ok, so in our last reading of the gita we got a number of good questions. frankly the reading invites them. krishna is telling arjuna to fight the battle, kill his own (enemies are in this picture not even relevant) the reason he has to kill is that this is his duty (his milieu) and this is the argument, the wise grieve neither for the living nor for the dead (...) these experiences are fleeting, they come and go ( 2, 11) one can imagine arjuna, who is not one to go without responding "yeah, but this is me, krishna, not a prototype." the impermanent has no reality, reality lies in the eternal. hmm, yeah, deep, but i feel my stomach twisting right now, isn't that real?).
gita's points worth revising:
fight this battle! (2, 18). what battle? this one is kind of easy: our life is our battle. i like the hegelian angle of struggle. there's no postponing it.
when you mind has overcome the confusion of duality (2, 52). this is the duck-rabbit of confusion. which side should i look at when confronting a problem? it depends. you call the shots. just don't fall for believing neither IS regardless of contexts!
self satisfaction is the inveterate enemy of the wise (3, 39). am i allowed some satisfaction? satisfaction is important, but as it turns out, we're never satisfied.
let the atman rule the ego (3, 43). but how do i know it's the atman talking and not my own bad faith or a brainwashed idea of me? being in the path is already knowing a little bit. the more one walks the more one knows. again, it's trial and error.
better to succeed in your own dharma than to succeed in the dharma of another (3, 35). someone made the point you cannot realize someone's path, you have to make your own. we're all brahman but the path is individual. ah, but what about this one:
at some point we got to the discussion of universal moral values. who is to say what's right? then the suggestion was that if each value is relative, there is little to talk about. "treat others as you'd like to be treated" is a better principle than "treat others as you feel they deserve given your whim" the former stipulates a sort of symmetry that points at balance, the second doesn't. but then, the relativist can say, yeah, but even your golden rule can be practiced by a none other than a masochist/sadist pair! then what? well, either you rule out masochists and sadists or you include them as a lesser of evils. better to have an imperfect balance than have none.
from this one, we talked about the idea of duty and whether it's better to have it instilled as behavior or to find it oneself. and i think it's not mutually exclusive. for example, aristotle's idea of arete (virtue) implies a degree of early "training," very close to yoga's idea of yama/niyama.
the idea of sacrifice is deep. we've been over the economy of yajna: you habitually you give to receive (where is the renunciation when you get something anyway?) well, some people get a sense of duty (dharma) and do it for its own sake independent of the fruits of the action (karma-phala).
one cannot escape the economy; even renouncing it gets you back with a desire. well, yes, but if one learns the economy and the paradox of balance, one is in a better position to renounce. that is to say, you know you're not really renouncing or, you know this particular act made you better at self-control. and this is important.
same with moksha: salvation cannot get rid of its possibility of doom. if salvation was an apriori (karma) guaranteed process we wouldn't need the path of betterment (dharma). again, time plays the devil. time is the factor of surprise, the black swan. order or chaos? all paths lead to me (4,11)
gita's chapters 1-4 is like a cold shower for the mind.
death is inevitable for the living, birth is inevitable for the dead. (2, 27) what? samsara! time is a unpredictable wheel and we're caught in it. no fighting that anymore brings a sense of peace.
what do you say?
18 comments:
I think that the cycle is either immenseley beautiful or rather scary, thinking that you will go through many lives again and again seems a rather sad idea, hoping to achieve a suitable enough fulfillment of darma to overcome this process.
In all honesty, i feel there is more to these teachings, as if they were perpetually adaptive to situations, like adopting your interpretations, kind enough to allow you to interpret them but pull you towards the great truth as you do.
The Bhagavad-Gita implies rich source of knowledge and teachings.
My comment to this posting, is in regards to "the duck-rabbit of confusion, which side of the problem to look at."
Applying logic, Hegel brings the concept of contradiction. "The best way to understand a problem, or issues, is to fall into contradiction - the negative of itself. The solution of the contradiction, turns back to the solutions of the question".
The rule of complements in statistical methods, is the mathematical variant for this logical thought experiment. "The complement of an event, is the event not occurring. The formula is simple. It's a "negation" ( 1 - P(A') ) "one minus probability of event not happening.
The result of the negative of itself, is the solution of its own contradiction.
Therefore, to make life easier and practical, to decide on which side of the problem to look at, consider all possible alternatives. The natural state of mind tends to focus on why things should be the way they are presented. Being analytical and skeptical is crucial for becoming cognizant of the truth. The contradiction doctrine implies "immediate" knowledge.
good comments, but i need more. what's going on kids?
