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<P ALIGN=center style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><b>
<font size="4">Three
Degrees of Social Organisation</font></b><font size="4"><BR>
</font></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<span style="font-size:12pt;">DECLARATION of Rights is a characteristic
modern phenomenon. It is a message of liberty and freedom, – no
doubt of secular liberty and freedom – things not very common in
the old world; and yet at the same time it is a clarion that calls
for and prepares strife and battle. If the conception of Right has
</span><FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">s</span></FONT><span style="font-size:12pt;">anctified
the individual or a unit collectivity, it has also </span><I><FONT FACE="Times New Roman,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;">pari
passu</span></FONT><FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;"> </span></FONT></I><FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">d</span></FONT><span style="font-size:12pt;">eveloped
a fissiparous tendency in human organisation. Society based on or
living by the principle of Right becomes naturally and inevitably a
competitive society. Where man is regarded as nothing more – and,
of course, nothing less – than a bundle of rights, human
aggregation is bound to be an exact image of Darwinian Nature –red in tooth and claw.</span></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
&nbsp;</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<span style="font-size:12pt;">But Right is not the only term on which an
ideal or even a decent society can be based. There is another term
which can serve equally well, if not better. I am obviously referring
to the conception of duty. I tis an old world conception; it isa
concep&shy;tion particularly familiar to the East. The Indian term
for Right is also the term for </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">duty-adhikara </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">means both. In
Europe too, in more recent times, when after the frustration of the
dream of a new world envisaged by the French Revolu&shy;tion, man was
called upon again to rise and hope, it was Mazzini who brought
forward the new or discarded principle </span><FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">as
a </span></FONT><I><FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;">mantra
</span></FONT></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">replacing the other more dangerous one. A hierarchy of
duties was given by him as the pattern of a fulfilled ideal life. In
India, in our days the distinction between the two attitudes was very
strongly insisted upon by the great Viveka&shy;nanda.</span></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<span style="font-size:12pt;">Vivekananda said that if human society is to be
remodelled, one must first of all learn not to think and act in terms
of claims and rights but in terms of duties and obligations. Fulfil
your</span></P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<span style="font-size:12pt;">Page – 59</span></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><span style="font-size:12pt;">duties
conscientiously, the rights will take care of themselves; it is such
an attitude that can give man the right poise, the right impetus, the
right outlook with regard to a collective living. If instead of each
one demanding what one considers as one's dues and consequently
scrambling and battling for them, and most often not getting them or
getting at a ruinous price – what made Arjuna cry, &quot;What shall
I do with all this kingdom if in regaining it I lose all my kith and
kin dear to me?&quot; – if, indeed, instead of claiming one's
right, one were content to know one's duty and do it as it should be
done, then not only there would be peace and amity upon earth, but
also each one far from losing anything would find miraculously all
that one most needs and must have, – the necessary, the right
rights and all.</span></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<span style="font-size:12pt;">It might be objected here however that actually in the
history of humanity the conception of Duty has been no less
pugnacious than that of Right. In certain ages and among certain
peoples, for example, it was considered the imperative duty of the
faithful to kill or convert by force or otherwise as many as possible
belonging to other faiths: it was the mission of the good shepherd to
burn the impious and the heretic. In recent times, it was a sense of
high and solemn duty that perpetrated what has been termed
&quot;purges&quot;-brutalities undertaken, it appears, to purify and
preserve the integrity of a particular ideological, social or racial
aggregate. But the real name of such a spirit is not </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">duty </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">but
</span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">fanaticism. </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">And there is a considerable difference between the
two. Fanaticism may be defined as duty running away with itself; but
what we are concerned with here is not the aberration of duty, but
duty proper self-poised.</span></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<span style="font-size:12pt;">One might claim also on behalf of the doctrine of Right
that the right kind of Right brings no harm, it is as already stated
another name for liberty, for the privilege of living and it includes
the obligation to let live. One can do what one likes provided one
does not infringe on an equal right of others to do the same. The
