Thinking our ancestor’s ideas and their world

As we humans quarantined ourselves to shutout a microbe called Covid-19, the Mother Nature is re nourishing herself with her timeless glory – picturesque blue sky and greater sound of bird notes, even in a usual polluted overcrowded concrete jungle called City!

Pic: Pinterest

Today human being worldwide is fighting Covid 19, a novel Corona Virus which has become pandemic following the outbreak at mid-November 2019 in China.

Since then, it has spread to more than 180 countries and hit some countries especially hard with a very high death toll.

Unsurprisingly, alarmed governments and citizens have taken measures, such as lockdown, at a scale unprecedented in the history, in a bid to curtail the virus's spread.

Amid this gloomy situation, Mother Nature spreading fresh air in the shape of what we can tell is natural revitalization.

In a world, infatuated with consumerism, material prosperity has become the only statement of any accomplishment. This is what the industrial revolution has given us.

With the feverish obsession with production, material wealth and profit, it has torn down the earlier model of living that has sustained the human progression and civilization for thousands of years through harnessing the kinship, social dutifulness, and collective wellbeing.

We are supposedly more modern, more well off (of course materially) and more individual than the past now.

But, to what end? We have suffered before and we are also suffering now.

Let's talk about this pandemic. The past was the time where medical knowledge was limited. Habitation after habitation was erased by the deadly pandemic. Today, we are confident enough to know that, this pandemic may consume many lives, but will not be able to write us off like the past. 
Our medical knowledge certainly lends us this confidence.

But life is not just about being clinically alive!

At least our ancestors did not teach us to live in a way where consumption level is the only index to gauge our overall worth.

As an Indian by civilizational heritage and as a Vedic by practice, I am fortunate enough to have a slight the peak of my ancestor's insight and ideas about life and living it off.

In my opinion, the most profound idea of the Vedas is the realization of Nature's distinct sovereignty and the encouragement to live harmoniously with it.

So, how can we do that?

The law that governs nature (Prakriti) is called "Rta"  (natural law, natural order) and humans (Jivatma) are subservient to it. So, as Rta / Rtam is beyond human control, a parallel term, "Dharma" was found that is principally applicable to Human affairs and practicable to Humans.

Dharma, in short, can be said is the ethical basis of action.

Whatever we do for whatever reasons, is called action. Each action makes impressions upon us and others around us.

Impressions are of two types; Gross and Subtle. Gross impressions are those, which are very obvious to one and onlookers.

The subtle impression, on the other hand is less obvious and silently creates certain habits according to the action in our subconscious mind.

As the impression is subtle, we don't notice it most of the time. So, we often repeat the same action, unaware of the real implication. So, it becomes a habit and accumulation of certain habits becomes Samskara (a habitual practice that becomes intrinsic to our self/ our living).  

A good action creates good samskara, bad action creates a bad one! A good samskara, in turn, create good results, for oneself and others and vice versa.

Post-industrial revolution, a dreaded concept called consumerism is exported and pushed down to the world, under a thin veneer of material prosperity, which sees both nature and humans as a commodity for profiteering.

Today everyone measures everyone else through the lens of accumulated materials, good job, good house, and good cars! All available mediums; from news to the cinema, are employed to show off the glamour and glitter of the materials.

Family value, kinship, collective ideals, social duties are all berated to pursue a glorified sense of individualism that opposes any bigger responsibility than one's urge and feeling.

This attitude brings out exploitativeness by first creating a fine impression of feeling good.

Then, the action to feel good is repeated, deliberately or otherwise! It creates habit and in turn creates bad samskara.

It creates greedy success chasing monsters.

Success through any means -  is a mantra that pushes human exploitativeness to the apex level. When this monstrosity of urge spread like a pandemic to the mass, it brings out the fire of collective greed that is consuming the nature out of its replenishing level to make it unsustainable and in turn risking catastrophe.

At the same time, it is hollowing out emotions, kinship, values and cultures that sustained humanity so far, without being completely at war with nature.

Now we seek success at any cost. It brings sharp competitiveness among us. Competitiveness brings the fighting spirit. That spirit gets to the vicious level to become hatred. Hatred brings enemy and war. War brings success.

The cycle completes! Human life itself has become a race to be a predator!

How sad it is!

And all of it has started with a fine impression to give in to the urge to feel good to satiate oneself!

To break the cycle we need to reverse the samskara.

We need to hold our feel-good impressions to properly contemplate the merits and demerits of our actions.

And by consciously doing that, we will make it our samskara. So we will have full control of our actions. The practice has to be performed from an early age through the guidance of our parents.

It's doable.

It needs will and an oath.
 

As our ancestor's used to say in front of the priest of the Yajna, the Agni:

Agne vratapate vratam carisyami tac-chakeyam.

Tan-me radhyatam.

Idam aham anrtat satyam upaimi. (YV - 1/5)

O Fire God, the lord of the holy ordinances, I will observe the vow of truthfulness. May I be crowned with success in observing my vow. I am marching on the path of truthfulness, by restraining myself from the falsehood.

It’s a good time of the vow. Let’s nature revitalize.

Let’s revitalize our selves.

By Ayan Chowdhury