The First Step

To comprehend how a spiritual society works, we must first understand, at least theoretically, man's spiritual identity and his spiritual needs. Then the feasibilities, desirabilities, and actualities of a spiritual society will become readily apparent.

The Vedic literature describes man as a marginal being who lives on two planes simultaneously. First, we dwell in material energy, gross and subtle, that comprises our physical body and environment. The material energies include solid matter, liquids, radiant energy, gas, space, mind, intelligence, and material ego. Our four "animal" needs-food, rest, sex, and defense (including shelter)-spring from this plane. The material energies are mechanical, unconscious entities governed by the laws of cause and effect. Like an automobile, which requires a conscious driver to operate it, the inert material energies require a conscious person to activate them. Even the highly esteemed human brain is simply a masterful computer that still requires a qualitatively different energy, a conscious energy, to work it.

The material energies are inferior to the second plane of man's existence, his consciousness, or spiritual energy. A primary characteristic of spiritual energy is continuity, or permanence. In the Vedic handbook of self-knowledge, the Bhagavad-gita, Lord Krsna emphasizes this point: "As the embodied soul [consciousness] continually passes, in this body, from boyhood, to youth, to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death" (Bg. 2.13).

To grasp the truth of Lord Krsna's statement, we may reflect on the nature and functions of our bodies, mental processes, and consciousness. A helpful analogy is what commonly happens in a movie theater. Suppose the movie is a biography, showing a great man's birth, trials, achievements, and passing. During the movie, thousands upon thousands of images flash upon the screen. Yet, when the movie is over and the curtain closes, the screen that permitted us to see the movie remains unchanged, exactly as it was before the movie began. Consciousness (our soul) is like the movie screen, and the movie itself is like the sensations and thoughts we experience throughout our lifetime. And after the "movie" of one lifetime is over, our consciousness remains intact and immediately enters another body to experience a new set of thoughts and sense impressions.

Material scientists have tried arduously to disprove this view. They realize that the continuity of identity within the ever-changing body and mind defies one ironclad law of material energy, namely, that matter is endlessly changing. If every living being has a permanent identity, this would offer the strongest evidence for the existence of a nonmaterial, or spiritual, energy, something material scientists are reluctant to admit. Until recently many scientists had pinned their hopes on finding some physical substance in the brain, which they hypothetically termed the memory trace, or engram. Supposedly, the engram would have accounted for our continuous sense of identity during the life of the body, but it would die along with the body. The engram would then have relegated identity to the temporary status of a material thing. The December, 1975, issue of Harper's magazine reports on the complete bankruptcy of the search for the engram. Science could not find the memory trace, and one of its most ardent advocates, Dr. Karl Lashley, who had spent thirty years searching, "ended by laughing cynically at his own foolishness in thinking that it existed."

To put it simply, material science is simply baffled by consciousness. Why? Because, as Dr. Oliver Sacks (of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York) noted in the same issue of Harper's, "Consciousness does not yield to dissection or analysis." The best Dr. Sacks and other scientists can do is to "suggest its nature by metaphors and images."

But by thoughtful observation, we can understand the qualitative differences between the spiritual and the material energies, and thereby directly perceive consciousness. First, examine the gross material elements-solid matter, liquids, radiant energy, gases, and space-from which all chemical compounds and bodies originate. They are ignorant, insentient, lifeless. They remain inert unless acted upon by a living, conscious being. Next, we can think of our bodies and how they are animated by consciousness. We can examine our own consciousness (our feelings, thoughts, and aspirations) and consider our free will (our ability to move and make choices) and our capacity to inquire into our identity, our origin, our destiny.

As we can see, there certainly is a gulf of difference between the material body and the conscious person. We live in two worlds: the outer world of matter, which gives us a material body and a field of activities, and the inner world of consciousness, which provides us with our very life energy. It follows that a perfect society should satisfy both these aspects of man's nature.