Is the Bhagavad-Gita Compromised?

Compared with Shankara’s non-dualist Advaita Vedanta theology, the Gita can be interpreted as a compromise between Shankara’s view and Vedic practices—essentially, between renunciation and ritual being done to get something. By this I do not mean to imply that the Gita is morally compromised; rather, I am using the word in the sense of reconciling different priorities and even relating seemingly disparate branches of a religion. In the Gita, Lord Krishna advises Arguna to fight in the upcoming military battle with equanimity as to the outcome, for attachment to desire and distancing pain both accrue karma, which in turn delays liberation. Prime facie, to be unconcerned with winning, or gaining economically, is morally superior to egoist pursuits. Superior to detached action may be the option not to fight or get rich at all, but instead to view the created realm as illusory and distance oneself even from being a doer or agent; earn enough to survive and otherwise try to come to know that one’s self is Brahman, which is Being itself, as conscious, bliss, and infinite. In straying from this, the Gita is not without problems.  

Firstly, Malinar describes karmayoga as “self-control through action that allows [a person] to act without experiencing any consequences.”[1] Is experiencing the right word, or is the phrase, being attached to, more accurate? In other words, does experiencing go too far? Malinar quotes from the Gita (3.7): “he who checks the senses with his mind and then practices self-control in action using his faculties of action without any attachment, he stands out.” To check or constrain one’s senses is not sufficient to sever one’s experience of external stimuli, including that which results from one’s actions; rather, the restraint both in mind and actions is enough to keep attachment at bay. Indeed, Malinar claims that the purpose of karmayoga is “acting without attachment.”[2] To be unattached is to experience without desiring precisely that which is experienced, even the consequences of one’s actions.

Secondly, Malinar claims that in chapter 3 of the Gita, “the prakrti concept of Samkhya philosophy is used to explain why ‘doing nothing’ is an illusion.”[3] In contrast, Shankara holds that action is illusory because the world is also illusory, whereas renunciation enables a person to get in touch with the reality that one’s individual atman is Brahman. Malinar appears to reject outright or relegate Shankara’s interpretation, perhaps according it breathing space only in chapter 2 of the Gita (v.s 11-38). In ch. 3, Malinar points out, Krishna demands, “’Carry out the ordained acts, since action is better than non-action,’ and he adds that ‘the journey in the body’ (sarirayatra) does not succeed without action. This extended, Samkhyistic meaning of karman remains the basis of much of the BhG.”[4] It may perhaps be countered that just because we must act while we are embodied in this world of scarcity does not mean that karmayoga is superior to jnanayoga as a means to liberation. Shankara admits that even ascetics must act that their sustenance needs are met, and, moreover, that such limited activity does not compromise the route of renunciation. Furthermore, just because the law of karma presupposes that all of us desire happiness does not mean that we all seek liberation (moksa). In fact, to the extent that seeking liberation (from suffering, karma, and even ontological illusion) is superior to seeking garden-variety happiness, it follows that the preponderance of the Gita is oriented to the inferior path simply because more readers are oriented to it. 

Thirdly, Malinar states that the verses (10-13) in chapter 3 of the Gita on the origin of the sacrifice ritual are in contrast with “the interpretation of sacrifice current among the followers of the Veda.”[5] I wonder if the dichotomy is not overdone here, for in the verses that Malinar quotes are the words, “will give you the desired enjoyments.” It is difficult to square such wording with what in the Gita is the exclusive function of religious ritualized sacrifice: “the cosmogonic function of sacrifice as being an integral part of creation.”[6] In other words, it may be difficult to fit with this function the claim that sacrifice “guarantees the prosperity of those who participate in [the ritual] through its retributive, reciprocal structure (parasparam).”[7] So too, the claim that “no mutual profit would be possible” unless “the separated spheres of gods and men meet, but are also kept apart” seems to go beyond ontology to include cattle (i.e., an increase in worldly goods, or wealth).[8] Sustaining “the order and orderliness of creation as a realm of mutual dependence and reciprocal relationships” is arguably more distinctly religious in nature than is the Vedic consequences of increased profit and wealth, for there are also non-religious ways of gaining the latter. Also, that a person should eat “the leftovers of a sacrifice”, according to ManuS as per Malinar, may imply that the intent in ritually sacrificing should not be oriented to personal gain.[9] It is not as with the ancient Greek priests who were allowed to eat the best portions of the cooked sacrificial animal rather than having to leave the best for a god or goddess, such as Zeus, Apollo, or Athena. I suspect, however, that Malinar’s choice of wealth-oriented words is merely unfortunate rather than suggestive of any such earthly consequentialism. Support for this interpretation comes from Malinar’s claim that “the performance of ritual is not primarily regarded as a way to fulfil one’s desires, but is turned into an occasion for proving one’s yogic detachment.”[10] Also, in discussing the word lokasamgraha, Malinar states that “the ultimate purpose of ritual action . . . does not serve primarily to achieve a goal or fulfil desires, but to contribute to the maintenance of cosmic order.”[11] The word primarily allows for some seepage in what otherwise would be a clear dichotomy between the sacrificial ritual as interpreted in the Gita and in the Vedic sources. In the Gita, doing one’s own (or one’s caste’s) social duty, or dharma, is not for the fruits of action, as the proper attitude is one of equanimity concerning pleasure and pain; rather, one is doing one’s part in holding the social order and primarily the cosmos together.

