Several examples of pre-Abrahamic, Natural Law cultures include the Greco-Roman, Nordic, Celtic, Slavic, Taoist, Confucianist, Shintoist, Zoroastrian, Egyptian, Native American, Mayan, Incan, and many others. Some of these ancient Dharmic cultures are still thriving today. Many others have been forced to near extinction by centuries of unrelenting persecution, genocide, and wholesale mass conversion of their populations by the aggressive Abrahamic religions of the violent Middle East. Sadly, most individual Dharmic cultures have been forced into extinction outright by the aggressive incursions of anti-Dharmic, Abrahamic forces. Some of those which have gone extinct include the Celtic, Nordic, Persian, Berber, and Native American cultures, among many hundreds of others.
The purpose of this work is several-fold. One of those purposes is to explain in depth what the exact nature and importance is of the concept of Dharma for twenty-first century man. Another of my purposes is to chronicle an almost unknown story, a forgotten narrative, which is the true and tragic account of the systematic destruction of Reality, and the sanity, happiness, and joy that were attendant upon that Reality. The prolonged historical conflict that I call the “Two-Thousand Year War” is the record of the systematic destruction of global Dharma civilization at the hands of the aberrant Abrahamic movement. Another purpose is to serve as a clarion reminder — an antidote to our long-suffering collective amnesia — of what it means to truly live a life and to have a society that is based upon the very best of what nature has to offer us, and of what God has gifted upon us.
I will now briefly explain what this work is not. It is not a religious or theological treatise. It is a purely political one. More, this work has nothing to do with India, “Hinduism” in the commonly accepted sense of this term, “Hindu” nationalism or Indian nationalism. Indians, Hindus, Hindu nationalists and Indian nationalists do, however, have much that they can learn from this work. The Dharma Manifesto speaks to all present day Indo-European peoples, and to all followers of the Natural Law. Its goal is the radical transformation of our present society in accordance with the eternal laws of nature.
Contrary to what materialist historical revisionists have vociferously attempted to convince us about over the last two-hundred years, there was indeed a time when people were happy, when government truly represented the highest interests and aspirations of the people, rather than merely those of corrupt politicians and hidden interests. There was a time when society actually functioned in accordance with compassion, reason, and mutual concern. Such was the concept of the Dharma Nation — government that represents the political instantiation of Dharmic principles. In addition to exploring the philosophy and history of Dharmic sociopolitical thought, this work is intended to serve as a programmatic guide and a rallying call for restoring Dharma to prominence as a global force in today’s world. This book will explore Dharma as ideology. This work is the manifesto for a newly ascendant Dharma Nationalism that is about to change the face of our world.
Dharma is an eternal phenomenon, originating from the Divine will of the Absolute, and serving as the sustaining foundation of all reality. Dharma was at one time the guiding principle of the planet. It was universally acknowledged to be the greatest single treasure in the possession of all ancient peoples. Dharma is the same yesterday, today and in the future. Dharma is eternal. Dharma shall again serve to guide us all back to global sanity in the immediate future. Dharma is again ascending. Dharma Rashtra jayate! Victory to the Dharma Nation!
Aum Tat Sat,
Sri Dharma Pravartaka Acharya
May 1, 2012
Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.A.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank the following people for their help in the creation of this book. Tulasi Devi for her tireless editing help, as well as for formatting, producing, publishing and creating the cover art for this work. Jason LaGuardia for his help in proofreading the entire text. I also extend my eternal gratitude to all of our Dharma Nation Movement activists throughout the world.
1. FOUNDATIONAL PHILOSOPHY
Dharma Nationalism is a comprehensive philosophical ideology and movement designed to help us make sense of our world, as well as to pragmatically present a systematic program and organizational structure for bringing about non-violent revolutionary change in our present political, social, economic and cultural order.
Based upon many of the most ancient traditions of philosophical insight known to humanity, Dharma Nationalism utilizes the proven and effective wisdom of Natural Law to bring about positive social, cultural and political change. Dharma Nationalism is not merely an overtly political movement, but is ultimately metapolitical in nature. It seeks to pervasively influence the realm of politics, economics, culture, and so on in the manner of the propagation of ideas. Thus, rather than being a political movement in the normative sense, Dharma Nationalism can be uniquely seen as a philosophical movement — a movement of ideas.
Why the Term “Dharma”?
It might be asked if the term “Dharma” is the best word to express the ideology of Natural Law, given our modern and global sociopolitical context. Dharma, however, is neither a historically-bound, nor a parochially-bound term. Dharma is not the possession of any one specific nation, ethnicity or contemporary culture. Both the word and the concept of Dharma are no more Indian or Asian than is the word and the concept of freedom merely Western. Dharma is not Indian. Dharma is owned by no one, but is the divine inheritance of all sentient beings.
Being derived from the ancient Sanskrit language, the most ancient and advanced Indo-European language on Earth, “Dharma” is the oldest word in existence that expresses the concept of Natural Law[1] — a concept that is itself necessarily universal in understanding and application. The word “Dharma” most ably encapsulates and expresses the meaning of Natural Law.
