This is the kind of critical / analytic study that is required of the texts that have been handed over to us from the past. We should trust the fact that the human brain has evolved and hence can interpret better, think better. We have to convert the teachings of past to the present context, we must critically analyse and debate it. We got to apply our brains to refresh and renew the content. I loved reading the book. I have reread a few chapters multiple times. It gives me immense joy.
Though the entire book itself is worth its weight in gold, but I am penning down a few gems from the book
An unexamined life is not worth living
Human initiative does matter even though there is much beyond one's control
Evolutionary principle of reciprocal altruism, which socio-biologists have made popular in recent decades: adopt a friendly face to the world but do not allow yourself to be exploited.
Ethic of responsibility is more appropriate to political life and not the purity of soul.
Societies are held together by laws, customs and moral habits and it is these that make up dharma, whose rules are meant to get citizens to collaborate rather than to fight.
A man who wishes to profess goodness at all times will come to ruin among so many who are not so good. Hence it is necessary for a prince who wishes to maintain his position to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge.
Envy is a sin of socialism, greed is the failing of capitalism
Indians seem to have comeup with two broad approacheds to the problem of living, The first we might call Draupadi's way (known in tradition as pravritti), which affirms the world and believes that by observing one's scocial duties (Such as warrior duties of a kshatriya) one attains swarga-loka, the heaven of the gods. The second is Yudhishtrira's way (called nivritti), which is a tendency to deny this impermanent world and its wordly duties and seek liberation from its bondage via an ascetic life of meditation.
To a person who may or may not find ultimate meaning in God, the Mahabharta offers an alternate life dedicated to dharma.
Morality is natural to the way human beings have evolved as scocial, intelligent and enduring mammals. Once can be sceptical about the existence of God, but one can still believe in being good and live a deeply moral life.
The quest for dharma is more important than the quest for God in the Mahabharta epic.
Who is happy? Who cooks vegetables in his own home, who has no debts and who is not in exile is truly happy.
What is extraordinary? One sees people dying every day and one thinks that one will live for ever.
What is the news? Time cooks beings
What is the highest dharma ion the world? Compassion is the highest dharma
Ahimsa has its limitations. Ghandhi was fortunate in having as his adversary the british liberal establishment, which was, by and large, open to reason. I have sometimes wondered how Gandhi might have fared against a fanatic, a terrorist, or a dictator bent on genocide. It is very well to be non-violent to a non-poisonous lizards but one must defend oneself against poisonous snakes. George Orwell, in his famous essay 'Reflections on Gandhi', wrote that it is difficult to see how Gandhi's methods could be applied in a country where opponents of the regime disappear in the middle of the night and are never heard from again. Liddell Hart echoed this view: 'It is very doubtful whether non-violent resistance would have availed against a Tartar conqueror or a Stalin. The only impression it seems to have made on Hitler was to trample on what, to his mind, was contemptible weakness.
Everyone is confused about dharma. Right dharma is not just a code of conduct; it is an attitude. He offers the analogy of a twig that moves randomly in a stream.
Word jehad is rarely found in the Quran but is referred to 199 times in the Hadith, which was written two centuries after the death of the Prophet. The Wahhabis interpreted jehad to mean a holy war, even thougfh it has actually meant 'striving'; a Mujahideen was originally not a holy warrior but only one who strives. For Muhammad there were two jehads and the greater one meant a struggle against one's own weakness while a lesser jehad was to fight against injustice.
Forgiveness is the strength of the virtuous. To fight is easy, but to forgive is difficult. To be patient is not to be weak, to seek peace is always wiser course. Forebearance, he added, is superior to anger.
When one begins to see the other as a human being with empathy, as someone like oneself, that is the moment when the moral sentiment is born in the human heart.
