Yesterday, I found myself lamenting the disappearance of Hinduism’s heroes, such as the venerable Bhishma, the motherly Sharada Devi, the wise king Janaka, the devoted Shabhari, or the inspiring Swami Vivekananda — people whose character and energy are timeless.

It seems like Hinduism has nowhere to turn, and that all of its modern representatives are either weak, market-oriented, or fraudulent. I don’t think Deepak Chopra and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar are anywhere close to Swami Vivekananda in terms of “heroism”, and I am yet to meet a Hindu spiritual leader who qualifies as anything more than well-read and traditional. Certainly, there is no shortage of charitable people in the world today, but for many of them, their attachment to the objects of their charity strips them of the quiet power we find in Hinduism’s most revered heroes. Not that these people are bad (except the dishonest ones), but they’re hardly inspiring — nothing like Mother Teresa or Gandhi, for example.

Then I remembered a scene from one of my favorite movies, V for Vendetta, in which the main character says (watch it here):

Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof.

That concept of living for an ideal is what I find to be missing — people who burn in pursuit of their principles every second of every day, who nurture an ideal to immortality through their brief existence. It’s, of course, understandable — such intensity resembles idiocy and insanity. But to the individual in question, no other way of life would be truthful.

I realized, then, that every day I have a choice: either to live for an ideal or to live for comfort. (Not that living for an ideal wouldn’t be comfortable, just that it’s more likely to lead to uncomfortable situations.) The lack of heroes in Hinduism can be fixed through my actions, by my deciding to be such a hero. And by that, I don’t mean acts of courage or securing wealth and fame, or even affecting others’ opinions in any way, but just the fundamentally heroic act of adhering to an ideal for its own sake — like the many people who work quietly and inspire those around them.

There are three principles I adhere to, for my own satisfaction, which are grounded in Hinduism:

1. Integrity. The continuous pursuit of truth in how I think, talk, and act.
2. Helping people. If someone asks me for help, I help them.
3. Creativity. To build and invent all the useful objects, ideas, and institutions that it is possible for me to create in my lifetime, and to always do it better than I think is possible.

It brings me immense satisfaction to lead a life which prioritizes honesty and productivity, and equally immense pain when I violate these principles. Nonetheless, the point is that I want to live this ideal for its own sake.

This resolution reminds me of Gandhi’s aphorism: “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” After all, our commitment to our personal ideals is not an accident, but a choice. If you’re the type who wants to live for something beyond yourself, think of yourself as one of the very heroes you admire, hold yourself to the same standards, and see what happens.

Related posts:

1. Vivekananda and Marx Manoj Sadasivan has written a thought-provoking comparison of Vivekananda and...
2. Question of the Week: What is one of your objects of devotion? This week, we will think about your objects of devotion,...
3. Must Hindus believe in God? Yesterday, Saketh’s post (this week’s Question of the Week) asked...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Such learning requires that we take full responsibility for our actions, and this is where I find a contradiction with pujas. In performing a puja, if one asks for divine help or prays for success in an endeavor, one ascribes a component of the resultant success or failure to divine grace, and thereby fails to take full responsibility for one’s actions. Our poor understanding of the exact mechanism through which divine beings assist their devotees erodes our faith that such help will actually arrive — rare are the souls who truly believe they will receive such help and whom the divine never disappoints. So I find it hard to ask divine beings for assistance when doing so absolves me of some responsibility for the results of my actions.

In particular, I find that the Ganesha puja, with its avowed aim to propitiate Lord Ganesha to remove obstacles from our future, is contradictory to karma yoga. This is the same for any sort of prospective puja, such as the Saraswati Puja, which seeks to create auspicious conditions for action. Such pujas leave room for absolving oneself of some responsibility for one’s actions, which I find is less effective when it comes to learning from what we do. On the other hand, retrospective pujas, where we shower gratitude upon the divine for its hand in our success or failure, allows us to remain humble, which is a critical factor in viewing the world objectively. Such pujas let us take full responsibility but little credit — the optimal mix for a scientific way, karma yogic of life.

Note that a puja is not itself prospective or retrospective, but the way in which it is performed is. I find that the verses in the Ganesha, Saraswati, and Satyanarayana pujas, with their requests for auspicious conditions and hopes for specific outcomes, embody the prospective attitude. But pujas in which we only express our gratitude for the outcomes of our actions to the divine are excellent because they are effective for maintaining humility — for this reason, I enjoy the offering sections of the aforementioned pujas. It is just such things as calling Ganesha as bhaktavanchhitadayakaya (he who grants his devotee’s desires) in his 108 names during the puja which alarm me as contradictory to karma yoga.

I don’t think the prospective attitude is bad, merely that it contradicts the principles of karma yoga which I value. In keeping with this, I do not plan to attend pujas which I perceive as prospective, so that I can try to be as purely retrospective as possible in invoking the divine, on my own. But when there are pujas or bhajan sessions or some other spiritual get-together in which the emphasis is on gratitude and praising the divine, then I see no contradiction and will be happy to attend!

