When Law Forgets Dharma: Civilizational Crisis in Hindu Personal Jurisprudence

A society that forgets its Dharma—its religious, cultural, and historical foundations—risks losing the very principles that safeguard its prosperity, security, and coherence. Without a deep awareness of its civilizational roots, a nation cannot meaningfully protect life, property, or the moral fabric of its society.

The current framework of Hindu personal law in India stands at a crossroads. Much of what is today classified as Hindu personal law is not an organic extension of Sanātana Dharma or derived faithfully from ancient Hindu texts such as the Manusmṛti, Dharmasūtras, or the Smṛti literature. Instead, it reflects significant colonial intervention—particularly the British reinterpretation of Hindu customs and theology through a utilitarian and orientalist lens. In this process, Hindu law was codified not to reflect Dharma in its depth and complexity, but to fit the administrative logic of a colonial legal system.

Over the past fifty years, the problem has only deepened. Influenced by Western political ideologies—ranging from liberal progressivism to postmodern relativism—Hindu personal law has, in many respects, moved further away from the spirit of Dharma. Rather than fostering moral clarity or social cohesion, it has often been co-opted to reflect ideological trends alien to the Indian civilizational ethos.

This drift has contributed not to cultural resilience, but to fragmentation. Instead of guiding society toward a deeper engagement with Dharma, the current legal discourse frequently encourages imitation of Western intellectual currents—wokeism, radical progressivism, cultural Marxism, and hyper-individualistic multiculturalism—many of which have caused deep societal strain even in the countries of their origin.

It must also be acknowledged that the challenges in Hindu personal law are not unique. Several other religious communities in India retain personal laws that are arguably more anachronistic and more deeply misaligned with constitutional values. The existence of parallel legal frameworks based on religious identity hampers the pursuit of justice and equality before the law.

In this context, the idea of a Uniform Civil Code (UCC)—a single, secular legal framework governing personal matters such as marriage, inheritance, and divorce—deserves serious consideration. A well-conceived and equitably enforced UCC would not only eliminate legal inequality across religious lines but also reorient the personal law regime toward principles of justice, coherence, and national unity.

Such a reform, however, must not come at the cost of erasing the moral and spiritual insights embedded in India’s civilizational traditions. A truly dhārmika approach to legal reform would harmonize ancient wisdom with contemporary constitutional ideals—not by importing ideological fashions, but by recovering and rejuvenating the ethical foundations that have guided Indian society for millennia.

Narendra Modi: In comparison to Thatcher, Xiaoping, Reagan and Gorbachev

Narendra Modi

Narendra Modi seems to be a better reformer and politician than the four other reformist world leaders of the last 50 years: Margaret Thatcher, Deng Xiaoping, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. 

During their tenure as premier, Thatcher, Xiaoping, Reagan and Gorbachev were focused on economic reforms and foreign policy. They did little to strengthen the culture, and the religious identity of their country. Thatcher and Reagan were multiculturalists and globalists. Xiaoping was a materialist anti-Maoist. Gorbachev was a naive dreamer. 

Under Thatcher and Reagan the economy of the UK and the USA grew at a healthy pace, but there was decline in the traditions of conservatism and Christianity. Under Xiaoping and Gorbachev the old communist system was overthrown but no attempt was made to revive the ancient culture (Confucianism in China and Orthodox Christianity in Russia) that existed before the communists had usurped power. 

It can be argued that the policies of Thatcher and Reagan pushed their countries in the direction of globalism, wokism, progressivism, and conservative and religious decline. Gorbachev bequeathed Russia to the KGB oligarchy, and Xiaoping bequeathed China to militaristic CCP tyrants.

In 2014, when Modi became the Prime Minister, there was speculation that, like Reagan and Thatcher, he would be focused mainly on economic reforms. Since 2014, the Indian economy has done reasonably well—GDP has been growing at around 7% every year. In the areas of foreign policy and military strength, there have been some improvements.

But the big success that Modi has achieved is in the area of culture—he has aroused the religious and nationalist sentiments of the masses. For the first time, India has a Prime Minister, who takes initiatives and launches movements to restore ancient Hindu culture, and make people realize what it means to be a Hindu (follower of Sanatana Dharma).

There are no good civilizations and evil civilizations

Laws of morality apply only to individuals, never to civilizations—therefore, there are no good civilizations and evil civilizations. There are only civilizations with a strong sense of culture and religion, and a strong will to survive and thrive. To develop a civilization based on a long-lasting culture, and a vision of God and man’s place in God’s universe—this takes sacrifices and struggles of all the past generations, and this is the greatest achievement that any large group of human beings can aspire for. A civilization’s only true value is to produce men of character and courage who will safeguard their culture and religion.

The savage and the citizen: A philosophy of territory and property

Territory is as old as instinct. In the wild, among wolves and hyenas, lions and dogs, territoriality is a primal impulse—etched not in law but in blood and muscle. These creatures, including early humans in their most unrefined state, claim as much land as they can defend, guided by the rudimentary calculus of strength and survival. To possess is to protect, and to protect is to fight.

