Before going into this deep article let me tell you two real stories which I witnessed a few days ago.

There was a man who took a cigarette from a local paan shop and a one-rupee sachet of silver pearls mouth freshener. He finished his cigarette, opened the sachet, took the freshener, and then simply dropped the cigarette filter and the plastic wrapper on the ground. I saw it happen. A dustbin was right there, on the other side of the shop.

He just didn’t use it.

Another day, another place. I was in a railway station’s executive lounge. A well-dressed lady was feeding her child a packet of chips. When the packet was empty, she crumpled it up and tossed it out the window onto the tracks. A clean, empty dustbin was sitting in the corner of the very same room.

Someone asked her, “Ma’am, why did you throw that out? There’s a dustbin right there.”

Her answer said it all. “It’s the job of the sweeper to clean.”

But is it?

Who pays the sweeper?

The government.

Who pays the government?

You do.

That woman paid for her ticket, and a part of that money pays for the cleaner’s salary. So when she throws trash on the ground, she’s not creating a job; she’s literally paying someone to clean up her own mess, a mess she could have avoided in five seconds.

It makes no sense.

The Glitch in Our Thinking

Some other lady now went to her home.

A sadhu comes to her house. She goes inside to get her offerings. She sees a 500-rupee note on her table. “Too much,” she thinks. She finds a 200-rupee note in her purse. “Still a bit high.” Finally, she digs out a 50-rupee note.

“This is fine.” She is carefully managing her own money, down to the last rupee.

Later, she goes to a supermarket. Her bill comes to a few thousand rupees, and at the bottom, it says ‘18% GST’. This is the tax. This money goes directly to the government. It’s the money that will pay for the roads, the trains, and yes, the sweeper.

She pays it because she has to, but the feeling of “ownership” is gone.

And she doesn’t have knowledge about what “tax” is all about.

If we bargain with a vegetable seller to save two rupees, why don’t we feel the same pain when the roads our taxes paid for are filthy? Why don’t we feel like our own money is being wasted?

The reason is a glitch in how we see the world. In our ancient texts, they have a word for this: Avidya (अविद्या).

Avidya doesn’t just mean you don’t know something. It means you see things wrongly. It’s the basic mistake of thinking, “I am separate from my surroundings.” It’s the voice in our head that says, “My house needs to be clean, but the street outside is not my problem.”

It’s the thought process of the lady in the lounge: “My child is fed, but the wrapper is now the sweeper’s problem.” This single glitch, this Avidya, is the root cause of almost all our civic problems.

Now this is also the cause of multiple births or “no moksha” condition both psychologically and spiritually. But when we say multiple births, do society too follows same pattern?

Society is a Body, We’re Making It Sick

Now, does a whole society have a “consciousness”? Can it get sick and die?

Society is all about collective “being” so why not?

Of course.

Look at the Indus Valley Civilization. It was a thriving society, and then it vanished. Look at Krishna’s great city of Dwaraka. It was the jewel of the world, and the ocean took it. There are examples of many civilizations which took birth, matured and died.

So, societies are also living things, because you are a living thing. They are born, they get strong, they get sick, and they can die.

There’s a powerful metaphor in the ancient Puruṣa Sukta that explains this perfectly. It says that society is like a giant human body.

• The thinkers, teachers etc. are the Mouth.
• The government, administrators, and army are the Arms.
• The businesses and industries that create wealth are the Thighs.
• The workers and service providers are the Feet (doing the work that moves everyone forward).

So our society is certainly sick today.

When the man throws his cigarette butt on the road, it’s a small wound on the body. When the lady throws the packet on the tracks, it’s another small infection. Taken alone, they seem like nothing. But millions of these small wounds, every single day, lead to a serious illness.

Raise your hands if you have heard of water pollution, air pollution, noise pollution etc.?

They are symptoms of a body that is starting to disrespect itself.

So who is the “mind” of this giant body? What is its consciousness? Let’s understand.

The Two Powers That Run Everything (And the One We Control)

Lets try to understand society.

To make any society work, you need two basic things:

1. Resources (Money, materials, wealth)
2. System (Rules, laws, knowledge, order)

Your body also requires these two to function.

In Indian tradition, we have powerful names for these two. The power of resources and wealth is Lakshmi. She is the taxes you pay, the national economy, the money in the bank.

The power of systems, rules, and knowledge is Saraswati. She is the Constitution, the traffic laws, the sign that says “Use Me” on a dustbin.

But have you ever noticed how these two powers often seem to be in conflict in our world?

Why do we see wealthy people who lack wisdom, and wise people who lack wealth?

Our Puranas tell a story that explains this very situation.

The story goes that in Vaikuntha, both Lakshmi and Saraswati were consorts of Lord Narayana (Vishnu). They were both divine, powerful, and essential to him.

