Karma....The three stages in the growth of civilization

KARMA : The law of KARMA is not some relentless irreversible force of destiny. It represents the consequences of our choices - choices that are still being made today, will be made tomorrow, by people like you and me. No matter how massive our arsenals, how extensive the pollution of our environment, how violent our relationships, or how irreversible our direction may seem, we can change all these things by the choices we make from now on.And KARMA is not a punitive force. Its purpose in evolution is not to punish us for past mistakes but to teach us to make wise choices in the future, to teach us to live in harmony with the unity of all life. In this sense all our problems have a spiritual purpose : to enable us to evolve, by pushing and prodding and encouraging us toward the goal of life.

The Three stages in the growth of civilization : Tamas, the first stage, is primitive in its simplicity; wants are few, because it takes almost all our prana just to stay alive. In this stage, the human being lives at the mercy of nature, dictated to by physical circumstances. We are now at the crest-perhaps even a little past the crest - of rajasic civilization., which thrives on complication. Rajasic progress, which begins by trying to satisfy human needs, ends in endlessly multiplying desires. The more problems it solves, the more problems its solutions create. In this stage, we are so intent on not living at the mercy of circumstances, we live increasingly at the mercy of our own nature. We produce in order to be producing, consume for the sake of consumption, desire to desire to desire.

This skin of rajasic thinking is what we have to slough if we are to progress into civilization's third stage, that of sattva. Here, instead of multiplying human wants, we begin by reducing them voluntarily. Sattva is a return to simple living : not primitive simplicity, but the artistic simplicity of a life that includes only what gives most meaning and value. Sattvic civilization is not poor, not even in a material sense. It has a place for every material thing that enhances human life. But it has no place for thingsthat are at the expense of life, or that sap vital resources - including time, most vital of all. It renounces so as to leave life freer for the things that matter the most.

In espousing material values, the Gita would say, we were only striving for happiness. That happiness can be attained, even on a global scale, but not by satisfying material values. It can be attained only by satisfying the whole human being, who is essentially spiritual. I am not talking of a Never-Land where sorrow does not enter; there is no such place. Nor am i speaking of Utopia. But it is possible, even without the world filling up with saints, for ordinary people like you and me to live in such a way that this very earth becomes heaven. This does not require that everybody take to the spiritual life; but it does require a higher view of the human being - in other words, a return to spiritual values in our relationships, our work, our education, even our politics and economics.

The Gita embraces both these goals : the one of global fulfillment, with profound material consequences; the other individual.

Reproduced from Eknath Easwaran's : The Bhagavad Gita for Everyday Living Vol III Chapter 18 LOVE IN ACTION page 371 - 373. This 3 volume set is absolutely divine. I wish that all get a chance to buy and read the three volume set.