Property, by contrast, is not a fact of nature but a fiction of civilization. It does not emerge from instinct but from institution. Unlike territory, which can exist in a world without politics or language, property requires an architecture of rules, a scaffolding of law, and a sovereign authority capable of enforcement. Where territory is animal, property is human—or more precisely, it is the invention of humans who have transcended the animal condition through law, contract, and consensus.

In this light, the distinction between brutes and citizens becomes clear: the former seize land by force, the latter acquire property by law. One marks his dominion with tooth and claw; the other with title deeds and court orders. Territory belongs to the jungle; property, to the polis.

History does not repeat itself; the future is unknowable

It is not true that history repeats itself. If history were repeating itself, then the future would be predictable. The future is anything but predictable. 

The history of every age was different—life in every age was driven by its own challenges, achievements, religious and cultural movements, and wars. The intellectuals and political thinkers in every age were taken by surprise by the major events. 

Today we have access to massive historical records, but this voluminous amount of history will not tell us what the world will be like in 2030, 2040 or 2050. How can we predict the future, when we can’t properly understand today’s political and cultural events? 

Today’s breaking news stories are tomorrow’s big joke. When we fail to judge which contemporary events are important, deserving the tag of breaking news, and which are frivolous, then how can we predict what the world will be like in 10 to 100 or more years. 

We can be certain of only one thing—the future will be unlike anything we can imagine.

Two failed ideologies: socialism & capitalism

Socialism creates tyrannical and nihilistic nations; capitalism creates schizophrenic and woke nations. Socialist nations die from economic and political decline; capitalist nations die from cultural and intellectual decline. If socialism and capitalism are the only two choices, then mankind is doomed.

Journalism: The Frightful Monstrosity and Delusion

“Journalism possesses in itself the potentiality of becoming one of the most frightful monstrosities and delusions that have ever cursed mankind. This horrible transformation will occur at the exact instant at which journalists realise that they can become an aristocracy.” ~ G K Chesterton ("The New Priests”, 1901)

In the atheistic and nihilistic world-order of the twenty-first century, the journalists have become the new clergy. Under the guise of “breaking news,” they preach their daily sermons to brainwash their flock of readers and viewers. The power of the mainstream media to promote pseudo-science as real science, frivolous buffoons as great thinkers, and fake news as the ultimate truth is frightening. 

Chesterton’s view of journalism has become a reality. Journalists have become part of the crooked aristocracy. Journalism is the most frightful monstrosity and delusion of our time.

Rama Rajya: The Civilization of Faith & Reason

The Rama Rajya (Godly civilization) envisioned in the ancient Hindu texts is more magnificent, advanced and happy than the utopia of the communists and the ‘woke AI-world’ of postmodern tech-oligarchy. 

Faith and reason are eternal attributes of the human mind. To create a healthy and balanced society, you need both faith and reason. In Rama Rajya, faith and reason are given equal importance and they balance each other to encourage morality, economic and scientific progress, political stability and social harmony. If a society rejects faith and relies solely on reason, it must fall prey to nihilism, corruption, alienation and decadence. 

There is no room for faith in the communist utopia and the ‘woke AI-world’, which are founded on the idea of supremacy of reason. In the communist utopia, the General Secretary is the biggest repository of reason. Whatever the General Secretary is accepted by all as the voice of reason. In the ‘woke AI-world’, the tech oligarchs have the monopoly on reason. Woke oligarchs like Bill Gates are viewed as the repositories of reason.

“Reason is always a kind of brute force”

“Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of 'touching' a man's heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it.” ~ G. K. Chesterton

The history of the last 250 years shows that the so-called ‘men of reason’ are generally violent, tyrannical, cultish and foolish. The French Revolution of the 18th century was spearheaded by the self-proclaimed men of reason who believed that theirs was the “Age of Enlightenment”. They butchered millions of people with the aim of creating a utopia of reason, secularism and science. 

In the 20th century, tyrannically revolutionaries and warmongers like Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Hitler, Mussolini, Jean-Paul Sartre, Mao and Pol Pot strongly believed that they had the right to rule all of humanity because “reason” was on their side. The American progressives believe that reason is on their side but they are constantly using their country’s economic resources to wage senseless wars. 

The postmodernists and the libertarians proclaim that they have a monopoly on reason. But they are out of touch with reality and their political and cultural opinions are often silly. Pop fiction writer Ayn Rand proclaimed the supremacy of reason but she went on to found a dumb cult, which glorifies adultery, abortion and even non-consensual sex (Howard Roark on Dominque) as a sign of creative individualism. 

I am in full agreement with Chesterton—reason is indeed a brute force. The men of reason are as dangerous, as psychopathic as the religious fundamentalists.

4 Most Powerful Geopolitical Forces in History of Civilization

The 4 most powerful geopolitical forces in the history of civilization are: pandemic, apocalypse, war and belief in one true God. The propagators of these forces are the great movers of history who have forged new empires after destroying old ones. 

In the last 1500 years, the empires of the Middle East and Europe have used the fear of pandemic and apocalypse, the slogans of war and the idea that their God is the only true God to control their own people and conquer and enslave many other lands. 

In the postmodern digital-information society, in which a significant part of humanity lives today, not much has changed. Geopolitics is still being driven by the mass movements related to the forces of pandemic, apocalypse, war and belief in one true God.

