13.23 – Spiritual enforcement can reach where legal enforcement can’t

Corruption, crime, cruelty – these are increasing by the day. Faced with this spiral, the law enforcement agencies are often not only overworked, but also under-staffed. After all, the law enforcers will always be outnumbered by the citizens. Worse still, many times the law-enforcers themselves become law-breakers. Supervisors may be appointed to watch the law-enforcers, but who will oversee those supervisors? The hierarchical ladder of supervisors requiring supervisors – where will it rest when everybody is prone to corruptibility?

Nowhere, if we limit ourselves to a materialist view of reality.

But we don’t have to restrict ourselves thus. Gita wisdom explains that if we free ourselves from materialism, the rest for this ladder will become self-evident: Krishna, the supreme supervisor of all supervisors. The Bhagavad-gita (13.23) indicates that Krishna resides in the heart of all of us as the overseer and permitter (upadrashta anumanta ca).

When we become aware of the presence of Krishna in our own hearts, that awareness reinforces our conscience and checks us from our own immoral impulses. The check comes initially due to fear because we don’t want karmic retribution and eventually due to love because we wish to express and experience our life of love with Krishna, a life that is founded on morality. Thus, our awareness of Krishna makes us our own policepersons protecting us from ourselves.

Undoubtedly, some people will not care for morality and will engage in criminality. So agencies for law enforcement are indispensable in human society. But their work becomes unmanageable when people in general have no inner moral sense and are ready to break the law at the smallest opportunity. Their work becomes much easier when majority of the people have access to spiritual wisdom that reaches where no legal agency can: into the hearts of people and turns on their moral compass.