Changing tides of religion – Vedic perspective

Greenberg

the point of the OP is that different upadharmas become prominent due to different social environements or mesocosms.

there is the issue how one actually "learns" a religion.
There are aspects of "book knowledge" etc which can help one deal with personal issues/doubts (to a degree). The main aspect is however to see a practical example of the way of life. As for having a criminal record, there are heaps of instances to show how that is not an issue (in fact I heard a comment in a discussion of late that prison is one of the best places to read up on different religions - prison libraries are full of religious literature, people inside have a simple life, no outsider distractions, a strong impetus for introspection and it is one of the few places in secular society that encourages religious institutions to deal with their clients)

Sure, in many ways modern society is not geared up for spiritual life ..... but rather its geared up for making a mess ... but still a person takes to spiritual life by the mercy of god. If our desire is keen enough, we can somehow manage all material inconveniences .... and alternatively, even if all possible material arrangement is made for a person to take up spiritual life, if they lack desire, nothing will develop. Basically there is no material impediment to spiritual life. If there was, it wouldn't be transcendental.

the problems of evil are more to do with ideas of perfection and liberation. Like for instance jesus's teachings on turning the other cheek and tolerance and the meek inheriting the kingdom of god doesn't sit well in a country that is controlling international trade (ie USA). Similarly the anti-establishment mood of buddhism (rejection of the vedas, priestly class, etc) doesn't sit well amongst several buddhist groups vying for intellectual superiority.
which leads to .....
Thus whenever people think the benefit of religious virtue is liberation from a certain historical pattern of social ills, time's inevitable change of those social conditions spells the decline of that religion. Furthermore, when people take liberation to be nothing more than progress in social comforts, they abandon virtue altogether in the name of that so-called progress.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

it was meant in reference to Kenny's quote

It is characteristic of our age to endeavor to replace virtues by technology. That is to say, wherever possible we strive to use methods of physical or social engineering to achieve goals which our ancestors thought attainable only by the training of character. Thus, we try so far as possible to make contraception take the place of chastity, and anaesthetics to take the place of fortitude ...

I meant to indicate that contraception doesn't give us chastity, drugs don't give us fortitude etc etc ..... which has grave consequences for those realizations in life that require chastity, fortitude, etc etc

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Given that the upadharmas are instated by God, is there also an imperative to follow a particular upadharma within a particular social environment?

Yes. And this isn't always possible.

Yes, such can be the in-prison situation - in some aspects, ideal for religious practice. But once out of prison and with a criminal record, life is a lot different. People -even religiouos people- tend to shun convicted fellons.
But I also listed the example of having a blemished reputation - like having been involved in a political or family scandal; such a person will sometimes be branded as a black sheep or an undesirable person and treated like a scape-goat ...

I see. Your focus seems to be more on the social aspect of a religion and its practitioners, while I was more concerned with the philosophy of the religion per se.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Greenberg
“

actually that is what makes the bhagavad-gita unique.
It is basically (or at least initially) a living entity arguing with god that the performance of upadharmas are an imperative.

if we don't have a practical example before us, it is unlikely that the issue will go further than the mental platform (the mental platform is characterized by vacillating doubt and conviction)

there are amazing incidents, both current and historical, that indicate otherwise

It does branch out to the philosophy
for instance is it tenable that one be an eternal pacifist or eternally dubious of organized religion?
IOW eternal (or spiritual) life must have at its core eternal values. Indicating the direction of such values via upadharmas, while helpful, is not sufficient.

 

I haven't yet read the Bhagavad-gita in full, so I don't know the whole of Arjuna's arguments.

However, and this is something I've been meaning to bring up, what disturbs me is that this is a conversation between God and a man and who is of the noble caste - and this is not something I can relate to. Surely Krishna and Arjuna could be on friendly terms - but what about those of us, who, as far as the social standing goes, would be considered of the lowest caste and inferior sex? Saying that the body, caste and other things are merely circumstantial is fine - but practically, these circumstances do make a difference. I cannot really hope to be on friendly terms with Krishna - that would be blasphemy, would it not?
Other than if we wish to argue that while the rich and the able are distracted from pursuing the spiritual life because of material pleasures, the poor are distracted from pursuing the spiritual life because of poverty - and in the end, both are distracted, just for different reasons but which in the grand scheme of things don't really make a difference ...

I have no doubt that there are exceptions. But putting my hopes into myself being one?

No. We have discussed before how unfortunate the positions of agnosticism and liberalism are.