The richest and most powerful tyrants in the world today are those who control the mass movements which propagate some aspects of the four geopolitical forces.

Life is not rational; reason is unknowable

The notion that life is rational is a myth propagated by materialistic Western philosophers. Life is not rational. Life is governed by the irrational. 

Love is not rational. Hatred is not rational. Hope is not rational. Greed is not rational. Happiness is not rational. Sorrow is not rational. Faith in the idea that the good always wins in the end is not rational. Man has no way of knowing how to make the right choices through reason. He has no way of knowing the rational course of action.

'Reason' and 'rational' are based on subjective principles and standards. What is rational for one man can be fundamentalism for another man. What is 'reason' for one man can be naivety and foolishness for another man.

Self praise is a sign of weakness

When a man praises himself, he is revealing his lack of wisdom and knowledge. When a nation praises itself as the best in the world, it is revealing its loss of culture and sense of history. When a religion is praising itself as the only true faith, it is revealing it has no spiritual values and is motivated solely by the political agenda of world domination.

Bill Gates: The World’s Worst Book Reviewer

Who is the world’s worst book reviewer? It is Bill Gates, the Microsoft tycoon. When I see a book being recommended by Gates, I know for sure that this book is trash. I will never waste my valuable time reading the books he recommends. 

The books he recommends are invariably by authors close to the powerful and crooked progressive establishment which rules the world. In the list of his recommendations, you will find books by wheeler-dealer lobbyists, vapid celebrities, power-hungry politicians, nihilistic film personalities, crooked journalists, corrupt oligarchs, pseudo-economists, money-laundering bankers, unhinged and fake scientists, naive anarchists, out of touch academics who harbor delusions of omniscience, and tyrannical leaders of taxpayer funded super-powerful institutions. 

The books in Gates’s list are full of pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo and political propaganda—they are on politically correct themes such as extinction, climate change, extreme environmentalism, epidemics, saving the planet, sustainable development, sustainable energy, creating a global multicultural utopia. 

Does Gates read the books he recommends? I doubt it. I believe that he recommends books with the sole purpose of creating the impression of an erudite man. But a man who is really erudite will not read this kind of thrash. I peruse his book recommendations regularly to know which books I should avoid. If a book is being plugged by Gates, then it isn't for me.

Rereading Exodus by Leon Uris

“It was not a melting pot, it was a pressure cooker, for they came from every corner of the earth and had lived under every variety of circumstance,” Leon Uris in Exodus.

Exodus was published in 1958, ten years after Israel became independent (on 14 May 1948). Not much has changed since 1958; Leon Uris’s description of Israel holds till this day. The country is still a pressure cooker—this is one of the key reasons that it has survived and thrived for so long. 

Had Israel followed the melting pot (multiculturalist) model, it would have lost its Jewishness after being swamped by its cultural-religious enemies, and perished. With the pressure cooker model, Israel has created an intense civilizational identity which is worth fighting for. As long as Israel retains its civilizational identity, it cannot be overthrown. 

I read Exodus two decades ago. It is not a history book; full of myths and legends, it is a great work of propaganda for Israel. I liked the book then. I am planning to reread it.

On Catherine Nixey’s book ‘The Darkening Age’

I just finished reading Catherine Nixey’s book The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World. The book’s leitmotif is that the early Christians destroyed pagan religion, art and culture, and also obliterated a significant part of the knowledge developed by pagan societies of Ancient Greece and the Middle East. 

Catherine Nixey is a left-leaning atheist journalist. Ideologically, she is against all religions and traditions. There is a surfeit of exaggeration and half-truths in The Darkening Age. The book fails to acknowledge that the best pagan societies were located not in Europe but in the Middle East and they were destroyed by early Islam (not early Christians).

However, a part of what Nixey says in the book is correct. 

The conflict between the pagans and the early Christians began in the Roman age and went on till the 18th century when the last pagan communities were assimilated and digested by the European Christians. The conflict between Christianity and pagans was intense, though not as violent as the conflict between Christianity and Islam which goes on till this day. 

Nixey fails to inform her readers that the conflict between the pagans and Islamic movements was always very violent. Zoroastrianism, a very sophisticated pagan culture of the Middle East, was destroyed by the early Islamic forces, not by the early Christians.

Another important aspect of Christian-pagan history that Nixey does not cover in her book is the impact of pagan philosophy, literature and art on European culture and politics. She does not honestly cover the extensive efforts that the European Christian establishment made to collate, digest and reinterpret pagan knowledge.

European historians have tried to prove that the philosophy of Ancient Greece is the fountainhead of modern Western culture. This is a myth. Ancient Greece was polytheistic, skeptic and it followed a city-state model—it could not have served as an inspiration for the monotheistic, materialistic and world-empire model of European Christianity.

Teaching of Bhagavad Gita: Dharma is superior to morality, ethics, legality

During the times of great religious and civilizational wars, the tenets of morality, ethics and legality become less important for the warrior and political class. In the Mahabharata war, Krishna does not allow Arjuna to quit the battlefield over moral, ethical and legal dilemmas.  

