When Maya Wears a Uniform - A Vedantic Case Study in Evil

We all know the story of Hitler. His name alone conjures images of violence, tyranny, and a world dragged into war. For many, he represents evil incarnate—the purest expression of what human beings can become when delusion overtakes conscience. But even here a Vedantic question arises: why? Why does such darkness appear in the first place? Why would Ishvara—if Ishvara is the order that pervades creation—allow a man like Hitler to emerge on the stage of history?

In What is Evil and Why Does it Exist? I explored the nature of evil itself. Vedanta does not see evil as a cosmic rival to God or as an essence lurking in certain souls. It is the lawful play of maya—the convergence of conditioning, the gunas, the pressure of vasanas, and the misuse of free will. Evil is not an independent force but a process. It belongs to the dream, not to the dreamer.

This essay turns from theory to history. It applies the same framework to events that have scarred humanity, and to the conditions that may be repeating themselves today. My aim is not to equate eras but to show how the same patterns—the same gunas at work—can be traced across time.

To analyze fascism through a Vedantic lens is to look at the shadow side of Ishvara’s order. Maya both conceals and reveals. Darkness is permitted so that through its consequences, dharma may be remembered again. Fire can cook a meal or burn a city; the law that governs it is the same.

Fascism as the Play of the Gunas

When we look at fascism through Vedanta, we see the same forces that shape the individual mind acting on a collective scale. The three gunas—sattva (clarity), rajas (restless activity), and tamas (inertia, confusion)—are impersonal constituents of the order. Whether in a person or a nation, they determine whether vision is clear, agitated, or darkened.

Tamas provides the soil: scapegoating, myth-making, conspiracy, historical amnesia. Rajas supplies the energy: anger, grievance, the restless urge to dominate. When sattva weakens—when reason falters and taboos collapse—the mixture of tamas and rajas overwhelms the collective mind.

Evil is never sustained by perpetrators alone; it requires witnesses. In fascism, the witness is slowly captured. The bystander who once recoiled begins to tolerate cruelty. What was unspeakable becomes debatable, and what was debatable becomes amusing. Cruelty becomes entertainment. Maya works precisely this way: by concealing reality until darkness appears as light.

The Bhagavad Gita describes the sequence at the individual level: from attachment comes desire, from desire anger, from anger delusion, and from delusion the loss of discrimination (2:62–63). Fascism shows the same lawfulness writ large. A society becomes attached to a myth—of purity, greatness, lost glory. Attachment breeds anger toward imagined enemies; anger fuels delusion; discrimination collapses. What was once unthinkable becomes policy.

This process is not proof that the world has slipped out of order. It is proof that the order allows forgetting. Fire illuminates and destroys by the same law. The question is never whether maya will conceal, but whether we will recognize the concealment in time to resist it.

Hitler and the Collective Descent

Germany in the 1930s was fertile ground for delusion. National humiliation, economic ruin, and despair created tamas on a national scale—darkness, heaviness, and confusion. Into this atmosphere stepped Hitler. He offered not just policy but myth: that Germany had been betrayed, that purity could be restored, and that its enemies were within. Tamas projects shadow figures to blame, and people embraced the projection because it provided false clarity in confusion.

Then rajas took hold. Hitler channeled energy into rallies, symbols, and spectacle. Anger became intoxicating. Grievance felt like purpose. Restless energy poured into conquest and domination. The sequence from attachment to delusion unfolded not in a single mind but across an entire population.

Institutions that should have played the witness—judges, clergy, academics, industrialists—fell silent or became collaborators. Cruelty was tolerated, then normalized, then celebrated. Maya had concealed reality so completely that inhumanity could be justified as national necessity.

The consequences are well known: genocide, world war, devastation. From a Vedantic standpoint, this was not divine punishment or cosmic accident. It was the lawful ripening of tamas and rajas allowed to mature unchecked. Yet even darkness became a mirror. The world, forced to confront its own capacity for delusion, remembered. Out of the ashes came testimony, law, and the vow of “Never Again.” The same Ishvara that permits forgetting permits remembrance.

