Courtesy: sri.chittaranjan
DIALOGUE ON DHARMA WITH SRI CHANDRASHEKARA BHARATI SWAMI,
LATE SHANKARACHARYA OF SRINGERI SHARADA PEETHA
1. IGNORANCE NO EXCUSE
O (Officer): We who have been given only secular education from our
boyhood may be excused if due to our ignorance of the dictates of the
Dharma we sometimes err. It seems to me that the Pandits who cannot have
any such excuse but still err are more culpable than we.
S (Shankaracharya): Apparently, it is no doubt so. You err because of
your ignorance, but they err in spite of their knowledge. Their sinning,
certainly, seems more grievous. But you lose sight of the other aspect.
O: What is that?
S: They have learnt what is Dharma but only do not carry it out in
practice. You have neither learnt nor are you practicing Dharma. To
their single omission of practice, you have to answer for the two
omissions of learning as well as practice. It would seem therefore that
your sin is really the greater of the two.
O: It would be, if ignorance were itself a sin.
S: Ignorance by itself is certainly no sin, but it is a sin when there is a duty to learn.
O: How is that?
S: The animals and young children have no conception at all of the right
and wrong, nor have they the ability to form any such conception. With
them ignorance is inevitable and therefore is not a sin. But when the
child grows up into a boy and is able to understand the distinction
between right and wrong, he becomes responsible for his actions and
incurs sin if he acts wrongly.
O: Quite so, for then he knows that what he is doing is wrong.
S: I did not say that he knows that he is doing something wrong; it is
sufficient if he has the capacity to know. Take for instance your penal
law. Does the court let go an offender even though it finds that he did
not know the law when he committed an offence?
O: These are man-made laws and therefore artificial. If ignorance were
allowed as an excuse, everybody will begin to plead ignorance and it
would be practically impossible to convict anybody. So it is necessary
to place the deliberate offender and the ignorant offender in the same
category, though of course some lenience is ordinarily shown to the
latter while awarding the punishment. In the field of Dharma or God-made
Law, where He retains in His hands the power to assess sin or virtue,
He must certainly know whether a man is doing an act willfully or
through ignorance.
S: He does know it, but what do you want Him to do?
O: He must punish only those who sin deliberately and not those who do an act without knowing that it is sinful.
S: Does fire refuse to scorch a young child who touches it without knowing that it will scorch.
O: But fire is an inanimate thing which cannot distinguish between a
child and an adult; we cannot certainly compare the all-knowing God with
blind nature.
S: Evidently you forget that the law that fire will scorch is not an artificial law but is God-made law.
O: It may be a God-made law, but it is carried out by the blind nature.
S: God entirely withdrawing Himself from it and keeping quite aloof?
O: It would seem so.
S: Certainly not. God can never withdraw Himself or be absent or blind
at any time. Even in allowing the child to be scorched, He is carrying
out His own divine law. Evidently when the child was an adult in a
previous birth, he had committed some sin which deserved and
necessitated this scorching now.
O: If Dharma is as inexorable as the laws of nature, inasmuch as both
are God-made, ignorance can certainly be no excuse; but Your Holiness
said that a young child does not incur sin if he commits a wrong. How
can that be? If fire scorches a child in spite of its ignorance, so must
Adharma injure a child in spite of its ignorance.
S: And so it does. That is why a large number of samskaras or
purificatory rites are prescribed to be performed for the child, and
that is why the parents of the child are enjoined the duty of
safeguarding its spiritual interests. As the parents have to fed a child
which cannot feed itself, so have they to look after its spiritual
interests also till it is able to take care of them. If the parents
neglect to take proper care of their child, they incur sin and the child
grows weak and sickly. If the parents neglect to take care of its
spiritual interests, here again they incur sin and the child is
seriously crippled spiritually. So Adharma does injure the child.
O: But Your Holiness mentioned earlier that a child is saved from incurring sin because of its ignorance.
S: Not exactly so. The child is saved because of its incapacity to know, that is what I said.
O: Whatever it be, the child incurs no sin but does not escape injury.
How can that be? If there is no sin, there can be no resultant injury.