In the Bhagavad Gita, the battlefield of “कुरुक्षेत्रे” (kuru-kṣhetre) is described as the “धर्मक्षेत्रे” (dharma-kṣhetre), or the sacred ground of supreme and timeless dharma. Krishna exhorts Arjuna to overlook the manmade tenets of morality, ethics and legality, and focus on fighting to win the great civilizational war. He reminds Arjuna that he is standing on religious ground and his primal duty is to wage war and annihilate the forces of evil that are threatening dharma and civilization.  

The tenets of morality, ethics and legality, being manmade social constructs, are not superior to dharma and civilization. These tenets apply only in times of peace. When dharma and civilization are under threat, then the warriors and politicians must overlook morality, ethics and legality, and fight to destroy the enemy by every possible means.

The important lesson of history

It takes thousands of years of religious thought, philosophizing, spiritual advancements, agriculture, political struggles, religious and political schisms and movements, scientific movements, trading activity, linguistics, wars, massacres, revolutions and industrial activity to create a major civilization. 

Ruins of Nalanda University in Bihar 

(Started in the Vedic Age, before 1200 BCE)

But the civilization created from such pain, struggle, sacrifice, science and intellectualism can be ruined in one generation—in less than 25 years. 

Every generation must exercise care, lest they become the “doomed generation” under whose watch the civilization gets wiped out. If people understood the history of their own civilization, they would, perhaps, do things differently.

Reason and morality are subjective, transitory and fallible

Reason is not the ultimate way of arriving at the truth, the laws of morality are not final. Both reason and morality are subjective; both are transitory and fallible. Those who believe in reason and morality can do as much harm to society as those who reject reason and morality. 

The Vedic texts preach that human beings should strive to transcend reason and morality in their quest for truth and dharma. The principles of Sanatana Dharma are rooted in spirituality (divine consciousness) and timeless historical experiences, not in reason and morality.

Leftists are top capitalists; Rightists are incompetent capitalists

The idea that leftism is anti big business is a myth. 

The reality is that the supporters of leftist ideology have been driving the global economy in the last 100 years. The leaders and investors of all top multinational companies are left-leaning.

In America, Western Europe and India outspoken socialists are running business empires worth billions of dollars. In China, the Communist Party has founded the world’s biggest business empire, worth trillions of dollars. In Russia, the billionaire oligarchs are outspoken Marxists.

The rightists are not good in business. I don’t know of any major multinational company being funded and run by rightwing conservatives, libertarians and free market advocates. The leftists are the best capitalists; the rightists are incompetent capitalists.

Sri Aurobindo: Gandhian politics, Tolstoyism and Bolshevism

Sri Aurobindo

In 1920, Sri Aurobindo said that Mahatma Gandhi’s political method, founded on Tolstoy’s ideas, could lead to the imposition of Indianised Tolstoyism or Bolshevism on India. In a letter (written in April 1920) to his brother Barin Ghose, Sri Aurobindo wrote:  

“People now want to spiritualise politics – Gandhi, for instance – but they can’t get hold of the right way. What is Gandhi doing? Making a hodge-podge called satyagraha out of ahimsa paramo dharmah [non-violence is the highest law], Jainism, hartal, passive resistance, etc.; bringing a sort of Indianised Tolstoyism into the country. The result – if there is any lasting result – will be a sort of Indianised Bolshevism.”

Sri Aurobindo was probably right in caricaturing Gandhian politics as Indianised Bolshevism. After independence, India became a soft-Bolshevik state. Nehruvian socialism and Indira Gandhi’s personality-cult socialism were the manifestations of Bolshevism. 

In a talk in July 1923, Sri Aurobindo said, “Gandhi’s position is that he does not care to remove violence from others; he wants to observe non-violence himself.” On the linkage between Gandhi and Tolstoy, Sri Aurobindo said in June 1926, “Gandhi is a European – truly, a Russian Christian in an Indian body. And there are some Indians in European bodies?” 

(Quotations in this article are from India’s Rebirth, by Sri Aurobindo)

On Day of Vijayadashami: Four Mahavakyas from the Upanishads

Rama story carved in wall of Shiva temple

Ellora Caves, 8th Century

On the day of Vijayadashami, the festival signifying triumph of good over evil, we should remember the four Mahavakyas (the Great Sayings) from the Upanishads: 

1. Prajnanam Brahma (प्रज्ञानम् ब्रह्म) — “Pure Consciousness is Brahmana" or "Brahman is insight” (Aitareya Upanishad, verse 3.3)

2. Tat Tvam Asi (तत् त्वम् असि) — “You are that” or “You are the existent” (Chāndogya Upanishad, verse 6.8.7)

3. Ayam Atma Brahma (अयम् आत्मा ब्रह्म) — "This Self (Atman or soul) is Brahmana" (Māṇḍūkya Upanishad, verse 1.2)

4. Aham Brahma Asmi (अहम् ब्रह्मास्मि) - "I am Brahmana" (Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upanishad, verse 1.4.10)

The Upanishads place great emphasis on understanding the “Brahmana,” which can be defined as the divine mind (Brah + Mana). Brahmana is ananta (an + anta: infinite). The earliest Vedic texts can be dated to 6000 BC.

Victor Hugo’s fallacious argument on ideas whose time has come

"No army can stop an idea whose time has come." 

