Dr Jer­nail Singh Anand’s mod­ern epic “Lus­tus The Prince of Dark­ness”, pre­sents a vivid de­pic­tion of the pre­sent global sit­u­a­tion as op­posed to the good old world of the God-fear­ing and moral law-abid­ing. Dr Anand is mov­ing very close to the re­al­i­ties of the Global world. Pro­lific writer, re­searcher and for­mer Dean of Desh Bha­gat Uni­ver­sity Dr Dal­winder Singh Gre­wal re­views the epic poem.

WE ARE WATCH­ING THE WAR BE­TWEEN RUS­SIA AND UKRAINE which also in­volves a proxy war be­tween the two great pow­ers USA and Rus­sia. The de­struc­tion of hu­man be­ings, na­ture and en­vi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion are be­yond re­demp­tion. Threats of atomic blasts caus­ing huge dev­as­ta­tion are in the air. It will be a to­tal an­ni­hi­la­tion if an all-out atomic war starts. Evil forces are play­ing their games through the agents of evil. Be­hind these are not wise minds but sa­tanic minds, which for not a very plau­si­ble rea­son have brought the world to such a state. Dr Jer­nail Singh Anand finds that from the world of Sa­tan of World War I and II, it is now Sa­tan’s pow­er­ful cousin Lus­tus, who has pre­pared regimes for the Third World War and is steadily push­ing them into this.

‘Lus­tus’ is an epic, in­tel­li­gently built around Lus­tus who gets the charge from Sa­tan who has grown old and is in­ca­pable of de­vel­op­ing his mis­sion of de­mon­is­ing the en­tire uni­verse. Af­ter tak­ing over, Lus­tus plans to ex­pand his sphere of in­flu­ence, not only to men but also the birds, trees and other el­e­ments of na­ture. Thus, the op­er­a­tional area of the Epic is global as the poet has suc­cess­fully tried to marry the West with the East, Mil­ton’s ’Par­adise Lost’ and ‘Par­adise Re­gained’ with Guru Gob­ind Singh’s ‘Chandi Di War’ and Hindu Epic ‘Ma­hab­harat’.

Dr Jer­nail Singh Anand is an au­thor of global reck­on­ing and has au­thored more than 140 books so far. He has a great flavour in writ­ing philo­soph­i­cal lit­er­a­ture in Eng­lish. He has been or­gan­is­ing in­ter­na­tional sem­i­nars and con­fer­ences reg­u­larly on lit­er­a­ture and helped nu­mer­ous new writ­ers to stand up. He has been glob­ally ac­knowl­edged and ho­n­oured with many in­ter­na­tional awards. Lus­tus is the new feather in his wings which has al­ready been well-re­ceived glob­ally due to its mes­mer­iz­ing im­pact on the mind and heart and for pro­vid­ing a new di­rec­tion to the new world.

This epic is also a strange amal­ga­ma­tion of East­ern and West­ern the­olo­gies to de­pict the en­tire na­ture of the sit­u­a­tion. The sit­u­a­tion in the East has been de­scribed ear­lier by philoso­phers. Mil­ton’s ‘Par­adise Lost’, Shake­speare’s ‘Mac­beth’ and the In­dian epics of Ra­mayana’ and ‘Ma­hab­har­ta’ have dif­fer­ent cul­tural set­tings and events that are var­ied based on dif­fer­ent philoso­phies and lo­ca­tions.

By bring­ing both these philoso­phies on a com­mon plat­form by re­duc­ing cul­tural and lin­guis­tic dif­fer­ences, Dr Anand has made a suc­cess­ful at­tempt to bring both the­olo­gies onto a sin­gle global plat­form re­lat­ing to this global sit­u­a­tion.

Photo Cour­tesy: Lat­estly

The sit­u­a­tion of the world is de­scribed by the au­thor through Vishnu and In­dira.
A god called Brahma asked him to know more about the may­hem caused by Lus­tus. Brahma sent Vishnu to eval­u­ate the sit­u­a­tion and found an ex­tremely de­te­ri­o­rated sit­u­a­tion in the en­tire uni­verse. A war be­tween evil and virtue con­tin­ues in which the evil is shown in the process of over­pow­er­ing the virtues. This evil con­sist­ing of anger, greed, at­tach­ment, pride, ego etc., has helped in­crease pas­sions, lust, de­ceit, du­plic­ity, de­sire, re­venge, in­ter­nal fires, mal­ice and prej­u­dice which have sub­dued love, com­pas­sion, for­give­ness and other moral val­ues.