Krishna says" I am Time, and as Time I destroy the world"
The epic vacillates - sometimes Krishna is human, at other times he is God. Others believe that Krishna was not a god in the original Mahabharta or in the parts generally thought to be its earliest versions: his godly aspects are later interpolations with the rise of the devotional worship of krishna.
Mahabharta was composed during the long period of transition from the vedic gods of nature (like Indra, who represented thunder) to the sectarian gods of Hinduism. Just as Rama becomes the great god of the Ramayana, so does Krishna in the Mahabharta. Also called Vasudeva, Krishna is an incarnation of Vishnu. There is a reference to one Krishna, the son of Devaki, during the Vedic period, where he is merely a wise, enquiring man seeking the highest truth. Panini, in the fifth centure BC, mentions a bhakta, a devotee of the god, Vasudeva. Thus, Krishna the sage and Vasudeva the god may originally have been different but only later became the same deity thru syncretism.
The gods thus evolved over time, and the Krishna of the later period of the Puranas is even more playful than in the Mahabharata. This krishna steals butter as a child; he plays pranks all the time; he grows up to be the divine lover not only of his beloved Radha, but also of a thousand cowgirls in the Vridavana forest. He entices the women with his flute and his romantic melodies. Tricks are a part of Krishna's character, and his trickery implies an open defiance of traditional morality, which is of major significance for total meaning of the work; even as it recapitulates human condition...it is also the sign of krishna's trasncendence.
Why is there evil in the world? How can God, who is supposed to be perfect, allow evil to exist? Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to. If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. If, as they say, God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world.
Existence of suffering is incompatible with the existence of God.
Problem of evil exists only if one believes that God is all powerful and benign. Krishna seems to be suggesting that all of life is subject to law of karma. A person is free to act, but once the deed is done, no one can stop its relentless consequences. Even God cannot interfere. The law of Karma is relentless and it trumps even God.
The Indian medieval philosopher Shankara explained this in his commentary on the Brahma Sutras. He said that one merely reaps the results of one's moral actions sown in the past.One's karma decided if one will experience pleasure or pain, and this is decided by one's previous actions. God does not want to come in the way of this cosmic justice. Hence God is not unjust..
Many devotees of Krishna believe He can override karma. And this contradictory idea sits side by side with a belief in the unyielding power of karma. Karma has its optimistic side in a human being's ability to act with freedom, and be responsible for its act. Its pessimistic side is a feeling that we can not escape from our past.
As influential defence of God in the West argues that human free will is something of value. God cannot eliminate evil and suffering in the world without also eliminating the free will of human beings to do evil and good things. If God allows people to be free, they need to have the capacity to commit crimes and to be immoral as well.
But why would God risk populating the world with free creatures, if he knew they would mess it up with wrongdoings? The neat answer to that is although free will makes evil possible, it is also responsible for love and goodness and human joy. Some of the evil in the world, however, is not the result of the free choice of people but arise from natural disasters, such as earthquakes which takes inocent lives unexplainably. The free will defence cannot explain why God allows such natural evil to exist.
Krishna dies like any creature in the forest. It is the meanest death in history. While recognizing his divinity, I believe it is the epic's way of showing disapproval of Krishna's misdeeds.
Our sense of Identity is held hostage to the opinion of others. We may not admit it but the truth is that we all seek to be loved by the world. When we are babies, we are loved whetehr we burp or scream or break our toys. But as we grow up, we are suddenly thrown into a world where people judge us by our achievements or our status. No human is immune from this weekness. The ego is a leaky ballon forever requiring helium of external love to remain inflated and ever vulnerable to the smallest pinpricks of neglect.
The three upper castes constitutes roughly 15 percent of today's india but they have ruled the country for millennia. About half of India is shudra, divided among hundred of sub castres. Some are occupational - cobblers and carpenters for example; others are geographical. About 20% of Indians are untouchable Dalits. The remaining 15 percent Indians belong to other religion - 12% muslims; the rest Sikh, Christian, Pastrsi's etc.