S: That is quite true. But I did not say that the injury it now sustains
is the result of the present act of committing a wrong. It is bit a
part of the major karma which gave the child its birth as the child of
such parents. The immediate neglect by the parents is the occasion and
not the cause of the injury, just as proximity to fire is the occasion
and not the karmic cause of scorching. If we relate, as cause and
effect, the culpable neglect by the parents and the injury sustained by
the innocent child or the innocent touching of fire and scorching of the
hand of the ignorant child, we will be attributing to God flagrant
illogicality, if not deliberate inhumaneness.
O: Really so. But if because of ignorance the child is exempt from sin
for his present actions, is it not reasonable to expect that the period
of childhood must be equally exempt from the results of sin committed in
previous births?
S: Certainly not. To commit a sin it is necessary to have the capacity
to discriminate between right and wrong; and this comes only a few years
after the birth. But to suffer the result of sin, only the capacity to
suffer is required; and this capacity, namely, the sense of pain and
pleasure, is never absent from the child, even when it is in the womb.
Once the former capacity for discrimination is attained, the
responsibility for his actions immediately attaches itself to him. The
fact that he allows that capacity to sleep by reason of ignorance will
not lessen that responsibility.
2. DUTY TO LEARN
O: Is then there no difference between the culpabilities of the one who
does not know and therefore errs and of another who does know and yet
errs?
S: There is a lot of difference, but that is a thing which the latter
has to take note of and of which the former cannot take advantage. There
is no doubt that the man who knows and yet errs is a greater sinner,
but that is no satisfaction, much less an excuse, for the man who
prefers to continue in ignorance and in error.
O: No man will willingly prefer to continue in ignorance or in error.
S: I am not so sure of that. If a man has the ability to learn, if
materials for knowledge are available to him, if teachers are available
for teaching him, and yet if he does not learn, what else is it but a
willful continuance in ignorance?
O: Ordinarily it may be so. But learning of the Dharma is not so simple.
S: Why not? Even now the intelligence which you have inherited from a
long line of saints and seers is sharp enough to grasp the subtlest
conceptions; even now your parents perform for you the sacred ceremony
of initiation; even now there exist innumerable works dealing with
Dharma in all its aspects; and even now there exist a large number of
competent teachers who will teach you, if only you ask them to do so.
What excuse then have you for continuing in ignorance?
O: It may be, we have none, if only our attention is drawn to our duty
to learn, but is there not a corresponding duty on those who know to
teach?
S: There is no such absolute duty. Those who know are bound to teach
only those who do not know but seek to know. If they prefer to remain in
ignorance, the teachers are not to blame at all for not attempting to
teach them.
O: There may still be persons who are ignorant not because they prefer
to be so but because they do not know at all that there is something to
learn. How many, for example, know what an agnihotra or soma yaga is?
There are many who have not even heard of these terms. Is it not the
duty of the vaidikas to tell them that there are such things to be
performed by the Brahmanas?
S: Have those persons ever cared to ascertain what the duties are of the
Brahmanas, the community to which they profess to belong? They say that
they are Brahmanas and still want other Brahmanas to tell them what a
Brahmana ought to do. Is that reasonable, especially when they do not
make the slightest attempt to know? Now, leave aside for the moment
agnihotra and other things of that sort. I suppose the most ignorant
among you know that it is a sin to tell a lie. You certainly require
nobody to teach you that?
O: Certainly not.
S: Can you say that all those who know that telling a lie is sinful refrain from doing so?
O: I cannot certainly make such a statement.
S: In spite of the knowledge that telling a lie is sinful, people persist in it.
O: Yes, most of them do.
S: They tell lies not because there is nobody to teach them that lying is a sin; for they know it themselves.
O: Certainly.
S: When people sin knowing that what they do is sinful, why should you
blame others for not teaching them that many other acts of theirs are
also sinful? I feel that such teaching is not going to make any
difference in their conduct. Now they err in ignorance; after being
taught, they will err deliberately. That will be all the difference
perhaps.
O: Does Your Holiness mean then that it is better for them to remain ignorant?