This saying, often attributed to Victor Hugo, smacks of the "hindsight is 20/20" fallacy. It is deterministic and wrong. You can look back and see which ideas have been victorious and make the claim that the time for these ideas had come. 

But this is an absurd way of analyzing history. It will not lead to an understanding of the factors that led to the victory of any idea. 

A powerful army can crush any idea. A well-armed, well-trained and powerful army, led by a ruthless and visionary political leadership, is the ultimate force in history. History is made by armies, not by ideas. 

The Middle Eastern religious and political ideas won (from 8th to 16th centuries) because the Middle Eastern empires had powerful armies. Imperialism won (from 16th to 19th centuries) for the same reason—the European empires had powerful armies. 

Marxism won in the 20th century because leaders like Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao and Castro were leading powerful political movements and armies.

Vishnu, the collectivist; Shiva, the individualist

Parvati and Dancing Shiva 

Ellora cave

Vishnu is the collectivist, Shiva the individualist. In his avataras, Vishnu builds great coalitions which destroy the forces that are trying to rip apart civilization and culture. Conserving the forces of civilization is the primary task of Vishnu’s avataras. 

In his Rama avatara, Vishnu builds a coalition with kings and communities to destroy Ravana who threatens civilization. In his Krishna avatara, he plays a pivotal role in strengthening the Pandava alliance to enable them to destroy the evil Kaurava alliance. 

Shiva does not intervene to conserve civilization. He lives in the mountains and forests. From time to time, he acts individually to fulfill his divine task of annihilating powerful forces which threaten humans and Gods. The destruction of evil armies and empires is his primary task.

The tradition of Sanatana Dharma rejects the idea of dichotomy between individualism and collectivism. During the Vedic period (more than 3000 years ago), the sages saw individualism and collectivism as the two inseparable attributes of civilized society. 

The idea of dichotomy between individualism and collectivism is a myth crafted by the European intellectuals of the nineteenth century. These intellectuals propagated the false idea that collectivism implies communism and individualism implies capitalism. 

Civilization and culture are fundamentally collectivist. Modern civilization is the outcome of thousands of years of collectivist tendencies: religions, movements and philosophies. Without collective thinking, there can be no culture, no civilization.  

Sanatana philosophy awards equal importance to individualism and collectivism. The Vedic and Puranic texts exhort us to develop our individualistic way of thinking, perform our original acts, within the framework of culture and civilization.

The Frankensteins that America & Israel created in the 1980s

In the 1980s, the American CIA funded, trained, glorified and armed the Taliban in Afghanistan because they wanted to use the Taliban to destroy the Soviet Union. 

Charlie Wilson's War (by George Crile) and several other books provide a description of America’s close collaboration with the Afghan Mujahideen during the Soviet–Afghan War.

In the 1980s, the Israeli intelligence agency Shin Bet facilitated the rise of Hamas because they saw Hamas as a political weapon for weakening the Palestine Liberation Organisation. 

What does world history from the 1980s to 2023 tell us? 

It tells us that the political establishments in America and Israel are not interested in solving the world's problems. They intervene in other nations with the agenda of causing large-scale mindless destruction and creating new Frankensteins.

Israel versus Palestine: The human quest for meaning

All humans crave for land, but only a few quest for meaning. The ones who quest for meaning are capable of making fruitful use of the land. 

When two civilizations clash over a piece of land, it makes ethical and political sense to support the side capable of questing for meaning and making fruitful use of the land for the larger good of humanity. 

A war is raging in the Middle East—Israelis versus Palestinians. Which side is capable of questing for meaning? Which side is capable of making fruitful use of the land? 

The Israelis excel in science, technology, entrepreneurship, medicine, agriculture, defence, political theory, philosophy, art and literature. What are the Palestinian achievements?

Which side should we support? Those who believe in humanity, those who want a betterment of the human condition, have no alternative except to support the side that is capable of questing for meaning and making fruitful use of the land: this means Israel.

Perfection is not possible; Lord Agni’s fire is enveloped in smoke

The quest for perfection is futile. Even the powerful Gods cannot create perfection in the universe. In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna reminds Arjuna (verse 3.38) that Lord Agni is enveloped by smoke. 

Lord Agni is one of the most powerful Vedic Gods. In the Vedas, he is often invoked along with Lord Indra and Lord Soma. In the Vedic tradition, Lord Agni is regarded as the mouth of the Gods—through Lord Agni’s mouth the offerings reach the Gods. He resides on earth as fire, in the air as lightning and in the cosmos as the sun and the stars.

Yet even Lord Agni cannot attain perfection. In his manifestations, his fire is always enveloped by smoke. When Lord Agni cannot attain perfection, then there is no chance for humans to themselves be perfect or create anything that is perfect. 

The history of the last 2000 years shows that the civilizational movements that have quested for perfection have always led to bloodbath and destruction. 

In the Middle Ages, the Islamic armies rampaged across Asia, and parts of Europe and Africa, to create a perfect society of God. Instead of perfection, they unleashed death and destruction wherever they went. Their wars and violence are still raging in the Middle East and many other parts of the world. 

Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin tried to create a perfect Bolshevik society through nationalization of all property and wealth, imposition of five year plans, and banishment of dissidents to concentration camps and firing squads. Hitler and the Nazis tried to create a perfect Aryan society through World War and gas chambers. Instead of perfection, they brought destruction to their society. 

