For the human form of life, the Aryans highlighted the great meaning of devoutness. They thought that when suffering would knock our door, the destiny would treat us the same way as we treated those in suffering around us. The Bhagavad-Gita notes many times the importance of the attitude to sufferings and happiness of this material world. A commoner differs from a self-realized person by the attitude to these two aspects.
In life we often have to encounter sufferings of living beings. When we express our compassion to them, we gather the so called pious reserve which gives God the ground to be compassionate to us when it is our turn to suffer. A pious person is able to overcome the desire for revenge when suffering comes (and it is typically caused by other living beings) and to rise to the guna of goodness (that is when one gets the ability to forgive). This is how a person progresses. But if while satisfying passions one only enjoyed and ignored others’ suffering, then when he/she suffers, God does not ‘offer His hand” to him/her and the person degrades to the guna of ignorance by means of envy and anger and refers to violence in attempts to keep enjoying. Thus, devoutness (compassion, mercy) is the basis of advancement but uncontrollable pleasure of senses accompanied by arrogance, that is the callous attitude towards other living beings (including animals), is the basis of degradation.
In the material world a living being appears in a difficult situation. On the one hand, one wishes to enjoy independently from God, but on the other hand one has got the nature of His eternal servant, that is dependence. This contradiction is the underlying cause of all sufferings of a living being.
Caged in this material world, living beings choose methods of fulfillment of their desires and accordingly get under the influence of certain gunas. The Bhagavad-Gita describes gunas as cause-and-effect mechanisms of this world. As it has been said, the Aryans consider the material world the place where living beings try to fulfill their desires – to enjoy and prevail – independently from God. And they try to realize these two desires via the three modes. The most spiritually elevated persons get the power in order to enjoy a little by themselves and do few good things to others, those lower than them strive for power in order to enjoy and acquire wealth by using other living beings and persons with the lowest level of consciousness take away the power to abuse. How can all these be understood? It means that pious people are very attached to ethical principles and understand that only by means of such principles in this material world a relative quiet and prosperous life can be provided. By ethical principles the Aryans did not mean those principles which are set based on the history or the experience of some or other nation, but the principles which are set by the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself. Such mindset is natural for people who accept existence of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, dependence on Him and who give special importance to His opinion. Pious persons are always focused on the Vedas (the art how to connect in different situations to the Lord and solve problems via Him) and their consciousness is enlightened by this knowledge. They understand well characteristics of the material world and know how to govern society for it to be happy as far it is possible in this world.