S: Certainly not. It is their duty to learn, as I have pointed out
before. It is not for them to say that they remain in ignorance because
somebody else does not teach them.
O: Anyhow, in the state of general ignorance of Dharma now prevalent in
the country, some organized propaganda is necessary to dispel it.
S: What do you mean by organized propaganda?
O: A society may be formed for the dissemination of religious knowledge,
with centres of work at all important towns and villages and with
competent persons to carry on its work.
S: A committee of management should be formed, a scale of subscriptions
should be fixed, provision should be made for difference of opinion, and
decision should be by the counting of votes, and all that, I suppose?
O: Naturally, for these are necessary in any such society.
S: Admission to the society itself should be at the discretion of the
persons who start it; nobody should be admitted who cannot afford to pay
anything by way of subscription though he may be otherwise very
competent to run the society itself?
O: Such persons may be specially exempted from paying any subscription.
S: I have no doubt they will be. But they become members by sufferance and not by right.
O: It is so.
S: Suppose I tell you of a society to which persons with competence are
admitted automatically and because of their competence alone without
requiring assent from the members who already form the society, to which
admission is by merit and not because of any admission fee, for which
no member need pay any subscription, in which what is right is decided
by an immutable absolute standard of right and not by the fluctuating
views of the majority of members at particular times, however
well-intentioned they may be, and which can never be dissolved or wound
up for any cause whatsoever? Don't you think that such a society will be
far more natural, lasting, practical and effective than the one you
propose?
O: Certainly it will be, but it is purely a hypothetical one and impossible for realization.
S: It is not. What else is our Brahmana community if it is not a society
of the sort mentioned by me? In fact, every community in India is such a
self-contained compact society and the Hindu caste system as a whole is
a major society of which these communities form component parts or
branches, as it were. The admission to them is not left to the whim of
anybody but is retained in the hands of the All-knowing God Himself who
gives birth in particular communities in accordance with theory
qualifications acquired in former lives. The rules of the society are
all ready-made, definite and unchangeable, unlike the rules of modern
man-made associations which change too frequently.
O: Taking our Brahmana community, for instance, and granting that it is a
society by itself, why is it that it is not able to do any collective
work now, which an organized society must be able to do?
S: Can any of your modern societies do any useful work if each
individual member is particular about his own personal interests and
insists upon giving them preference and is prepared to violate the
society's rules if they conflict or seem to conflict with his private
interests?
O: Certainly not. If that is the attitude of the members, the society itself will cease to exist before long.
S: Quote so. Similarly, the Brahmanas, or, for the matter of that
members of any other community, can be collectively useful only if they
are prepared to subordinate their personal likes and dislikes to the
duties enjoined upon them as Brahmanas, or as members of any other
community. Our country suffers at present not for want of organized
societies, because we have in fact the best conceivable society formed
for us, but for want of members who are prepared to conform to its
rules. Try to increase the number of such members and the society will
grow more strong. All your endeavour should be directed towards this end
and not to the founding of any new and unstable associations, which are
unnecessary as they are useless for the object you have in view.
3. TEACH BY EXAMPLE
O: Even for this, some propaganda is necessary.
S: If you feel so, do it.
O: But what is the use of my propaganda? It will be more effective if it is initiated by Your Holiness.
S: I am sure that it is the other way. If the vaidikas start any such
work, you yourself will say "These people have to live by their
priestcraft. Therefore they want us to be religious so that we may help
them to get their livelihood. Their advice to us to be more religious is
therefore with a view to serve their own selfish interests", and on
this reasoning you will begin to belittle the value of their advice and
will neglect it. If I begin to preach the same thing, you will say to
yourself, occupying the position of an Acharya as he does, he is simply
carrying out his functions when he asks me to be religious. His advice
is a formal routine thing made to justify his position, and on this
reasoning you will be likely to ignore it. If, however, a pure laukika
(worldly) gentleman like yourself asks others to conform to Dharma, they
will think thus: "The gentleman who is asking me to be religious does
not stand to gain at all by my being religious, for he is above want
himself and has no need to depend on his living on my being religious.
