Note:This essay is the Eighth part in the series of articles based on Guruji's Bunch of Thoughts. Here is the link to seventh part-https://www.myind.net/Home/viewArticle/guruji-golwalkars-call-to-live-positive-dynamic-hinduism

The concept of dharmasatta has been explained below and how it played a pivotal role in preserving our great and ancient civilization when all the others were getting destroyed by brute force. The long term vision of reinstating our Bharat Mata as the cultural guide of the world has been talked about by reminding us about our glorious past.

The ultimate vision of our work, which has been a living inspiration for all our organizational efforts, is a perfectly organized state of our society wherein each individual has been moulded into a model of ideal Hindu manhood and made into a living limb of the corporate personality of society.

Obviously, this is not a vision which can be realized within a few days or even a few years. It requires the untiring, silent endeavor of hundreds and thousands of dedicated missionaries. It is to mould such inspired lives that the Sangh lays utmost stress on day-to-day samskars, day-to-day inculcation of all those qualities of head and heart that fosters strength and competence in the individual to march on the path of lifelong dedication.

The Short-cut Mania

This type of steady, silent and lifelong devotion to work may appear very strange and unusual in the present-day world. It has an originality and a freshness all its own. As such, people will naturally takes some time to appreciate and assimilate this approach of ours. For instance, there are many who feel aghast at the idea that our method of work demands daily attendance at a particular hour, at a specified place, year after year, all through their lifetime. That is the mentality of the day. People want quick results and short-cuts to success. This human frailty of ‘minimum effort and maximum result’ has encompassed all fields of our national life.

People have also begun to look out for short-cuts in realizing God! Who will take all the trouble of undergoing lifelong penance and single-minded pursuit of God? No aspect of our social life is free from corrosion by this mean and ignoble attitude.

The Suicidal Lure

Because of such an atmosphere all around, people begin to think whether there are such short-cuts in the Sangh work also. They ask, “How long do you intend to carry on like this? When will you be able to bring about the total transformation of society that you visualize? For how many years more will you go on plodding the same path?”

But let us not be carried away by such a superficial view. Let us educate the people to acquire a deeper understanding of things, though unfortunately shallow thinking has become the order of the day. Let us open the pages of world history and see if such a superficial view, such a short-cut means of state power will really help to build an immortal national life of a country. Persia, for example, entirely depended on its Emperor for all its security and prosperity. The Emperor was the supreme head and controlled all aspects of people’s life including their religion. The people had carefree and happy time. But their entire national edifice crumbled at the very first shock of the Arab invasion. The same fate overtook the Empires of Rome and Greece.

Secret of Our Immortality

But the story of our nation presents an entirely different picture. Our society also had to face innumerable invasions from the most barbaric races. Even political domination by these hostile forces over our people continued for a time, sometimes for several centuries. Off and on, forces of adharma reigned unleashing all their powers of destruction right from the days of Ravana. Even today adharmic elements are having their heyday. But our society has survived all these grave crises.

It is clear that the basis of our national existence was not political power. Otherwise, our fate would have been no better than that of those nations which remain today as only museum exhibits. The political rulers were never the standard-bearers of our society. Saints and sages, who had risen above the mundane temptations of pelf and power and had dedicated themselves wholly for establishing a happy, virtuous and integrated state of society, were its constant torch-bearers. They represented the dharmasatta. The king was only an ardent follower of that higher moral authority. But the dharmasatta continued to hold the people together.

The Tradition Continues

The Buddhist Age too has the same message for us. After Buddha, his followers degenerated in India. They began to uproot the age-old national traditions of this land. The great cultural virtues fostered in our society were sought to be demolished. The links with the past were hammered away. Dharma was at a sad discount. The whole social fabric was being rent to shreds. Devotion to the nation and its heritage had reached such a low pitch that the Buddhist fanatics invited and helped the foreign aggressors who wore the mask of Buddhism. The Buddhist sect had turned against the mother society and the mother religion. In such a critical moment, who was it that came up as the redeemer of our dharma and our society?

It was the same tradition of sages and seers that projected its power and vitality in the form of Sri Shankaracharya. He was a sanyasin, an incomparable philosopher and a unique organizer. The true national consciousness and spirit of selfless service that they roused, helped society to find its feet once again and throw out the treacherous elements. Buddhism, as a distinct sect, was erased from the mother soil, though of course, Buddha remained an incarnation. We worshipped Lord Shiva, no doubt, but on that account we do not welcome the flock of demons surrounding him.

Even during the days of Muslim domination great saints and sanyasins rose to continue that tradition. All those stalwarts- Chaitanya, Tulsidas, Surdas, Jnaneshwar, Ramananda, Tukaram and a host of such others- flooded the land from one end to the other with religious devotion. The great national renaissance under Chhatrapati Shivaji was the direct outcome of those years of intense spiritual and cultural awakening.

We see the same spiritual content present in the national resurgence against the foreign yoke of the British also. This is the unmistakable evidence of history before us. That is verily our Rashtradharma and we stand committed to rejuvenating it in its full potency.

Here it is necessary to clear a misconception that has clouded our thinking these days. The question stems from our misunderstanding of our concept of dharma and confusing it with the western concept of religion. The western countries suffered for centuries because of their dogmatic concept of religion and the control of state by the church. Dharma or spirituality is not a dogma but a view of life in its totality. It is not a separate sphere of national life just as political or economic spheres. It is the sap of our national tree, the life-breathe of our national entity.  

Power Corrupts

Even after understanding all this, there are some who feel that political power is essential even to spread our dharmic ideology. In the past, Christianity and Islam, they say, spread far and wide because of the political power they wielded. But on a closer study, we will find that ultimately political power will never solve the problem.

The statement “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” has become true to a letter there. That is what happened in Russia. Revolutionary zeal, wealth and power and its resultant intoxication, have all combined to make it a ruthless dictatorship, enslaving and dehumanizing a whole nation.

It is well known that power tends to make its wielder oppressive and tyrannical. Our lawgivers, thought it necessary to impose strong checks on the men in power. The state could do good to society only so long as it remained as the upholder of dharma-the higher law of the good life- and not as an end in itself.

Stick to National Genius

It is after realizing this key-note of a national tradition that we have taken upon ourselves the not-so-easy path of moulding men imbued with an uncompromising spirit of dedication to the nation and its spiritual values, who, on the strength of their all-embracing love and spotless character, will be able to wield the integrated strength of the society to such an intense degree that the political powers that shall not dare to transgress their limits and use power for ends other than social welfare.

That is the ideal we have envisaged – the building up of the omnipotent power of the people which shall eternally sustain the society amidst all the vicissitudes of external factors and vivify and irradiate all fields of our national life. Remember that the ancient spirit is not dead. That race spirit, which has survived all the shocks of centuries of aggression and has time and again thrown up great spiritual and national heroes, is bound to reassert itself. Let us fashion our life on the pattern of those ancient torch-bearers, those cultural luminaries of our land. Let us revive that glorious tradition which produced a Vasishtha, a Vishwamitra, a Chanakya, a Vidyaranya and a Samartha that blossomed forth in a Sri Rama, a Chandragupta, a Krishnadevaraya and a Shivaji.

Let that sublime vision continue to stir our hearts forever and let us prepare ourselves for that historic mission, regardless of the time and energy that we may be required to dedicate.    

Image Credits: Ennapadam Panchajanya