The common mistake is to confuse four classic castes (varnas) of the Mahabharta and the sanskrit texts with the thousands of local sub-castes or jatis, which really matter in people's day-to-day lives. There are 3000 such jatis and their members broaddly identify themselves with the four historical varnas. Some are social in origin; others are occupational; some are territorial. People of one jati often share a vocation and will not marry or dine outside the jati.
Karna showed a commitment to his word and to Duryodhana. In the end, principle triumped over his hunger for status.
You will waste a lot less time worrying what others think of you, if only you realized how seldom they do. To be happy one must not be too concerned with the opinion of others. One should pursue one's goal single-mindedly, with a quite confidence, without thinking of others.
Krishna offers Arjuna three paths to liberation from human bondage. These are the paths of knowledge, action and love.
Karma yoga - Work must be done without the thought of reward and a person may have a tranquil mind even in activity. However may well be as hopelessly idealistic as Rousseau's or Marx's goal of equality.
What is I? The sense-of-I was present in every human activity. It persisted whether a person was awake, dreaming or asleep. Even after awaking from deepest slumber, one recognized that it was the same "I" that had been dreaming. However one could not identify the "I" with the human body or any of the individual's senses. Nor could one say that the human mind was the real "self", for all mental states had something constant other than the mind as their referent. Through a process of elimination, the Upnishads concluded that the real self must transcend the material world. Through a further process of inference, they arrived at an even bolder and more startling conclusion - this atman, which is present in all living beings, is identical with the ultimate principle of the universe brahman. They famously stated this identity as aham braqhma asmi.
I think therefore I am.
Two meaning of dharma - caste duty or sva-dharma, which varies from caste to caste the duty of conscience is sadharana-dharma, whihc is the same for everyone.
Krishna, does not define what the right action is. Any action performed in a selfless spirit is superior.
When Krishna shows his terrifying form as creator and destroyer of the universe - I am time grown old. At the end of giving the Gita gyan, Krishna says - 'Act as you choose'. These are remarkable words from the mouth of God!
To fight is easy; to forgive is more difficult. To be patient is not to be weak; to seek peace is always the wiser course.
I act because I must - Sense of duty
A person's character is not something that one is born with. It is constantly evolving through repeated actions, and one can be educated to become more moral.
Repeated actions had a way of changing one's inclinations to act in a certain way. This inclination is character.
Dharma is supposed to uphold a certain cosmic balance and it is expected to help us to balance the plural end of life - desire, material well being, and righteousness - when they come into conflict
Draupadi asks this question when Yudhister loses her in the game of dice.- Who did you lose first, yourself or me?
When honest persons fail in their duty to speak up, they wound dharma and commit adharma.
Dharma is subtle. It is curious that no one in the Hastinapur assembly that day appealed to God to decide who is right and who is wrong. This is becuase God is not expected to be an authority on dharma among Hindus, Buddhists and Jains.
The root of dharma is the entire Vedas, the tradition and customs of those who know the Vedas, the conduct of virtuous people and what is satisfactory to oneself.
In the opinion of the world the words of Vedas are contradictory. How can there be scriptural authority over whether something is a true conculsion or not when such contradictions exists?
If God is not the arbiter of dharma and if the vedas are contradictory and if wise person can not agree about right and wrong, where does it leave the ordinary individual?
Kulluka wrote ' satisfaction of the mind is the only authority in cases of conflicting alternatives'. Kalidas wrote ' In matters where doubt intervenes, the inclination of the heart of the good person becomes authority
The characters in the Mahabharta and in other texts of the classical Indian tradiution prefer to depend on reason rather than on blind faith.
The concept of dharma evolved over time, its meaning shifting from a ritual ethics of deeds to a more persoanl virtue based on ones conscience.
Dharma has to do with basic traits rather than specific deeds, and the Mahabharta articulates these character traits in a number of places. It referes to 'not harming others, being truthful, not getting angry', lack of malice and rectitude.
