393ste Spiritmail

By Karmayogi

Democratic nations
grant by law to every citizen the right to defend himself. It is a sacred right
for the Individual. Law endeavours to ensure justice, but justice being a wider
term, law ends up delivering legal justice based on evidence presented to the
court. All evidence cannot be produced.

The law does not admit all evidence produced. Its hands are fettered. Justice
is greater than law. There is no machinery at present to deliver justice. Life
enforces, not justice, but natural justice based on STRENGTH, not rightness. The
culture of a nation is a fit vehicle to deliver justice and dharma, the highest
known human law of goodness. Capacity to defend oneself, I said, is a sacred
right for the Individual; but the capacity NOT to defend oneself is a sacred
value of the Soul.

Culture all over the world is alive. Each nation has its past glories and
present sensations of such cultural expressions. George Washington, the
founding father of USA, refused a salary when he was asked to
head the US Army. He asked only for expenses. A co-disciple of Sri Ramanuja
came running to him to persuade him to run away to escape his guru who was
coming to murder him.

You should not be the cause of such a sin in your guru, was the value he was
upholding. A murder in a village was brought before the village chief. The chiefs
brother was accused of murder. The chief found him guilty and banished him from
the village for 12 years.

At the end of his banishment, the accused returned. By that time, the real
culprit was discovered and murdered by his own mother. She was the chiefs
sister. The facts that came to light embarrassed the chief who was guilty of
gross injustice to his own brother. The chief felt stung. He asked his brother
why 12 years before he had not defended himself and disclosed the Truth. The
brother who was a victim said, You did not ask me to defend myself.

The culture of not speaking unless spoken to is of essential value for servants
and subordinates. A high sense of sacred duty demands that they obey orders,
not speak on their own. In the army it is a code of value. It is not so much in
evidence in civil life. He who does not defend himself defends the culture of
his community while he who defends himself defends only himself. In the Indian
tradition, wherever it is now preserved, it is there alive. It is a spiritual
value of a culture steeped in SPIRIT.

Many young girls today are reluctant to complain to their parents about the
indignities meted out by a husband or his mother. She may suffer badly but she
defends a higher culture in its depraved version. Any nation can be proud of
such men and women. If these values are brought to the social surface of urban
life in offices and factories, the nation will defy all predictions and rush
into spiritual prosperity.