He is occupying a high position, has had good modern education and is
endowed with a fine intellect. He has absolutely no personal motive in
asking me to be religious and he is not a man likely to waste his words.
There must therefore be something in his advice, given as it is so
disinterestedly", and on this reasoning they will certainly listen to
you and be guided by you. Practically, therefore, all propaganda,
assuming it to be necessary, must come only from such like you, if it
has to be effective.
O: I quite see the significance of Your Holiness' words, but still I
cannot help thinking that even for any work to be done by us, lending of
Your Holiness' name will go very far with the ordinary people.
S: The Lord Himself has given us His commands in the shape of the
eternal Vedas, still people are prepared to disobey Him. The ancient
sages have formulated the Smritis for the guidance of the people, still
the latter persist in disobeying them. How then do you expect that the
people will obey them simply because my name also is mentioned?
O: The Almighty God and Rishis are not visible now, but you in whom the
people repose confidence are present before them in flesh and blood, and
they naturally will pay more attention to your words than to the
religious dictates embodied in books.
S: Be it as you like. Wherever you go, tell the people "The Vedas, the
divine command of Iswara, have enjoined on you these duties. The Smritis
of the ancient sages also enjoin the same duties. Perform them properly
and reap their benefit. The Acharya also wants you to do the same." Let
not the people continue in Adharma for want of a word from me in
support of the authority of the Vedas and the Smritis. You may tell them
that the Vedas and the Smritis have my emphatic support and that I also
enjoin on them the duty to obey them, as you seem to think my
injunction specially valuable.
O: That may not be enough. It will be well if Your Holiness yourself leads a movement for the propagation of Dharma.
S: I have already told you that no such movement can influence the
people who persist in Adharma, fully knowing it to be Adharma, and that
such a movement, if any, to be practically useful must really be led by
worldly persons like you enjoying high positions in life and not by
persons like me whose `business' is religion. Further, I do not see why
you cast any special duty upon me. I am not conscious of ever leading a
movement for propagation of Adharma; if I had at any time done so, it
may be my duty now to see that the mischief caused by me is remedied. On
the other hand, it seems to me that it is the special duty of such as
you. who misled the people away from the path of religion by showing
them the glamour of worldly possessions, to lead them to the right path,
now that you have realized the supreme value of Dharma. The ordinary
people look up to you as the highest in the land and, as the Lord has
said in the Gita, "whatever the highest person does, that alone is done
by the others".
O: That is quite true. Though I fully know that I have absolutely no
claim to rank myself among the highest in the Lord's sense, I have
noticed that in my younger days when I was not particular about my caste
marks or about my daily ablutions, the clerks who were working under me
began to show gradually the same indifference to them, and now, when I
seem to be orthodox at least to all outward appearances, even those who
are quite indifferent at home put on bright caste marks at least when
they come to me in the office. They think that they will please me by
imitating me.
S: Whatever may be their present motive, it is quite patent that when
you are religious in your conduct, those who look up to you as a
superior, whether in home life or in official life, begin to be
religious in their conduct.
O: It is no doubt so.
S: By being religious, therefore, you not only benefit yourself but also others who follow your example.
O: Certainly.
S: By being religious, therefore, you get a two-fold benefit: one the
benefit you directly obtain by being religious yourself and the other
the merit you obtain by inducing others to be religious.
O: No doubt so.
S: Now consider the other side. By being irreligious you will be
sustaining a two-fold injury: one the injury you directly sustain by
being irreligious and the other the sin you incur for inducing others by
your example to be irreligious.
O: Naturally.
S: Ordinary people get the fruits of their own individual conduct alone.
But persons who are placed in high positions and influence the conduct
of others have a double responsibility. They are answerable not only for
themselves but also for others. Just as the merits is the greatest when
they adhere to Dharma, so is their sin the greatest when they resort to
Adharma. If only people like you realize this double responsibility,
they will not dare any more to remain in ignorance as regards Dharma,
but will seek to know and set, by their example and precept, a standard
of right conduct. There will be no further need for talking about
propaganda. The future of the land is really in your hands. Realise that
well. If you do so, there is no further cause for anxiety.
