Whether it’s productive to discuss and debate reasons for divisions in the world is anybody’s guess. For the skeptics most things out of order are unproductive, for optimists anything even remotely probable is a ray of hope. So let me try and put forward a hypothesis, which is based on the 17th chapter of Bhagawad Gita.
We live in a divided world, because of little understanding on roots of daily actions, their origins and their relation with faith one follows. If one has to simply qualify these actions/thoughts and the faith that gives rise to such behavior by measuring them as Faith based in Goodness, Passion or Ignorance could we be able to then evolve to a less divisive society?
World was always divided and great men and women always worked towards unifying the divided world. These great men and women from across globe invented religions, war, commerce, art, sports, transportation, electricity, medicine, and transceivers, Internet. All these major inventions were aimed at unifying or making the world come closer. Physically we may have succeeded in shortening the perceived distance between someone in India and say America, but faith has kept the divide. If anything, today we are more aware about these divisions, which go at micro level than just at the physical levels of commerce, travel and communication.
I believe, as awareness of such divisions increases, more and more people will find ways to communicate without having to challenge or confront the opposing faith or actions deriving from faith based in one of the 3 classifications; Goodness, Passion or Ignorance.
During the war of Kurukshetra the 2 opposing sides believed in the same set of Gods & teachers but yet were divided by faiths. One side was convinced with the physical power & its need to govern while the other side being equipped to win a physical war, believed in cooperation than confrontation.
Faith or belief system is more than religious belief or rituals or scientific facts or legends that become beliefs due to mass acceptance. This belief system is a combination of multiple elements of an individual’s life & family and the society one lives in.
In order to remain objective in our discussion let us define Goodness, Passion and Ignorance:
- For any action or behavior or faith to qualify under goodness it needs to be perceived as Rational & Empathetic. It cannot be either or only when both conditions are met any action qualifies as Goodness.
- Passion is any behavior influenced by emotions of greed or fear or insecurity.
- Ignorance will be any action led by believing physical identity as supreme or under false ego. The attitude, of rationality and empathy, emotional or apathetic and with false ego, in which a person behaves, his belief system and faith can be distinguished being in goodness, in passion or in ignorance.
According to ones identity, basically who he/she is, what’s his/her purpose & why, created under the influence of these 3 modes (goodness, passion & ignorance) one creates a set of principles that evolve into a particular kind of belief system (faith).
Any person is recognized by his faith (belief system) based on the qualities one acquires as an individual. These qualities are goodness/behaving with rationality & empathy or passion/behavior influenced by emotions or ignorance/behavior led by believing physical identity as supreme, false-ego.
People who live life or want to live life in the quality of goodness, which is acquiring rationality and knowledge & satisfaction, believe and follow the teachings or life of a person/object/idea who is considered righteous. Righteous living is essentially life of satisfaction, irreversible success, detachment (detached from emotions generated by every action) & believed to be liberated from the cycle of birth & death on earth.
People who live life or want to live life in the quality of passion, which is behaving under the influence of emotions, believe and follow the principles of demon. Demons are defined here as those who behave under the influence of fear, anger or greed leading to destruction of nature and humanity in general.
Those who perform sever conditioning of mind & physical body and act with harshness towards self and others, out of pride (believe in self capabilities and knowledge of self & surrounding) and egoism (believing physical self to be most important). Those who are driven by lust (sex) and attachment (towards physical self and its senses/emotions), who are irrational and who have a misled mentality about composition of material elements (physical nature & body) and the universe (principle energy behind birth of universe and evolution), behave in a way that disturbs themselves physically and mentally and harms their surrounding nature (living and non living) and humanity.
People who live life or want to live life in the quality of ignorance, which is behavior led by believing physical identity as supreme, basically false-ego believe in and follow principles of denials, sadism and manipulation.
The three qualities of physical body also influence the food that is preferred by each person. The same qualities (goodness, passion & ignorance) are also responsible for behavior, conditioning of body & mind and charity (giving back to the society & nature in the form of wealth as well as ideas/thoughts/emotions).
Following are the distinctions between such food, sacrifice, austerity and charity.
Food:
Those who live in the mode of goodness, eat food that helps them live a longer life, helps in finding who we/humans truly are and the purpose of life. Such food gives strength to the physical body as well to the mind (proteins & amino acids), improves health (vitamins, minerals, salts), and gives satisfaction and happiness by way of no acidity & ease of passing stool. Such foods are juicy (fruits), fatty (milk and its products), wholesome (fibers & grains) and bad-cholesterol free (pleasing to the heart).
Foods that are very bitter, too sour, salty, hot, pungent, dry and burning are dear to those in the quality of passion (behaving under the influence of emotions). Such foods cause harm to the digestive system and causes distress, misery and diseases.
Food that is fermented and consumed (prepared about 3 hours before being eaten), food that’s tasteless, decomposed and putrid and food consisting of spare parts of animals and those things that shouldn’t be even touched (poisonous things) are liked by those living life in the quality of darkness simply saying living like animals driven by only emotions and not rationality.
Sacrifice: All those activities that help evolve to a state of self-realization.
Activities performed after understanding relationship and composition of material elements (physical nature, body) and the universe (principle energy behind birth of universe and evolution of life) as a matter of duty towards true self (so that soul can be liberated) and for no desire of external reward (fame, money, success etc.) is considered to be in quality of goodness.
