Vyasa's wail and India's cry in the moral abyss
Among the many Rishis of ancient India, the one that stands out is Rishi Krishna Dwaipayana, more popularly known as Veda Vyasa.
He was not only revered as an 'amsa' of Lord Vishnu, but he was also the author of several scriptures and the ithihasa of Mahabharata. Towards the close of that epic, he did something uncommon for any author: he shed the robes of a neutral litterateur, and donned those of an activist advocator and ardently addressed the world at large: 'On bended knees I beg, but no one listens to me; when men can get all they want—the four purusharthas: dharma (righteous life), artha (material wealth), kama (worldly wants) and moksha (samsaric-liberation)—by treading the path of dharma, why do they do adharma?'
Dharma was given the pride of place; the other three were meant to be attained by being 'dharmabadh'. Dharma was of such sublime spiritual sui generis genre of thought that an ancient Sanskrit text, the Hitopadesa, says, 'Dharma alone is specific to humans; without dharma, they are equal to animals'. Vyasa probably took such an unusual step because he wanted to warn future generations not to repeat that which had brought about that horrific Kurukshetra yuddha—the inability of great men like Bhisma, Drona and Karna to make the right dharmic choice by putting the self ahead of society.
Bhisma had decided that being faithful to his solemn vows was worth even fighting on the side of adharma; in the case of Drona, it was the sin of ingratitude to the Kauravas; for Karna, it was the principle of mitra-dharma.
Whether Vyasa intended to address his contemporaries or posterity, his passionate plea rings loud and clear in our society today.
The tentacles of adharma reach everywhere: governance, policy-making, politics, personal priority-setting, self-indulgence, social injustice, economic inequity, pervasive corruption, ethical atrophy... We are indulging in what Lord Krishna (in the Bhagavad-Gita, 16.9) called 'horrible works meant to destroy the world', a result of our acquiring what He described as 'demonic nature'.
Fanaticism has become fashionable, and assimilation has replaced accommodation in our mindset. Put in terms of the Katha Upanishad, we are treading the path of preyas (pleasure; sensual gratification) and not the path of shreyas (long-term goodness; spiritual growth). Preyas has taken the form of ruthless pursuit of pleasure, power and profit, convenience, comfort and control. Those who still strive for shreyas are shunned as bad examples. Clever we think we are, we reason: there is no reason to struggle to be good if by doing bad we can get the best of both: the good of good and not the bad of bad. Everything is commodified and monetized, even spirituality. That has led to our embracing hedonistic materialism at the expense of dharmic values. We have not only harmed ourselves, but also nature, which is all around us.
Dharmic living also entails a sense of responsibility that a person owes to the non-living, and to all sentient beings. So low is our moral bar that brazen billionaires and shady celebrities have become our role models. Mammon is god; greed is good, and integrity is a needless nuisance. Every day, in every sphere—business, politics, social work or sports— what shines as glitz and glamour, right and bright, hides a lot of libertinage and sleaze. We hate to admit it, but we do get a kick out of it.
It is important to remember that the ambit of dharma is more spiritual than 'secular' morality. While 'moral behavior' generally refers to acting according to one's personal sense of right and wrong, fair and unfair, based on human reason, 'dharmic behavior' encompasses living in harmony with natural laws and the cosmic order.
Arrogant anthropocentric behavior has gravely disturbed that 'harmony', turning man into a lethal geologic force, and shooting to be, to borrow the phrase from Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus (Man-God). It is at the heart of the current climate crisis. Injecting dharmic principles into daily human life is perhaps the only way to save the planet. What is baffling is that although this 'crisis' is expected to drastically depress the living standards of half of India's population and aggravate every social divide, it is not even a major issue in public discourse and policy-making. If nothing else, this tells us a lot of how much India has declined as a dharmic society.
Conclusion
As a people, we must squarely face up to the bitter truth that the Indian society does not show even a hidden hint that it was once a society whose very sinews were held together by the dharmic way, which was what enabled India to be a great civilization. Although the religion of which it was its very soul—Sanatana dharma, now known as Hinduism—is still by far the most dominant religion in today's India, dharma is off the radar of public consciousness. It is all the more mystifying because dharma was not the monopoly of Hinduism; it was a part of all other Indic religions.
Be that all as it may, the primary impetus to redeem and revive dharma is not nostalgia but renewed relevance. That alone now can fill the bill. 'Secular morality', the other alternative, is limited to personal probity and can be influenced by subjective biases. Only by imbibing a broader moral and cosmic concept like dharma can we hope to acquire and facilitate moral catharsis, social reform and spiritual sensitivity.
Modern life has become so slippery that the so-called social animal does not know how to harmonize personal fulfillment and social purpose. Only dharma can provide the answer because it is only in this esoteric thought individual life and cosmic life are deeply connected.
To serve the purpose, it is necessary to reinterpret and realign what the Bhagavad-Gita (3:35) calls swadharma—'personalized' dharma that is innate and at the same time serve a common cause. In today's world, almost everything 'personal' is also 'inter-personal', which, in turn, generates dharmic dilemmas.
Knowing the quintessence of dharmic duty at any time is like dancing on what the Katha Upanishad calls ksurasya dhārā, the razor's edge. Living with dharma can help us find a light when our sense of goodness gets severely tested. What should then be the fail-safe dharmic across-the-board test? The answer is to adopt, as a governing principle of our behavior, what Bhisma advised King Yudhishthira in the Mahabharata: 'Yasmin yathā vartate yo manusyas; tasmims tathā vartitavyam sa dharmah' (As a person behaves towards another, so should he be treated; that is dharma). Like karma, dharma too must be done for its own sake and regardless of how unrewarding it is.
Towards this we should 'operationalize' the aphorism 'manava seva madhava seva'. Bhakti and seva should go hand in hand. Swadharma and samaja dharma must be coupled. That will not only sanctify whatever we selflessly do, but it will also socially leverage divine offering. That empowers individuals to fulfill their cosmic duty while also pursuing a path towards spiritual fulfillment. It must also be economical to the point. A dharmic-driven economic model will not only be egalitarian and in sync with nature, but it will also give a boost to empathetic economic growth that puts the needs of the most-needy foremost. That is the right way to make headway to meet its 'tryst with destiny'.
India will then not only get rid of its moral ills and mental mediocrity, but also grow into a great nation, and be a beacon to a world that is dangerously roaming rudderless. Without a dharmic rebirth, even if everything else is in place, India will fall short of achieving any of its ambitions, economic or social, at home or abroad. And Vyasa's wail will continue to resonate as India's cry in the moral abyss.
(The writer is a retired IAS officer)
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