LATE SHANKARACHARYA OF SRINGERI SHARADA PEETHA
1. IGNORANCE NO EXCUSE
O (Officer): We who have been given only secular education from our
boyhood may be excused if due to our ignorance of the dictates of the
Dharma we sometimes err. It seems to me that the Pandits who cannot have
any such excuse but still err are more culpable than we.
S (Shankaracharya): Apparently, it is no doubt so. You err because of
your ignorance, but they err in spite of their knowledge. Their sinning,
certainly, seems more grievous. But you lose sight of the other aspect.
O: What is that?
S: They have learnt what is Dharma but only do not carry it out in
practice. You have neither learnt nor are you practicing Dharma. To
their single omission of practice, you have to answer for the two
omissions of learning as well as practice. It would seem therefore that
your sin is really the greater of the two.
O: It would be, if ignorance were itself a sin.
S: Ignorance by itself is certainly no sin, but it is a sin when there is a duty to learn.
O: How is that?
S: The animals and young children have no conception at all of the right
and wrong, nor have they the ability to form any such conception. With
them ignorance is inevitable and therefore is not a sin. But when the
child grows up into a boy and is able to understand the distinction
between right and wrong, he becomes responsible for his actions and
incurs sin if he acts wrongly.
O: Quite so, for then he knows that what he is doing is wrong.
S: I did not say that he knows that he is doing something wrong; it is
sufficient if he has the capacity to know. Take for instance your penal
law. Does the court let go an offender even though it finds that he did
not know the law when he committed an offence?
O: These are man-made laws and therefore artificial. If ignorance were
allowed as an excuse, everybody will begin to plead ignorance and it
would be practically impossible to convict anybody. So it is necessary
to place the deliberate offender and the ignorant offender in the same
category, though of course some lenience is ordinarily shown to the
latter while awarding the punishment. In the field of Dharma or God-made
Law, where He retains in His hands the power to assess sin or virtue,
He must certainly know whether a man is doing an act willfully or
through ignorance.
S: He does know it, but what do you want Him to do?
O: He must punish only those who sin deliberately and not those who do an act without knowing that it is sinful.
S: Does fire refuse to scorch a young child who touches it without knowing that it will scorch.
O: But fire is an inanimate thing which cannot distinguish between a
child and an adult; we cannot certainly compare the all-knowing God with
blind nature.
S: Evidently you forget that the law that fire will scorch is not an artificial law but is God-made law.
O: It may be a God-made law, but it is carried out by the blind nature.
S: God entirely withdrawing Himself from it and keeping quite aloof?
O: It would seem so.
S: Certainly not. God can never withdraw Himself or be absent or blind
at any time. Even in allowing the child to be scorched, He is carrying
out His own divine law. Evidently when the child was an adult in a
previous birth, he had committed some sin which deserved and
necessitated this scorching now.
O: If Dharma is as inexorable as the laws of nature, inasmuch as both
are God-made, ignorance can certainly be no excuse; but Your Holiness
said that a young child does not incur sin if he commits a wrong. How
can that be? If fire scorches a child in spite of its ignorance, so must
Adharma injure a child in spite of its ignorance.
S: And so it does. That is why a large number of samskaras or
purificatory rites are prescribed to be performed for the child, and
that is why the parents of the child are enjoined the duty of
safeguarding its spiritual interests. As the parents have to fed a child
which cannot feed itself, so have they to look after its spiritual
interests also till it is able to take care of them. If the parents
neglect to take proper care of their child, they incur sin and the child
grows weak and sickly. If the parents neglect to take care of its
spiritual interests, here again they incur sin and the child is
seriously crippled spiritually. So Adharma does injure the child.
O: But Your Holiness mentioned earlier that a child is saved from incurring sin because of its ignorance.
S: Not exactly so. The child is saved because of its incapacity to know, that is what I said.
O: Whatever it be, the child incurs no sin but does not escape injury.
How can that be? If there is no sin, there can be no resultant injury.