Self and self-in­ter­est have taken over the spirit of global wel­fare -“Sar­bat da bhala”. Re­li­gion is no more a mat­ter of faith but has be­come a mere rit­ual. It is now be­ing used as a tool of in­creas­ing power, spread­ing ha­tred, con­vert­ing God-lov­ing peo­ple into hard­core vo­cal­ists and as­sas­sins who take pride in sub­du­ing oth­ers and
mak­ing them slaves.

God had writ­ten des­tiny but fur­ther des­tiny writ­ing is now in the hands of the newly
crowned Lus­tus. His grand de­sign is pre­pared on hu­man lust, anger, greed, af­fec­tion
at­tach­ment, de­ceit, de­sire, du­plic­ity, re­venge etc., which are all against hu­man­ity and hu­man val­ues.

Ad­dress­ing his team of min­ions, Lus­tus ex­plains that as the West im­pe­ri­alised var­i­ous na­tions of the world and ed­u­cated them through con­structed knowl­edge, chang­ing the value sys­tem based on god­li­ness, good and wel­fare into love for Mam­mon, trick­ery, treach­ery and false­hood, he suc­ceeded in putting all evils into their minds through new cor­po­rate cul­ture, wean­ing away mankind to­wards his world.

Self and self-in­ter­est have taken over the spirit of global wel­fare -“Sar­bat da bhala”. Re­li­gion is no more a mat­ter of faith but has be­come a mere rit­ual. It is now be­ing used as a tool of in­creas­ing power, spread­ing ha­tred, con­vert­ing God-lov­ing peo­ple into hard­core vo­cal­ists and as­sas­sins who take pride in sub­du­ing oth­ers and mak­ing them slaves.

Lus­tus has gone much far­ther from the trick­ery of Sa­tan who made Eve taste the ap­ple of knowl­edge; he has in­creased his sphere to the en­tire world in­clud­ing plants, birds, rep­tiles and an­i­mals. The sys­tem of equibal­ance be­tween the Good and Evil set by God is up­set by Lus­tus by in­creas­ing evil even into the minds of those who once feared, loved and obeyed God, and His com­mand­ments. Love has been con­verted into lust as minds have been pol­luted by these evil forces and bod­ies
have be­come full of lust; men and women are seen not as a source of re­gen­er­a­tion but as a mat­ter of plea­sure.

The ‘Maya’ of the world has so vi­ti­ated the minds of the peo­ple that man is made the slave of work. The in­creas­ing de­sires and needs of the body have killed the joy, peace, hap­pi­ness, love and sim­ple easy life. The rich cor­po­rates are mak­ing man move faster than his ca­pa­bil­i­ties as he is en­gaged in non-stop work­ing and wor­ry­ing about in­com­plete work and is hav­ing night­mares rather than sweet dreams at night.

Lus­tus has gone much far­ther from the trick­ery of Sa­tan who made Eve taste the ap­ple of knowl­edge; he has in­creased his sphere to the en­tire world in­clud­ing plants, birds, rep­tiles and an­i­mals. 

The true light has gone off and man is han­ker­ing af­ter Mam­mon in this dark. Vishnu ex­plained fur­ther that Lus­tus by in­tro­duc­ing ar­ti­fi­cial light of knowl­edge has been
able to spread evil so fast that the hu­man be­ings are en­grossed in bod­ily plea­sures and have lost their con­science. This has re­sulted in tilt­ing all pro­por­tions and bal­ances; los­ing even the grace in their con­duct.

Through the ar­ti­fi­cial knowl­edge taught in schools, col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties, they be­came highly ed­u­cated gain­ing high de­grees but in turn, they have lost all
moral val­ues and their at­tach­ment to God. Their be­hav­iour too has be­come ab­nor­mal.