Maybe I am not understanding this the right way but from what Ive read this is what I have come to understand. when you mind has overcome the confusion of duality (2, 52..first the individual must be able to understand that "otherness" is irrelevant and is a construct of the human mind; everything is just one. Ignore what the brain wants (the things that satisgy it) and let the arman rule the ego (3, 43..its not that you are at an absolute truth but rather you are at a point where I am a bit farther away from being sucked in by the duck rabbiyt confunsion.
Im not sure why we need to include the universal moral values, it sort of makes sense the need to include, but I feel that understanding the paradox of is sufficient make the conclusion that taking the path of dharma is the "right one"..mainly justifying choosing dharma..
Just a thought..
There's a natural aversion that comes when a strict relativists reveals himself. The question that should immediately come to mind, "So x is objectively speaking not wrong?" Fill in for x whatever horrid thing. As there is in science, there are certain presuppositions which either allow or disallow the persistent fluid practice of science to continue. One on the positive side would be that the universe is intelligible. On the negative side that it is not intelligible. To propose the latter would be to end the sciences in their totality, for science depends on the former presupposition. It is the same with morality. If there is no objective morality then there are merely human delusions, whether utilitarian or otherwise which pawn themselves off as universals.
In the case of Arjuna and Krishna, the matter seems a little bit more blurry; as is the case with moral matters of great controversy in reality. One has at once and the same time the duty to care for all creatures as the Dharma would propose; yet also to defend justice and righteousness, as well as the innocent who would suffer if this defense is not provided by the able, which is also proposed by the Dharma. All of this isn't to say that there isn't an objective moral code, Dharma. Or that subjective interpretation should be the rule of the land, but that since we are speaking about Dharma at all, it must exists. And since it exists the battle is one of cognition. That is, to ground ourselves in Brahman (objective truth, of ourselves and reality), make ourselves one with it (Atman is Brahman, the Dao), and follow the means by which we are cognizant of this objectivity, the Dharma.
I'd like to comment on the idea which was brought up in class that the best way to run a society is by applying the principle : Do unto others what you'd like to be done unto you. You added that even though there are sadists and masochists, nevertheless, having a practically good system with some exceptions is fair enough.
An alternate way of phrasing the above mentioned [taught to me by a traditional Jewish teacher] is "Do not do unto others what you hate to be done to yourself." I always kind of thought the two to be synonymous,but as we were discussing it I realized that there's a philosophical difference.
If giving appropriate standards to another is based on the desire to receive something good, therefore i'll give another good....then perhaps when someone is hurting or at a disadvantage, they're absolved of giving to others. It's a good principle to give what you want to get in a Utopian society, but when the goings rough, the principle of "Do not do unto others what you yourself hate" proposes a stronger motive. What one hates to be done to oneself is regardless of whatever independent good or bad he has. Things can't ever not get worse. There might be people who claim to not hate inappropriate behavior...but the general idea proposes that in order to eliminate the harmful things from our life, it starts with realizing that we're all suffering and you have to worry about not making another person's life any worse...now one can also extend this to animal life and the Earth as a whole. Don't screw up anyone/anything else's reality because really it's hurting you. Atman/Brahman idea.
self satisfaction is the inveterate enemy of the wise (3, 39).
I love this bit, and I always enjoy me some stones. To satisfy is to end the search, to become comfortable.
I have to say as much time isn't on our side, I believe the ego to be the greater evil. Everything must deteriorate over time, but it only symbolizes the cycle that governs all things. I think the ego is a much more destructive entity, quicker than time, and just as abundant.
There's multiple ideas being thrown around here and I'm not sure which to address. I initially wanted to touch upon each one, but it's Wednesday already, I'm at the library since my laptop isn't working, I don't know how long I'll be able to stay until something comes up and I have to go; so I'll only choose one to briefly speak about.
For some reason or the other, movies or cartoons with an ingrained central theme of good vs. evil always seemed to captivate, or even spell-bound, me more times than not.
This idea to "fight this battle!" is interesting. What battle should we be fighting though? Should it be the war in the Middle East, the war against pollution, the war against poverty, the war against immorality? What about the war against war? Triff states that life is our battle. Well what exactly does that mean? There seems to be many struggles inherited in life, some of which are justifiable to fight, others perhaps not. Or is life in its entirety one massive battle constituted of smaller "scuffles?"
I genuinely don't belief that the central purpose of life is to battle. However, because of Karma, the choices others and ourselves have made, there are consequences, by-products one may say, that do in fact need to be fought, especially if the true purpose of life is to be remembered. There's a war going on for, what it seems to me, ages.
There does seem to be a force of sorts, call it what you will, which plugs itself to whichever person it can (I would argue that it plugs into all of us), and uses humans to manifest itself through horrific acts, the acts themselves are the manifestation of this metaphysical force. These acts, of course, possess in themselves a different "density" or degree of presence of this currently unnamed force. The spectrum of manifestation can include anything from cruelly teasing someone for the sake of laughter, to "turning a blind eye," all the way to genocide.