measure of one's liberty is equal to the measure of others' liberty.</span></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<span style="font-size:12pt;">Here is the crux of the question. The dictum of
utilitarian philosophers is a golden rule which is easy to formulate
but not so to execute. For the line of demarcation between one's own
rights and the equal rights of others is so undefinable and</span></P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<span style="font-size:12pt;">Page – 60</span></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><span style="font-size:12pt;">variable
that a title suit is inevitable in each case. In asserting and
establishing and even maintaining one's rights there is always the
possibility – almost the certainty – of encroaching upon others'
rights.</span></P>
			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">&nbsp;</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<span style="font-size:12pt;">What is required is not therefore an
external delimitation of frontiers between unit and unit, but an
inner outlook of nature and a poise of character. And this can be
cultivated and brought into action by learning to live by the sense
of duty. Even then, even the sense of duty, we have to admit, is not
enough. For if it leads or is capable of leading into an aberra&shy;tion,
we must have something else to check and control it, some other
higher and more potent principle. Indeed, both the conceptions of
Duty and Right belong to the domain of mental ideal, although one is
usually more aggressive and militant </span><I><FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;">(rajasic)
</span></FONT></I><FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">and the other
tends to be more tolerant and considerate </span></FONT><I><FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;">(sattwic):
</span></FONT></I><FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">neither can
give an absolute certainty of poise, a </span></FONT><span style="font-size:12pt;">clear
guarantee of perfect harmony.</span></P>
			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
&nbsp;</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<span style="font-size:12pt;">Indian wisdom has found this other, a
fairer term – a </span><I><FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;">tertium
</span></FONT><FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">quid, –
the </span></FONT></I><FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">mystic factor,
sought for by so many philo&shy;</span></FONT><span style="font-size:12pt;">sophers on so
many counts. That is the very well- known, the very familiar term –
Dharma. What is Dharma then? How does it accomplish the miracle which
to others seems to have proved an impossibility? Dharma is self-law,
that is to say, the law of the Self; it is the rhythm and movement of
our inner or inmost being, the spontaneous working out of our
truth-conscious nature.</span></P>
			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
&nbsp;</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<span style="font-size:12pt;">We may perhaps view the three terms Right, Duty and
Dharma as degrees of an ascending consciousness. Con&shy;sciousness
at Its origin and in its primitive formulation is dominated by the
principle of inertia </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">(tamas); </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">in that state things have mostly
an undifferentiated collective existence, they helplessly move about
acted upon by forces outside them. A rise in growth and evolution
brings about differentiation, specialisation, organisation. And this
means consciousness of oneself of the distinct and separate existence
of each and every&shy;one, in other words, self-assertion, the claim,
the right of each individual unit to be itself, to become itself
first and foremost. I t is a necessary development; for it signifies
the growth of self. consciousness in the units out of a mass
unconsciousness or semi-consciousness. It is' the expression of
</span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">rajas, </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">the mope of 
</span></P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<span style="font-size:12pt;">Page – 61</span></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><span style="font-size:12pt;">dynamism,
of strife and struggle, it is the corrective of </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">tamas.</span></I></P>
			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">&nbsp;</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<span style="font-size:12pt;">In the earliest and primitive society men
lived totally in a mass consciousness. Their life was a blind
obedience – obe&shy;</span><FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">dience
to the chief – the patriarch or </span></FONT><I><FONT FACE="Times New Roman,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;">pater</span></FONT><FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;">
</span></FONT><FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">familias
–obedience </span></FONT></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">to the laws and customs of the
collectivity to which one belonged. It was called duty; it was called
even </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">dharma, </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">but evidently on a lower level, in an inferior
formulation. In reality it was more of the nature of the mechanical
functioning of an automaton than the exercise of conscious will and
deliberate choice, which is the very soul of the conception of duty.</span></P>
			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
&nbsp;</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<span style="font-size:12pt;">The conception of Right had to appear in order to bring