The libertarian movements dreamed of creating a perfect capitalist and individualistic society but they got mired in nihilism, cultism, naivety, amorality and social-alienation. 

Human efforts can never lead to perfection. Our best will never be perfect. The human mind, all human actions, and all human creations have good and bad aspects, and they lead to good and bad consequences.

Bhagavad Gita: Metaphysical and moral implications of the theory of rebirth, redeath

Every birth is a rebirth, every death is a redeath. This applies to everything inside the universe and to the universe itself. 

Every entity or conception—living and non-living, mental and physical, time and space, memory and history, smallest atom to the largest stars and blackholes—must one day die or be destroyed. Death or destruction is not the end—it is the prelude to rebirth or recreation.  

In the cycle of rebirth and redeath, creation and destruction nothing is lost. Mass and energy are always in a state of equilibrium irrespective of the universe being in the phase of creation or destruction. History and memory are not lost at the time of death—their essence gets transferred to the mind of the new generations, making them wise or naive, moral or nihilistic, and leading them to perform good or bad deeds, attain success or failure in their lifetime. 

The philosophy of rebirth and redeath has metaphysical and moral implications. 

The metaphysical implication is that the universe is a battleground of mass and energy. Energy seeks to rip apart the physical bodies, while mass seeks to empower itself by absorbing and digesting the energy. The contest between mass and energy lasts for as long as the universe (time and space) lasts and leads to the creation, motion and eventual obliteration of all heavenly bodies—atoms, moons, planets, stars, supernovas. 

The moral implication is that the good or bad things that happen to us are not due to “chance”; they are not the outcome of “God’s will” either. They are the outcome of our past karma. In this life you are reaping the fruits of your deeds in your past lives, and what you do in this life will have an impact on your subsequent rebirths. One must live morally because immoral conduct has implications for not just this life but all future lives. 

All this is one of the important teachings of the Bhagavad Gita.

The Saptarshi in the asterism of the Big Dipper

In ancient Indian astronomy, the asterism of the Big Dipper is described as the physical representation of the Saptarshi, the seven sages who are extolled in the Vedas, Puranas, the Mahabharata and several other ancient texts.

The seven bright stars of the Big Dipper are the universal forms of the seven sages whose names, according to Shatapatha Brahmana and Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, are: Atri, Bharadvaja, Gautama Maharishi, Jamadagni, Kashyapa, Vasistha and Vishvamitra.

The Mahabharata gives their names as: Marichi, Atri, Pulaha, Pulastya, Kratu, Vasistha and Angiras. Other ancient texts give slightly different names for the seven sages.

Culture, collectivism and civilization: What the Upanishads say

Stone wheel engraved on walls of

Konark Temple

Collectivism is the fountainhead of culture and civilization. The more sophisticated the society, the more collectivist its institutions and philosophies are. In contrast, the primitive societies were simplistic; they were collectivist to a much lesser degree.

In the broad prehistoric period known as the Stone Age, humans lived in small groups of 5 to 100 individuals linked by ties of blood. The process of building large-scale civilizations began 25,000 to 15,000 years ago, when the concept of religion came into being and people started coming together in the name of God to build large groups. 

Religion was the first collectivist movement of mankind. The successful religions brought millions of people together and got them to cooperate for developing other collectivist philosophies and movements. Some of these collectivist movements became powerful city-states and empires where collectivist tendencies continued to grow.

The postmodern man is a product of tens of thousands of years of collectivism in the form of— religions, movements, philosophies and other civilizational forces. The antithesis of collectivism is individualism, which is anti-culture and leads to nihilism, immorality, atheism, anarchy, weakness and decay. 

Why is religion the fundamental force that binds civilizations? 

One of the teachings of the Upanishads is that to live a fulfilling life we need meaning and challenge. We have the natural urge try to understand our place in the universe and we want to achieve something that is challenging, perhaps impossible, something that we believe no one has achieved before. 

Religion is the fundamental civilizational force because it offers avenues for both meaning and challenge. 

The Upanishads preach that the urges for meaning and challenge are part of mankind’s collective evolution. We try to find meaning in the notion of divinity that our culture and civilization has bestowed on us and we try to excel within the framework of the society with which we identify. In the modern or postmodern age, some try to find meaning in the secular philosophies which too are products of thousands of years of collectivism and culture. 

The adventure of human life is to join the human struggle for discovering who we are, what is our place in the universe, what is morality, what is the significance of the life that we get to lead before we die—this is one of the key teachings of the Upanishads.

Rationality is a myth; man is a creature of emotions

Goddess Saraswati 

(10th century)

The idea that man is a rational creature is a myth propagated by the power-hungry intellectuals and politicians of the modern age. They proclaimed themselves as the “voice of rationality,” because they wanted to propagate the myth that they were superior to everyone else and hence best suited to wield political power. 

Man is a creature of emotions who is capable of rationalizing. Too often we confuse our rationalization with the aspect of being rational. But rationalization has nothing to do with being rational. A super-advanced computer (an AI) can be rational, but Man is incapable of being rational. 