We advocates of Dharma Nationalism call ourselves Dharma Nationalists, not because we are nationalists in any merely xenophobic or territorial sense of the term, but because our ultimate goal is to bring about the eventual establishment of multiple nation-states that govern their respective peoples in accordance with the eternal principles of Dharma, or Natural Law. Our aspiration is nothing less than manifesting the eternal Dharma Nation in the here and now.
Natural Law: The Foundation of all Advanced Ancient Civilizations
The worldview of Dharma consists of a code of metaphysical principles that are universal, eternal, axiomatic, and unalterable by their essential nature. More, Dharma is the universal ordering principle that lies inherent in the very structure of our cosmos. Cosmically, Dharma gives our world order, stability, and meaning; and in the social realm, Dharma teaches us corresponding conventions of conduct and behavior. Dharma is a scientifically validated, empirically verifiable and philosophically inferential metaphysical reality. It thus transcends “religion” in the normative sense of any mere system of human belief or opinion. Dharma denotes the unalterable laws of nature, and thus is not conditioned by our belief or disbelief in its truth or efficacy.
In the same manner as there are physical laws of nature that transcend parochial cultures and beliefs, there are also metaphysical laws that operate in our universe with just as weighty a degree of certainty, and which are not dependent upon our belief in them. The Natural Law of physics, for example, dictates the axiomatic sub-law of gravity. One can choose to intellectually believe or not believe in the unalterable law of gravity. Regardless of our belief or disbelief in gravity, however, the law of gravity is still operative and will work upon us with immediate effect if we, for example, decide to walk off a very high cliff. The law of gravity is unforgiving in its unalterably fixed functioning. In the same manner, the laws of Dharma apply to all sentient beings and all insentient materiality, regardless of our belief in Dharma. Dharma is Natural Law. Dharma is Natural Order. Dharma is the Way of Nature. Dharma thus forms the very basis of reality itself.[2]
T
he world was once a united community of nations all predicated upon a common understanding of Dharma. Primeval Vedic civilization and the myriad of pre-Abrahamic and Indo-European base-cultures of the ancient world represented one united and integral global cultural-spiritual matrix, with the Vedic substructure providing the spiritual foundation for the myriad peoples who comprised this loosely integrated global civilization. Vedic culture and the pre-Christian European religions are not merely spiritual cousins; they are one and the same worldview. Vedic civilization provided the primary civilizational and spiritual content and context upon which the historically more recent material, ethno-cultural and linguistic elements known generally as Indo-European culture eventually developed (i.e., devolved).
The concept of Natural Law was the foundational belief of our ancient pre-Abrahamic ancestors. All individual and social standards were measured in direct proportion to their adherence to Natural Law (Dharma). Consequently, we find numerous words for this principle of Natural Law in all the important languages of the ancient world. In the ancient Sanskrit language, again, this universal ordering principle is known as Dharma. In Pali, the word is Dhamma. In ancient Greek, it was called Physis. In Avestan Persian, Natural Law was known as Asha. The Egyptians called it Ma’at. In Chinese, it is called Tao. The Japanese refer to this principle as Do. The ancient Lithuanian Romuva religion calls this principle “Darna.” In Latin, it is Liga Natura (Natural Law). Among the Native Americans, it was known by too many hundreds of diverse words to even mention. There are four living world religions today that still use the actual Sanskrit word Dharma to describe the foundation of their beliefs: Sanatana Dharma, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism.
Though known by many different names in many different cultures throughout history, the philosophical concept of Dharma, or Natural Law, was a universally held worldview that was found in most, if not all, of the world’s ancient civilizations to one degree or another. Indeed, the concept of Dharma was the very foundation of these civilizations, and thus, however indirectly, of our own modern-day culture. Some of the many ancient civilizations that upheld Dharmic values included the Minoan, Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Celtic, Nordic, Germanic, Slavic, Egyptian, Hittite (ancient Turkey), Persian, South Asian (including post-Vedic “Hinduism,” Buddhism, and Jainism), South-East Asian, Tibetan, Chinese, Japanese, Mayan, Hopi, and others.
Even though our ancient ancestors may have had diverse languages and cultures that expressed who they were as uniquely developed ethnic peoples, they were all spiritually united in their Dharmic outlook on life. Natural Law (Dharma) was central to the development of all ancient culture, religion, philosophy, law, and political science, many of the benefits of which we are still enjoying today.
There are actually tens of thousands of ancient written works by and about the ancient followers of Dharma that still exist. While the majority of these are in the Sanskrit language, there are works written in a wide variety of languages,[3] reflecting the truly global nature of our past Dharma heritage. Of these many Dharmic writings, the epic literature is the best place to begin any analysis of these important works, since the epics tend to paint a very accurate, vivid and detailed picture of ancient Dharma culture and everyday life.