Fourthly, in its description of the wheel of ritual sacrifice, the Gita appears to contradict Brahman being the foundation qua being and consciousness, and even bliss in the sense that Brahman cannot be dependent on anything else, and cannot even be in relation to objects as a subject. As quoted by Milinar, the relevant passage in the Gita is, “and brahman arises from the ‘indestructible’ (aksara [the syllable Om]). Therefore the ubiquitous brahman is forever founded in the sacrifice (yajna).”[12] Prime facie, it is not clear that something that is “forever founded” arises at all. Buitenen’s explanation that the words brahman and aksara both refer to brahman, but can it really be said that being itself has two senses without having to admit that brahman is a composite? Regarding sacrifice as the foundation of brahman, Malinar points to the word, pratistha as “a ‘ground’ on which something established there can unfold and function.” Brahman depends on sacrifice to become “manifest and effective.”[13] Although the dependence is not so as to exist, as being and consciousness, to say that brahman depends on anything deprives it of its bliss and its situs as a foundation that does not even depend on creation, which, according to Shankara, is illusory anyway. It is as if brahman were already the basement floor of a house, and yet somebody would prefer to refer to whatever is below that floor as the real foundation of the house. To say that a house rests on dirt and thus it is the foundation of a house is not at all what construction contractors are referring to when they refer to the house’s foundation; typically, “laying the basement” is considered to be making the foundation. If how brahman manifests is a corruption of being rather than its foundation, then sacrifice depends on brahman, rather than vice versa. In short, to point out as Malinar does that “sacrifice is the cause of brahman” seems to go against the eternal essence of brahman.[14]

Fifthly, in the presumably causal partial series, “Creatures arise from food, food arises from rain, rain arises from sacrifice, sacrifice arises from (ordained) action (karman),”[15] two distinct kinds of relations are present. Creatures do not arise from food, and food from rain, like rain arises from sacrifice. Whereas the first two causal relations are in the domain of science, the third is religious in nature. To treat the entire (partial) series as if the links were qualitatively homogenous is to ignore the sui generis quality of the two domains involved in the series. People may be misled in supposing that rain arises from sacrifice in a scientifically causal sense, and that the role of food-stuffs in the growth of a biological organism is religious in nature. Such category mistakes can be occasioned by such conflations and the over-reaching of one domain onto the turf of another. Such errors have impeded greater human understanding not only of science, but also religion.  For instance, applying an empirically causal mechanism to “rain arises from sacrifice” forestalls progress in uncovering the distinctly religious nature of the relation.

In short, to the extent that chapter 3 of the Gita contradicts the previous chapter with respect to action and knowing Brahman, and thus with Shankara’s Advaita Vedantan emphasis on coming to know that an individual’s self is really Brahman rather than even a doer, the attempt at compromising with the Vedas karmayoga, and even devotion to a deity (bhukti) contains downsides. This is assuming that internal consistency in a religion is something of value. Of course, not attempting to relate disparate aspects of a religion and compromise different priorities has its own downsides. Perhaps in final analysis, we are human, all too human, so we do the best that we can in comprehending the religions that we have been left by people who have long since died. Doing the best we can may not solve every puzzle or reconcile every strand, but demarcating the domain of religion, and thus distinguishing it from other domains, is something that I contend lies within our ken.

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1. Angelika Malinar, The Bhagavadgita: Doctrines and Contexts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 79.
2. Ibid., p. 81.
3. Ibid., p. 79.
4. Ibid., p. 81.
5. Ibid., p. 82.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid., p. 83.
10. Ibid., p. 84.
11. Ibid., p. 87.
12. Ibid., p. 84.
13. Ibid., p. 86.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid., p. 84.

Christian Devotionalism in Film

Brian De Palma’s film, Obsession (1976), harkens back to Hitchcock’s film, Vertigo (1958) primarily in that resemblances between a character-contrived myth, or story, and the closely related, though different in key respects, social reality in the film (i.e., what’s really going on in the film’s story-world) trigger perplexed reactions for the character being duped by other characters in the film. I thought she died, but there she is . . . or maybe that’s another woman who looks like her—so much so that I believe I can will the woman to be her. The human mind may be such that it convinces itself of even a supernatural explanation than admit that one’s own mind has been fooled by someone else’s cleverness. At the very least, resonances between the impossible and the possible can increase the uncertainty of the beholder. Doubt as to what is really going on can be stultifying, and the human mind is all too willing to fill in the gap by either resorting to a supernatural explanation or making something so as if believing it to be so is sufficient to render it really the case.

The full essay is at "Obsession."

Religious Vision beyond Intellect: The Case of Hinduism

Can we think our way to religion, or does religious experience transcend cognition (i.e., thought)? Closely related is the question of whether theology is just a special case of philosophy or another domain altogether. The pivotal chapter 2 of the Bhagavad-Gita saga in Hinduism can be interpreted in favor of the latter: gnostic vision of the divine, such as of Krishna showing his fullness later in the myth to Arjuna, may launch off from the intellect, but without continuing as an intellectual pursuit once the threshold of religious experience is reached. By analogy, we can see the edges of a black hole in space, but we can’t see beyond its threshold, within the hole because light cannot bounce back out given the magnitude of the intense gravity that a black hole has. Similarly, a deity can be thought of as intense being—so dense that we mere mortals can only gasp in wonder when we are presented with something so far beyond the limits of human perception, emotions, and cognitions, hence the intellect too.

