It is of utmost importance for humanity to understand events shaping the world from a perspective of life, which journeys on a fixed path of right and wrong. Right and wrong cannot be evaluated on the merits of visual evidence for humanity. We need to observe it from the perspective of Nature. For, in Nature poison to one is nectar to another species. Thus, right, and wrong in nature is nuanced. We cannot determine visually or measure the merits through data the validity of what is best for humans. Unfortunately, in modern times truth is seen through data, not the qualitative state of existence. We are a data driven society. Data determines the good, or bad always. Nature is not data driven. The global events seen through data impair our understanding of the tectonic shifts the world awaken to.
Scholars such as Richard Wolff, Jeffrey Sachs, John Mearsheimer, and others have voiced of the looming decline of the United States. They base their arguments on factors such as economic stagnation, rising national debt, emergence of China as a global economic power, BRICS, and the decline of US dollar as the reserve currency in the world. The impending collapse of the West will not be caused by economic stagnation or geopolitical shifts, but by a deeper civilizational decay driven by excessive analysis of life, societal fragmentation, and loss of cultural rootedness. A contrast to more functionally coherent traditional civilizations like that of ancient India. Capitalism assumes that life works on the rules of economics, democracy, capitalism, trade, and various other artificial edifices we have erected in the past half a millennium.
For instance, economic scholars view life through the branch of study that measures production, consumption, and distribution of goods and services. Economic metrics reduce human life to data. The dynamics of human existence is data for an economist. Government that relies on the merits of economic expansion reduces the governed to income and taxation. Business entities see the population as a source of revenue. Every aspect of human life is turned into left, right, center, gender equality, and various other impertinent fractions. People rally around arbitrary issues, in modern times, as an upliftment of society. Truth is overlooked, often. However, truth is the only available tool for human upliftment. The organizers behind the schisms are gathering data about the sensitivity of the public on various issues.
One need not look further than the futility of economic sanctions on nations such as Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and others to conclude that economics does not wield power over nations. If nations are immune, then people are equally unperturbed. There is not any evidence to suggest that life is swayed by economics. There may be instances of scaling back on discretionary spending. The essentials in life are always fulfilled even during economic downturn. Economy is not the fulcrum of life. It neither brings us happiness, nor does it sadden. Economics is data, not pertinent with existence. Debt is the ladder of modern ascension economically. The price inflation without concomitant product, or services value appreciation is a mirage.
The emergence of China as an economic power is not a threat as imagined by the economic scholars. The threat of a civilizational change in China, as well as in India that threatens the West. Reawakening of cultural, civilizational, and ancestral roots are the existential threats for Western dominance. India and China are ancient civilizations with deep cultural and traditional roots. They have withstood firmly despite invasions from abroad who looted their wealth. The homogenization of humans championed by the Western scholars was an effort to wipe out the cultural moorings of ancient civilizations. Civilizations do not die on theories of origin; they are erected on the pillars of eternal truth. Truth is eternal and ever new, theories are temporary. Modern science seeks to emerge as the new religion for humanity, but, alas, it is void of truth and life.
The modern fabric of society is ragged. It is divided along political leanings of left, right, center; on lifestyle grounds of LGBTQ, women’s rights, human rights; on labor grounds of union, and non-union; on ethnic grounds, and many others. Each segment sees a problem with the other group. A common thread does not run through these divisions. They are disparate. If the governance pleases one group, it will alienate another. It is impossible to please the entire population of the Western nations. The politicians make a calculated choice based on the groups’ leaning toward their candidacy for votes. Societal activism along these splintered lines is commodified by the businesses too. Businesses offer exclusive products for a particular segment of the population because the consumer is locked.
Generational gap is yet another modern division between the just born, young, and the aged. Each generation carries an artificial identity, and the younger generations actively identify with the idiosyncrasies of their peers. It is as though they are destined to be different than the earlier generations. It is an attempt to permanently create a schism between the youth and the seniors. It is natural for a young person to feel different than the parents and grandparents. The parents and grandparents of today felt a similar disconnect when they were young decades back. However, as we grow older and the responsibilities increase, the life of the youth merges with parental thoughts. If a twenty-year-old continues unchanged into the forties, and fifties, then the usefulness of his existence ceases. They become a liability to society. A series of incremental responsibilities such as marriage, having children, and caring for aging parents shrinks the gap between generations. A transformative path for an individual to ascend into adulthood to shrink the generation gap is cultured upbringing. A child cannot remain a child into adulthood. Young and old are one; the difference is responsibility. Modern society is advocating that the differences between young and old are permanent. What is the benefit of having differences within a family between generations? It splits the family around the generational differences.
The scholars further exacerbate the fissures in society who research societal divisions and trends, which provide politicians and businesses with a nuanced position for survival. On surface, the fragmentation of society will appear as empowerment of the public. The freedom to express individuality gives an aura of liberation, but the nature of life is not beholden to optics. Every action has perceivable and imperceivable consequences in life. The results of imperceivable consequences create disparity in human condition. The divisions are created with malignant intent, but a system of societal divisions as existed in India is seen condescendingly. Just as nature is nuanced, Indian societal fabric is equally nuanced. It exists to survive the long race of human life. The purpose of classification is not divisive, but to endure the philosophical and civilizational struggles of humanity. India has not witnessed mere Islamic and British conquests of the last millennium; they have survived far greater challenges in the last five thousand years from Buddhism, Jainism, and even atheists had to surrender to the ancestral roots of Sanatanam.