Immorality of silence! Keeping quite when it is your duty to speak for or against a cause is immoral.
To one who is killed, victory and defeat are the same.
Though the entire book itself is worth its weight in gold, but I am penning down a few gems from the book
An unexamined life is not worth living
Human initiative does matter even though there is much beyond one's control
Evolutionary principle of reciprocal altruism, which socio-biologists have made popular in recent decades: adopt a friendly face to the world but do not allow yourself to be exploited.
Ethic of responsibility is more appropriate to political life and not the purity of soul.
Societies are held together by laws, customs and moral habits and it is these that make up dharma, whose rules are meant to get citizens to collaborate rather than to fight.
A man who wishes to profess goodness at all times will come to ruin among so many who are not so good. Hence it is necessary for a prince who wishes to maintain his position to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge.
Envy is a sin of socialism, greed is the failing of capitalism
Indians seem to have comeup with two broad approacheds to the problem of living, The first we might call Draupadi's way (known in tradition as pravritti), which affirms the world and believes that by observing one's scocial duties (Such as warrior duties of a kshatriya) one attains swarga-loka, the heaven of the gods. The second is Yudhishtrira's way (called nivritti), which is a tendency to deny this impermanent world and its wordly duties and seek liberation from its bondage via an ascetic life of meditation.
To a person who may or may not find ultimate meaning in God, the Mahabharta offers an alternate life dedicated to dharma.
Morality is natural to the way human beings have evolved as scocial, intelligent and enduring mammals. Once can be sceptical about the existence of God, but one can still believe in being good and live a deeply moral life.
The quest for dharma is more important than the quest for God in the Mahabharta epic.
Who is happy? Who cooks vegetables in his own home, who has no debts and who is not in exile is truly happy.
What is extraordinary? One sees people dying every day and one thinks that one will live for ever.
What is the news? Time cooks beings
What is the highest dharma ion the world? Compassion is the highest dharma
Ahimsa has its limitations. Ghandhi was fortunate in having as his adversary the british liberal establishment, which was, by and large, open to reason. I have sometimes wondered how Gandhi might have fared against a fanatic, a terrorist, or a dictator bent on genocide. It is very well to be non-violent to a non-poisonous lizards but one must defend oneself against poisonous snakes. George Orwell, in his famous essay 'Reflections on Gandhi', wrote that it is difficult to see how Gandhi's methods could be applied in a country where opponents of the regime disappear in the middle of the night and are never heard from again. Liddell Hart echoed this view: 'It is very doubtful whether non-violent resistance would have availed against a Tartar conqueror or a Stalin. The only impression it seems to have made on Hitler was to trample on what, to his mind, was contemptible weakness.
Everyone is confused about dharma. Right dharma is not just a code of conduct; it is an attitude. He offers the analogy of a twig that moves randomly in a stream.
Word jehad is rarely found in the Quran but is referred to 199 times in the Hadith, which was written two centuries after the death of the Prophet. The Wahhabis interpreted jehad to mean a holy war, even thougfh it has actually meant 'striving'; a Mujahideen was originally not a holy warrior but only one who strives. For Muhammad there were two jehads and the greater one meant a struggle against one's own weakness while a lesser jehad was to fight against injustice.
Forgiveness is the strength of the virtuous. To fight is easy, but to forgive is difficult. To be patient is not to be weak, to seek peace is always wiser course. Forebearance, he added, is superior to anger.
When one begins to see the other as a human being with empathy, as someone like oneself, that is the moment when the moral sentiment is born in the human heart.
Krishna says" I am Time, and as Time I destroy the world"
The epic vacillates - sometimes Krishna is human, at other times he is God. Others believe that Krishna was not a god in the original Mahabharta or in the parts generally thought to be its earliest versions: his godly aspects are later interpolations with the rise of the devotional worship of krishna.
