Inequality of Humanity

Why Krishna did not remove inequality of humanity

We should not wrongly think that Mahavira, Buddha, Mohammed, Jesus and Krishna did not talk of equality. They addressed about the kind of equality which was possible and also the need of their times. It was spiritual equality they taught throughout their lives. They preached that the soul, the spirit of every human being was the same. They preached that spiritually all human beings were equal. They could not have said about external conditions then, for that matter even now! The coming generation too will surely accuse us for our failing to do so.

I will try to explain this with the help of an illustration I heard from a renowned economist. Today a person has to work 8 hours each day in field or factory or in office to earn his bread. And we think that is how it should be. The time is not far away that all production will happen through automation. The humanity will be freed from the labour. The necessities of life will be available for humanity without having to work for it. How to spend the leisure time would be a problem then, not employment. Already the economists of advanced countries are grappling with this kind of futurist problem, when complete automation of work will make human labour superfluous and unnecessary. Just 30 to 40 years from now the situation may arise when someone in future is going to ask why men like Krishna, Buddha, Jesus and even Karl Marx did not say it is immoral and inhuman to compel people to work for basics of life. But right now it is difficult to conceive it as moral or social problem. Ideas and thoughts are intimately connected with the realities of time and space. The pains of inequality in materialistic things were not felt in the time of Krishna. Even the poverty was not felt the way it is felt today.

In this world we have to search for and find everything we need, nothing is given gratis. From health to wealth and from ignorance to super consciousness, all are received and achieved by us only when we seek. God is everywhere, he sees the sufferings too. But we have turned our back to him and we are free to do so. Now if we turn our face to God and find him, can we complain why he did not seek us before we sought and found him? If we complain then Krishna or any God would say, that it would be a trespass on our freedom if he forced himself on us without our asking. Freedom means that we are entitled to find what we seek not that which we do not seek. Waiting of Krishna for us is essential. It is not that God was not coming to us because he was unhappy with us. God is beyond these petty emotions. It is necessary that we should seek him. The day we seek and find the God or the ultimate reality, we will realize that the God or the ultimate reality was all the time waiting for us to seek and find. This is the essence Krishna shares with us in Gita on the Bakti (Yoga of Devotion) and Gnana (Yoga of Knowledge) Yoga. And most religions and teachings of great personalities too tell us the same.

Let us understand Krishna to understand Gita.      

Wishing you all good health and happiness,

Dr. Dwarakanath, 

Director, MITRAN foundation- the stress management people!