What do you think?

Related posts:

1. The Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 5 I wanted to follow up this past week’s discussion on...
2. Karma Yoga in Harvard Square It comes up very often in Karma Yoga that in...
3. Karma: What It Is, What It Is Not. Summary and thoughts on Swami Tyagananda’s Lecture 2.27.11 Swami Tyagananda’s lecture at the Vedanta Center in Boston this...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The premise, like many games today, is that you get guns and kill your foes. Such games are colloquially called shooters, with an adjective prepended to describe the camera’s vantage point, such as first-person shooter, for when you “are” the in-game character, or third-person shooter, for when you are behind the in-game character and separate from her. The game creator’s choice of vantage point, a choice that is generally fixed within a given game, has a significant impact on the player’s experience.

Bioshock is a first-person shooter, so while playing, one identifies visually with the in-game character. This, together with the careful artistic design of the game, leads to an immersive experience that has one feeling like a part of the in-game world. Whether it’s the campy vending machines, the zombie-like inhabitants of an underwater city, or the collectible audio diaries of a tragic past, the different aspects of the environment entice the player more strongly than in other games, where the emphasis is simply on killing things instead of on emotional depth. In this way, the carefully crafted world of Bioshock achieves an unnerving level of realism.

This unnerving realism shocks most when the game forces the player to make a moral judgment. As an example — the example that inspired me to write this post — the Bioshock world is populated with endearing young girls called “Little Sisters,” whose function it is to collect useful genetic material called ADAM that the player desperately needs in order to survive. While these Little Sisters are actually no longer human, deformed into zombie-like collectors through some strange biological procedure, the procedure that transformed them is reversible, and the player can perform the reverse procedure on them in order to rescue them from their status as zombies and make them girls once again.

When one encounters a Little Sister, which one is forced to do in order to obtain ADAM and survive, one has to kill her mechanized guardian (amusingly called a “Big Daddy”), which prompts the Little Sister to start weeping over her lost companion. In this emotional scenario, with silence but for the sobs of the Little Sister, one is told that one has the choice to either harvest the Little Sister, giving one 160 ADAM but killing the creature, or rescue it, giving one only 80 ADAM but earning a voiced thank-you and look of gratitude from the resulting girl.

Logically, one wants to harvest all of the Little Sisters in order to maximize one’s ADAM. But something feels wrong about killing a child-like creature for one’s own satisfaction. Even though it’s sensible from the perspective of pure self-interest, there’s an aspect of our humanity that appeals to the player, asking the player to consider rescuing the Little Sister.

In my first encounter with a Little Sister, after sitting for a few minutes with the moral choice on display (picture), I decided to rescue it. While this did put me 80 ADAM short, which was frustrating for advancing in the game, I felt like I had done the right thing. Looking back though, that sounds silly. I might have done the right thing, but what does morality in a video game even mean? When the game presents the player with this phenomenally constructed moral quandary, it feels like more than just a game — but it’s still just a game. Why not just harvest all the Little Sisters? The arguments in favor of rescuing are weak — unlike in a Disney movie, the gratitude of the rescued girls doesn’t miraculously help the player defeat foes — yet I chose to rescue.

The Little Sister problem is interesting in itself, but it also raises the larger question of morality in the digital world. Many video games, movies, and television shows today celebrate violence to a ridiculous degree, making gruesome digital death commonplace, and yet a core principle of Hinduism is ahimsa, or non-violence. Is chainsawing your video game opponent to bloody chunks consistent with ahimsa because it’s just a game, or is there something wrong with it? On the one hand, it’s clearly inconsistent with ahimsa when it has clear influence on violent actions in the real world — for example, the killers at the Columbine High School massacre videotaped themselves paying homage to the popular violent video game Doom before the shootings (source). On the other hand, it seems justifiable in some way when it serves righteous warfare as described by Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita — for example, the same violent video game Doom served as the basis for military simulations for soldiers in the United States military.

It’s hard to tell — why did I choose to rescue the Little Sister? Is ahimsa consistent with violent video games and other cultural celebrations of violence? What are the moral consequences of saying that a video game is “just a game”? What do you think? What does ahimsa mean in the digital world?

PS: Perhaps if the Mahabharata had video games, Duryodhana would have been satisfied with the Pandavas and Kauravas logging in for an epic Team Slayer match in Halo 3 on Xbox Live and giving the kingdom to the victor…

Related posts:

1. Alcohol in Hinduism It can be noted that almost all of the religions...
2. The Difficulty of Explaining Ahimsa When people ask me why I am a vegetarian, part...
3. Ahimsa and Martial Arts When I first began thinking about it, I saw a...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

“There are some who are really the salt of the earth in every country and who work for work’s sake, who do not care for name, or fame, or even to go to heaven. They work just because good will come of it. There are others who do good to the poor and help mankind from still higher motives, because they believe in doing good and love good. The motive for name and fame seldom brings immediate results, as a rule; they come to us when we are old and have almost done with life.

