The Heritage of Indian Culture: 2.2 -Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Tuesday 19, May 2026, 05:00. 
Books
Bhagavadgita & Hinduism
The Heritage of Indian Culture: 2.2 .  
Chapter 2: The Vision of True Religion -2.
Swami Krishnananda.
Post-6.

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A necessity for external control arises when that which requires to be controlled does not know the way in which it has to conduct itself in relation to others. When any particular individual or group of individuals loses sight of the goal towards which total humanity is moving, a need arises for regulating the movement of this aberrant section of mankind, and then comes the need for a system of government. The epics and the Puranas tell us that this was the beginning of Treta Yuga.

In some Puranas, such as the Vayu Purana, we are told such fantastic things about the conditions that prevailed in Krita Yuga, or Satya Yuga, that we would wonder whether such things could be possible at all. Tilling land was not necessary, as the harvest seemed to grow automatically of its own accord. People did not die prematurely. There were no courts of legal jurisdiction because there were no quarrels and no differences of opinion among people; there were no courts of justice, no advocates of law, no legal enactments, no system of ethics or morality. All these were out of point in a kingdom of values where everything was perfect to the core. The sun shone as it ought to shine, and rain fell as it ought to fall. Such enrapturing visions are given to us in some sections of these Puranas.

There was a deterioration of things, and then people required a ruler. The beginning of the system of administration is a story which is told by various people in different ways. The great metaphysicians of the West, such as Hegel, are of the opinion that the need for harmony by way of political administration arises on account of the reflection of the Absolute in the particulars. This is a highly philosophical reading of the working of political governments in one's life, and there is also great truth in this opinion. The need for harmony is the need for a government, because every individual resents a chaotic state of existence, a life which is bereft of any kind of relation with others. If anyone loves anything in life, it is harmony and orderliness. The philosopher's opinion is that the need for orderliness in life is the reflection of God in individuals.

God is Perfection, the Absolute, the highest harmony that one can imagine. Inasmuch as it is an Eternal presence, it is also present in the scattered particulars, even in the farthest aberrant movements of the physical individualities of human beings. Even in the widest departures of the human individual from the centre of Truth, Truth does not leave the individual; it pursues him wherever he goes. God is present even in the vilest of individuals, and the Absolute moves with its affirmations even in the farthest corners of human departure. This is the philosophical explanation given by Hegel and others for the need people feel for political security. And it may be true, at the same time, that in spite of this philosophical background of the need felt by people for administrative systems, the empirical beginning of administrative circles might have been as described by Hobbes. People sat together and conferred that it is pointless to fight among themselves, and so they needed a kind of order and system in their existence. They appointed an authority, which we may call the monarch or any type of administrative head, who is supposed to work in collaboration with the machinery that is set up to implement the ideals and ideologies that are the aspirations of man and any group of individuals.

This prosaic and perhaps grossest form of human need was not ignored. The Artha Shastras of ancient India are regarded as equally important as the Moksha Shastras or the other sciences, because while moksha is the liberation of the spirit, it was borne in mind by the wise men of yore that this liberation is effected gradually by untying the knots, one by one, from the lowest to the highest. This was really a penetrating vision which went to the very core of the problems of life and could not afford to ignore anything that is relevant to this freedom of the spirit, which is the ultimate aim.

But with the degeneration of time the vision gradually blurred and, unfortunately, became adulterated with the sensory and egoistic affirmations of the body. Life in the spirit became somehow identified with a vision of the future, and practical life became a matter of the present. Though it has been told again and again that the aim of life is an eternal presence and not a futurity of achievement, whatever be the number of times we may be told this truth, it is easy to forget the vital relationship that exists between practical involvement and ideal aspiration.

Seekers of truth, students of yoga, and preachers of religion can easily commit this mistake of soaring high into the lofty regions of ideology, which is the fate of religion today—not only in India, but perhaps everywhere. Either we cry out in the name of God who is not in this world, or ignore His existence totally. A spirit of false renunciation gets associated with this false conception of religion, which unfortunate consequence has resulted in the criticism that Indian philosophy is a world-negating ideology. But this is farthest from the truth.

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