out the principle of individuality, of personal freedom and
fulfilment. For, a true healthy collectivity is the association and
organisation of free and self-determinate units. The growth of
independent individuality naturally means at first clash and rivalry,
and a violently competitive society is the result. It is only at this
stage that the conception of duty can fruitfully come in and develop
in man and his society the mode of </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">sattwa, </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">which is that of
light and wisdom, of toleration and harmony. Then only a society is
sought to be moulded on the principle of co-ordination and
co-operation.</span></P>
			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
&nbsp;</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<span style="font-size:12pt;">Still, the conception of duty cannot finally and
definitively solve the problem. It cannot arrive at a perfect
harmonisation of the conflicting claims of individual units; for,
duty, as I have already said, is a child of mental idealism, and
although the mind can exercise some kind of control over life-forces,
it cannot altogether eliminate the seeds of conflict that lie
im&shy;bedded in the very nature of life. It is for this reason that
there is an element of constraint in duty; it is, as the poet says,
the &quot;stern daughter of the Voice of God&quot;. One has to compel
one&shy;self, one has to use force on oneself to carry out one's
duty&shy; – there is a feeling somehow of its being a bitter pill.
The cult of duty means </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">rajas </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">controlled and coerced by </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">sattwa,
</span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">not the transcendence of </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">rajas. </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">This leads us to the high
and supreme conception of Dharma, which is a transcendence of the
</span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">gunas. </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">Dharma is not an ideal, a standard or a rule that one
has to obey: it is the law of self-nature that one inevitably
follows, it is easy, spontaneous, delightful. The path of duty is
heroic,</span></P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<span style="font-size:12pt;">Page – 62</span></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><span style="font-size:12pt;">the
path of Dharma is of the gods, godly (cf. </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">Virabhava </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">and
</span><I><FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;">Divyabhava </span></FONT></I><FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">of
the Tantras).</span></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<span style="font-size:12pt;">The principle of Dharma then inculcates that each
individual must, in order to act, find out his truth of being, his
true soul and inmost consciousness: one must entirely _nd integrally
merge oneself into that, be identified with it in such a manner that
all acts and feelings and thoughts, in fact all movements, inner and
outer-spontaneously and irrepressibly well out of that fount and
origin. The individual souls, being made of one truth-nature in its
multiple modalities, when they live, move and have their being in its
essential law and dynamism, there cannot but be absolute harmony and
perfect synthesis between all the units, even as the sun and moon and
stars, as the Veda says, each following its specific orbit according
to its specific nature, never collide or halt – na </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">methate na
tasthatuh – &shy;</span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">but weave out a faultless pattern of symphony.</span></P>
			<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
&nbsp;</P>
<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<span style="font-size:12pt;">The future society of man is envisaged as
something of like nature. When the mortal being will have found his
immortal soul and divine self, then each one will be able to give
full and free expression to his self-nature </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">(swabhava); </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">then
indeed the utmost sweep of dynamism in each and all will not cause
clash or conflict; on the contrary, each will increase the other and
there will be a global increment and </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">fulfilment – para&shy;</span><FONT FACE="Arial Narrow, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;">sparam
</span></FONT><FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">bhavayantah.
</span></FONT></I><FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">The division and
conflict, the stress and </span></FONT><span style="font-size:12pt;">strain that belong to
the very nature of the inferior level of being and consciousness will
then have been transcended. It is only thus that a diviner humanity
can be born and replace all the other moulds and types that can never
lead to anything final and absolutely satisfactory.</span></P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="border-bottom:1px solid black; padding-top:0cm; padding-right:0cm; padding-bottom:0.07cm; padding-left:0cm; border-top-style:none; border-right-style:none; border-left-style:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<span style="font-size:12pt;">Page – 63</span></P>
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