Do Not Mistake Smoke for Sky - An Imagined Interview with Shankaracharya on the Fall of a Nation

In times of turmoil we look for voices that can cut through despair. Imagine Shankaracharya, the great Advaita teacher of the 8th century, asked today about a once-powerful nation in sudden decline. His answers remind us that the rise and fall of worldly powers belong to maya, not to the Self.

Question: Revered Acharya, we watch what was once a powerful nation unravel. Its leaders quarrel, its people rage, its institutions decay. What do you make of such a fall?

Shankara: What is born will perish. What is gathered will scatter. To expect permanence in nations is like expecting a sandcastle to withstand the tide.

Question: But many here believed their order was solid, their freedom unshakable. How can it vanish so quickly?

Shankara: Maya does not move slowly. When the gunas shift, the face of the world shifts with them. Rajas stirs ambition, tamas clouds vision, sattva struggles to remain. The fabric woven in one age unravels in the next.

Question: Should we not resist this unraveling? Should we not try to rescue what is burning?

Shankara: To rush into a burning house is to be consumed. To turn away as though nothing burns is self-deception. The wise stand where they are, seeing clearly both the fire and the play of children within it. Act if it is your dharma to act, but without the arrogance of thinking you can preserve what must fall.

Question: So there is no escape?

Shankara: There is no escape from appearance but through knowledge. The fire will burn until it exhausts itself. The seeker goes through the spectacle by understanding it as maya, not by clinging to outcomes within it.

Question: Many say the rulers are wicked, or the people foolish. Is this not true?

Shankara: The rulers imagine they control, but they are bound. The people imagine they choose, but they are bound. Maya holds both. To blame or praise is to fight shadows. The wise discriminate the Real from the unreal, not the clever from the stupid.

Question: Still, we despair when lies prevail, when cruelty thrives, when truth seems lost. What should one do in the face of this despair?

Shankara: Despair arises from mistaking the unreal for the real. Lies, cruelty, and delusion are not new—they are the signature of tamas. To lament their presence is like weeping that night follows day. The Self is not touched.

Question: Then what is the seeker’s duty in such a time?

Shankara: Your dharma is what it always is: to act without attachment. If your role is to speak, speak. If your role is to stand silent, stand silent. But do not confuse the duty of the body and mind with the nature of the Self. The actor plays, but the screen remains untouched.

Question: And if the nation collapses entirely?

Shankara: The collapse of a nation is the collapse of a name, a form, a story. The Self was before it, the Self remains after it. To cling to its rise or fall is to bind yourself to smoke.

Question: What then is to be valued?

Shankara: Not the preservation of forms, which time destroys, but the knowledge of the formless, which is eternal. He who knows the Self does not grieve when empires vanish, just as he does not grieve when dreams dissolve at waking.

Question: And what of those who suffer in the collapse—the poor, the vulnerable, the frightened?

Shankara: Compassion is dharma. To aid where you can, without attachment, is right. But know this: even the one you help is not other than the Self. Let compassion flow, but let knowledge remain firm.

Question: So in the end, should we see all this decline as meaningless?

Shankara: Not meaningless, but limited. As the play of gunas, it instructs the seeker: see how nothing holds, how nothing endures. Let the fall of nations teach you what the rise of nations never could—that the Real is elsewhere.

Question: Then what is the final word you would leave us with, as we watch this once-great power sink?

Shankara: Do not mistake smoke for sky. The Self is the sky. Nations are only the smoke. He who knows this remains steady, even in a burning world.

Thus ends the dialogue with the Teacher. What collapses, collapses; what endures, endures. The wise discern the difference.