doomed to living in the material world forever. And yet, despite the amount of sufferings jiva does not stop wanting power and enjoyment, therefore it still desires to be in this world. To satisfy this desire, the factor of the memory loss about past lives is simply a must.

As an example, we can imagine that in the past life one was a man and he was very attached to women. Attached so much that at the time of death he was thinking about them. According to the reincarnation law, in the next life he will be born in the body of a woman. And now imagine that in the woman’s body one remembers the past man’s life. Could it be possible with this memory be a sane woman? Therefore, the Lord arranged it so that a wise person who eyes are balmed with the Vedic knowledge can clearly see the reincarnation law, but an ignorant and attached to material existence person simply reaps the fruits of actions “enjoying” their good and bad consequences. The memory loss, thus, is necessary for us to peacefully enjoy these fruits. The presence of the memory would cast us in horror. Paralyzed by the memory, we would immediately strive back to God but at this point we would not have solved the paramount problem: the problem of envy. Then getting to the spiritual world and coming to ourselves, we would promptly repeat the same mistake and have to return to the material world again.

But God does not need our forced return and as long as we want to live without Him, He will create all conditions to fulfill this desire. That is why He helps us to forget our past lives for us to “peacefully” reap the fruits of our activities and “enjoy” all those things which we have deserved in our past lives. This path is as eternal as spiritual existence. The spiritual life is directed to eternal ascension and the material life to similarly eternal degradation. Once falling into this world, soul is so much entangled in causes and consequences of its activities, that there is no other hope of deliverance but the mercy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and His confident devotees. The hope which is like a helping hand given to a drowning man in the sea.

Therefore, to sum it up:

1)There is the spiritual world which is the dwelling of spiritual parcels and God. There everyone is eternal, blissful and knowledgeable. Eternity is the consequence of the uniformity with the Lord’s nature, the bliss is the association with Him by means of devotional service and the knowledge is His mercy.

2) Spiritual beings have always got a free choice. Envying the absolute position of the Supreme Personality of Godhead or a more superior position of another jiva, some living beings express the desire to separate from Him in order to satisfy their desires, do justice instead of God. But because living beings are inherent parcels of God, such separation is not possible in fact. Being free from anger and envy, the Lord creates for such persons the material world where they get the opportunity to act according to their desires. In fact, the Aryans look at the material world as the evidence of the humble and generous nature of the Lord. The Lord creates this material world, places us here to fulfill our desires rejecting God and … “hides” from us in order not to stir our hatred.

3) Losing the visual presence of the Lord, a living being enthusiastically tries to realize its desires to enjoy and dominate. It does it by imitating relationships of the spiritual world. According to the Aryan philosophy, everything existing in the material world is only the perverted reflection of the spiritual world when we try to recreate spiritual relationships simply placing in the center ourselves not God. All beings who happen to be in the material world try to imitate God’s actions. The concept of God means the idea of uniqueness which is inherent only to the Absolute and One Truth. As long as there are too many beings willing to be God, there emerges the necessity of the sequence. Actually, time is the factor which puts on the queue all those willing to be God (the leader), so there appears the need of death (temporary), i.e. the sequence. Today the leader is me, tomorrow this opportunity will be given to you.

4) The material world is the prison of the spiritual world where envious and rebellious souls are placed. All laws applicable in the material world are intended to return us to our spiritual consciousness. Though the “punishment” enforced by God is very peculiar. He “punishes” us by granting all our desires. Our desires diverge from their spiritual harmony and thus are not able to bring us happiness we had in the spiritual world. Just to prove this truth, the Lord grants all our desires – desires fulfillment of which means violence against others with resulting sufferings. The original neutral material substance is called pradhana. Living beings come in contact with pradhana by their desires and as the result of this the material diversity appears. The material world is only the reflection of desires of all living beings existing in it.

5) Depending on the rudeness of consciousness, living beings in the material world are bound by three ropes (the gunas): ignorance, passion and goodness. These bonds are created by cause-effect relationships of actions of living beings, i.e. they form the time – the principle of the sequence.

6) Together with creation of the material world, the Lord takes care of our returning home, to the spiritual world. For this purpose, He gives inhabitants of material worlds the Vedas which contain the knowledge how to live happily in the material world and return back home to Godhead. Ones who follow instructions of the Vedas are called the Aryans (those going to God).

These are the general provisions of the Aryan theory. As said, the Vedas see that the most important psychological problem is the envy of the position of God and of other living beings in the spiritual world. This world where we all live is meant to solve this problem. This is the Aryan’s answer on the question: “Where does life come from and what is its meaning?”