Obviously, this is a sound argument.
I have pointed in earlier discussions at the importance of having a stance that can be maintained every moment of every day, 24/7, come what may - how any stance that would be less than that would not be satisfactory.
In other words, to be serious about one's life means to have a stance that overarches and permeates the whole of one's life, both in terms of time and space. - Actually, these criteria I have come to through my own reflection, when trying to choose "the right religion" among those that are on offer.

 

Greenberg

he gives them all in the first chapter

Krishna gives it a mention

BG 9.32: O son of Pṛthā, those who take shelter in Me, though they be of lower birth — women, vaiśyas [merchants] and śūdras [workers] — can attain the supreme destination.

not at all
actually Arjuna is the "Everyman" figure

it does tend to be that way, but ultimately there is no material designation, either of riches, caste,poverty, gender, etc that prevents one from pursuing spiritual life .... if it did, spiritual life wouldn't be transcendental

why not?

he he

the core value of spiritual life is service to god - this can be unpacked to a host of values

 

You mean in that Krishna instructs Arjuna to fight in the battle because this is his duty - and one should fulfill one's duties?

(This always struck me as an instruction to live in accord with one's karma - in the snse that one should work with one has right here, right now, and do the best one can in regard to it, and not pine for some ideal future or some ideal past. Because such pining will cause more distress and delusion than acting in accord with what needs to be done. And interestingly, there always seems to be something that needs to be done.)

My question about whether the performance of upadharmas was imperative was also implying something else, though:
Given that the upadharmas were instated by God, does this mean that given the circumstances, one should practice Christianity, or Buddhism, or Islam?

Allright. But I find it impossible to imagine what the transcendental would be. I understand a bit that there are sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations and thoughts, and a bit about how they are - but I can't imagine anything beyond that.

Although I did have a strange dream a while back - I dreamt of my own death. In the dream, I was in a forest that was ablaze with fire, and the fire begun to burn me too. In the dream, I didn't feel the heat and the suffocating, but I figured the sensations would be there. Then there was the point when the fire burnt my eyes away, and I "saw" black, the sort of black one sees at night or in a dark room. Next moment, there was nothing - and I mean nothing to see, hear, smell, taste, touch or think, but there was the sense of nothing, no differentiation - but it is hard to describe precisely. Next moment, I was in a house, there were people, I walked past them, but they didn't notice me. Perhaps I was a ghost ...
Anyway, that state of "nothingness" was really interesting, I've never experienced anything like that before, or after.

Yes, there probably is no good reason for not putting all my hopes into the possibility of Liberation.

And yes, I agree. Buddhism, for example, has some very good practices, very helpful in that they provide some direction and ease - but it is very hard to find the motivation to stick with them over long periods of time.

 

Greenberg
“

actually arjuna offered that fighting wasn't his duty, since it was a higher road to avoid fighting with family members that would destroy the pillars of stable society.
Krishna countered that higher than duty in terms of one's happiness and distress in regards to the body, is duty in regards to the soul

also, whatever we can do, we will be drawn to - for instance if arjuna went off to the forest to try and live a life of mendicancy, he would just end up getting into a fight since he was by nature a ksatriya (predisposed to issues of martial management) - so better that he dove tail his propensity in the service of god ... hence there is this suggestion

BG 3.33: Even a man of knowledge acts according to his own nature, for everyone follows the nature he has acquired from the three modes. What can repression accomplish?

BG 3.34: There are principles to regulate attachment and aversion pertaining to the senses and their objects. One should not come under the control of such attachment and aversion, because they are stumbling blocks on the path of self-realization.

BG 3.35: It is far better to discharge one's prescribed duties, even though faultily, than another's duties perfectly. Destruction in the course of performing one's own duty is better than engaging in another's duties, for to follow another's path is dangerous.

The suggestion of the OP is that religious traditions tend to be lodged within frameworks of upadharmas.
There is even a mention of this in the gita

BG 2.42 Men of small knowledge are very much attached to the flowery words of the Vedas, which recommend various fruitive activities for elevation to heavenly planets, resultant good birth, power, and so forth. Being desirous of sense gratification and opulent life, they say that there is nothing more than this.

BG 2.53 When your mind is no longer disturbed by the flowery language of the Vedas, and when it remains fixed in the trance of self-realization, then you will have attained the divine consciousness.

BG 2.45 The Vedas deal mainly with the subject of the three modes of material nature. O Arjuna, become transcendental to these three modes. Be free from all dualities and from all anxieties for gain and safety, and be established in the self.

