The gruesome ugliness of the inner nature of a pure materialist, as he struts about in the fields of his achievements, cannot be better expressed than what Vyasa has accomplished in this stanza. For a more vivid and thorough depiction of the mental contents of the ‘Diabolically Fallen,’ for a clearer description of the quality and texture of his activities in society, one has to go ransacking the entire existing literature of all the languages in the world, only to fail to find a parallel to this pregnant verse.
FILLED WITH INSATIABLE DESIRES — Activities are not at all possible unless they are instigated by desires. Where desires have ended, the expression of dynamic life in achievements is impossible. And yet, to remain as victims of desires, is to be some horrid machines of activity, vomiting out into the world our inner poison of ego and ego-centric passions. To sustain life only for the satisfaction of desires is unintelligent; for they have a knack of multiplying themselves as we go on satisfying them one after another. They are ‘hard to appease.’ Filled with insatiable desires, when a man uses his intelligence, abilities and knowledge, he naturally brings about an endless stream of disturbances in and around him.
FULL OF HYPOCRISY, PRIDE (CONCEIT) AND ARROGANCE — Desire is but an expression of the ego when the seeker seeks a permanent satisfaction and infinite fulfilment through sense enjoyments. When he is thus deluded in the misconception of his ego-vanity, negative tendencies such as hypocrisy, pride (conceit), and arrogance will naturally rise up, and smothered by them, he ceaselessly strives to satisfy the unending demands of his own unbridled desires.
VICTIMS OF DELUSION — Desire cannot come to the all-fulfilled. Desire can come only to him who fails to feel his own Infinitude and expresses himself as a limited ego (Jiva). Forgetting his own divine nature, in his identification with the unreal things and values of life, he develops in himself a hunger to enjoy peace and happiness. Naturally, numerous desires arise in him and seeking fulfilment of all such desires, he indulges in sense-gratification.
THEY WORK WITH IMPURE RESOLVE — The mental biography of the ‘Diabolically Fallen’ (Asuras) is complete in its sequence when the stanza says that the ego, desperately struggling to gain inner peace, must necessarily forsake all consideration for others, ignore all noble values-of-life, and enter into the fields of activity, shamelessly intolerant, inconsiderate and even brutal. Drunk with passions, opiated with his own desires, he works in the world as a maniac, hurling blood and acid, death and disaster all around him in the community!
The picture, viewed microcosmically, shows a materialist, building his life upon the restless waves of his desire-tossed mind. The same world-painting, when looked at macrocosmically, portrays vividly the ugliness of materialistic communities and nations. Life’s beauty depends upon the beauty of the philosophy upon which it is built. If the foundations are false, the edifice, however strongly built, will prove to be no better than a card-castle. The economic break-up, social evils, political upheavals, and general restlessness that are found all over the world are all thoroughly discussed in this stanza, if we know how to read them all into it.
It is also interesting to note how Krishna, while explaining the ‘Diabolically Fallen’ (Asuras), without directly saying so, is painting the picture of a materialist, who by nature, is an atheist in thought and a tireless hunter of pleasure in action. In this age of materialism, don’ t we prove ourselves faithful to the type just now discussed!
PAINTING THE CONCEPT OF LIFE IN A CONFIRMED MATERIALIST, KRISHNA CONTINUES:
