Dec 05 2007
Thoughts on the Bhagavad-Gita, Part 1
I am in the midst of reading the Bhagavad-Gita, the English version by Swami Prabhupada (Founder of ISKCON). WoDM and I picked it up at the temple in New Vrindaban, West Virginia. We visited New Vrindaban on our last day driving during our cross-country trip and ended up staying much longer than I think either of us intended. We got home very late that night.
Anyway, we had picked up a pamphlet about New Vrindaban and the Palace of Gold in an Econo-Lodge in Columbus, Ohio the night before we visited. We were in the habit of stopping at random places along our way just so we didn’t go stir-crazy through the mid-west.
The experience was a good one, I think, although neither of us is particularly compelled to the religious practices of Hinduism or the Hare Krishnas. We went to the temple and “bought” a few books (they had a full book shelf, you could make donations) and also spoke to a few people there, and we left the place feeling peaceful, but there are ideologies that come with any religion that make me uncomfortable.
Hinduism, in as much as I’ve read thus far, comes relatively close to making me comfortable philosophically, but still can’t complete the job. Every religion has this focus on the after-life (or the continuous life, as it is explained in Hinduism) and ultimately the true devotee sacrifices his material world for that of the ever-lasting soul. Maybe I’m a skeptic, but when I read that, I think it’s a way for people to justify the pain they have instead of trying to change the world to eliminate some of that pain. It brings to mind poems from William Blake, exposing how social injustices are ignored (and possibly justified by others) in the face of ever-lasting life.
Maybe I’m wrong in interpreting religious texts that way. Even still, I have a sense of unease, maybe because I haven’t tried to detatch from the material world. Maybe because I don’t really desire to. I don’t believe in the material and the soul as two entirely separate universes. They often cross paths. Maybe this is due to my inscribing something soulful unto the material or vice versa. All I know is that, to me, the spiritual world is something I often experience materially.
But I think I may be over-complicating things. People seek comfort in religion, and there are relatively few areas of life people need supernatural comfort. They need comfort to help overcome their fear of death, their fear of material loss, the fear that you will disappear, that your life was meaningless, etc. I’m not going to lie, my comfort within the physical world does not prepare me to face my own fear of death. I can justify death by saying that the impacts people make on other people effect the world - so we are never lost in a physical sense. Still, I wouldn’t want to die tomorrow. I would fight not to die tomorrow. To any religion, my doing so would prove I was not a true devotee - that I didn’t trust in the eternal world.
Besides that point, I’m enjoying my reading. I like that so much of the text is based on subtext and is supposed to be interpreted. Hinduism has tons of religious literature, and everyone I’ve met has studied at length by themselves and with others to try to gain a full understanding of the literature. It’s certainly interesting reading.
K.
The contents of this blog entry may not reflect the views of the Webmaster of Doom, Michael.
Edit: a link to a Blake poem (from Songs of Innocence) to consider - the wikipedia page has a goofy (and to my view, not entirely accurate) interpretation of the poem. It is unclear to me whether the poem is referring to race or just to the narrator’s profession (a chimney sweeper- “chimney sweeper” is the counterpoint to this poem in Songs of Experience)
I don’t believe that the contemptus mundi mentality is an inevitable consequence of any religion that promises a continued existence after death, but I do believe it’s an easy trap for people to fall into. I probably have a biased (favorable) view of Zen, but it seems to me that the nature of your criticism of religion ought to draw you to Zen.
In its more humanist manifestations, which also happen to be those farthest removed from classical Buddhism, Zen deals very little with the afterlife. Death is seen as a necessary and defining part of life — a person that lived forever, or who was reincarnated an infinite number of times, would ultimately have done everything it is possible for a human being to do, and would consequently have lost all identity and individuality. Separated from our emotional considerations of it, death is nothing but a fact of life, in no way deserving of either reverence or fear.
You mentioned that devotees are encouraged to discard the material world in favor of a spiritual existence, and that this seems to ignore the problems of the world. Let me again provide a Zen/Buddhist perspective. At the very core of Buddhism is the concept that all life is subject to suffering, and that reducing that suffering is a noble pursuit. Hence the Eightfold Path, a set of rules for living that resembles a less-prescriptive Ten Commandments. The reduction of suffering is obviously not just an internal pursuit, because Buddha specifically dissuades his followers from harming other beings.
The Eightfold Path is obviously a set of rather passive mandates — “don’t do anything to cause others suffering.” But I’ve personally always felt that an active mandate is implied — “do what you can to reduce the suffering of others.” And here I’ve always seen an implied conflict with the idea of monastic life. It is certainly true that monks behave charitably, but couldn’t they do more to reduce the suffering of the world as laypeople? I feel the same way about the Hare Krishnas, though I don’t know enough about Hinduism to consider their actions in that context.
This is interesting in the context of Zen because Buddha himself initiated the monastic traditions associated with Buddhism (and later, Zen). In no way can they be seen as a corruption of his philosophy. Yet the monasteries have always been dependent on lay practitioners for support, and as far as I know Buddha never suggested that enlightenment was any more likely to be found in a monastery than, say, under a tree. So I suppose I’ve always seen monastic life as an option that’s best for some people but not for most. I think one ought to be able to continue to live in the “material world” most of the time.
There’s a very fine line between Zen as I choose to practice it and secular humanism plus a moral code, but I do still think Zen has something to offer as a spiritual practice. I suppose I favor minimalistic religion pretty strongly.
I used the word “suffering” above. The Wikipedia article on dukkha explains the problem with translating this word as “suffering”, which often leads to a conception of Buddhism as pessimistic.
The best English words I’ve seen for this are “disquiet” and “insubstantiality.” One person online characterized the experience of eating a piece of pie as dukkha, because it brings fleeting and insubstantial pleasure.
Is this going to turn into an enormous debate on Buddhism?
I always interpreted suffering in roughly the same way - that since this life is fleeting the material world offers us nothing that is not insubstansial. This is incompatible with my view, which borders on that view of philosophy of doing things only for pleasure - having a total brainfart about the name.
I think the material world is pleasurable. I think suffering is pleasurable. I think eating a piece of pie is one of the greatest joys on this green earth. I don’t care if the pie is gone, it was tasty while it lasted. When I die, I want to remember every slice of pie I ever ate, and think damn, that was a good life. There was lots of pie. Sometimes there was a cherry pit in the pie, sometimes I couldn’t have pie, but that can’t outweigh the awesomeness of pie.
I have no desire for something beyond this fleeting world. Maybe that makes me a weird person. That doesn’t mean I don’t believe in a larger fabric to life - I just don’t believe that fabric is anything but ever-changing.
I have no desire for something beyond this fleeting world.
Me, neither. I find this world full and fullfilling in all aspects and I am happy and feel lucky to experience what I do while I am here (and I will fight for my life as well). Maybe we’re both weird.
I closely associate with ’secular humanism’ but frankly, I don’t need a label for what I consider to be just … who I am and what I believe.
I’ve read parts of the Bhagavad-Gita and I find that I appreciate a number of Hindu tenets though not as a whole.
I don’t think I actually disagree with either of you. Maybe Zen is nothing but secular humanism in a fancy wrapper (this man calls humanism a “…religion, which can save the whole Universe.”)
I suppose that different names for the same thing are a good reason to avoid labels in the first place.