Basically upadharmas exist to make the material world functional - but the real business of spirituality is to transcend material existence, so eventually one has to renounce even attachment to upadharmas - of course if one does that prematurely, the result is catastrophic ....

if you could imagine it, it wouldn't be transcendental
one can however give an indication of it, much like one can indicate a celestial body in the night's sky by indicating a tree branch

it is explained that the senses have a transcendental counter part - IOW the senses can be purified to perceive the nature of transcendental existence. Basically it involves overcoming our bodily designation, since that is what the materialistic senses are grouped around

This verse appears extensively in various commentaries, although it originally comes from the padma purana

‘Therefore material senses cannot appreciate Krsna's holy name, form, qualities and pastimes. When a conditioned soul is awakened to Krsna consciousness and renders service by using his tongue to chant the Lord’s holy name and taste the remnants of the Lord’s food, the tongue is purified, and one gradually comes to understand who Krsna really is.’

the closest state a living entity can come to "ceasing to exist" is where there is no difference between knowledge (what you know), the knower (what is doing the "knowing), and the knowable (the totality of what can be known) - as such it becomes difficult to talk about it, since you can't really say "I had this experience where I had knowledge that I wasn't existing" .... anyway, such a state of existence is only glorified as being outstandingly pleasant only if one accepts material life as the only viable alternative ...

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

“

well we are always putting our hopes somewhere

basically it is not sufficient to have a negative based outlook
like you can comb your non-hair, go out in the non-world and non- observe the non-world etc etc but sooner or later we have to search out something that is real. In other words we need something affirmative. Then we can be fixed.

 

This seems to imply that the duty in regard to the soul is directly connected to the caste one has been born into, no?

What you say further seems to support this -

So it is then essential that one know one's nature - and caste? And then act accordingly?
But what about the situation where it doesn't seem to be clear what one's caste is - if one is born in a society that does not have a caste system, where vertical social mobility is very common?

And how can one know what one's nature is in accord with the three modes of material existence?

I'm afraid I know what such premature renounciation is like. I must have committed it several years back, and haven't managed to "get back on the right track" ever since. One thing is to commit premature renounciation here and there, for a few hours; something else is to have a history of it long more than a decade.
Do you know of any teachings that give instructions specifically on how to recover from long-term premature renounciation? I would appreciate that.

I suppose so.

True.

No. Even if a negative based outlook might seem like the one that is rationally most tenable, realistically, one cannot live that way. To begin with, perhaps those in the upper class who don't have to work to earn money or the beggars who can't or won't work can afford a negative based outlook, but everyone else needs more than that.

What I've been looking for my whole life ...

 

Greenberg

its more like the door that one enters spiritual practice by
for instance if one is a fighter, artist, poet, scientist, housewife, zoo keeper or taxi driver - fine - you don't have to change anything. Just dovetail whatever propensities one has in the service of god

the problem with using the word caste is that it is commonly seen to be determined by birth (janma) when is exclusively indicated as being determined by quality (guna) and action (karma) - IOW there are people in this world who simply come into this world as successful businessmen - it has nothing to do with their parents birth, but rather it is simply due to their natural disposition. Similarly there are children of successful businessmen who can't even balance a cheque book - in this way the designations of caste (or varna) can be applied to the world at large. In any culture in the world you spy people acting in the capacity of workers (sudras) merchants (vaisyas) administrators (ksatriyas) and academics (brahmanas) - even in communist systems. So understanding one's disposition (or the disposition required to occupy a particular position) enables for the smoother running of things. For eg if you have a person acting in a position of a politician who is better off in a factory, you will have problems. Similarly if you have your academics digging ditches, you will suffer from more than badly dug ditches (as indicated by maoist china)

that is technically called varna-sankara or mixed sense of duty ... and it makes for what we have at the moment - namely chaos. Time generally lands us to our natural disposition although coming under the guidance of others (even one's parents) who are more experienced in material life as well as understanding the natural qualities by which a disposition works, can help steer us in the right direction

there are numerous references to how qualities are exhibited according to the modes - eg renunciation, determination, happiness, environment etc - so one can take it up there

I'm not sure of your situation
basically the risk of artificial renunciation is something like pressing on a large spring - the more you push, the harder it gets until _ BBOOOOIIIINNNG - off you go flying into sense gratification again
maybe you could elaborate a little

not just you
everyone

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

(thats why toothpaste is commonly labeled as "ever fresh" and other eternal values)