This force seems to be behind the "illusion of duality/separation." It also seems to be source behind discord, division, resentment, hatred, envy, malice and much more between all relations as in friendship, marriage, family, community, humanity as a whole, and even the relation man has with himself, his own very being; and ultimately, this force is the death of all those relations.
The external world might be one of the battlefields of this war, but let’s not kid ourselves, we are its soldiers. Whether we are generals, customized snipers, mercenaries, operatives, or simple foot soldiers are another matter, but we are its soldiers.
Out of the many types of battles there are in life, one I’m quite fond of, is the “the battle with the self,” also known as the internal battle since the battle is fought in the internal world rather than the external. This internal battle is essentially to unplug one’s self from this force I’m speaking of, to resign from its army. So that one, once free, may switch sides so to speak, and join the army of Love, which is the true Source behind all that is, that has substance or being, life itself. The previous force I spoke of is a void rather than a substance in itself, a void which does have a real effect on life, but a mirage nevertheless, hence the illusion of Maya, and the “source” behind torment of all kinds. Once one is truly unplugged from the cancerous source and back into the true Source, then one can effectively the “soldiers of darkness,” not by seeking and implementing their destruction, but rather working towards their salvation, their Moksha, their liberation from the very same metaphysical virus which used to hold sway over you.
I believe once the internal war is won, the external war can then be truly fought.
I was really dwelling on the comment angel wrote about the idea of “what battle should be fought” it’s very interesting and well explained. My opinion on this matter and perhaps am overlaying it is that the battle is in other words defines what our life is based about. In the very beginning, the moment we are born it’s already a situation that can end up both ways and sometimes it’s not even a choice we can’t evade a probable ‘Karma”. As we grow we face many battles but are not inferred that way because modernity of society tends to always create confusion to our perspective. Technically it’s unavoidable in every way whether we like or not it’s pretty much what we HAVE to go through in order to become externally whole in some sense. Without overcoming this “external battle” between lives it would be like being in a zombie state of mind. The battle of the self is how we end up adapting to everything else and it never ends till we die but even then if the universe is a continuous cycle be prepared to confronted till the very end of our essence. Perhaps there is an end to this; perhaps the purpose for this battle is to regain your atman/Brahman once more. Perhaps living is being asleep but awake in some way. The external battles of the world are endless as an individual we can only hope to be an exception but we always end up as pawns between them, what change can it create for us but death? Maya is reality so with that, with whatever road we end up choosing till death does it really form our atman or is the atman formed already? Is the internal battle ever won or its won on one life but unknown towards the next so on so forth?
I agree with everything posted here but I do find a problem with the universal/golden rule of “treat others as you would like to be treated”. It is seemingly good only until you consider a person with low self-esteem. Low self-esteem is what I consider the biggest problem within our current society. It is likely that people really are treating others as they think they (themselves) should be treated. I think there are many industries and people in control of them that their cash flow depends on the insecurities of the masses. People are constantly dating people who do not appreciate them, books are sold on how to be a “bitch” to get a man, the Wall Street culture promotes a cut-through shark attitude, plastic surgery is seen as a normal thing to do to yourself and many other cultural norms are injected to our society that constantly feed us the idea that we are never enough.
It is hard to swallow but I definitely think we hate in others what we hate in ourselves and grow to love what we love in ourselves. Just like an example I gave in class about the liar always suspecting others of lying. We are mirrors so the statement “treat others as we can to be treated” can only apply to people who love themselves.
As far as training and teaching people to perform their duty is only something I can agree with to a degree. It seems that an idea like this can be a dangerous justification for a ruling class or dictatorship. This happens because politicizing yama/niyama brings up the question of “who knows what the right path is?” This HAS to be a personal path for it to work; it will later on become political. It must come from an individual’s heart for it to be true and not just people going through motions.
I strongly believe that self satisfaction is the inveterate enemy of the wise . But there is something about that un satisfaction that makes it key to our achievement's and goal's. It some what leads us and pushes us to ambition , which results in productivity. However i agree that ambition should exist to a certain extent .
''Time is a unpredictable wheel and we're caught in it. no fighting that anymore brings a sense of peace''. I feel that this is both beautiful and alarming at the same time . All that is left to do is to live our life as best as we can and then step back , that is the only key to our serenity ... at least mine .
With all that has been said in this post, "[fighting] this battle!" is, indeed, what our species instinctively aims toward.
A peculiarity of the Bhagavad-Gita, one that has awed readers and commentators for centuries, is the fact that it transmits its message in the midst of a great battlefield. Despite the oddity, this ancient scripture centers on teachings of selfless action and the gradual path towards liberation. This allegory of war/battle is one I have chosen to place under the magnifying glass...