America Today

Our own time is not Germany in the 1930s, but the mechanics are familiar. The soil differs; the seeds are the same. America is divided, its institutions weakened, its media rewarding outrage over truth. Historical memory grows thin. Survivors die, textbooks are rewritten, and context fades. This is tamas at work again: confusion, forgetfulness, and erasure.

Tamas supplies the lie; rajas supplies the thrill. Outrage becomes entertainment. Algorithms amplify anger, and cruelty becomes a form of play. Mockery replaces empathy; derision becomes a public sport. When cruelty is enjoyed, it no longer needs justification—it sustains itself.

Institutions that should stand as witnesses drift toward complicity. Media outlets chase profit; politicians court mobs; universities hedge truth to avoid offense. Silence becomes consent. The breaking of shame always precedes the breaking of law.

The danger is not only what leaders say but what the public learns to love. When tamas and rajas merge—when lies excite and anger unites—the collective mind darkens. Whether we remember history while there is still time is the dharmic test before us.

Ishvara and Responsibility

Why does Ishvara allow such darkness? Vedanta answers: because the order is impartial. Ishvara is not a being with preferences but the intelligence that governs karma itself. The same law that cooks a meal can burn a city. If tamas and rajas are fed, they will bear fruit; Ishvara need not intervene, for the law itself is the intervention.

Maya conceals and projects—but it also reveals. It conceals humanity and projects enemies; it conceals truth and projects lies that feel truer than fact. Yet when delusion matures into suffering, the veil begins to thin. The Holocaust compelled remembrance; it forced the world to articulate its conscience. Even catastrophe has a mirror function.

To ask Ishvara to prevent such ripening is to ask for a world without consequence. But karma requires fruition. Free will demands accountability. Ishvara permits both dharma and adharma so that discernment may grow. The same order that allows cruelty allows compassion; both are lawful. The difference is whether sattva is cultivated or neglected, whether witnesses remember their role or surrender it.

The Practice of Restraint

If the order permits both light and darkness, the burden falls to us to decide which we will strengthen. Fascism is not inevitable; it is the accumulation of unexamined choices—individual and collective—that become the weather of a society.

Vedanta offers two disciplines: shama and dama. Shama is mastery over the mind—the space to watch thought before action. Dama is mastery over action—the restraint that prevents impulse from becoming deed. In an age that rewards provocation, these are revolutionary acts. They are not weakness but strength.

Societies, too, can practice restraint. Honest remembrance, the preservation of taboo, and the defense of institutions are collective forms of shama and dama. Courts, journalism, archives, and education—these are sattvic organs of collective sanity. When they fail, rajas and tamas rush in.

To cultivate sattva is to practice truth, restraint, and remembrance—within and without. Evil may belong to the dream, but responsibility belongs to the dreamer.

Resolution

From the highest standpoint, evil has no reality. Only consciousness—the Self—is real. The rest belongs to the order of maya: lawful, temporary, and ultimately unreal. Weapons cannot cut it, fire cannot burn it, water cannot wet it, wind cannot wither it.

But as long as we live within the dream of the world, responsibility is ours. Ishvara will not intervene to prevent delusion any more than gravity will pause to save a falling stone. The law is impartial. How we live within it is up to us.

Evil, however terrible, is also instructive. It shows what happens when tamas and rajas overwhelm sattva, when witnesses forget their duty, when restraint gives way to indulgence. The mirror is not flattering, but it is merciful, for it allows remembrance.

The rise of Hitler forced humanity to see its own shadow. Whether we remember again in our own time is the test before us. Maya will conceal until the veil is lifted—either through suffering or through conscious seeing.

From the absolute standpoint, the Self is free, untouched by history. But within the dream, discernment is dharma. The fire of awareness must be kept alive.

Om shantih, shantih, shantih*

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*The traditional closing invocation, calling for peace outwardly, inwardly, and in forces beyond our control.