A trajectory from a person being merely oriented to perceiving external objects, to having wisdom that goes beyond the subject-object dichotomy, and finally on to gnosis exists in chapter 2 of the Bhagavad-Gita in the Feuersteins’ translation. The trajectory is truncated, however, in two translations of Shankara’s commentary on the Gita. Perhaps the difference is at least in part on whether (or to what degree) prajna is distinct from, and thus “higher” than, buddhi or sattva. At least to the Feuersteins, prajna  is not only higher than sattva and buddhi, but also qualitatively different than them (i.e., different in kind, not just in degree or extent).  It is in this respect that theology enters and philosophy must give way.

To trace the epistemologically ascending slope that arguably transcends epistemology itself in ending with mystical sight, we first have to get past an apparent contradiction regarding holding onto wisdom. On the question of whether the contradiction is actual or only apparent, I go with the side that is in line with the fullness of the trajectory, rather than with truncating it so it must stop with the contradiction. Whereas the intellect has trouble getting past contradictions, religious vision beholding a beatitude of divinity does not. In the Abrahamic religions, God creates the world and thus cannot be bound by contractions, even in the intellect, that are in the world—even of abstractions in the human mind.

In terms of knowing (i.e., epistemology), the domain of religion inherently goes beyond the limits of reason (i.e., thinking). Moses doesn’t analyze the burning bush in the Bible; rather, his reaction is experiential, and in a way that renders the intellect still. Religion, grace á transcendence, is unique because its essential nature includes that it goes beyond the limits of human cognition as well as emotion and perception; Pseudo-Dionysius, a sixth-century Christian theologian, wrote as much. In a way, you might say that transcending even logical contradictions is part of the trajectory. A Zen Buddhist wrestling intellectually with a koan does so precisely because the device trips up the intellect so awareness without thinking can commence.

In Hinduism, Jiva Gosvami, in his text, the Bhagavat-sandarbha, insists that the contradiction of identity and difference renders the relation between Brahman and its powers (saktis) incomprehensible (acrintya) to us. Even so, the relation “is of the very nature of the Supreme.”[1] In other words, in Caitanya Vaisnava theology, the “mystery of simultaneous difference and nondifference is embedded in every aspect of divinity.”[2] Rather than short-circuiting and thus invalidating religion, and thus faith that is distinctly religious, contradiction and incomprehensibility (as well as the sheer inexpressibility (anirvacaniya) of the world as neither real nor not real in Advaita Vedantism) distinguish the domain of religion from others and in fact are inherent to that domain.

In chapter 2 of the Gita, the trajectory begins with one of the “Traigunya, or ‘triad of primary-qualities,’ [which] refers to the three fundamental qualities (guna) of cosmic existence (prakriti): the principle of lucidity (sattva), the principle of dynamism (rajas), and the principle of inertia (tamas). Through endless combinations, these three qualities—guna means ‘strand’—make up the myriad of phenomena in the manifest world.”[3] In the Gita, Krishna says, “Become free of the triple primary-qualities, free of the pairs-of-opposites, and, O Arjuna, abide always in sattva, without (trying to) gain or keep (anything). (Be) Self-possessed!”[4] In Warrier’s translation of Shankara’s commentary on the Gita, Shankara omits any mention of abiding in sattva; instead, Krishna’s advice is to have “mastered the self,” which is identical with Brahman as this relationship is “beyond all dualities.”[5] In making the omission, Shankara may have been oriented to upholding the logical integrity of the verse.

That sattva is one of the three primary qualities and Arjuna should be free of all three renders it contradictory for Krishna to then tell Arjuna, “abide always in sattva.” To obviate the contradiction, the Feuersteins suggest that the word sattva in the phrase, “abide always in sattva,” may “in this particular context be translated as ‘truth’ or ‘reality,’ since it can hardly refer to the guna called sattva, given that Arjuna was told to step beyond the gunas, if only by implication.”[6] So, liberation (moksa), being oriented to truth or reality, transcends not only pairs-of-opposites (dvandva), “like heat/cold, dry/wet, which are apt to cause distress,”[7] but also even clear-mindedness (sattva), as no one can grasp Brahman intellectually, for according to the Gita, “no one, verily (really) knows this (Self),” which “is called unmanifest (avyakta), unthinkable, unchangeable.”[8]

Lest it be thought such a matter can so easily be settled, Krishna goes on to advise Arjuna, according to the Feuersteins’ translation: “Seek refuge in the wisdom-faculty!”[9] The word “wisdom” is a translation of the Sanskrit buddhi, which in turn is synonymous with our old friend, sattva (as a guna).[10] Shankara, as per Warrier’s translation, has “the evenness of intelligence,” and, “evenness of mind” in that of Aiyar, as alternatives to the Feuersteins’ “wisdom-faculty.”[11] The effect of these alternatives is to emphasize the cognitive aspect, which is not faculty that is distinctly religious.

