The Soul of a Nation: Remembering What We’ve Forgotten

 

The Soul of a Nation: Remembering What We’ve Forgotten

Faced of Hate

Most people around the world want the same thing: to live their lives in peace, free from conflict, fear, and hate. Yet even in times of abundance, humans find reasons to fight. Greed kicks in—because for some, enough is never enough. That hunger for more—more power, more wealth, more control—often pushes societies into chaos. But it wasn’t always like this.

If we look back to ancient India, particularly during the Vedic period, we find a society that seemed to understand something we’ve forgotten. Long before institutional religion, before kings ruled with divine rights, before borders were drawn on maps, there existed a culture where life wasn’t about domination. It was about dialogue.

The Vedas, especially the Rig Veda, weren’t written overnight. They were a collection of evolving thoughts, debated and refined by scholars over centuries. Passed down orally, these ideas reflected a civilization deeply interested in understanding—not controlling—life, nature, and existence. There were no clear definitions of God, no rigid commandments. The divine was a mystery, intentionally left open to interpretation. That’s because the early Vedic thinkers weren’t obsessed with having answers. They were more concerned with asking the right questions. What is life? What happens after death? Is there a higher power? If so, what is it? They used language like Nirakaar, meaning “formless,” to describe what they felt but couldn’t see or touch. These weren’t just theological ideas; they were psychological tools—ways to cope with loss, grief, and the unpredictability of life.

The Vedic era wasn’t ruled by dogma. It was guided by a flexible moral compass. Things weren’t always labeled as strictly right or wrong. Ideas were debated. Values shifted when someone presented a better argument. There were no strict definitions of family or rigid social roles. It’s entirely possible—and some evidence suggests—that open relationships and fluid gender roles existed in this era, allowing both men and women to live more freely. It’s telling that we find little record of violent conflict during this time in that region. Maybe people were too busy trying to understand what made them happy, and how to coexist peacefully. With minimal material needs, society focused more on internal development than external conquest.

Even symbols that later became religious—like the sacred Peepal tree—began as practical choices. It provided shade for travelers and was later found to release oxygen even at night, unlike most trees. Leaves were used to serve food. Wisdom often came from what simply worked. In Vedic society, the highest pursuit wasn’t power. It was realization. Discussions were likely long, sometimes intoxicating, as they cracked open people’s minds to ideas that couldn’t be proven, only felt. Concepts like karma and Brahman weren’t designed to control people. They were attempts to give meaning to the cycles of life and death. The pain of death, after all, didn’t begin in modern times. It has always existed. And with pain, humans have always sought healing—first through ritual, and later through philosophy.

Even the Buddha’s story is rooted in these existential questions. Siddhartha Gautama was unsatisfied with the answers he received about suffering, birth, and death. So he went searching. His enlightenment, under the very tree that would later become sacred, marked the shift from open-ended inquiry to a more structured spiritual system—what we now call Buddhism. As societies grew, so did complexity. Agriculture led to surplus. Surplus led to ownership. Ownership led to power structures. And slowly, spiritual curiosity was replaced by religious authority. Questions were replaced by answers. The humility of the Vedic sages gave way to the certainty of empires and kings. But more dangerously, fear crept in.

The fear of losing what one has. The fear that someone else might get more. The fear that your beliefs, your way of life, your culture, is under threat. These fears became tools. And the most effective tool of all? Division. Modern politics runs on fear. Politicians don’t need to offer solutions anymore. They just need to create enemies. “The immigrants are taking your jobs.” “The liberals are destroying your values.” “The rich are out to get you.” “The poor are dragging you down.” The message is always the same: be afraid of them. It’s a psychological trick. Fear creates urgency. Urgency short-circuits logic. It makes people cling to the familiar, and more importantly, it makes them easier to control. And today’s information ecosystem makes it worse. Social media rewards outrage. Nuance gets lost. Algorithms push us into echo chambers where everything we hear just reinforces what we already believe. Doubt—a sacred force in Vedic thought—has now become suspect. Questioning your side means betrayal. Listening to the other side means weakness.

In contrast, the Vedic tradition encouraged debate. It didn’t fear opposing views. It welcomed them. It asked people to sit together, to speak, to listen. The goal wasn’t to win. It was to understand. Greed often masks fear. We want more not because we need more, but because we fear not having enough—of money, status, security, respect. But the Vedic sages knew that none of these things last. They didn’t build their lives around accumulation. They built their lives around meaning. Today, we fear the unknown. We fear death, failure, change. So we cling to whatever makes us feel powerful—even if that power comes at the cost of compassion or truth.

But the Vedic model still offers a path forward. Not by copying the past, but by remembering its principles: that truth is never final, that peace is more valuable than pride, and that the soul of a nation is defined not by what it owns or fears, but by what it seeks to understand. Look around the world today—India, America, Europe. A disturbing pattern is emerging. Hate has become a political tool. Fear is no longer just a byproduct—it’s a strategy. In India, religious minorities are being pushed out of the national conversation. In America, immigration enforcement has become a theater of cruelty. Legal residents, even citizens, are being harassed based on skin color, accent, or surname.

ICE raids, family separations, the targeting of vulnerable people trying to survive—these are not isolated incidents. They’re symptoms of a broader fear machine. It is shameful that one of the most powerful, wealthy nations on earth is terrified of hungry, homeless people seeking help. But it’s not really about fear. It’s about control. Power loves a scapegoat. In India, citizens are being told who counts as "real" Indians. In America, people are told to “go back” even if they were born here. The strategy is clear: define who belongs, then criminalize the rest. And all it takes is a small group in power, armed with money and media, to manipulate that fear.

Think about what happens when the world stays silent. Hitler rose to power not just through violence, but through a silence that echoed around him. Stalin’s purges were enabled by fear, by neighbors too afraid to speak up. Millions were killed—Jews, dissenters, dreamers—because those with voices chose safety over justice. We no longer have the excuse of ignorance. We live in an age of real-time information. We see hate happening. We see who is targeted. We hear their voices. We see the footage. So why are we still quiet?

Is this the world we want to live in? Are we going to let history repeat itself?

The soul of a nation is not its economy, its military, or even its religion. It’s in how its people think. It’s in whether they can hold space for disagreement, respect complexity, and refuse to let fear dictate their lives. What we need today isn’t more rules or more walls. We need more conversation. More curiosity. More willingness to say, “I don’t know,” and keep asking the deeper questions. Like those early sages, we need to be brave enough to seek—not just what is easy or profitable—but what is true.

We don’t need to go back to the Vedic times. But we do need to reclaim their spirit: the openness to learn, the courage to question, the humility to admit we’re still figuring it out. If we don’t—if we stay quiet while the powerful sow division—we’re not just letting others get hurt. We’re letting our own humanity erode.

So, think about it. Share this. Start a conversation. Because silence never saved a soul—and it won’t save this one either.