What is the rational course of action in any context is impossible for man to decipher. All the knowledge of humanity is not sufficient to decode the mysteries of the limitless universe. With his limited knowledge and experience man is incapable of identifying the ultimate truth. How can man be rational when he is clueless about the ultimate truth? 

The man who says that he knows what is the rational course of action is either a fool, who does not know what he is talking about, or a power hungry tyrant. 

The ancient sages of Sanatana Dharma did not exhort people to be rational; they told them that the world was a sea of consequences and the eternal truth is hard to find because it resides within infinite myths and falsehoods. They told them that one can try to move close to the eternal truth by being patient and by developing wisdom and empathy. 

Dharma is more about wisdom than rationality, it is more about empathy than ethics.

Lord Kalki: The end of metaphysics, the beginning of new universe

Lord Kalki, an avatara of Vishnu, appears at the final or ultimate moments of the Mahayuga. 

Metaphysically, Lord Kalki represents the end of everything: mind and matter, space and time, life and non-life, the cycle of birth and death, all history and memory come to an end with his coming. The universe goes out of existence. But the end of the universe is the fountainhead for the creation of a new universe. 

The cycle of a new Mahayuga and new universe begins after the dissolution of the earlier Mahayuga and universe. The Upanishads mention that there are four yugas in every Mahayuga: Krita (Satya), Treta, Dvapara and Kali. The current universe is in Kali Yuga, which began in 3102 BC, and will last for 1200 divine years, or 432,000 human years.

The Puranas describe periods of time much larger than the yugas and the mahayuga—these are called manvantaras and kalpas. One manvantara comprises 71 mahayugas; 14 manvantaras comprise one kalpa, equal to a day in Brahma's life. Thus, a day in Brahma’s life consists of an infinite number of years from the human perspective. 

Since Lord Kalki appears at the end of the Mahayuga, it can be surmised that, according to the Upanishads and Puranas, the universe comes to an end and is reborn several times in each manvantara and kalpa. The Puranas talk about thirty kalpas. The present kalpa is the Varaha Kalpa which came after the passage of the previous kalpa, the Padma Kalpa.

John Galt: Ayn Rand’s world-destroying, world-conquering conquistador

John Galt, the central figure in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, is often hailed as a prophet of radical individualism and the quintessential libertarian hero. But peel back the sheen of heroic rhetoric, and he emerges not as a liberator but as a postmodern conquistador—one who presides, not with sword and musket, but with monologues and manifestos, over the symbolic slaughter of millions and the systematic dismantling of civilization.

Galt is not a man of compromise. He believes he alone knows the optimal way of life, and in Rand’s telling, that conviction gives him the moral authority to impose his worldview upon all of humanity. His revolution is not merely ideological; it is cataclysmic. By the novel’s end, Galt and his disciples have crippled industry, toppled governments, sabotaged infrastructure, and watched—without flinching—as millions perish in the resulting chaos. This, we are told, is the necessary price of moral purification.

In Rand’s inverted moral universe, these orchestrators of collapse are not villains but saints. Their atrocities are justified, even celebrated, because they are carried out in the name of her so-called “rational” values: atheism, reason, individualism, unregulated capitalism, and freedom. That these values require the destruction of nearly everything else—tradition, community, religion, empathy, doubt—matters little. The world must be remade in their image, or it must burn.

This narrative impulse echoes Rand’s disturbing admiration for the historical conquistadors—men like Columbus and Cortés—whose genocidal violence, she believed, was a necessary prelude to the birth of modern America. In essays marked by staggering historical ignorance and moral blindness, she denigrated Native American cultures and suggested that their annihilation was deserved. Just as the conquistadors of old cleared the land with steel and fire, so too must Rand’s philosophical vanguard clear the mental and cultural terrain of the 20th century.

To be clear, Rand did not preach violence in the literal sense. But she recognized that her vision would never be accepted willingly. People, tethered as they are to religion, tradition, and emotional nuance, would need to be broken. And thus, Atlas Shrugged becomes not a novel of liberation, but of coercion through collapse. It is the fantasy of a cultural tabula rasa, achieved not by persuasion but by the erosion of everything else.

Galt does not kill with his hands. He kills with his voice. His infamous 60-page speech, the climactic sermon of Atlas Shrugged, is a rhetorical siege—a didactic ultimatum that offers no middle ground. Accept his truth in its totality, or be left to perish. The tone is not philosophical; it is theological. It is not a dialogue; it is dogma. In Rand’s Manichaean cosmos, there is no space for doubt, debate, or deviation. There is only the saved and the damned.

Though often labeled a philosopher of classical liberalism or libertarianism, Ayn Rand was no philosopher. Her grasp of the Western canon was shallow, her critiques of thinkers like Aristotle, Plato, and Kant riddled with caricature and confusion. Politically, she was less a theorist than a totalist—insisting that only one kind of person deserved to inherit the Earth: the person who lived strictly by her code. All others were unfit, parasitic, or tragically lost.

In the final decades of her life, Rand sought to birth a movement. What she managed instead was a cult. Her circle was filled with young, semi-educated idealists, many of whom soon grew disillusioned and abandoned her. Those who remained were often the mediocrities—the ones who mistook rigidity for clarity, bombast for brilliance. They lived in the shadow of Galt, and she became their oracle. Together, they transformed her system of thought into a theology without forgiveness.