In fact, Krishna goes on to say, “The wise (who are) buddhi yoked, who have renounced action-born fruit, who are liberated from the bondage of birth (and death)—they go to the region (that is) free from ill.”[12] Warrier’s Shankara again substitutes “intelligence of evenness,” this time for buddhi (which is synonymous with sattva).[13] Aiyar uses “evenness of mind” again, and adds “possessed of knowledge.”[14] Those who “are liberated” from samsara are curiously not freed from the confines of human wisdom and even knowledge. Even though a person’s wisdom-faculty is understandably capable of traversing “the thicket of delusion,” resulting in “disinterest in what will be heard and what has been heard (i.e., mundane knowledge,”[15] it is difficult to reconcile becoming free of sattva with being liberated and yet still seeking refuge in the wisdom faculty and being buddhi yoked. Something simply has to give way.

That the wisdom-faculty is to be transcended before a person reaches liberation finds support in the next verse of the Gita. Only after having been diverted by “revealed tradition,” such as in how to perform the Vedic sacrifice ritual so as to gain something (i.e., attachment, desire, fruits of actions), a person’s wisdom faculty “will stand motionless and still in ecstasy,” at which time the person “will attain to (the sublime state of) Yoga.”[16] This is tricky: sattva or buddhi is being referred to, but not in the sense of either being actively engaged. In fact, standing motionless and in ecstasy may be thought of in terms of reacting to something akin to the sacred, as in how Moses reacts to Yahweh at the burning bush or how Arjuna reacts to Krishna’s display fullness later in the Gita.

Being motionless and still, the wisdom faculty can be thought of as being transparent, like an unstained window, so refuge is then being taken deeper, to something else, in the Self qua Self, rather than as understood or filtered through the artificiality of human cognition or reasoning. In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant postulates the impact of reason itself on how we perceive space and time. With sattva or buddhi rendered still, something else is needed to close the deal for liberation to occur.

Pivoting subtly off sattva and buddhi to prajna, the next verse in Feuerstein’s translation of the Gita has Arjuna asking Krishna, what “is the definition of the (yogin who is) steadied in gnosis, abiding in ecstasy?”[17] Whereas in previous verse it is the person’s wisdom faculty (buddhi or sattva) that is in ecstasy, here it is a person who is steadied in prajna, which the Feuersteins translate as the Greek work gnosis, which “is a higher kind of (‘mystical’) knowledge” than is sattva or buddhi.[18] He explains that to “use the Greek equivalent seemed more appropriate here than to repeat ‘wisdom,’ which goes well with buddhi,” and therefore with sattva too.[19] Krishna’s answer is that when a person “relinquishes all desires (that) enter the mind . . . and is content with the Self in the Self, then is he called steadied in gnosis.”[20] That prajna should not be thought of in terms of human knowledge or even wisdom is made very evident in the next verse that ends with “steadied in vision.”[21] Vision here is not of sight literally, for, according to the Gita, when a person “withdraws from every side his senses from the objects of the senses as a tortoise (draws its limbs), his gnosis is well established. For the non-eating embodied (dehin) (Self) the objects disappear, except for the relish. (Upon) seeing the Supreme, the relish also disappears for him.”[22] Seeing the Supreme—which can mean Krishna in full, thus transcending as a deity—is not like the seeing of objects. In fact, it is from the latter that a person’s wisdom faculty is destroyed.[23] Prajna, or gnosis, transcends rather than destroys a person’s faculty for wisdom, for “complete inner stillness” (prasada) is a condition of that faculty, and in fact that condition renders a person “qualified for the grace (prasada) of the Divine.”[24] With that facility still, hence sattva or buddhi being transcended, the experiential realization of Self as it really is (i.e. reality) can be said to be more mystical than epistemological in nature.

Shankara does not make the leap from wisdom to gnosis. For in Warrier’s translation of 2.54 the Gita, “stable wisdom” and “steadfast intelligence” are anchored in concentration, and Aiyar’s translation of the verse has “established wisdom,” all of which are a far cry from “gnosis” that is “abiding in ecstasy” and “steadied in vision.”[25] In fact, the next verse, 2.55, in the Warrier translation is: “When one wholly discards desires of the heart and becomes exclusively content with the Self, one is called a sage of stable wisdom. O Arjuna!”[26] Aiyar uses “established wisdom.”[27] In effect, prajna is just sattva or buddhi that is stable or established—neither of which sounds very vision-oriented to me.

I contend that gnosis, ecstasy, and vision are qualitatively different than wisdom and intelligence. In fact, only the former can be said to be distinctly religious, as is evident from the applicability to devotion (bhakti) to a personal deity, which Shankara eschews in favor of “the sage of stable wisdom who concerns himself with the discipline of knowledge” being applied to impersonal being that is conscious.[28] Stable wisdom here is essentially “right knowledge” as in knowing the difference between right and wrong.[29] Wisdom and understanding are both predicated on the subject-object dichotomy, which falls away, according to Feuerstein’s translation, prior to liberation: “For the non-eating embodied (dehin) [Self] the objects disappear, except for the relish. (Upon) seeing the Supreme, the relish also disappears for him.”[30] For such an ascetic, even the mind’s basic subject-object structure or paradigm dissolves. Hence when Krishna then refers to a person being “yoked (and) intent on Me,” one’s “gnosis is well established,” which in turn connotes vision, as in “seeing the Supreme,” rather than intelligence.[31] Warrier’s translation Gita 2.61 substitutes the more cognitive “deeming Me supreme” in stable wisdom.[32] Even though Krishna, a personal deity, is speaking, Shankara claims that “Deeming Me supreme” means that “Vasudeva, the inner Self of all, is supreme.”[33] Although Aiyar’s translation of Gita 2.61 has “exclusively devoted to Me,” the comment beneath the verse in the commentary describe Vasudeva as “the Innermost Self of all.”[34] Innermost renders the Self even more in terms of the impersonal Brahman, and that Vasudeva is Krishna’s father rather than Krishna himself further distances Shankara from interpreting the Gita in terms of devotion to Krishna. In chapter two of the Gita, the absolute is depicted both as Krishna (whose fullness Arjuna will eventually “see”) and the Self, as in: Be “Self-possessed!”[35]

In conclusion, whereas the Feuersteins’ translation of the Gita gets past the inherent limitations of sattva and buddhi with respect to distinctly religious transcendence by shifting to gnosis, with its distinctly religious mystical and ecstasy/visionary qualities, the two translations of Shankara’s commentary hold onto the more cognitive faculties of intelligence and wisdom through the entire process of liberation, which entails knowing not only “the whole sphere of objects to be nothing but nescience,” but also “the Self” and thus reality.[36] Although Shankara’s epistemology is arguably more conducive to philosophy than theology, the transcendence of Brahman and the identity of atman with Brahman as being not just being but conscious being is arguably distinctly religious. Even though faith can indeed seek understanding, there are problems with the claim that understanding is sufficient for faith. Ramanuja’s emphasis on devotion to Krishna (bhakti) can be interpreted as a way to bridge this gap.

If all this has your head spinning, then perhaps it is best to return to the basic difference between intellectual thinking and gnostic vision. Even though faith seeking understanding can make use of human reasoning, and thus reason itself, religion is such that it must go beyond the limits of reason alone. This does not mean that a religious congregation should dismiss its more intellectually-inclined members; rather, the point is that even they need to let go of that of themselves that is human, all too human, and in fact even themselves (and definitely their egos!) before they can jump off the diving-board and go in the pool wherein visionary experience of the sacred lives. Going on with this analogy, a person can’t experience being in water, and thus knowing what that is like, if one doesn’t jump off the diving board.  Shankara doesn’t jump off the board, and thus he will be at a loss to explain Arjuna’s experience when Krishna displays his fullness later in the Gita.

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1. Ravi M. Gupta, Caitanya Vaisnava Philosophy: Tradition, Reason and Devotion (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2014), p. 56.
2. Ibid.
3. Georg and Brenda Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita: A New Translation (Boston: Shambhala, 2011), p. 107n44.
4. Gita 2.45. In Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita, p. 107.
5. Shankara, Srimad Bhagavad Gita Bhasya of Sri Samkaracarya, Trans. A.G. Warrier (Madras, India: Sri Ramakrishna Math), p. 66.
6. Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita, p. 107n46.
7. Ibid., p. 97n19.
8. Gita 2.29, 25. In Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita, p. 101.
9. Ibid., 2.49. In Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita, p. 109.
10. The word wisdom “goes well with buddhi,” and sattva “is a common synonym for buddhi.” Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita, pp. 111n53 and 107n46. Completing this syllogism, wisdom is synonymous with sattva.
11. Shankara, Srimad Bhagavad Gita Bhasya (Warrier), p. 70; Shankara, Sri Sankara’s Gita Bhashya, trans. C.V. Ramachandra Aiyar (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1988), p. 78.
12. Gita 2.51. In Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita, p. 109.
13. Shankara, Srimad Bhagavad Gita Bhasya (Warrier), p. 72.
14. Shankara, Sri Sankara’s Gita Bhashya (Aiyar), p. 80.
15. Gita 2.52. In Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita, p. 109.
16. Ibid., 2.53. In Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita, p. 109.
17. Ibid., 2.54. In Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita, p. 111.
18. Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita, p. 111n53.
19. Ibid.
20. Gita 2.55. In Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita, p. 111.
21. Ibid., 2.56. In Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita, p. 111.
22. Ibid., 2.58-9. In Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita, p. 113.
23. Ibid., 2.63. In Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita, p. 113.
24. Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita, p. 113n59.
25. Shankara, Srimad Bhagavad Gita Bhasya (Warrier), p. 75; Shankara, Sri Sankara’s Gita Bhashya (Aiyar), p. 82.
26. Shankara, Srimad Bhagavad Gita Bhasya (Warrier), p. 76. Italics added.
27. Shankara, Sri Sankara’s Gita Bhashya (Aiyar), p. 83.
28. Shankara, Srimad Bhagavad Gita Bhasya (Warrier), p. 76.
29. Ibid., p. 80.
30. Gita 2.59. In Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita, p. 113.
31. Ibid., 2.61. In Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita, p. 113.
32. Shankara, Srimad Bhagavad Gita Bhasya (Warrier), p. 81.
33. Ibid.
34. Shankara, Sri Sankara’s Gita Bhashya (Aiyar), p. 88.
35. Gita., 2.45. In Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita, p. 107.
36. Shankara, Srimad Bhagavad Gita Bhasya (Warrier), p. 88.

