Iconoclastic ...me?!

I am truly fascinated by the people who lived thousands of years ago who studied, observed and recorded their countless observations about our environment, plants, humans and their harmonious existence. Not only were the observations recorded, but they were studied thoroughly by future generations, added to and amended. As time passed, future generations understood and assimilated vast amounts of information quickly and using this information they concisely wrote down guidelines for a better living. These included guidelines on physical health, spiritual or mental health, occupation, civil works and social living (morals and ethics). These people in their minds had a clear vision of how their guidelines if implemented properly had the potential of creating the most harmonious existence of humankind. . The guidelines were supposed to help humans achieve harmony with nature, other humans and self.

In the Hindu way of life, these guidelines are called the "Vedas" which means knowledge or wisdom imparted through the speech of god. Over the years across centuries man then translated and manipulated these practical texts to give it a sacred and religious colour to it. While doing this, considerable alterations were done to the original text. These alterations not only diluted the guidelines but also paved way to create fundamental schism in the original teachings. The hand-me-down approach is possibly one of the reasons why changes to these texts happened in the first place.

During this time there was no idol worship or at least there is no known record. The classification of labour was introduced during this time and was done based on capabilities. The obviously stronger people got into more physical jobs like civil works, farming and security. People with known talents in many arts like clothing, sculpturing were given a free rein to develop these further. People with higher cerebral capacities were given the task of research and town-ship planning. Some people were isolated from society due to their exposure to communicable diseases, exhibition of disorderly social behaviour and other malicious reasons. Along with these people another group of people were isolated with them to help them. While this classification started of well, vested interests, ulterior motives to gain more power which mark the basic human trait started tilting the equilibrium of this system. The cerebral people wanted to gain more for less. They started making schemes so that people start to trust them more than others. The people with physical power tried to take control of other weaker people instead of protecting them. The isolated people were further distanced. The increasing rift between these classes became so fundamental that across centuries people forgot why the classes were created in the first place but instead a malicious misinterpretation of classes was to remain thousands of years to this day to plague the Hindus in all aspects of their lives. It seems logical to say that these classes were never created to act as a classification to define one's standard of living but as a practical guideline for work.

It is indeed sad to see today's Hindu society fighting amongst themselves over these classes when the whole idea behind them was harmony, With the introduction of god and idol worship, people have morphed themselves to be the followers rather than leaders. While the concept of god does seem to give the people the power to stay mentally stable it is in fact detrimental to their mental power as they push the responsibility of their stability onto someone else. While determining the happiness quotient, Indians rank high for just this particular reason as they make god responsible for everything that's happening to them which makes them feel secure and in turn happy. While this pattern of misinterpretations of original teachings over centuries is not just valid for Hindus but more or less applies to all religions. The people who created these religions were great men but lesser men after them got more power and following than they deserved and chose to mutate the teachings of these great men into scriptures of illogical doctrine.

Fortunately looking at history there has been no dearth of great men and time and again, great men have rose to the opportunity and tried to create an equilibrium and a harmony for humankind. Currently we are in a hiatus in that harmony but things will change soon for the better. The only thing unknown here is how soon.