If a man works without any selfish motive in view, does he not gain anything? Yes, he gains the highest. Unselfishness is more paying, only people have not patience to practise it. It is more paying from the point of view of health also. Love, truth, and unselfishness are not merely moral figures of speech, but they form our highest ideal, because in them lies such a manifestation of power.”

This is Swami Vivekananda’s most powerful insight — work done selflessly is more rewarding than work done selfishly. But is it a valid insight? As with any text, these are merely words on a page, words that could have been perverted, intentionally or not, through the hands of scribes over the years. For that reason, we have to carefully examine the claims through our own experience. Is unselfishness something that we can confidently apply to our lives, or is it something that we should live more carefully, testing its truth?

In order to answer that question, we have to answer an even simpler question — what is unselfishness? At first glance, the synonym altruism comes to mind, but that doesn’t help much. Turning to the zoological definition of altruism, we find: “Instinctive behavior that is detrimental to the individual but favors the survival or spread of that individual’s genes, as by benefiting its relatives.” This is a bad definition for spiritual seekers, since unselfishness is not always constrained to one’s kin. The philosophical definition of altruism is more promising: “[An] ethical theory that regards the good of others as the end of moral action; by extension, the disposition to take the good of others as an end in itself.” This is a good working definition of unselfishness — regarding the good of others as the end of moral action.

Now, if that unselfishness is the ideal to which Swami Vivekananda inspires us, the question of why be unselfish still remains. It’s an important question to ask — unselfishness, together with love, is Vivekananda’s choice ammunition in bombarding readers with moral inspiration. Be unselfish, he says, give unto others, and pray before the Lord and the strength to continue serving will fill you. Enchanting words — but are they true? What if praying before the Lord fails to give us the strength to serve others? What if being unselfish is just self-abuse by another name? What if unselfishness is God’s illusion on humanity, testing us to see if we blindly believe what we are told by self-styled prophets?

These are important questions to ask, but not to answer — the answers to these questions are irrelevant because the value of unselfishness is self-evident. My most satisfying moments were not when I have obtained something I wanted, but when I have assisted someone successfully. This is not to say that selfish action is bad — simply that I find unselfish action more rewarding. If you are the type of person who can’t think about the welfare of others, then you are not a bad person — you are simply missing out on a more rewarding course of action. On the other end of the spectrum, if you are the type of person who is always there for other people, and you feel stretched to the limit, it is not bad to take time for yourself to recuperate. Unselfishness is desirable because it is a satisfying principle by which to live one’s life, but it need not dominate our lives. To be attached to unselfishness is dangerous — it is important that you are able to detach yourself from unselfishness.

That said, ultimately the validity of Swami Vivekananda’s insight is left to your personal experience. Even if you receive no gratitude in return, be unselfish, because you feel it is the right thing to do.

I leave you with a quote from Dr. Albert Schweitzer:

“I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.”

Related posts:

1. Vivekananda on Unselfishness Swami Vivekananda writes in Work and its Secret: “The great...
2. The Trouble With the Ideal of Unselfishness Though I can’t seem to find the post now, I...
3. Strength, self-abnegation, and self-esteem As I was reading my psychology textbook, I came across...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

But it is his remarks about the future that I found most interesting and applicable. Swamiji framed the problem of the future as a question: How can we develop confidence? He then said that there are three sources of confidence:

1. Morality. A steadfast life based on truthfulness and selflessness is a source of great inner strength. As Swamiji puts it, “Even if I should suffer, I will stand for what is right.”
2. Faith in God. With a calm belief that there is a purpose to life’s trajectory, we can deal with life’s surprises, suffused with the conviction that things are in the hands of the Almighty.
3. Accepting one’s divinity. Swami Vivekananda exhorts us to be aware of our own divinity, to feel that we are, in fact, the Spirit, or Atman. A firm belief in this internal divinity also affords the confidence to meet the future.

Swamiji remarked that these three methods of developing confidence are not mutually exclusive. One can be moral and pious, confident in one’s own actions and calmly accepting the future. (As a side note, I would also add competence to the list — for example, a licensed driver is confident on the road, and a well-prepared student is confident on the relevant exam. When it comes to technical knowledge, spirituality is no substitute for preparation.)

To me, holiness lies in confidence. I have respect for the confident — it is confident, brave action that pushes humanity forward. I only put a “ji” at the end of someone’s name once I am convinced of their confidence, their certainty, their decisiveness in meeting the future. No matter what degree of technical skill we may have as doctors, teachers, or gymnasts, we may still feel constricted by a lack of confidence. That is where spirituality is useful. Spirituality has the unique ability to free our minds, calm our nerves, and inspire us to meet life every day with conviction.

Related posts:

1. Are you religious? A friend asked me the other day if I am...
2. A popular magazine on living in the moment Psychology Today has published an article on how to live...
3. Why? The thread of comments we’ve exchanged on Anish’s most recent...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.