Absolute Justice

How justice can be delivered is a question to be addressed by every community in the annals of history. Justice had been defined as any action that is being done by the might. Hence it got a very draconian doctrine that ‘might is right’. Might have become the right in the sense that whatever is done by the strong must be treated as the just thing. And again, justice had been defined as an action of the ruler not the right of the ruled. Justice had been defined as a gift to be given by a benevolent despot; justice had also been defined as something that should be occasionally given by God. But, according to the concept of the advaita system, justice is something that is to be delivered at every point of time to every phenomenon in this universe. Justice is not a term that can be confined to the affairs of the human beings alone. It should be related to the humans and the non-humans of the whole of the universe. The universe as a whole should be part of justice; in this sense, justice is something that can be attained by the humans for the preservation of the whole universe. That’s why it is said that it is the karma that has to be established. As we have already explained that karma is something that which aims to preserve the existence of one and all. Here, justice is an essential entity and an essential concept to be maintained by every one for the preservation of karma. In this sense, karma is something that is to be experienced and practiced by one and all. This is an important contribution of the concept of ‘nishkama karma’. Nishkama karma mainly aims at the preservation of justice through one and all and it should be given not only to the humans but also to the non-humans. It is in this sense that we have to define the other terms such as Gyana (wisdom), Karma (action) and Bhakthi (devotion). There is a general concept shared by at least a very strong group of advaitans that there are differences between Gyana, Karma and Bhakthi. Wisdom, action and devotion had always been defined by such a group as three distinct entities and they could even see distinction between one and the other and also they tried to establish, the supremacy of one over the other. According to them, Gyana is the supreme entity and Karma is little below to Gyana, and Bhakthi is the lowest in that hierarchy. Such a concept is absolutely illogical because there are differences in wisdom, action and devotion only means that non-duality cannot be practiced at all simply for the reason that one is superior to the other. The primary aspect we have to note here is that there cannot be any superiority-inferiority type of feeling in the very concept of ‘advaita’. If there are superior and inferior entities with reference to Gyana, Karma or Bhakthi or something else, just like cast differences like Brahmin, Kshathriya, soodra and Vaisya, whatever be the hierarchical distinction according to which one is superior to the other, the first casualty of such a thought is non-duality itself. So in a non-dualistic world, that is in an advaitic set up we have to admit an important aspect that there cannot be any type of hierarchical distinction between wisdom, action and devotion.