Arjuna's confusion and state of fear at time of battle represents a battle in itself. It is with this thought that the allegory of war stretches out into different dimensions. To think of a battle as something external from the self is erroneous (like I once did) for war, at its root, begins from within. It is from within that the flame of war gains strength. By blowing out the fire and combating fear and confusion, one has defeated one's demons. An important note is to impede this fire from resurrecting...
-Juan Lopez
The reading of the Bhagavad-Gita seem to be like the reading Sun Tzu each time one reads it one finds new meanings and new lessons it uses stories to illustrate points and in those stories one can find many meanings and lessons in them, then the ones the characters infer.
The point that impressed me the most was the one of sacrifice because of how it implies one should do good by giving something and expecting nothing in return. That seems very contradictory of the western way of thinking, that one does not help one another without a reward in the future.
This may sound skeptical, but you wanted us to problematize, right? I can’t seem to get rid of this feeling that Krishna is a poser. I don’t understand how karma and dharma can be involved in killing one’s own family, it seems completely contradictory. If your actions are inescapable, then why is Krishna criticizing Arjuna’s want of inaction? It makes too much sense to think that maybe this “Krishna” was put there, knowing what he knew because he was informed. It might have been known that Arjuna was having a hard time with the idea of killing family and friends, so they placed someone there to push him to follow through. After all, who’s to say he couldn’t have stopped the madness? He seems to have been the one most able. However, I do not think that was in the plans.
The duck/rabbit duality needs to be acknowledged for what it is: a picture/idea that someone drew/constructed. The reality of the matter is that a duck/rabbit does not exist in nature. If you applied a similar concept to religions(as constructions), you might be able to find a beautiful collage that resembles something everyone recognizes…a righteous way of life. Why can’t there be universal truths, like: harming children is detrimental...pollution is severely affecting the world…growing your own food is the only way you know what you are eating…respect everything because you are part of the web. Maybe I’m going too far, but it makes sense to me.
To quote one of my favorite artists, “If a system is corrupt, you know it’s a fake(Abijah).” If Krishna can state: “All paths lead to me,” then technically, wouldn’t moksha be meant for all? I don’t believe in evil people, just evil acts. Maybe this is why we are stuck in samsara, we have to fix things, this might be our purpose. Hegel’s two self consciousnesses are strongly influenced by slavery, but I have a similar view. It is more of the angel and devil on your shoulders, but it is you, your selfishness and your selflessness. This is the battle of life.
-Melissa
I think it's kind of an empowering truth when one realizes how you are truly eternal. Rather than it inhibiting your decisions it allows you to truly enjoy every moment because regardless of your action, in the end salvation is achieved regardless. Its such a profound realization also because you view losing loved ones or even death in a totally different way. Not only are you eternal, but they are as well and they are all part of the oneness. So in truth "you" are never separate from "them".
- Jacob sims
I feel as if when reading the Gita, one has to look at the essence behind the words. Do not take everything literal, as with any other Holy Book or scriptures.
The part of universal morals and the GOlden Rule is what calls my attention the most to comment about because I feel if one follows the Golden Rule then we can build our virtue (character), follow our dharma, etc. Everything IS connected, as mentioned in the last class. I believe there are two sides to the Golden Rule, a Yin and Yang, as with pretty much everything. The Yang would be 'Do onto others as you'd want done to you' and Yin would be 'Don't do to others as you wouldn't want done to you.' To ease the degree of Moksha in our lives, we can apply the Yin and Yang Golden Rule. We can help others out of confusion by teaching, or something of that sort, or we can help ourselves by not confusing others by dishonesty. Following the Golden Rule accurately allows an individuals Karma to be relatively good, but we never know what we have to pay for from our past.
Alexander Valdes
k.
The problematical issue that comes up with letting one end up at their own moral standards is a common one. It shows that we all have a different idea of what we would do if we were that other human. We would assume that this "other" doesn't really have morals. That they are just looking to follow the structure that is in front of them. That their brain doesn't really see yourself as the other, only as the other enemy.
If you want to succeed in your own brahman many will look at it as though, then who is to say that a serial killer isn't doing the "better" thing in their opinion? And how about one who is tormented with the endless possibilities of their succeeding, how do they cap on the level of success and truly show that they have reached a level in which is sustainable and successful. It is usually through others that you find goals, not through yourself. Many would be okay with sleeping all day, but does that really "improve" that person?
Is it not fair to say, we only show that we are unable to actually know what our goals are until we know what our goals aren't, but this is all through the brahman and ethics and beliefs of others. Not your own. Until you make a unique combination that becomes your own. So I think the phrase should be that you learn what your own brahman is through the expectations that others have brought before you.
Louis-Jeune
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