Human beings are social and move together with their society. What makes a society a society, why it needs a high spiritual goal, and why progress begins with an ideology of unity.
Interacting with people in society is an important part of our life, because the human being is a social being. It matters to us to be with our tribe, with our people. Our instinct dictates this. We depend heavily on society, on our tribe: if progressive tendencies are cultivated in it, we will evolve together with the tribe. And conversely, if there are many destructive tendencies in a society, most of its members will degenerate over time.
Of course, in any society there are people who are evolutionarily developed, able to tell what speeds up forward movement and what leads to degeneration. But most people move with the collective current.
One Sanskrit shloka says that good, wise company leads to liberation from dependencies, while bad company leads to still greater bondage. Avoiding bad company and finding good company is an important practice.
You have surely noticed that in society there are particular groups of people who help others develop actively. But it is better to think about how to promote the progress not of separate groups but of society as a whole. For this we need to change the paradigm and offer people a new way of looking at reality. It is important to understand the essence, the aim, and the tasks of society.
Society is the collective movement of people forward toward a common goal.
At the same time, the common goal must be a high one, and this is the most important condition defining the concept. Having a common goal (for example, defense against enemies) is not enough to form a full-fledged society. In the modern world there is no common progressive goal. This is disheartening. Every person has an enormous store of energy, which, without a high goal, they may waste, leading to their own degeneration and to a destructive influence on the world around them.
A state, a people, a country may possess enormous military and economic power and a developed scientific potential, but this will not be the deciding factor in their development. Today it is important to find not just a national idea, but an idea for all of humanity. Where can we find it? In the nature around us and in our history. We need to do what is natural. Progress happens in the movement from imperfection to perfection, from crudeness to subtlety. Today we are increasingly shifting our priorities from the crude physical world to the subtle psychic one. People today strive to make the fullest use of their intellect. But some set their priorities in the spheres of intuition, creativity, and spirituality. Movement from imperfection to perfection is the basic, fundamental goal of the human being. The task of society is to help everyone move toward this goal.
Society must give a person the opportunity to have a home, a family, and the material goods for a decent life. This is important, but it is not enough. We need a dream that is higher than everything material. Society must be motivated by a spiritual goal in order to rise above the material sphere. The spiritual sphere is not the same as the religious sphere. Spirituality is the striving for the liberation of the spirit.
A dream in the spiritual sphere will help us understand where to go, and like-minded people — the spiritually oriented members of society — help with this. Besides this common spiritual goal, mutual support is needed. In the modern world, individuals and whole structures seek to live as parasites on other people and act on the principle of "divide and rule." In society there is no spirit of unity, collaboration, cooperation. Today people often do not even know their next-door neighbors. Society shows strong division and isolation, which lead to total enslavement, because it is much easier to deal with a single individual than with a collective, especially one united by some spiritual idea. A divisive ideology is being introduced into society; the young generation is brought up on films and cartoons of this kind; the mass media create an atmosphere of groupism and rejection. Today this can be seen even in the example of the family. In modern families, husband and wife often have separate budgets and different aims. What can each person do individually? At the very least, create a family in which there is unity. A family person should have two families: the first is their small family, and the second, the big one, is all of humanity. We need to keep asking ourselves: how can I help all of humanity? Imagine many families united by a higher idea, moving toward a higher goal. This is very powerful.
A person may choose another path of development — monastic life. For a monk there is only one family: all of humanity.
The most important thing for the progress of society is an ideology of unity. Everyone needs to overcome their own egoism and unite their interests with the interests of society.
So, for the progress and the immortality of civilization, a spiritual goal is needed. A person must first of all realize their spiritual goal — the liberation of the spirit — and then, moving from imperfection to perfection, strive to live for the sake of serving the world and to help everyone around them become better.
When a person is inspired by precisely such ideals, there will be dynamism within them, light, and enormous strength for their own spiritual development and for serving the world around them.