Simply saying living life of empathy, self-improving knowledge and skills, nurturing nature and humanity qualify as living in goodness.
Activities done under the hope or want of some material benefit, basically behavior guided for gratification to the senses or by greed of more or fear of less or to derive pride are performed under the mode of passion (emotions).
Any activity performed without understanding the evolutionary principle and purpose as observed in Gita (understanding relationship and composition of material elements (physical nature, body) and the universe (principle energy behind birth of universe and evolution of life), wasting food or eating more than needed or eating food that is not recommended as human, without invoking true self (to self realize) and without paying respects in kind or material to the priests (one who imparts belief system) and without any belief (behaves in denial without taking responsibilities, manipulates for benefit or from fear) is considered to be in the quality of ignorance (false ego with no regard for others).
Austerity: Behavior, which is aimed at self-improvement and not only for gratifying senses
Conditioning of the body (senses) consists of believing and improving understanding of the principle source of energy and it’s principle of evolution and purpose of life
Increasingly becoming self-aware/realize, respecting the teacher who imparts knowledge of life and elders like father and mother.
Conditioning of the body also consists of keeping self & surrounding clean (physically from dirt etc. & mentally from speculations, anxiety), living a simple life, empathizing with others, self-restraint on sex (celibacy) and nonviolence.
Conditioning of speech consists of speaking words that are truthful (factual), pleasing (empathetic), beneficial and not hurting the sentiments (agitating) of others.
Conditioning of the mind consists of controlling emotions (feeling satisfied), simplicity (understanding fundamentals), gravity (understanding in-depth), and self-control over emotions and actions. And realizing who we are within the various material body we have changed and finally evolved to human form.
Conditioning of body, mind and speech (threefold austerity) performed with complete belief in true self (soul) with no expectation of any material benefits (gratification to the senses) but acting only for the sake of liberation (not just physical liberation but liberation from any anxiety) is called conditioning self to behave in the quality of goodness.
Activities performed for the sake of gaining respect, honor and followers; influenced from pride is said to be in the quality of passion (emotionally influenced to gratify senses), which is neither stable (ever fulfilled and changes constantly) nor permanent. Ones gratified emotions are over, they resurface later when senses are devoid of its objects. Simply like when the stomach has digested all food hunger returns, all other senses too are never permanently full.
Activities performed out of disrespect to the body & soul, with sadism (self-torture, deceit) to cause destruction or injury to others is said to be in the quality of ignorance (false-ego, irrationality).
Charity: Imparting knowledge & skills learned & experienced and wealth acquired is real charity.
Giving away acquired knowledge and wealth out of duty to a worthy person (person who shows empathy, desire to self realize and cooperates with all living beings and nature for nurturing) at the proper time and place without expecting anything in return is considered to be in the quality of goodness.
Imparting with wealth and knowledge for expecting something in return or with a want for some gratification to the senses or reluctantly is said to be in the quality of emotions (passion).
Imparting with wealth and knowledge at a place where it can be misused, at an improper time or to a person who isn’t worthy (apathetic, motivated and irrational) or without proper attention and respect to the details and fundamentals of its usage is said to be in the quality of ignorance.
Conclusion:
Since the beginning of the creation of the universe the three words Om Tat Sat were used to indicate that Om (indication of the supreme, sound that came from the black hole at the time of big bang) is the eternal principle of the absolute truth.
These three symbolic representations were used by earlier living beings who learned the truth and lived life practicing it to be able to liberate soul and while behaving so as to keep the true self (soul) satisfied and free of being influenced by any emotions.
Therefore, those who practice self realization behave to gain knowledge or skill or to improve them, imparts with knowledge and wealth to others and when conditions the body and mind always begins with Om (remembering that the purpose is to be liberated and not to gain any emotions) in accordance with the principles observed in nature, to attain liberation from any emotions deriving from action and thus eventually be able to liberate true self from cycle of life and death.
Those who actually desire liberation from the cycle of birth and death on earth (get free from material entanglement), perform various activities without the desire to satisfy senses of the body.
Sacrifice (our behavior and actions), penance (conditioning body and mind) and charity (imparting knowledge learned/experienced and wealth acquired) these 3 are the basic activities which determines our intentions (purpose) and when these activities are done with the intention to gain anything or fear of less or in anger the end result is only temporary (satisfaction of the senses) and takes the true self (soul) away from supreme (liberation).
The sound person makes (what we say) and the various activities a person does are meant to identify his true self (soul), separate from the physical body he has acquired by way of evolution.
The nature of this true self (soul) is said to be similar to that of the absolute truth, which is essentially the singularity from where everything evolved.
Thus every action, speech, conditioning of body & mind and giving away knowledge and wealth earned should be performed to understand the objectivity of absolute truth, in order to evolve beyond human.
Any behavior or purpose that doesn’t lead to self-realization, done without belief in true self produces emotions, which are impermanent in nature.
These emotions of pride, fear and anger are hindrance to reaching true potential in this life and evolving.
These basic elements of our daily life represent the basic faith one follows and where that faith origins, in Goodness, Passion or Ignorance. As we become more aware and global citizens, it is every person’s duty to measure their own basic behavior based on simple classification of good, passionate or ignorant. And decide for themselves what faith to follow and create in order to make this world less divisive.
