Dharmam and Rains

 No rains in the village, or district, and almost all borewells have dried up.. The panchayat bore near the forest is functioning, and the tankers come daily at any time of the day or night and people go with their pots and collect 8 pots of water a day. A cow needs 3 pots of water a day, and people with two or three cows are at their wits end. This is Tirunal nela - the month when we should get unceaseing rains.

The village is united in its assessment that the rains have failed because people have failed dharmam. 'Manishulu dharmanga pothe, devudu koode thodi isthaadu, varshaalu paduthaayi'.

Then I asked Eashwarmma what was God doing to those few who were following Dharmam. She said, "He does look after them. he gives them manas shanthi (peace of mind) and soumithyam." She did not need to think. It was a clear and immediate answer from a clear philosophical foundation. I was looking for an answer based on material benefits, she left me far behind.

... So the Indian mind is able to consider Dharmam, and the satisfaction of following Dharmam, its own purpose. This is not from a religion that is an 'opium for the masses'. This is a religion that strengthens people to put feeding every hungry begger, over securing their own tomorrow's meal. Thereby even in this drought no on is turned away hungry from any village home.

Each time in the village I learn a little more about what I country is, and what its philosophical underpinnings are.

Eashwaramma tells me that if dharmam is followed and we eat a little and give a little from whatever we have, that god will also be with us, and rains will fall.

Another wise old lady, urban and upper class, told me the same words ... see the evil growing, then why will it rain ...

This is a deep indian truth ... that there is the inexorable law of karma.

A friend had gone to some drought striken villages, and saw people scattering grains to the birds. He was shocked to see this.

They explained to hin, "You will not understand. Dharmam was violated, and therefore the droughts happened. Now we are restoring dharma by feeling the hungry, and you ask us why".

Thus i think my village people see us - as literate ignorants, though they are too civilized to let us feel it, or to even think it to themselves.

Only we are uncouth enough to go and tell them that they are 'illiterate' and try to 'give them literacy'. If only we could receive dharmam from them instead. Then would the world be saved.

October 20, 2014 at 11:01pm

When I asked Eashwaramma why God permitted these droughts, she said, "What can God do if man does not follow dharmam' !

The highest vedantic truths are lived in every unlettered village in this land.