Rand’s legacy endures not because of the strength of her ideas, but because of their allure. She offers certainty in a complex world, righteousness in the face of ambiguity, and a mythic hero for those weary of nuance. But beneath that promise lies a brutal message: if the world will not conform, let it collapse.

And in the end, that is what Atlas Shrugged is—a seductive hymn to destruction masquerading as liberation, a tale not of heroes but of zealots, not of freedom but of fire.

Rajiv Malhotra's Being Different: Arguments against the ideologies of sameness, multiculturalism, assimilation

Started reading Rajiv Malhotra's book Being Different yesterday. Now on Chapter 3. 

This book is full of arguments against the postmodern ideologies of "sameness," "multiculturalism" and "assimilation." Rajiv Malhotra argues that "sameness," "multiculturalism" and "assimilation" are not humane and development-oriented ideologies. These are brutal political strategies. 

Whenever these ideologies take root in any society, they result in the "devouring" and "digestion" of one culture by the other. The culture which tries to follow the principles of "sameness," "multiculturalism" and "assimilation" is the one that gets devoured and digested.



Malhotra also argues (in the pages that I have read so far) that being different is not a bad thing—it is a fact of nature. He propagates “being different” as a virtue practiced by long-lasting civilizations with highly advanced philosophy, literature and religious theory. 

He notes that the cosmos is full of different heavenly objects, atomic objects and lifeforms. Nature does not push these objects and lifeforms towards losing their differences and becoming one. The sun does not yearn to become like planets, the deer does not try to become like the wolf. The objects and lifeforms in the cosmos try to find a balance while retaining their unique character.  



Why should human culture and civilizational principles defy the fundamental principles of the cosmos and try to make all humans alike? Malhotra argues that ideologies of "sameness," "multiculturalism" and "assimilation" are political and cultural strategies to disarm and weaken other civilizations and then devour and digest them.

(More on the book later…)

Bhima: The Greatest Warrior of the Mahabharata

Raja Ravi Varma’s Painting 

of Bhima

Arjuna, the third among the Pandava brothers, is viewed as the greatest warrior of the Mahabharata. But the distinction of being the greatest warrior should go to Bhima, the second among the Pandava brothers. In the Mahabharata war, it was Bhima, not Arjuna, who caused maximum devastation to the Kaurava side. He was the great predator of the Kauravas. Arjuna did not kill a single Kaurava brother. Each one of the 100 sons of Dhritarashtra were ruthlessly pursued and butchered by Bhima. Single handedly, Bhima wiped out the Kaurava clan. 

With great brutality, Bhima butchered two of the key sons of Dhritarashtra, Dushasana and Duryodhana. He killed Dushasana by tearing open his chest and drinking his blood, and he fatally wounded Duryodhana by shattering his thighs with his mace. Duryodhana died after suffering for days from the injuries inflicted by Bhima. The Mahabharata contains verses which compare Bhima to a hungry lion that devours deers in the forest. The deers in this case were the 100 Kaurava brothers. They were terrified by Bhima. Encountering Bhima in the battlefield implied brutal death for them. 

Arjuna’s greatest contribution in the Mahabharata was that he was the direct audience to Lord Krishna’s Bhagwan Gita. He was a philosophically and spiritually inclined man. He was not a ruthless and brutal killing machine like Bhima. In the Mahabharata war, Arjuna did not kill any major warrior who was armed. Bhisma and Karna were disarmed—they had discarded their weapons—at the time when they were cut down by Arjuna’s arrows. 

Bhishma had taken a vow that he would never be in a relationship with a woman, nor would he ever strike a woman or someone who had once been a woman. Shikhandi fought in the Mahabharata war as a male warrior but he had once been a woman. (He became a man due to a boon granted by a Yaksha). When he rode into the battlefield in a chariot in front of Arjuna’s chariot, Bhishma refrained from shooting his arrows in their direction. Bhishma could give up his life but he would not break his vow of never fighting a woman or someone who had once been a woman. When he threw down his arms, Arjuna pierced his body with arrows. 

Karna too was not killed by Arjuna in a fair fight. While he was armed, Karna could not be defeated by Arjuna. They fought for days; on some occasions Karna came close to killing Arjuna who was saved mainly through the interventions of Lord Krishna, the avatara of Lord Vishnu who was playing the role of Arjuna’s charioteer and his spiritual and military guide. Karna was defeated when he was forced to discard his weapons and dismount from his chariot to free the chariot’s wheels which had got stuck in the ground. While Karna was engaged in freeing the wheels of his chariot, Arjuna fired his arrows and killed him.

The wife of the five Pandava brothers, Draupadi, realized that Bhima was the only real warrior among her five husbands—whenever she was facing great danger, she remembered Bhima, not Arjuna and the other three Pandava brothers. In the Mahabharata’s Kichaka-badha Parva, a man called Keechaka, who was the commander-in-chief of the King of Matsya, publicly humiliated Draupadi and tried to coerce her into a relationship with him. To save herself from Keechaka, Draupadi did not go to Arjuna—she went to Bhima who bashed Keechaka to death.