Adavasi: In India this word is used to describe people who come from traditional societies living without modern convenience or codified natural law. They are tribal people outside of the caste system because they do not follow or fit with the social laws and customs prevalent in the land. “They live like animals,” I am told. They are the tribals. They are free and they are despised for it. They have no law in writing to tell them that murder, for example, is bad, and no group within their society is designated to punish murders in a certain way, but everyone knows that murderers will always receive their just reward for the bad feels caused by their action, by karma, by mind and/or by lifestyle. There is no reason to codify such punishments, and to call the following of these codes justice does a grave disservice to justice.

Adavasi society follows the ways of the wise: the laws of human nature and the natural law that abounds, but never it does not create laws or seek to order nature. The wise know that justice is inherent in the natural order of things; and the justice meted out by man is only part of the natural justice. There’s really no need to force the issue, for the wise know that force will only create more karma. It’s best to leave matters to those involved; let them deal with their own karma’s.

The warriors, of course, have always wanted to force such issues and have little patience for the counsel of the wise. The merchants too have dismissed the words of the wise and have little regard for the karmic value of the goods and services they provide to keep everything moving. And the labourers have never had much time for the wise, they are just doing all those structural tasks that are so vital for the functioning of the whole.

Meanwhile everyone knows that the warriors have too much heat for making clear decisions and that the merchants and too shortsighted to act in even their own best interest. But wisdom is easy to recognize but hard to follow so the merchants and the warriors have teamed up to give us the good life; civilized life: a shortsighted, materialistic comfortable life.

But everyone keeps asking why technology has not made our lives easier? Why with so much material wealth are so many people still starving? Why, with such information and knowledge that we have today, are people becoming more ill with more and more madness in the world? Why has is happiness still so elusive? Civilized life might be much more complex and physically comfortable (decadent even), but it is not any better of worse than adavasi life: joy and suffering remain untouched.

Adavasi has merely relinquished responsibility to the highest power rather than pretending that they have any power.