Mahabharta was composed during the long period of transition from the vedic gods of nature (like Indra, who represented thunder) to the sectarian gods of Hinduism. Just as Rama becomes the great god of the Ramayana, so does Krishna in the Mahabharta. Also called Vasudeva, Krishna is an incarnation of Vishnu. There is a reference to one Krishna, the son of Devaki, during the Vedic period, where he is merely a wise, enquiring man seeking the highest truth. Panini, in the fifth centure BC, mentions a bhakta, a devotee of the god, Vasudeva. Thus, Krishna the sage and Vasudeva the god may originally have been different but only later became the same deity thru syncretism.
The gods thus evolved over time, and the Krishna of the later period of the Puranas is even more playful than in the Mahabharata. This krishna steals butter as a child; he plays pranks all the time; he grows up to be the divine lover not only of his beloved Radha, but also of a thousand cowgirls in the Vridavana forest. He entices the women with his flute and his romantic melodies. Tricks are a part of Krishna's character, and his trickery implies an open defiance of traditional morality, which is of major significance for total meaning of the work; even as it recapitulates human condition...it is also the sign of krishna's trasncendence.
Why is there evil in the world? How can God, who is supposed to be perfect, allow evil to exist? Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to. If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. If, as they say, God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world.
Existence of suffering is incompatible with the existence of God.
Problem of evil exists only if one believes that God is all powerful and benign. Krishna seems to be suggesting that all of life is subject to law of karma. A person is free to act, but once the deed is done, no one can stop its relentless consequences. Even God cannot interfere. The law of Karma is relentless and it trumps even God.
The Indian medieval philosopher Shankara explained this in his commentary on the Brahma Sutras. He said that one merely reaps the results of one's moral actions sown in the past.One's karma decided if one will experience pleasure or pain, and this is decided by one's previous actions. God does not want to come in the way of this cosmic justice. Hence God is not unjust..
Many devotees of Krishna believe He can override karma. And this contradictory idea sits side by side with a belief in the unyielding power of karma. Karma has its optimistic side in a human being's ability to act with freedom, and be responsible for its act. Its pessimistic side is a feeling that we can not escape from our past.
As influential defence of God in the West argues that human free will is something of value. God cannot eliminate evil and suffering in the world without also eliminating the free will of human beings to do evil and good things. If God allows people to be free, they need to have the capacity to commit crimes and to be immoral as well.
But why would God risk populating the world with free creatures, if he knew they would mess it up with wrongdoings? The neat answer to that is although free will makes evil possible, it is also responsible for love and goodness and human joy. Some of the evil in the world, however, is not the result of the free choice of people but arise from natural disasters, such as earthquakes which takes inocent lives unexplainably. The free will defence cannot explain why God allows such natural evil to exist.
Krishna dies like any creature in the forest. It is the meanest death in history. While recognizing his divinity, I believe it is the epic's way of showing disapproval of Krishna's misdeeds.
Our sense of Identity is held hostage to the opinion of others. We may not admit it but the truth is that we all seek to be loved by the world. When we are babies, we are loved whetehr we burp or scream or break our toys. But as we grow up, we are suddenly thrown into a world where people judge us by our achievements or our status. No human is immune from this weekness. The ego is a leaky ballon forever requiring helium of external love to remain inflated and ever vulnerable to the smallest pinpricks of neglect.
The three upper castes constitutes roughly 15 percent of today's india but they have ruled the country for millennia. About half of India is shudra, divided among hundred of sub castres. Some are occupational - cobblers and carpenters for example; others are geographical. About 20% of Indians are untouchable Dalits. The remaining 15 percent Indians belong to other religion - 12% muslims; the rest Sikh, Christian, Pastrsi's etc.
The common mistake is to confuse four classic castes (varnas) of the Mahabharta and the sanskrit texts with the thousands of local sub-castes or jatis, which really matter in people's day-to-day lives. There are 3000 such jatis and their members broaddly identify themselves with the four historical varnas. Some are social in origin; others are occupational; some are territorial. People of one jati often share a vocation and will not marry or dine outside the jati.
