Piousness contains the component of awakening the spiritual consciousness which is based on faith. With such consciousness, a person can quietly face the other’s superiority and when meeting such personality think that the Supreme Ruler had some grounds (past lives) to reward that person with one of the six opulences: beauty, noble birth, education, strength, wealth, renunciation.
The Aryan society was based on the guna of goodness and searched for satisfaction of needs of all members of society but since it was God-centered it subordinated such satisfaction to Lord’s satisfaction. When there is no any personality capable to focus everyone on the self due to unique qualities (God), the fight for sense pleasure gets started which excludes the principle of justice. A strong individual attains the power and then begins to use this position and power to keep it. The God-centered society has got very interesting specifics. In the secular society, the one who is in power loses fear and develops the mood of all-permissiveness. But the God-centered society due to the real communication with God does not let such mood be developed even by world rulers because everyone understands the dependence on God. Such consciousness significantly reduces the competitive spirit. People with the secular habit of mind destroy each other in this competitiveness, but to get the same result a God-centered person tries to be pleasant to God. To destroy rivals, vicious qualities are required but to satisfy God pious qualities are required. In one case a person tries to destroy all pious qualities to be able to withstand harsh laws of competitiveness and in the other case a person tries to destroy all vicious qualities to be able to appease the Lord. From the point of view of the attitude and the target, these positions are absolutely different.
In this world, the material body obliges everyone to solve the problems of existence (food), peace, reproduction and protection. There are two types of activity which ensure the settlement of problems of existence: subtle (activity of mind) and gross (activity of body). Activity of mind ensures knowledge. And on the basis of this knowledge activity of body ensures existence. Influenced by different gunas, people refer to different knowledge and, respectively, solve problems by different methods and get different results.
Animals solve these problems according to their bodies in which they have appeared using that very little intelligence that is given to them and being under the power of respective instincts. Instinct is God’s help to those living beings who lost the possibility to use their intelligence as the result of their sinful activity.
Humans are different from animals in the level of development of intelligence and the ability to have faith in God. In all other desires, humans and animals are alike. They want to exist, rest, be protected and reproduce, but unlike animals humans base themselves on intelligence. For existence they develop agricultural and industrial sectors, for rest they build homes (motherland), for protection they make weapons, for reproduction they amass riches. When these four types of activities are done with the intention to enjoy and have domination over the nature, society is secular, but when the same activity is done in compliance with religious principles and for the sake of achieving the highest objective of religiosity, society is called the Aryan or God-centered. This is the difference between a secular and God-centered society. A secular society is focused on the search for all kind of new methods of sense pleasure, but a God-centered (the Aryan) society is focused on application of principles of liberation from this world. The only goal of a secular and pseudo-religious society is sense pleasure.
A real religious society is based on understanding of the soul eternity, the connection with God, temporality of the material existence and it is quite differently oriented. In this context, the material world is perceived as a temporary place to stay where living conditions are not very important and, respectively, tolerable. Society in general and each individual are centered on the idea of liberation from this material captivity. This intention restrains their malign desires. Today people have gained the liberty to act sinfully and virtue has lost its significance. Virtuous people feel oppressed. People are glorified not for virtue but for the ability to please senses as perversely as possible. In the real religious society, vicious people feel constrained (reserved), but righteous people are free to be in their nature of goodness. Society cannot encourage vice and hope for pious results. Such hope is absurd. The truth is that the material world is created for habitation of vicious souls, but it is also the truth that here God offered codes of conduct which would help us overcome our vicious nature and return to the spiritual world, our eternal abode. The eternal nature of the soul (freedom from the fear of death) in the spiritual world is the guarantee of a peaceful life of all living beings. A spiritual body is eternal and no one wants to do harm to it and, most importantly, no one can do it. A temporary body contributes to maintaining the atmosphere of struggle for existence because everyone who wants to do harm can do it and the reincarnation concept makes it possible to realize the need to consider each other.
From birth, people are usually gifted with certain qualities. There are those who possess the ability for mental labor, others – for physical labor, others – for manufacture and trade and others should be under the guidance of more skilled persons as they have no creative capabilities but can realize others’ ideas at a very high level. When person’s mental abilities serve to satisfy the propensity for sense pleasure, such person is considered learned. When physical strength serves materialistic goals, a person starts abusing others, a nation does it with other nations in order to use others’ benefits and achievements for own interests. By means of power, they impose upon others their way of thinking. When creative power serves materialistic ideas, a person tries to impose upon others the own world perception which usually does not make anyone happy or solve any problems. When one is capable of simple work, such person tries to sell this work as dear as possible.
Any society faces the need to ensure the harmonious interaction of these capabilities of people. Harmony means the use of such mechanism which enables to control and if possible completely destroy arrogance of the strong (the propensity for humiliating the weak) and envy of the weak, their desire to make revolutions to destroy the strong and take their place. If society has got the mechanism which allows to solve this problem and at the same time to ensure people’s happiness both in this life and the next one, such society can be considered perfect. These problems cannot be solved by ordinary people because whoever they are they belong either to proud or envious men and, accordingly, protect interests of their group. Only the Supreme Personality of Godhead can affirm the principle of justice as He is unbiased. What is the nature of God’s equity? In fact, all living beings are God’s parcels and, respectively, are equally precious for Him. All other living beings are subject to cause-and-effect relationships of desire and hatred or sympathy and antipathy and therefore they are not able to be just. The Lord is the solely one who can cope with the need to develop mechanisms for satisfaction of those souls who have developed the desire of leaderiship (material consciousness) and at the same time to solve the problem how to restore the spiritual consciousness. According to the Aryan understanding, this is the main problem and the main difficulty.
In the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna says (chapter 4, verse 13):
According to the three modes of material nature and the work ascribed to them, the four divisions of human society were created by Me. And, although I am the creator of this system, you should know that I am yet the non-doer, being unchangeable.
When a person (or society) suffers enough on the way to reach sense pleasure, one (or society) tries to accept certain regulating principles of behavior. This attempt already contains the component of virtue. From now on, a person is able to accept the system offered by the Lord which is intended for step-by-step sequential transformation from material to spiritual consciousness.
The above mentioned capabilities of people in society provide execution of four social functions. Mentally-developed persons are usually thought leaders of society. Ones with physical strength and strength of mind are its protectors. Producers ensure economic growth and laborers and servants help other social classes realize their ideas. Figuratively speaking, these four functions constitute different parts of one body and have their own terms in Sanskrit:
1) Intellectuals – religious figures (brahmanas) – the head.
2) Leaders-warriors