S: That is quite true. But I did not say that the injury it now sustains
is the result of the present act of committing a wrong. It is bit a
part of the major karma which gave the child its birth as the child of
such parents. The immediate neglect by the parents is the occasion and
not the cause of the injury, just as proximity to fire is the occasion
and not the karmic cause of scorching. If we relate, as cause and
effect, the culpable neglect by the parents and the injury sustained by
the innocent child or the innocent touching of fire and scorching of the
hand of the ignorant child, we will be attributing to God flagrant
illogicality, if not deliberate inhumaneness.
O: Really so. But if because of ignorance the child is exempt from sin
for his present actions, is it not reasonable to expect that the period
of childhood must be equally exempt from the results of sin committed in
previous births?
S: Certainly not. To commit a sin it is necessary to have the capacity
to discriminate between right and wrong; and this comes only a few years
after the birth. But to suffer the result of sin, only the capacity to
suffer is required; and this capacity, namely, the sense of pain and
pleasure, is never absent from the child, even when it is in the womb.
Once the former capacity for discrimination is attained, the
responsibility for his actions immediately attaches itself to him. The
fact that he allows that capacity to sleep by reason of ignorance will
not lessen that responsibility.
2. DUTY TO LEARN
O: Is then there no difference between the culpabilities of the one who
does not know and therefore errs and of another who does know and yet
errs?
S: There is a lot of difference, but that is a thing which the latter
has to take note of and of which the former cannot take advantage. There
is no doubt that the man who knows and yet errs is a greater sinner,
but that is no satisfaction, much less an excuse, for the man who
prefers to continue in ignorance and in error.
O: No man will willingly prefer to continue in ignorance or in error.
S: I am not so sure of that. If a man has the ability to learn, if
materials for knowledge are available to him, if teachers are available
for teaching him, and yet if he does not learn, what else is it but a
willful continuance in ignorance?
O: Ordinarily it may be so. But learning of the Dharma is not so simple.
S: Why not? Even now the intelligence which you have inherited from a
long line of saints and seers is sharp enough to grasp the subtlest
conceptions; even now your parents perform for you the sacred ceremony
of initiation; even now there exist innumerable works dealing with
Dharma in all its aspects; and even now there exist a large number of
competent teachers who will teach you, if only you ask them to do so.
What excuse then have you for continuing in ignorance?
O: It may be, we have none, if only our attention is drawn to our duty
to learn, but is there not a corresponding duty on those who know to
teach?
S: There is no such absolute duty. Those who know are bound to teach
only those who do not know but seek to know. If they prefer to remain in
ignorance, the teachers are not to blame at all for not attempting to
teach them.
O: There may still be persons who are ignorant not because they prefer
to be so but because they do not know at all that there is something to
learn. How many, for example, know what an agnihotra or soma yaga is?
There are many who have not even heard of these terms. Is it not the
duty of the vaidikas to tell them that there are such things to be
performed by the Brahmanas?
S: Have those persons ever cared to ascertain what the duties are of the
Brahmanas, the community to which they profess to belong? They say that
they are Brahmanas and still want other Brahmanas to tell them what a
Brahmana ought to do. Is that reasonable, especially when they do not
make the slightest attempt to know? Now, leave aside for the moment
agnihotra and other things of that sort. I suppose the most ignorant
among you know that it is a sin to tell a lie. You certainly require
nobody to teach you that?
O: Certainly not.
S: Can you say that all those who know that telling a lie is sinful refrain from doing so?
O: I cannot certainly make such a statement.
S: In spite of the knowledge that telling a lie is sinful, people persist in it.
O: Yes, most of them do.
S: They tell lies not because there is nobody to teach them that lying is a sin; for they know it themselves.
O: Certainly.
S: When people sin knowing that what they do is sinful, why should you
blame others for not teaching them that many other acts of theirs are
also sinful? I feel that such teaching is not going to make any
difference in their conduct. Now they err in ignorance; after being
taught, they will err deliberately. That will be all the difference
perhaps.
O: Does Your Holiness mean then that it is better for them to remain ignorant?