Almost by default, in fact, anything that could be strictly classified as epic literature is necessarily Dharmic in nature, since only Dharmis (followers of Dharma) were capable of including the very elements that constitute epic literature in their writing and compositional style.[4] A few of the ancient epics that communicate ancient Dharma values, culture, spirituality, metaphysics, and histories include the following:
• Mahabharata
• Ramayana
• Rig Veda
• Puranas[5]
• Epic of Gilgamesh
• The Iliad
• The Odyssey
• The Aeneid
• Eddas
• The Mabinogion
• The Nibelungenlied
• The Kalavela
• Lebor na hUidre[6]
In addition, we know that many other ancient Dharmic peoples (the Druid priests of the Celtic people are the most obvious example) had extensive histories and epic literatures that were oral in nature, and which were not written down. These works were preserved by memory and were passed down orally from generation to generation. Most, if not all of these sacred oral works are now, sadly, lost to us forever after many of the priests and bards who knew them by heart were either killed or converted to the newly-encroaching Abrahamic religions.
Though these many Natural Law-based civilizations developed in diverse ways, with their own local ethnic and cultural expressions, languages, religious institutions, foods, and so on, they were united in their fundamental view of how the world operated and how human civilization should be expressed. In this way, these many Dharmic cultures of the past ably demonstrated by their very existence one of the more important Dharmic principles of unity in diversity. Despite their material diversity, the Dharmic peoples were all united in their adherence and practice of the Natural Way. Dharma is synonymous with civilization itself, and is the shared ancient heritage of many of the world’s people who are alive today.
Some of the elements of the civilizational ethos unique to Dharmic culture includes the following social behavioral traits are:
• The centrality of work, education and family.
• The conscious creation of art, literature, architectural design and all other forms of civic aesthetic expression.
• The cultivation of discursive thought, logical reasoning, study, learning.
• Farming, agrarianism and gardening.
• Advanced scientific breakthroughs.
• The systematic practice of medicinal arts.
• Monogamy and the regulative structure of marriage.
• Responsibility, accountability, self- reliance and personal autonomy.
• Engaging in charity, volunteer work and civic responsibility.
• Striving for excellence in all endeavors.
• Ingenuity, inventiveness, resourcefulness, originality, and a pioneering spirit.
• Being honorable, respectful, loyal, earnest, and noble.
Dharma Theory
According to Dharma Theory (Dharmavada), our world is not a realm that is chaotic, meaningless, random, or relativistic in nature. Rather, there is a deep structural purpose, meaning, and intelligent design to reality that gives our world its inherent patterns of stability and intelligibility. The natural ordering principle (Dharma), in turn, has its origin in Transcendence, in what is commonly termed God.
Given the inherent diversity that we see in all things in Nature — including in the talents, qualities, attributes, classes, races and psycho-physical distinctions found between human beings — the subsequent question in the face of such diversity is how do we reconcile such diversity as to most effectively actualize the great store of inner potential contained in all things, both sentient and insentient? The answer that Dharma provides to this question is that we must socially integrate and harmonize the diversity seen in all existent individual objects, in all classes of individual objects, in all individual persons, and in all classes of persons, so as to most fully allow each person to maximize his or her varying degrees of potential — and this must be done without denying each person’s basic right to be different, but by acknowledging the positive aspects of those differences. Diversity, when properly understood, is a positively advantageous, not a damaging, fact of the world.
Nature miraculously harmonizes the diverse elements of which she is composed — different species, ecosystems, weather phenomena, laws of physics, and so on — in such a way as to create a greater harmonious whole. Much like the Chinese Taoist concept of the inter-blending of Yin and Yang, Dharma reconciles apparent opposites, and integrates elements of
Nature, and of human nature, that might otherwise seem irreconcilable. Dharma Theory (Dharmavada) seeks to replicate the harmony and beauty seen in the perfectly engineered realm of Nature in the all too often chaotically dysfunctional world of men. The Dharma Nation concept, further, seeks to replicate such Natural Law in the specific realms of the social and the political.
Using the specific category of social class as an example, Dharma Nationalism does not believe in artificially juxtaposing one class against the other in the name of envy-driven class-warfare,[7] the Hegelian dialectic, the failed ideology of social progress via conflict, or crass political manipulation. We do not favor pitting the warrior nobility class against the intellectuals, or supporting only the merchant class over the warrior nobility, or forcing workers to rebel against industrialists. Neither do we seek the absurdly utopian fantasy of a classless society. Rather, we aspire to have all classes cooperate in mutually advantageous social harmony for the overall benefit of the greater society.
The vast majority of Abrahamic and modernist ideologies, on the other hand, are all predicated upon the sociopathic worldview of Conflict Theory (which I have termed Virodha-Vardhana-Vada, or the “Theory of Growth Through Conflict”), which sees conflict as being conducive to social growth, rather than being an engine of social degeneration. Conflict Theory ideologies consequently favor class conflict to one degree or another, favoring one specific class over and against others — usually the lowest classes in violent opposition to the higher ones. All Abrahamic and modernist ideologies are, thus, anti-nature. The philosophical apex of Abrahamic-inspired Conflict Theory is found in the ideology of Marxism. On the question of class conflict versus class cooperation, Marxism especially, and all Abrahamic ideologies to an only slightly lesser extent, represents the mirror opposite of everything that Dharma stands for. Conflict Theory and Dharma Theory are irreconcilable opposites.
The Dharma Manifesto Page 2