In­dira in­formed that the de­sires for the body have taken over mind. Lust for sex has over­taken their con­scious­ness and they are now af­ter the plea­sures of life, for­get­ting the name of God al­to­gether. They have lost all moral val­ues and a sense of hu­mil­ity. They have be­come sex ma­ni­acs, psy­chopaths, so­ciopaths and rapists.

Lus­tus has pre­pared a strong team of of­fi­cials, in­dus­tri­al­ists, black mar­ke­teers, court work­ers, busi­ness­men, shop­keep­ers, sooth­say­ers, pseudo gu­rus, saints and ma­hants who have di­verted God’s sys­tems to build their own small em­pires un­der the shadow of Lus­tus. They are at­tract­ing the in­no­cent pub­lic with slo­gans of
free­dom, love and plea­sures through sex, liquor and drugs.

Lus­tus has pre­pared a strong team of of­fi­cials, in­dus­tri­al­ists, black mar­ke­teers, court work­ers, busi­ness­men, shop­keep­ers, sooth­say­ers, pseudo gu­rus, saints and ma­hants who have di­verted God’s sys­tems to build their own small em­pires un­der the shadow of Lus­tus. 

Now all the be­ings are ask­ing for free­dom from God and the gods and want to re­main in the bid­ding of Lus­tus.

Dr Jer­nail Singh Anand se­lected Lus­tus, the Prince of Dark­ness to de­pict this dark age suit­ably. The sim­ile am­ply moves the en­tire com­pendium to the pre­sent sit­u­a­tion through Lus­tus, the in­her­i­tor of Sa­tan who has lived his life dur­ing this dark age -Kaliyuga. He has rightly de­scribed that true in­tel­li­gence has been kept un­der lock and key and ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence has taken over.

It ap­pears clear when we see the fa­ther glued to Face­book, the mother
hooked to Youtube and the chil­dren at­tached to comics; all on their own mo­biles and TVs -the sources of this ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence.

The true in­tel­li­gence about our scrip­tures im­parted by the Grand­par­ents is no more avail­able to the new gen­er­a­tion as the old are left in Old Age Homes since the sons and daugh­ters are un­able or re­luc­tant to take care of them.

Dr Jer­nail Singh Anand se­lected Lus­tus, the Prince of Dark­ness to de­pict this dark age suit­ably. The sim­ile am­ply moves the en­tire com­pendium to the pre­sent sit­u­a­tion through Lus­tus, the in­her­i­tor of Sa­tan who has lived his life dur­ing this dark age -Kaliyuga.

Com­pan­ions of Lus­tus, Dr Vainall, Dr. Fire­all, Beelze­bub, Figh­t­all, Faus­tus etc., are cre­ated to com­pare anger, greed, at­tach­ment, pride, ego (kam, krodh, lobh, moh, hamkar, hau­mai) of the east­ern world and are fit­ted here into the west­ern cul­ture to bring both ide­olo­gies closer.

The en­gulf­ing of light by the dark is cer­tainly a mat­ter of great con­cern. Hindu
mythol­ogy com­pares Satyuga as the age of Truth, the age of true light age and Kaliyuga as the dark age, the age of false­hood. Guru Nanak too has de­scribed this sit­u­a­tion in verse:

The Dark Age of Kali Yuga is the knife, and the kings are butch­ers; right­eous­ness
has sprouted wings and flown away. In this dark night of false­hood, the moon of
Truth is not vis­i­ble any­where. I have searched in vain, and I am so con­fused; in this
dark­ness, I can­not find the path. In ego­tism, they cry out in pain. Says Nanak, how
will they be saved?|| 1 ||
Mehla 1, Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Page 470

As the state of the de­te­ri­o­rat­ing sit­u­a­tion caused by Lus­tus and his fur­ther de­signs to rule the world through his evil min­ions, is de­scribed to God, he calls Brahma to do some­thing about it so that Lus­tus could be stopped. Eval­u­a­tion of the en­tire sit­u­a­tion be­comes es­sen­tial. Brahma feels that Lus­tus has been able to win away from the peo­ple from the Right, True path of God and has en­ticed them into Evil.

This num­ber is con­tin­u­ously in­creas­ing and needs to be es­sen­tially checked. God calls the meet­ing of all gods to find out ways to con­tain Lus­tus and his depre­da­tions. Lis­ten­ing to all this, God asks Brahma to con­tain Lus­tus from im­bal­anc­ing the world and from in­ter­fer­ing in God’s sys­tems by spread­ing evil. Since Lus­tus and his sup­port­ers do not come to an agree­ment by di­a­logue, the only course left was a war.