Indian ancestral times classified society as Sudra, Vysya, Kshtriya, and Brahmana. These divisions exist to show the various functions that people perform to bring a society together. They are portrayed by the British as divisive to divide a harmonious land of India. They are not divisive but valued breakdown of societal functions. Such divisions exist in modernity too. We know them as wealthy, upper middle class, middle class, and blue-collar workers. These are divisions too in modern society. The principles of ancestral classification line up with today’s structures when the meaning of Sudra, Vysya, Kshtriya, and Brahmana are understood.
The classifications are not barriers for existential ascendance. A sudra can become a brahamana; a brahamana can devolve to a sudra. The ascendance, or descendance between the hierarchy in a society depends on the actions of the individual. The duty of each classification is broken down meticulously for societal integrity and vitality. A brahmana is a learned person in society. He exists to enlighten and empower the ranks below. The kshtriya is the protector, the vysya is the barterer of goods and services, and the sudra is the performer of the mundane tasks required to nourish the society. Hierarchical categorization helped to maintain harmony in the individual, community, society, and the kingdom. It survived despite politicalization of the divisions because truth endures in nature. Do we not have a similar structure today? The classification uses distinct names. We have academicians who are the brahmana, the people in the armed forces are the kshtriyas, the business owners are the vysyas, and the workers are the sudras. Unlike ancestral times the ascendance from a sudra to a brahmana is near impossible.
Ancestral classification is not discriminatory as divisions are today. Ancestry recognizes that all individuals are not capable of learning equally. Humanity exists in various shades; there are erudite scholars, naturally awakened scholars, talented and untalented, educated, and uneducated, and highly educated who do not possess wisdom. Wisdom and education are independent; it is not a paired product. How do you keep disparate people engaged in a productive act to benefit society? A system must exist for humanity that stretches beyond survival. A system of life that is cultured, curated, and civilized keeps the public engaged on a common goal. The goal of life.
A goal in life is essential for humanity. Void of goals, human life descends into chaos. The goal must be a shared goal. A collective humanitarian goal, eternality. It must be timeless and rise above the physical to the metaphysical realm. Anything less is unworthy of human pursuit. Humans are cultured and civilized species. Our life must be anchored culturally. The benefits of culture are intricate and hidden. It springs to action when all else fails in life. Our lives are woven with impenetrable intricacies in the present day. We do not understand them, nor the creators of the system. Our existence is data to the businesses and the government. We exist as a number. Data cannot understand troubles and travails of a person; therefore, these systems of modernity are incapable of strengthening people, and rescuing them when needed. Awakening to the cultural strengths of ancestry requires a probing inspection of literature from millennia back. Then, we discover the rich tapestry of life. Humanity thrives when individual goals are merged in societal goals, societal goals are merged in national interests, and national interests are merged in nature is the foundation for human life. We are not strong as individuals, we are strong as a family, community, society, and nation. The need for humanity is rediscovering the link between the atomic, the individual, to the vastness of cosmos in culture. Culture reveals the individual and the cosmos simultaneously because they are not distinct entities.
From ancestral times to the present day, culture radiates from the temples in India. To an untrained eye it is a mere structure with an idol inside. What exists inside is not a mere idol, it is the collective consciousness of the cosmos. These temples have been attacked and pillaged for centuries. It is not only the temples that are attacked, but many priests have also lost lives who were the caretakers. Yet here they are in full glory. The temple culture is a testament to the strength of ancestral culture that cannot be taken down. Why? How can a mere mortal bring down a system of life that exists to protect the galactic vastness? Many have tried, and many are still pursuing a futile effort to destroy the temple culture of India. Mughals destroyed Ayodhya a millennium back, it rose once again. Modernity must awaken to the fact that advancements and innovations do not alter fundamentally alter life. Technology is desperately trying to change life with innovative leaps; the latest attempt through Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an attempt to anchor human life to a machine that can be unplugged. AI can entertain and it can provide copious data, but the organic pervasive force of ocean of life will absorb just as ocean absorb the rivers in Nature.
Modernity attempts to rewrite life, not only humans but the lives of animals and plants too. The failure of modernity is their inability to attract all of humanity under the umbrella of the religion of science. Science, like the study of economics, is a mensurate field of study. Science lacks life in its nucleus. It does not pursue eternal truth, and a stage for life. We witness individual and societal struggles all over the world; an end to the struggles does not appear in sight. Disillusionment settles in the minds of people, and when it converts to action technology will not even be remembered. Life is a systemic journey from birth to death of discovering eternality. We may be superior species on the Earth, but in the cosmic vastness we are atomic. Similarly, as an individual we might have conquered Mount Everest, but in the ocean of life our individual conquest is ephemeral and invisible without an equal contribution to the family, society, nation, and nature. Our efforts in life should bring humanity together. We can achieve that through a deep existential understanding of life. Life is impossible to discover minus culture, traditions, and discipline. Ancestral culture provides a path for every individual, generation after generation, to rediscover the discovered. For a discovery without a rediscoverer fades from the minds of humanity.
Thus, the fault lines of modernity are esoteric discoveries, ascendance of individuality, degradation of community and society, and the blurred lines between right and wrong. The ascendance of modernity in the last half a millennium has been haphazardly charted on the principles of new discoveries of our physical world. Life is neither new, nor old. It is ancient. It is eternal. It is ever new. It is cultured. It is civilized. It is timeless. It is an ocean. It is abundant. It is ancestral. Modernity, alas, does not have ancestry. Humanity better prepare for a civilizational awakening that will usurp the supremacy of data, division, and decay of modern times.
Fragrance of Humanity 
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