S: Certainly not. It is their duty to learn, as I have pointed out
before. It is not for them to say that they remain in ignorance because
somebody else does not teach them.
O: Anyhow, in the state of general ignorance of Dharma now prevalent in
the country, some organized propaganda is necessary to dispel it.
S: What do you mean by organized propaganda?
O: A society may be formed for the dissemination of religious knowledge,
with centres of work at all important towns and villages and with
competent persons to carry on its work.
S: A committee of management should be formed, a scale of subscriptions
should be fixed, provision should be made for difference of opinion, and
decision should be by the counting of votes, and all that, I suppose?
O: Naturally, for these are necessary in any such society.
S: Admission to the society itself should be at the discretion of the
persons who start it; nobody should be admitted who cannot afford to pay
anything by way of subscription though he may be otherwise very
competent to run the society itself?
O: Such persons may be specially exempted from paying any subscription.
S: I have no doubt they will be. But they become members by sufferance and not by right.
O: It is so.
S: Suppose I tell you of a society to which persons with competence are
admitted automatically and because of their competence alone without
requiring assent from the members who already form the society, to which
admission is by merit and not because of any admission fee, for which
no member need pay any subscription, in which what is right is decided
by an immutable absolute standard of right and not by the fluctuating
views of the majority of members at particular times, however
well-intentioned they may be, and which can never be dissolved or wound
up for any cause whatsoever? Don't you think that such a society will be
far more natural, lasting, practical and effective than the one you
propose?
O: Certainly it will be, but it is purely a hypothetical one and impossible for realization.
S: It is not. What else is our Brahmana community if it is not a society
of the sort mentioned by me? In fact, every community in India is such a
self-contained compact society and the Hindu caste system as a whole is
a major society of which these communities form component parts or
branches, as it were. The admission to them is not left to the whim of
anybody but is retained in the hands of the All-knowing God Himself who
gives birth in particular communities in accordance with theory
qualifications acquired in former lives. The rules of the society are
all ready-made, definite and unchangeable, unlike the rules of modern
man-made associations which change too frequently.
O: Taking our Brahmana community, for instance, and granting that it is a
society by itself, why is it that it is not able to do any collective
work now, which an organized society must be able to do?
S: Can any of your modern societies do any useful work if each
individual member is particular about his own personal interests and
insists upon giving them preference and is prepared to violate the
society's rules if they conflict or seem to conflict with his private
interests?
O: Certainly not. If that is the attitude of the members, the society itself will cease to exist before long.
S: Quote so. Similarly, the Brahmanas, or, for the matter of that
members of any other community, can be collectively useful only if they
are prepared to subordinate their personal likes and dislikes to the
duties enjoined upon them as Brahmanas, or as members of any other
community. Our country suffers at present not for want of organized
societies, because we have in fact the best conceivable society formed
for us, but for want of members who are prepared to conform to its
rules. Try to increase the number of such members and the society will
grow more strong. All your endeavour should be directed towards this end
and not to the founding of any new and unstable associations, which are
unnecessary as they are useless for the object you have in view.
3. TEACH BY EXAMPLE
O: Even for this, some propaganda is necessary.
S: If you feel so, do it.
O: But what is the use of my propaganda? It will be more effective if it is initiated by Your Holiness.
S: I am sure that it is the other way. If the vaidikas start any such
work, you yourself will say "These people have to live by their
priestcraft. Therefore they want us to be religious so that we may help
them to get their livelihood. Their advice to us to be more religious is
therefore with a view to serve their own selfish interests", and on
this reasoning you will begin to belittle the value of their advice and
will neglect it. If I begin to preach the same thing, you will say to
yourself, occupying the position of an Acharya as he does, he is simply
carrying out his functions when he asks me to be religious. His advice
is a formal routine thing made to justify his position, and on this
reasoning you will be likely to ignore it. If, however, a pure laukika
(worldly) gentleman like yourself asks others to conform to Dharma, they
will think thus: "The gentleman who is asking me to be religious does
not stand to gain at all by my being religious, for he is above want
himself and has no need to depend on his living on my being religious.
