The Age of Hypocrisy and Short-lived Memory

Human life these days (around 5000 years past the dawn of Kali-yuga) is very frugal and pitiable. People have lost the ability to see the bigger picture and live a life in a state of perpetual dream. And the state of the fantasy, too, isn’t permanent. It keeps changing from moment to moment. They have nothing to chase other than sense gratification though they claim to have a purpose
in life (a clear case for hypocrisy). Some disciplined individuals do sacrifice instant gratification for a larger materialistic goal. Still, overall, people are either chasing the feel-good emotions or running away from the bad feeling emotions (manifested in the form of stress).

We live in the age of Vaishyas and Shudras, for never-ending business opportunities are waiting to capitalize on the miseries plaguing human society. The demoniac atheists who have no long lasting advice to sustain society’s confidence have corrupted Academia. Depending on the senses’ scientific method, they keep setting standards for the public which they contradict a month later. The best example would be the confusion caused during the COVID crisis; the chief medical adviser of the USA initially praised the Indian vaccine (COVAXIN) for its effectiveness in treating the disease. However, the US government banned covaxin as ineffective just two months later. Even though the world presently follows a “scientific and rational” approach, there is a massive lack of trust and reliability. This failure of the modern way of living to give people security and hope has rampantly increased and anxiety and depression.

Before the dawn of the Internet and post-modernism, strict religious values were imposed on society. People may argue that forcing anything is wrong, but we should question the notion that being forced is wrong. When a person commits a crime, the law punishes him by force. People strongly believe that a stringent law and order system is the only way to prevent crime. However, the punishments are no more than a pleasure of revenge for the victims and a pleasure of gossip for the public. Unless the society at large is not educated in character building, there will be no guarantee or trust that the power and freedom allotted to a community member will be misused by them for their selfish interests because character opposes sense gratification they cannot exist together. And when the person controls his sense gratification, he can have a more significant check over his selfishness.

Individuals and society should aspire from moment to moment to live by divine values of selfless service, humility, gratitude, compassion, etc. As nature is such that everything gets eroded with time. Values and character make it easy for a human being to tolerate difficult times become “an unnecessary burden” during good times. Thus, people inevitably choose comfort and luxury overvalues and character after tasting good times which is a trap. According to the Gita, Lust (need for sense gratification) creates attachment to material objects; when the material objects do not gratify the senses, it leads to anger, anger leads to lack of judgment (delusion), delusion bewilders memory, and a confused memory leads to loss of intelligence. (BG 2.62–63)3,4. Thus, we should rest assured that the present generation that lacks responsibility, punctuality, and other such values in their character is chasing some or different kind of gratification and thus is always in delusion. Of course, when wise people label them deluded, they will get angry instead of using their intelligence to disprove the allegations, which is proof of lack of intelligence, as per the Gita.

Presently we are all in Maya (delusion), and the only way to come out of it is by the simple method of associating with people who are out of illusion. People aspiring to go out of delusion should sincerely desire it from moment to moment (not wishing for it and forgetting about it for the next two weeks). This internal effort is a sure-shot way of convincing the supreme of your sincerity. Only when he is convinced will he arrange for your proper guidance to take us to our deliverance.