A living being comes to this world to realize its desire to make decisions and independently enjoy in God’s capacity. In reality, it cannot be independent as it is the eternal inseparable parcel of God and is eternally dependent on Him. After leaving the spiritual world, this dependence is shown as the dependence on the material nature. The energy supplying living beings with all necessary things is called yoga-maya. When a living being does not want to associate with God, this energy covers consciousness of a living being with ignorance and creates the apparent independence imitating the semblant separation from God. The energy having this function is called maha-maya. It shows things that are not real but that we want to see, that is our independence from God. This is the transformation of the same energy, yoga-maya. While yoga-maya is the energy acting to give pleasure by revealing us more and more the sublime and attractive nature of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, maha-maya deceives, i.e. moves away from God and educates by means of sufferings.

Further we will see how the Aryans describe the laws applicable in the material world. The principle function of the material world is to correct the wrong desire of a living being to function as God (to control, dominate and enjoy). Any time when we try to realize the principle of our independence, the material world acts so as to prove how we are dependent as we are insignificantly small. Most insignificantly a living being feels under the influence of time (death). For an eternal spiritual parcel, there is no other more humiliating situation than to accept the necessity of destruction (death). Thousands and millions of people dreamt and tried to overcome the influence of time (death), but in due time death knocked at their doors regardless of their desires and plans.

The material world is described as the liaison world of the three gunas of nature (bonds of attachment and hatred). The nature obeys cause-effect laws. The spiritual world obeys the parallel law, there is no time factor there. In other words, there is always the present time there, where any event exists eternally. This is so because the spiritual consciousness never treats any one so that a reaction would be needed. For the unprepared reader this subject is very serious and difficult to understand. The material world obeys the law of sequence (the queue) as here contradictory desires should be realized. Such desires could not be fulfilled simultaneously. We all want to be God, but God is only one, therefore there is the need for the queue: today I have the chance to be God (the controller), tomorrow someone else will have it. Therefore, there is no present time here. Only the past and the future exist in the material world. The old has gone like the water running through fingers.

In the spiritual world, living beings show attachment to other beings and God. There such attachment is the source of bliss as it is addressed to perfect personalities. While in the material world, a living being remembers that the attachment was the source of the infinite bliss and tries to feel the bliss here by attachment to different personalities. But in the material world consciousness of all living beings is contaminated. This contamination makes them imperfect, but an imperfect personality from its inception is not able to give happiness. Soul cannot get rid of its ability to develop attachments. In fact, soul can never get rid of its nature of eternity, enjoyment and knowledge. In the spiritual world, all living beings associate with each other and the Lord. This association brings happiness. We subconsciously “remember” this happiness and remember that we got it via association. In the material world, this attachment trait puts us on the spot. The Bhagavad-Gita describes this process as follows (chapter 2, verses 62, 63):

While contemplating the objects of the senses, a person develops attachment for them, and from such attachment lust develops, and from lust anger arises.

From anger, delusion arises, and from delusion bewilderment of memory. When memory is bewildered, intelligence is lost, and when intelligence is lost, one falls down again into the material pool.

Thus, the material absorption starts with the misuse of our ability for attachment. Happiness of soul is infinitely dependent on its relations with the Lord. This very inclination to associate causes sufferings to conditioned persons with material consciousness. Egocentric material consciousness makes a person lose the spiritual perfection. In the material world, a person can be attracted by another person but in the process of association it is doomed for а disappointment. Indeed, any time when we look for happiness in association, we want to experience that feeling which we had in the spiritual world associating with the Lord and His devotees. Dissatisfaction which appears as the result of imperfect association degrades to violence via which we want by all means to get that spiritual enjoyment which we remember of. This state is like certain madness when we take someone by the scruff of the neck and say, “Give me happiness, hear me? Give it, just as you choose! Ah, do not you give it? Well, then take that! And that!", and there starts the chain of violence. While a conditioned living being has some hopes for happiness, it flatters, but when it loses the hope, it “goes beast-mode” when it is under the influence of ignorance; or becomes a philosopher if it is under the influence of goodness. In the material world, a living being gets entangled as it develops incorrect attachments and as a consequence becomes disappointed. This is what the material world is for, for us at every step to realize a simple truth: happiness came to us only from association with the Lord and His devotees. Although not all living beings come to this conclusion when disappointment or suffering (which is the same) knocks at the door. Personal attitude to suffering depends on which condition (the guna) one is under. Here we will try to briefly and easily explain the Aryan view point on cause-and-effect relationships functioning in the material world. Cause-and-effect relationships of the material world are called gunas. The guna means the rope. The guna, thus, is that law with which the material world ties us to the particular cause-and-effect mechanism of the nature according to our merits. To begin with, all living beings in this world have got four defects:

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 Vedanta, 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: