Study of scripture and
worshipful devotion to a deity are germane to religion, but so too is
transcendence, which I submit transcends learning about, and even being devoted
to a deity. That transcendence goes beyond devotionalism depends on there being
a distinction, such as between bhukti devotion to Krishna and liberation
in Hinduism. In contrast, a religion in which God itself is love, which
both Paul and Augustine insist regarding Christianity, and union with God is
the ultimate goal, may carry devotionalism all the way in a process of
transcendence. It may be tempting to read the Bhagavad-Gita as a
monotheist story centered on Lord Krishna, and thus maintain that delight
should not be transcended in genuine knowledge and that in being liberated, a
devotee does not transcend loving Krishna. I contend that just such an approach
artificially thwarts transcendence at a vital juncture, and thus inhibits final
liberation. In other words, assuming that means are the ends risks losing sight
of the ends that go beyond the means to those ends.
A supplement to the Gita
(between 11.44 and 11.45) has Arjuna say to Lord Krishna, “. . . You are the
one (who is) the originator, dispenser, almighty, and becoming (i.e., the
unfolding universe).”[1]
Krishna is “becoming,” and yet, in the Isha Upanishad can be found, “And
into still blinder darkness” than is the case for people who worship ignorance,
are “people who delight in learning,” and this is so because they “delight in
becoming.”[2]
Krishna is becoming in creating the cosmos, so perhaps this is why we
are not to delight in our own becoming in learning knowledge. How are we to
interpret this?
One way follows from the fact
that we mere mortals are subject to both becoming and destruction; to ignore
one would be rather one-sided. Therefore, a person who knows knowledge and
ignorance together “(p)asses beyond death by destruction, and by the becoming
attains immorality.”[3]
So, the becoming that is Krishna as creator is good whereas the becoming that
is in learning is bad. The becoming basis of growing in knowledge by learning is
one-sided perhaps because this basis alone does not include destroying
antiquated knowledge or acquiring knowledge that is destructive. A cup that is
already full cannot be filled, or you can’t fill only half a cup vertically.
Knowledge that is not “of ‘field’ and the ‘field-knower’” is not real knowledge
and thus should be destroyed rather than delighted-in.[4]
Genuine knowledge, which includes “the knowledge of the basis-of-self and
insight into the purpose of knowledge of Reality, can be a delight according to
this interpretation, though such knowledge may have to be balanced with
destroying the pretentions of superficial knowledge or illusion.[5]
Alternatively, the point in
not delighting in learning could be that a person should be meditating rather
than learning knowledge at all. “For better than (ritual) practice is
knowledge. Superior to knowledge is meditation. From meditation (comes) the
relinquishment of actions’ fruit.”[6]
This presumably includes even real, or genuine, knowledge because learning itself
does not include extra-textual religious experience whereas meditation does.[7]
As a third interpretation, attachment
to knowledge, even if that knowledge is of reality, is what leaves a person
in an even darker darkness than one is in from worshipping ignorance. Perhaps
real knowledge is more tempting to clutch onto than is ignorance known to be
false. “Although sattva, the highest, most luminous power of nature,
brings the embodied self close to realizing its true identity, it is still
characterized by attachment to happiness (sukha-sanga) and to knowledge
(jnanasanga; [Gita] 14.6).”[8]
Sattva is, after all, one of the three gunas that stem from prakriti.
It follows that delighting in learning does not bring peace; in fact, and
paradoxically, there is darkness in being attached to delight in learning. That
real knowledge itself is not the problem is clear from Gita 13.12, which
states that “what-is-to-be-known,” which includes knowledge of brahman,
the “beginningless supreme world-ground” that “is called neither existence nor
nonexistence,” allows a yogin to attain “immortality.”[9]
In this view, it is not knowledge or learning that is the problem; rather,
attachment, as in delighting in learning, staves off liberation (moksha).
Immortality can be attained
from real knowledge, which includes (and may ultimately be) knowledge of brahman,
even though delighting in learning leaves a person in “still blinder darkness”
than is the case from worshipping ignorance.”[10]
Because the “(world-ground) is also called Light of lights beyond darkness”—meaning
that brahman “is knowledge, what-is-to-be-known, accessible to
knowledge, seated in the heart of all (beings)”[11]–-genuine knowledge itself cannot be, or bring about, darkness. In fact, a
devotee having such knowledge “approaches My state-of-being,” which, in going beyond
existence and nonexistence, is arguably identical to the Self, which is brahman.
Being impartial, as is enjoined by the Isha Upanishad, and thus
ultimately being unattached even to genuine knowledge, rather than taking
delight in it, as well as in sattva, which “binds . . . by (subtle)
attachment to joy and by attachment to knowledge,”[12]
may be the point in delight in learning leaving a person in blinder darkness
than is the case in worshipping ignorance.
Transcending cognition may be
that arduous yet necessary last step before being liberated from samsara.
Rather than delighting in even genuine knowledge, a devotee’s delight may
ultimately be none other than the bliss that is inherent in the very being
of consciousness. Liberation transcends learning, which, rightly understood, is
a means rather than the end. A person’s favorite mask of eternity,
Joseph Campbell once said, can be the final obstruction to experiencing eternity.
2. Isha Upanishad 9, 12 in Upanishads, Trans. Patrick Olivelle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 249-50.
3. Ibid., 14 in Upanishads, 250.
4. Gita 13.2 in Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita, 253.
5. Gita 13.11 in Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita, 257.
6. Gita 12.12 in Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita, 249.
7. Here, Hume’s contention that it is difficult for the human mind to hold onto the notion of divine simplicity for long without putting on anthropomorphic ornaments is relevant.
8. Angelika Malinar, The Bhagavadgita: Doctrines and Contexts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 200.
9. Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita, 257. That Krishna extends “beyond” existence and nonexistence is to say that the Supreme Person is ultimately the Self, which is brahman.
10. Isha Upanishad 9 in Upanishads, 249.
11. Gita 13.17 in Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita, 259.
12. Gita 14.6 in Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita, 265.