Between God and the Devil: La Dolce Vita (the Sweet Life)

Thus says the LORD: Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts run away from the LORD. They shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when relief comes. They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. Blessed are those who trust in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream." Jeremiah 17:5-7

Levi Strauss theorized that the function of a myth lies in reconciling basic contradictions, whether they are felt within a person or at the societal level. Such contradictions, and even dichotomies, can be used to energize a story’s dramatic tension and for comic effect, such as through misunderstandings. Typically, contradictions are reconciled in the denouement of a narrative; if so, the audience gets a psychic payoff. Otherwise, the audience is left with the uneasy feeling that the world is somehow not in order. I don’t believe that Fellini reconciles the contradictions in his film, La Dolce Vita (1960). The last scene, in which the film’s protagonist, Marcello, a young and handsome single man who is a tabloid columnist, turns back to follow his high-society drinking friends, who are leaving the beach. He makes the choice to return to his life of late night parties with empty socialites rather than to walk over to the only sane, available woman in the film.  Marcello does not find or establish an equilibrium, but goes on as a lost soul. Although religion is not much discussed by the characters in the dialogue, the film’s structure can be described in terms of going back and forth between two contradictory basic principles—one represented by the Roman Catholic Church and the other by the Devil. In spite of the back-and-forth, which even includes the visually high (overlooking Vatican Square) and low (in the basement-apartment of a prostitute), the main characters remain as if in a state of suspended animation between the dichotomous and contradictory relation between God and the devil. If commentators on the film haven’t highlighted this axis, the verdict could be that film as a medium could go further in highlighting religious tensions and contradictions than it does—not that going beyond religious superficialities to engage the minds of viewers more abstractly necessarily means that the contradictions must always be resolved or sublimated in a higher Hegelian synthesis and the dichotomies transcended. 

The full essay is at "La Dolce Vita."

Shankara: Knowers-of-the-Self Should Not Fight

I contend that Shankara imparts too much of his Advaita Vedanta Hindu philosophy’s penchant for renunciation in interpreting the momentous chapter two of the Bhagavadgita. I know in having translated a text that it is all too tempting to “embellish” a text by re-phrasing beyond what is necessary for clarity. Sometimes, in reading another translation of a text that I am translating, I am astounded to find even entire subordinate clauses that do not correspond to the original text in its language. I believe Shankara does something similar in both his emphasis on the self (atman) as non-agent and his disavowal of action in favor of renunciation. Krishna’s advice to Arjuna is not to renounce fighting in the war, which even Shankara describes as righteous even though it is for earthly power. To fight dispassionately is obviously not the same as not fighting (i.e., not acting). Krishna is not in favor of Arjuna’s refusal to fight, whether Arjuna has knowledge of the Samkhya (i.e., discrimination of metaphysical reality: that eternal, immutable atman is Brahman).

Interpreting the Gita, Shankara acknowledges that “knowledge of Samkhya . . . has been imparted to” Arjuna by Krishna.”[1] In spite of the fact that knowers of Samkhya are to practice renunciation in line with the knowledge that an individual atman (self) is immutable and thus cannot act, Krishna tells Arjuna, “stand up, determined to fight.”[2] Take care, though, for being determined can be taken wrongly as wanting to fight; for in the next line, Krishna says, “Looking with an equal eye on pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat, strive to fight; thus will you incur no sin.”[3] Krishna is preaching indifference in dispassionate fighting, rather than acquiescing to Arjuna’s desire not to fight. That desire, like all desire, occasions karma (i.e., the residue from righteous as well as unrighteous action) and thus keeps the self (atman) from losing itself even as an entity in Brahman.[4]

To Shankara, it is only as a non-knower of the nature and essence of one’s self (atman) that a person is excused for acting—for such a person doesn’t know any better. Only a person knows that one’s self cannot possibly act (because the atman has no parts and thus is not subject to change) that one should practice renunciation. Whereas the non-knower’s righteous actions can result in heaven, the knower’s renunciation (and thus lack of karma) can result in liberation (moksa).[5]

I’m not convinced that Shankara realizes the contradiction in admitting that Arjuna is now a knower even as Krishna rejects Arjuna’s decision of renunciation from fighting and even urges him to fight. To be sure, Shankara could reasonably retort that in acting dispassionately on the battlefield, Arjuna is honoring the fact that his atman cannot act and is perhaps not even acting. Shakara could charitably be interpreted as referring to a person’s atman in stating “that it is impossible for the Self-Knower to act, whatever actions have been enjoined by the Sastras have reference only to the non-knower.”[6] That is, the “Self-Knower” here being referred to could be an individual’s immutable atman, which does not act even as a person is performing duties by acting. The “immutability of the Self” negates “all actions on its part; such immutability is the “specific reason for ruling out all activities.”[7] It is a person’s atman that cannot act, so presumably this is so even when a person is acting, and so Krishna could be interpreted as telling Arjuna: act, for you have a duty to engage in righteous battle, but know that your inner self is not that which is acting. But Shankara makes it clear that just acting is not proper for a knower-of-Self, which Shankara acknowledges Arjuna to be once Krishna has imparted Knowledge of the Self.

