Every society aims at setting up the systems. Systems are founded on the principles of fairness and equality. they aim to provide equality of opportunities to everybody. For example, the examination system and the system of civil services in India. Had these systems not been there, people like us would never aspire to reach positions where we can participate the national policy-making and setting up new systems for the country. Similarly, systems like IITs and AIIMS allow people from socially and economically challenged backgrounds to enter the best colleges in India and aspire to become the best of doctors and engineers. Similarly, the system of democracy allows anybody who connects to the people to contest elections and become their representative.
There is no doubt that all the systems try to bring harmony. Had these systems not been there, Tamas or Rajas would have prevailed. Most of the people would have given up unable to find any hope. Some, with money and power, would have placed their kids and family members in all the significant positions and the rest of the people would not have been able to resist. If there were no traffic lights and cameras, either there would be traffic jams everywhere or some would drive at a very high speed resulting in accidents on the roads. Thus, systems bring harmony.
However, each of the systems is also set in a particular time and space. As the time and space changes, many of these systems become obsolete and need change. For example, societies try to set their own informal systems in the form of traditions, rituals, festivals, and moral values. All these systems develop in time and space. Thus, all the systems have their own Tamas, and unless they evolve and constantly change with the changing times, the systems themselves become one of the biggest obstructions to growth. No society can move forward unless it identifies such obsolescence quickly and eliminates that. For example, there were systems of child marriage and "Purdah Pratha" in India. There must have been historical reasons for the evolution of these systems, probably, to protect the females from the regular attacks of foreign invaders. However, society could not identify their obsolescence with time and that is the reason why so many social reformers had to start a social reform movement to eliminate these once these systems were eliminated, society could move ahead, female health improved, deaths of the ladies while giving birth to the children reduced significantly, and female could contribute to the growth of the nation and society more freely.
However, a lazy man will always resist change. He likes his comfort and therefore it is quite difficult to make him work. Similarly, any person fixated on a particular value system or belief, will not make efforts to observe and analyze the same. It is easy to accept our beliefs and value systems as the gospel truth rather than examining them. The same applies to these systems. Society just wants to believe that these moral values, traditions, and beliefs are the gospel truth. So much so that if an individual sees through them and finds them to be illogical and demonstrates their falsity, society holds such a person to be a culprit and does not hesitate to kill these people. It has happened so many times in history. Krishna is still called "Ranchod" and "Chaliya". Socrates was killed by the society when he challenged the value system of the society. Chrish was also crucified. Buddha had to face many problems. Shankaracharya had to face many troubles from the lobby of the contemporary society.
Probably that is the reason that this entire universe has a cyclic movement of creation and destruction. Whatever systems are set based on the awareness of contemporary society, try to bring harmony, equality, and freedom. However, times change and many of such systems become obsolete. Due to our laziness, we stick to such systems and resist change. However, change happens and when the systems change, we embrace them and start taking pride in them. Everything else is changing and change is only constant. The same applies to the human body as well. The human body is such a well-coordinated system wherein different parts of the body act in perfect coordination. However, as we grow old, this coordination gets disturbed and it is time for us to bid farewell to the body and enter into a different body. However, we resist such a change. the more we resist and more we suffer.
It appears to me that we suffer because of our resistance to change. We develop certain habit patterns such as taste, and since that weighs heavily on the body, the body wants a change. It requests for the change in the form of a disease. However, we resist change and slowly the disease becomes chronic. Similarly, we get fixated on comfort and the body gives us signals that we should do some walking and exercises. However, out of our laziness, we ignore such signals and soon get some diseases in our bodies. Thus, everything right from the body to the best of the systems set up by the societies needs to be observed, examined, and changed, if they do not fit well with the changing times. The societies that maintain such awareness keep changing their systems and move forward while the societies that get into the grip of laziness become very callous to change and therefore doom with time. The universal truth is that awareness is life and ignorance is death.
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