As in Gita, Lord Kr­ishna says, “When­ever there is a de­cline in right­eous­ness
and an in­crease in sin­ful­ness, O Ar­jun, at that time I man­i­fest my­self on earth. To pro­tect the right­eous, to an­ni­hi­late the wicked and to reestab­lish the prin­ci­ples of dharma I ap­pear on this earth, age af­ter age.

Yada yada hi dhar­masya glanirb­ha­vati bharata.
Ab­hythana­mad­har­masya tadat­manam sri­jamya­ham.
Par­i­tranaya sad­hu­nang vinashay chadushkri­tam.
Dhar­masangstha­pa­narthay samb­habami yuge yuge.
Bhag­wad Geeta, Verse 7.

To an­ni­hi­late Lus­tus, the epit­ome of ad­harma -ir­re­li­gios­ity, Durga is ap­proached to elim­i­nate Lus­tus and his team of dev­ils. The bat­tle be­tween Durga and the dev­ils starts. One is re­minded of Chandi Di Vaar writ­ten by Guru Gob­ind Singh where Durga elim­i­nates the devil Mehkhashur.

The au­thor re­lates this bat­tle to Ku­ruk­shetra where the evil Dury­o­d­hana and his army are de­feated by Pan­davas who have stood on the path of Truth. How­ever, in the pre­sent case, af­ter a lot of blood­shed from both sides, both sides agree to stop the war and Lus­tus is asked to stay within his lim­its.

Un­like Chandi Di Vaar, in Lus­tus, the war does not end by the killing of demons by Durga thereby elim­i­nat­ing evil, hence virtue win­ning over evil but it ends by ac­cept­ing the bal­ance of virtue and evil and Lus­tus is forced to func­tion within laid down lim­its. This is a unique out­come where the poet ac­cepts the ad­vance­ment of the world like the un­du­la­tion of sea waves caused by ups and downs through virtue and evil. The poet also stresses chang­ing the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem which is per­sis­tently based on math­e­mat­i­cal and sci­en­tific ap­proaches where the heads and com­put­ers do all, whereas ideals, ideas, and soul are left apart.

Un­like Chandi Di Vaar, in Lus­tus, the war does not end by the killing of demons by Durga thereby elim­i­nat­ing evil, hence virtue win­ning over evil but it ends by ac­cept­ing the bal­ance of virtue and evil and Lus­tus is forced to func­tion within laid down lim­its. 

This ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem helps the evil rather than the vir­tu­ous which should have been the case. Dur­ing Ma­haraja Ran­jit Singh’s rule, ed­u­ca­tion was based on re­li­gious and spir­i­tual value sys­tems and scrip­tures were the key ma­te­r­ial for knowl­edge from which the so­ci­ety gained strength and moral­ity.

This sys­tem was clan­des­tinely changed by the British af­ter 1859 when the West­ern
ed­u­ca­tional phi­los­o­phy was used to cre­ate wealth. Mam­mon has been the key mas­ter of the new ed­u­ca­tion. This sys­tem of ed­u­ca­tion re­sulted in an ad­verse ef­fect on ethics, moral­ity and spir­i­tu­al­ity; oth­er­wise es­sen­tially re­quired to be part of teach­ing.

Faith in God has been the strength of East­ern cul­tures and even in the West, 80% of peo­ple be­lieve in God. 

Faith in God has been the strength of East­ern cul­tures and even in the West, 80% of peo­ple be­lieve in God. This, how­ever, has been kept out of school/​col­lege or uni­ver­sity syl­labi with a de­lib­er­ate pur­pose to pro­vide a dry life to the East and to con­trol the minds so that their con­scious­ness is sub­dued and they re­main act­ing as slaves. Even though the British have left, we have been con­tin­u­ing with the British pat­tern of ed­u­ca­tion. We must change this pat­tern and en­sure that the scrip­tures, re­li­gious philoso­phies and spir­i­tual ed­u­ca­tion be­come the cen­tral thrust of our teach­ing.