The discernment and the guide

Vibhutis and empires

There have been times in our collective history when individuals rose to the occasion and incarnated a particular thrust forward, a breaking of the shackles, a conquering of new horizons; they were what is designated in eternal India as “vibhutis”, temporary emanations of the spirit of the times, endowed with specific energy for the task to be accomplished; they were also servants, still untransformed and all too human, yet inhabited and moved by irresistible powers. Such emanations came and fought whenever societies had gone too far either in stagnation and sclerotic conservatism, or in excess of unfairness and greed through arbitrary empires and colonialism. Yet the consequences of these past arrogances are still cleaving our world with festering, unhealed rifts and disfigurements: the harm caused by such small nations so enamored of their own features as to deem them universally preferable, which by dint of their self-anointment could rip off entire continents, is still rippling through the countries of this earth and wreaking misery.

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