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Explaining the characteristics of a good person Gita says (Prabhupad, 1983, 623):
The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: O Son of Pandu, he who does not hate illumination, attachment and delusion when they are present or long for them when they disappear; who is unwavering and undisturbed through all these reactions of the material qualities, remaining neutral and transcendental, knowing that the modes alone are active; who is situated in the self and regards alike happiness and distress; who looks upon a lump of earth, a stone and a piece of gold with an equal eye; who is equal toward the desirable and the undesirable; who is steady, situated equally well in praise and blame, honor and dishonor; who treats alike both friend and enemy; and who has renounced all material activities such a person is said to have transcended the modes of nature. |
There has not been a constant relationship between cosmology, metaphysics and ethics among Hindus though an attempt has been made to link them from time to time. The reason is that, as said earlier, Hindu religious thought was not confined to one type of people. Several peoples, having different cultures and social organization, constituted Hinduism. Even when they used the same religious terms they had very different meanings of conditioned by their distinctive culture. Moreover, the ancient system of Hindu society was based on caturvarna i.e; the fourfold order. Each class had its own occupation, norms and religious ideas. To quote Sri Aurobindo (1986, 494-5):
The ancient system of the four orders had a triple aspect; it took a social and economic, a cultural and a spiritual appearance. On the economic side it recognised four functions of the social man in the community, the religious and intellectual, the political, the economic and the servile functions. There are thus four kinds of works, the work of religious ministration, letters, learning and knowledge, the work of government, politics, administration and war, the work of production, wealth making and exchange, the work of hired labour and service. An attempt was made to found and stabilise the whole arrangement of society on the partition of these four functions among four clearly marked classes. …Along with this economic division there existed the association of a cultural idea which gave to each class its religious custom, its law of honour, ethical rule, suitable education and training, type of character, family ideal and discipline. …Finally, wherever this system existed, it was given more or less a religious sanction… .
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