Karna showed a commitment to his word and to Duryodhana. In the end, principle triumped over his hunger for status.
You will waste a lot less time worrying what others think of you, if only you realized how seldom they do. To be happy one must not be too concerned with the opinion of others. One should pursue one's goal single-mindedly, with a quite confidence, without thinking of others.
Krishna offers Arjuna three paths to liberation from human bondage. These are the paths of knowledge, action and love.
Karma yoga - Work must be done without the thought of reward and a person may have a tranquil mind even in activity. However may well be as hopelessly idealistic as Rousseau's or Marx's goal of equality.
What is I? The sense-of-I was present in every human activity. It persisted whether a person was awake, dreaming or asleep. Even after awaking from deepest slumber, one recognized that it was the same "I" that had been dreaming. However one could not identify the "I" with the human body or any of the individual's senses. Nor could one say that the human mind was the real "self", for all mental states had something constant other than the mind as their referent. Through a process of elimination, the Upnishads concluded that the real self must transcend the material world. Through a further process of inference, they arrived at an even bolder and more startling conclusion - this atman, which is present in all living beings, is identical with the ultimate principle of the universe brahman. They famously stated this identity as aham braqhma asmi.
I think therefore I am.
Two meaning of dharma - caste duty or sva-dharma, which varies from caste to caste the duty of conscience is sadharana-dharma, whihc is the same for everyone.
Krishna, does not define what the right action is. Any action performed in a selfless spirit is superior.
When Krishna shows his terrifying form as creator and destroyer of the universe - I am time grown old. At the end of giving the Gita gyan, Krishna says - 'Act as you choose'. These are remarkable words from the mouth of God!
To fight is easy; to forgive is more difficult. To be patient is not to be weak; to seek peace is always the wiser course.
I act because I must - Sense of duty
A person's character is not something that one is born with. It is constantly evolving through repeated actions, and one can be educated to become more moral.
Repeated actions had a way of changing one's inclinations to act in a certain way. This inclination is character.
Dharma is supposed to uphold a certain cosmic balance and it is expected to help us to balance the plural end of life - desire, material well being, and righteousness - when they come into conflict
Draupadi asks this question when Yudhister loses her in the game of dice.- Who did you lose first, yourself or me?
When honest persons fail in their duty to speak up, they wound dharma and commit adharma.
Dharma is subtle. It is curious that no one in the Hastinapur assembly that day appealed to God to decide who is right and who is wrong. This is becuase God is not expected to be an authority on dharma among Hindus, Buddhists and Jains.
The root of dharma is the entire Vedas, the tradition and customs of those who know the Vedas, the conduct of virtuous people and what is satisfactory to oneself.
In the opinion of the world the words of Vedas are contradictory. How can there be scriptural authority over whether something is a true conculsion or not when such contradictions exists?
If God is not the arbiter of dharma and if the vedas are contradictory and if wise person can not agree about right and wrong, where does it leave the ordinary individual?
Kulluka wrote ' satisfaction of the mind is the only authority in cases of conflicting alternatives'. Kalidas wrote ' In matters where doubt intervenes, the inclination of the heart of the good person becomes authority
The characters in the Mahabharta and in other texts of the classical Indian tradiution prefer to depend on reason rather than on blind faith.
The concept of dharma evolved over time, its meaning shifting from a ritual ethics of deeds to a more persoanl virtue based on ones conscience.
Dharma has to do with basic traits rather than specific deeds, and the Mahabharta articulates these character traits in a number of places. It referes to 'not harming others, being truthful, not getting angry', lack of malice and rectitude.
Immorality of silence! Keeping quite when it is your duty to speak for or against a cause is immoral.
To one who is killed, victory and defeat are the same.