Therefore, it is difficult to reconcile the narrower reading that atman, as immutable, cannot act with Shankara’s claim that “the science of the Gita [is that] the Self-Knower is obliged to renounce and not to perform works of all kinds.”[8] Shankara even refers to this as a doctrine! It is the performance itself, whether done dispassionately or with a desire to conquer or for wealth, that is forbidden for a Ksatriya who knows one’s own self (atman).[9] Again, Shankara states that “both the Self-knower perceiving the immutability of the Self, and the seeker after liberation, are called upon exclusively to renounce all Veda-enjoined works,” which, according to Shankara, include even the duty of a warrior to participate in righteous battle (even for earthly power) even though such participation can get a person to heaven.[10]

That a non-knower has a duty to act is not relevant here because Krishna imparts knowledge of the Self to Arjuna and tells him that, even with such knowledge, he should still fight. I must admit to being perplexed: Was Shankara so oriented to presenting his own philosophy of the Self (Advaita Vedanta) that he overlooked this vital point, or am I missing something?  Because disinterested yogic action is for people who do not know the Self, and is thus inferior to the renunciation for people who know the Self and even those people who seek liberation, Krishna’s urging of dispassionate action to Arjuna after Krishna has taught Arjuna on the Self contradicts Sankara’s philosophy. Shakara’s writings evince great intelligence, hence my theory that the explanation for the contradiction lies not with his reasoning, but that he was interested in using the opportunity of commentary on the Gita to state his philosophy of renunciation over yogic action—which is to say, knowledge of Self over ignorance and delusion.

 It’s interesting that even the non-violent Gandhi acknowledges in his commentary on the Gita that Krishna enjoins Arjuna to fight, whereas Shankara insists that knowers of the Self are prohibited from fighting. To impart a commentary on a text should be centered, and thus not depart from, the ideas that are in the text, especially if its central idea, rather than used as an unabashed opportunity to present one’s own philosophy, especially where it diverges from that of the text. It is nothing short of astonishing that Shankara characterizes the Gita as being oriented to removing “the cause of transmigratory life consisting of grief, delusion, etc., and not to compel anyone to initiate action of any kind.”[11] But compelling action is precisely what Krishna does in the pivotal scene! It is Arjuna’s decision to renounce action that is being castigated and strongly refuted. That an atman, being eternal—neither born nor subject to decay and death—cannot be slayed does not mean that Krishna is urging Arjuna not to fight. Arjuna is in fact compelled by Krishna to initiate action on the battlefield befitting the Vedic duty of a warrior, even though Krishna knows that Arjuna has become a Knower-of-Self.

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1. Shankara, Srimad Bhagavad Gita Bhasya of Sri Samkaracarya, Trans. A.G. Warrier (Madras, IN: Sri Ramakrishna Math), p. 62.
2. Gita 2.37. Quoted by Sankara in Srimad Bhagavad Gita Bhasya, p. 60.
3. Gita 2.38. Quoted by Sankara in Srimad Bhagavad Gita Bhasya, p. 61.
4. Interestingly, Samuel Hopkins, who studied under Jonathan Edwards (and even lived with the Edwards for some time), was so keen on disinterested benevolence that he castigates in his text even the desire for heaven; hence, the proper belief is that the soul ceases to be an entity when it is in union with God. Because Edwards studied comparative religion, whether Hopkins got his idea from the Hindu notion that an individual atman ceases to be an entity when it is liberated (moksa) from the cycle of reincarnations (samsara).
5. This is an interesting dual-track: righteous action, say if the “battle is for the sake of righteousness and people’s security, though the conquest [is] of the world,” can get person to heaven(“happy the warriors [who] encounter battle, occurring by chance and opening the gate to heaven”, Gita, 2.32); whereas renunciation can result in liberation. What is the difference here between heaven and liberation (moksa)?
6. Shankara, Srimad Bhagavad Gita Bhasya of Sri Samkaracarya,  p. 44.
7. Ibid., pp. 43-4.
8. Ibid.,  p. 49. The translator even puts the doctrine in italics.
9. Interestingly, Shakara claims that the essence of an individual atman is delusion and thus cannot be known (or, can be known to be an illusion). The knower of self thus even has insight (for an atman cannot be perceived or even pondered, and yet “the sruti teaches that ‘by the mind alone is the Self to be perceived’” according to Sankara (p. 47) that one’s own self exists but has no essence. Though is not beingness, taken as an adjective, the essence, and if so, being cannot be a delusion, for Brahman is being and consciousness writ large (and writ small).
10. Shankara, Srimad Bhagavad Gita Bhasya of Sri Samkaracarya,  p. 46.
11. Ibid., p. 39.

Lord Krishna in the Bhagavadgita

The Hindu myth, the Bhagavadgita, is typically regarded as placing the god Krishna above not only the other Hindu gods—here rendered merely as Krishna’s various functionalities—but also Brahman, which is being and consciousness themselves. As Krishna is incarnated in human form, placing him at the peak of the Hindu pantheon—in fact, even reducing the latter to the extent that Hinduism can be regarded as monotheist—compromises the wholly-other quality of the divine that is based on it extending beyond the limits of human cognition, perception, and emotion. In other word, the importance of Krishna’s role in the Gita comes at a cost. Depicting Krishna as the “Supreme Person” connotes less transcendence than does depicting Brahman as being and consciousness (of the whole). In going against the grain by making Brahman the basis even of Krishna, Shankara, a Hindu theologian, philosopher, and ascetic of the eighth century, CE, restores transcendence to its importance in not only Hinduism, but also religion itself as a distinctive domain of human endeavor distinguished by its unique element of transcendence.