One day, a misunderstanding arose from a moment of pride and jealousy. An argument began over who Narayana favored more. The argument grew heated, their divine egos clashed, and in a fit of anger, they laid a powerful curse upon each other: to be separated from Narayana and be cast down to Earth, forced to exist apart.

When Narayana intervened, it was too late; the words of such powerful shaktis could not be taken back. He had to accept the verdict. He decreed that on Earth, they would indeed live separately. Their curse would manifest in the material world.

So in modern world, you would often find wealth (Lakshmi) in places devoid of knowledge and ethics (Saraswati). And you would find knowledge and art (Saraswati) in places struggling with poverty, lacking resources (Lakshmi). Their conflict created a fundamental imbalance that humanity would have to live with.

Here let me be very clear the story is not a causal factor here, lets understand more below.

This story is a actually a metaphor for the state of our society. This is still in effect. We see it every day. We see immense corruption and greed where there is money but no wisdom.

We see brilliant ideas and righteous systems that fail because they have no financial backing. The entire struggle of building a good society is the struggle to break this curse embedded within the collective consciousness .

It is the effort to reunite Lakshmi and Saraswati, to create a system where wealth and wisdom can finally support each other, not stand in opposition.

So how do we break the curse? How do we bring these two great powers together?

That requires the third, secret ingredient. The one that actually makes these two powers work together. And that ingredient is Your Willpower. Your personal choice.

In Sanskrit, this is called Iccha Shakti, she is the Kali herself, remember Shiva Sutras which says your will power itself is Uma Kumari.

Can you imagine a leader with will power, wisdom and wealth all together?

Now that’s a perfect leader and in democracy you know who is the leader.

Now come back to the woman in the lounge. The lounge itself was built with resources (Lakshmi). The dustbin was placed there because of a system (Saraswati). Both powers were present.

When all these three power come together a strong force manifests.

Its Seva and Dharma.

She is Vaishnavi Shakti whose form is represented by Vaishno Devi in stories. .

In stories, after she was born as a girl in Ratnakar’s household, Vaishnavi was extraordinary in her devotion. From a young age, she spent time in meditation, but she also actively helped people around her. She would cook food, feed the hungry, look after the sick, and guide those who were lost in life.

Her service was not casual charity; she treated every person as a form of the Divine. Whether someone was poor, ill, or troubled, she saw supreme residing in them. This was her way of worshipping the Supreme, by serving living beings with humility.

It is said that her healing touch and simple food brought relief to many. People soon began to recognize her as a divine girl with miraculous powers. But Vaishnavi never accepted praise for herself. She would insist:

“I am only serving the Supreme within you. To see Brahman in all beings is the highest worship.”

You Are The Society

Now for the final piece of the puzzle, a challenging idea from Hindu thought: The “society” you see out there doesn’t exist independently. It’s an experience happening entirely inside you.

Think about it. The dirty street, the news of corruption, the helpful neighbor, all these things are processed within your own mind. You are the screen on which the movie of “society” is playing. The problems you see “out there” are actually perceptions and feelings occurring in here.

Indian philosophy has a name for the feeling of being separate from everyone else: Maya, the great illusion.

The ultimate truth is that the consciousness within you is the same consciousness within every other person.

We are all expressions of one single Self. This means the man who dropped the litter is not some “other person.” He is a part of the same whole you are, just acting from a place of deeper confusion, or Avidyā which you were already in the past or you still are in.

Just help him/her and make them aware.

This idea makes blame impossible. How can you blame a reflection in a mirror? Instead of blame, it forces you into a state of total ownership.

You can no longer pass the buck to the government, the system, or “other people.” If it’s all one interconnected system, and you are part of it, then you are part of the problem, and the solution.

Your only job is to act correctly to bring harmony to the whole. This is the essence of Karma Yoga: you act righteously not for a reward, but because your action itself is an act of healing the entire system.

A simple way to think about it is to see society as your own body. If a thorn gets stuck in your foot, you don’t get angry and blame the foot. Your hand simply reaches down and pulls it out.

The whole body works together to fix itself. When you see a problem in society, like trash on the ground, see it as a thorn in your larger body. The natural response isn’t blame; it’s to fix it.

This is not just an abstract philosophy; it is the ultimate call to action. It means the power to change the world you experience rests entirely with you. Every time you make a conscious, correct choice, you are not just being a good citizen. You are sending a signal of healing and order through the entire collective body.

Picking up that piece of litter, following that rule when no one is watching, these are not small deeds. They are powerful acts of healing your world by healing the only part of it you truly control: your own actions. You are not a drop in the ocean; you are the entire ocean in a drop.

The society you experience begins and ends with you.