He is occupying a high position, has had good modern education and is
endowed with a fine intellect. He has absolutely no personal motive in
asking me to be religious and he is not a man likely to waste his words.
There must therefore be something in his advice, given as it is so
disinterestedly", and on this reasoning they will certainly listen to
you and be guided by you. Practically, therefore, all propaganda,
assuming it to be necessary, must come only from such like you, if it
has to be effective.
O: I quite see the significance of Your Holiness' words, but still I
cannot help thinking that even for any work to be done by us, lending of
Your Holiness' name will go very far with the ordinary people.
S: The Lord Himself has given us His commands in the shape of the
eternal Vedas, still people are prepared to disobey Him. The ancient
sages have formulated the Smritis for the guidance of the people, still
the latter persist in disobeying them. How then do you expect that the
people will obey them simply because my name also is mentioned?
O: The Almighty God and Rishis are not visible now, but you in whom the
people repose confidence are present before them in flesh and blood, and
they naturally will pay more attention to your words than to the
religious dictates embodied in books.
S: Be it as you like. Wherever you go, tell the people "The Vedas, the
divine command of Iswara, have enjoined on you these duties. The Smritis
of the ancient sages also enjoin the same duties. Perform them properly
and reap their benefit. The Acharya also wants you to do the same." Let
not the people continue in Adharma for want of a word from me in
support of the authority of the Vedas and the Smritis. You may tell them
that the Vedas and the Smritis have my emphatic support and that I also
enjoin on them the duty to obey them, as you seem to think my
injunction specially valuable.
O: That may not be enough. It will be well if Your Holiness yourself leads a movement for the propagation of Dharma.
S: I have already told you that no such movement can influence the
people who persist in Adharma, fully knowing it to be Adharma, and that
such a movement, if any, to be practically useful must really be led by
worldly persons like you enjoying high positions in life and not by
persons like me whose `business' is religion. Further, I do not see why
you cast any special duty upon me. I am not conscious of ever leading a
movement for propagation of Adharma; if I had at any time done so, it
may be my duty now to see that the mischief caused by me is remedied. On
the other hand, it seems to me that it is the special duty of such as
you. who misled the people away from the path of religion by showing
them the glamour of worldly possessions, to lead them to the right path,
now that you have realized the supreme value of Dharma. The ordinary
people look up to you as the highest in the land and, as the Lord has
said in the Gita, "whatever the highest person does, that alone is done
by the others".
O: That is quite true. Though I fully know that I have absolutely no
claim to rank myself among the highest in the Lord's sense, I have
noticed that in my younger days when I was not particular about my caste
marks or about my daily ablutions, the clerks who were working under me
began to show gradually the same indifference to them, and now, when I
seem to be orthodox at least to all outward appearances, even those who
are quite indifferent at home put on bright caste marks at least when
they come to me in the office. They think that they will please me by
imitating me.
S: Whatever may be their present motive, it is quite patent that when
you are religious in your conduct, those who look up to you as a
superior, whether in home life or in official life, begin to be
religious in their conduct.
O: It is no doubt so.
S: By being religious, therefore, you not only benefit yourself but also others who follow your example.
O: Certainly.
S: By being religious, therefore, you get a two-fold benefit: one the
benefit you directly obtain by being religious yourself and the other
the merit you obtain by inducing others to be religious.
O: No doubt so.
S: Now consider the other side. By being irreligious you will be
sustaining a two-fold injury: one the injury you directly sustain by
being irreligious and the other the sin you incur for inducing others by
your example to be irreligious.
O: Naturally.
S: Ordinary people get the fruits of their own individual conduct alone.
But persons who are placed in high positions and influence the conduct
of others have a double responsibility. They are answerable not only for
themselves but also for others. Just as the merits is the greatest when
they adhere to Dharma, so is their sin the greatest when they resort to
Adharma. If only people like you realize this double responsibility,
they will not dare any more to remain in ignorance as regards Dharma,
but will seek to know and set, by their example and precept, a standard
of right conduct. There will be no further need for talking about
propaganda. The future of the land is really in your hands. Realise that
well. If you do so, there is no further cause for anxiety.
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