According to Shankara, Lord Krishna is born “in order to safeguard the spiritual power in the world,” which can also be expressed as “the state of Brahmanhood.”[1] Such safeguarding is especially valuable when cravings dominate and a decline of “discriminative knowledge” impair those people who would otherwise be practitioners of Dharma, the law of righteousness.[2]  Besides promoting prosperity, that law is oriented to the “emancipation of living beings,” for being liberated from samsara is the summum bonum for a human being.[3] Shankara states that “the purpose of the science of the Gita is to set forth the summum bonum, which consists in the total cessation of the transmigratory life and its causes.”[4] Transmigration does not take place in the world; the term is inherently spiritual, or religious, because it takes place in a realm between death and birth, and thus not in the world that we inhabit during a lifetime.

Although Shankara claims that the “unborn, immutable, Lord of beings, and, in essence, eternally pure conscious and free” Brahman becomes manifest in being “embodied and born as a man, for ensuring the welfare of the world,” I submit that for “the well-being of all living beings” is a more accurate description because whether or not an atman (self) is reborn or not is not contained in the world, but, rather, transcends it.[5] Even just trying in vain to imagine what it means for Brahman to be “eternally pure conscious” goes inherently beyond the limits of human cognition and perception. The Vedic law that is oriented to balancing embracing works with embracing cessation or renunciation pales in comparison to the extent that promoting balance in the world is taken as an end rather than as a means toward liberation from the world. Shankara’s stance that maya is merely illusion rather than being the causality by which Brahman emanates multiplicity in the world can itself be taken as an admission that the ways of Brahman are wholly other and thus not readily translatable into terms that we can fathom. Hence the Gita lauds whoever “is quiescent, firmly seated, silent, not thinking any thought.”[6]

In so far as the Vedic law of works is viewed in terms of promoting prosperity in the world—which is to say, “done with desire for fruits” rather, or even more, than in “dedication to God and without expectation of rewards,”—practicing the law does not even indirectly subserve “the attainment of emancipation” though admittedly such practice “leads its practitioners to the higher stations of heavenly beings.”[7] Madhusudana Sarasvati, another commentator of the Gita, claims that the first step in the “disciplines for Liberation” as presented “as the purpose” of the Gita, is “the performance of selfless work (niskama-karma) by rejecting rites and duties meant for personal gain (kamya-karma) and the prohibited actions (nisidha-karma).”[8] Of course, Shankara’s interpretation hardly promotes a worldly orientation. In fact, a proclivity in favor of the transcendent is implied, especially as “desire for fruits” can be included in cravings. Be in the world but not of it, Augustine warns Christians. Similarly, Shankara claims that the science of the Gita “is aimed at emancipation,” which characterizes an individual atman going back into unmanifest Brahman; hence Shankara also claims that the science “sets forth the ultimate Truth that is synonymous with Vasudeva, the content of Supreme Brahman.”[9] Having come from Brahman, an individual atman is sustained by Brahman in life and at death goes back into Brahman; the welfare of the world in which we live is thereby relegated, especially when an atman is liberated from this cycle of samsara and remains unmanifest in Brahman. Madhusudana Sarasvati’s description of the Unitive Vision as the “immediate Knowledge of the identity of Brahman and the Self”[10]—an identity that is certainly not lost on Shankara—anticipates the final fulfillment of an atman retiring in Brahman. This summum bonum, rather than the desire for earthly treasure and even religious ways to promote it, and even the achievement of balance in the world, grounds the Gita as distinctly religious in nature, and thus as firmly classifiable within the domain of religion.

1. Shankara, Srimad Bhagavad Gita Bhasya of Sri Samkaracarya. Trans. A. G. Warrier (Madras, IN: Sri Ramakrishna Math), p. 2.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid., p. 4.
5. Ibid., p. 3.
6. Ibid., p. 4.
7. Ibid., pp. 4-5.
8. Madhusudana Sarasvati, Bhagavad-Gita. Trans. by Swami Gambhirananda, p. 22.
9. Shankara, Srimad Bhagavad Gita Bhasya of Sri Samkaracarya, p. 5.
10. Madhusudana Sarasvati, Bhagavad-Gita., p. 23.

Witchcraft as a Religion

If ever there were a mistaken title for a movie, Bell, Book and Candle must rank in the upper tier, for the spells in the bewitching comedy hinge on a cat and a bowl rather than bell, book, and candle. Magic can be thought of as the making use of concrete objects, combined with words, to engage a supernatural sort of causation meant to manipulate sentient or insentient beings/objects for one’s own purposes.  The film, Bell, Book and Candle (1958), is not only a love story and a comedy, but also the presentation of a story-world in which witches and warlocks engage in contending spells for selfish reasons. That story-world in turn can be viewed as presenting a religion, which can be compared and contrasted with others. Most crucially as far as religion is concerned, the supernatural element that is observable in the story-world points to the existence of a realm that lies beyond the world of our daily lives and thus renders the film’s story-world different. Put another way, the unique type of causation, which appears only as coincidence to the characters who are not in on the existences of witches and warlocks in the story-world, transcends appearance because the “laws” of the causation operate hidden from view, as if in another realm. I contend that it is precisely such transcendence not only in terms of belief, but also praxis, that distinguishes the domain of religion as unique and thus distinct from other domains, including those of science (e.g., biology, astronomy), history, and even ethics.

The full essay is at "Bell, Book, and Candle."