by Naresh Jotwani

A couple of days ago, Keshav Vaze wrote a comment, which we posted here. This post is a follow up on the last part of Keshav’s comment. The post is also, in essence, a speculation on why someone may fail to consider Dharma in his actions.

Quoted below is the last paragraph in Keshav’s comment, on which this post takes a different view:

Unless the society accepts the tenets that ‘Good is good in itself. There is no one sitting in judgement. There is no reward nor punishment: neither in this birth nor in the next birth’, the society will land into this problem.

Co-editor R. Srinivasan (‘Srini’) has also contributed greatly to this post, through discussions held over the phone.

Reincarnation can be viewed as a law of conservation applied to the living spirit; the living spirit shifts from one bodily manifestation to another. Since everything moves according to universal Dharma, such shifting of the living spirit must also be seen as a feature of universal Dharma.

In India, the argument based on Dharma has mostly been applied to a the past. Logically, however, we must also take it forward into the future. Dharma is eternal, timeless. Being aware of Dharma, a person can surely attempt to make his next life better. Why must one be smug with what one has? A good deed is for the betterment of one‘s future, one‘s next life.

That logic is simple, but not always acted upon. Why? Under what conditions does a person fail to act for the betterment of his future, his next life?

That can happen when a person wrongly sees himself being at ‘the very peak of human achievement’. He probably reckons: My good deeds of past lives have brought me here, and I will forever be here. Those with no good deeds in the past will forever rot ‘down there’. Why should that mean anything to me?

With that attitude, stagnation, hubris and decay ensue. A downward spiral begins, accompanied by deep contempt for those who are ‘down there’.

History has proved, over and over, that a position of power, privilege, wealth, position, fame … et cetera … breeds hubris. Historian A. J. Toynbee argued that it is hubris which causes the fall of a civilization. Today, Donald Trump and Usrula von der Leyen are two shining examples of hubris; the history of their ‘civilization’ is playing out for us to watch. Surely similar instances of hubris have occurred in Indian history.

Awareness of how Dharma shapes one‘s future plays the major role in shaping a person‘s actions; lack of that awareness removes that wise guidance.

Wanton disregard of Dharma results in harm to oneself, to one’s near and dear ones and to others. It degrades one’s future life, including that which lies beyond the present bodily form. Such wanton disregard of Dharma is seen by many as ‘smartness’. Clearly, the feeling that one is ‘very smart’ is just another form of hubris.

Srini says that his mother always stressed to her children the value of doing good deeds and of not harming anyone, not even those who have harmed us. He says that all her children have followed that valuable advice throughout their lives. Her advice was the essence of Dharma, told in simple words which her children could understand and imbibe.

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A logical error seems to generate the psychological state of hubris.

The living spirit is a limitless, unbounded space. We insert our ‘word markers’ into this space – words such as ‘rich’, ‘poor’, ‘east’, ‘west’, ‘society’, ‘buy’, ‘sell’ and tens of thousands more. Our word markers help us navigate through life, but they rarely touch the underlying living spirit.

A point in this living space is better or worse according to whether there is (a) more fulfilment, or (b) more suffering at that point. At any point in the space, pathways are available to more fulfilment and to more suffering. But no point is special. At any point, there is limitless living spirit on all sides.

Imagine any two points in this space, a finite distance apart. Relative to the other point, one point may be better or worse. In an absolute sense, however, both points are equally distant from the non-existing ends of the space, because a finite distance vanishes in an infinite space.

We suggest that hubris arises with the wrong, illogical belief that ‘one has arrived at a special point and that the state is permanent’. That is a logical error, but hubris hides the logical error from even an intelligent mind.

India certainly did have a ‘Golden Age’, maybe a couple of thousand years ago. The ruling elite then must indeed have been ‘on top of the world’; that is, ‘at a very special point in the space of the living spirit’.

BUT OOPS! That logical error is bound to breed hubris. It seems that, consequently, a slow decline has happened in India since that truly unique, truly remarkable ‘Golden Age’.

Over that long period, foreigners have done what foreigners do. Apparently, however, no great local brain did an objective SWOT analysis. Poets extolled kings regardless of whether they won or lost, whether they had any brains or not. With a cynical disregard of reality, poets showered false praise on kings in exchange for gold coins, the grant of villages … whatever.

The wisdom of Dharma was not properly applied. There was no need, don’t you see? Have we not been at the very peak of human achievement throughout that period?