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.

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In other words, if we assume that the world is an illusion, it becomes really easy to do all sorts of terrible things; if the world isn’t real, then it doesn’t really matter if we pollute it, or brings species to extinction, or exhaust our natural resources, or wage wars; thinking that the world is an illusion may give some people license to damage the earth.

I wasn’t sure how to respond, other than that people who honestly believe that there is something beyond this world would naturally act in ways that help others and in ways that don’t damage the earth…But I thought she had a really important point, that it is really easy to misinterpret this idea of freedom.
How would you guys respond to this? How can we know the correct way to interpret our religion, assuming that my earlier explanation is “correct”?

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In the remote villages of this Himalayan valley, polyandry, the practice of multiple men marrying one wife, was for centuries a practical solution to a set of geographic, economic and meteorological problems.People here survived off small farms hewed from the mountainsides at an altitude of 11,000 feet, and dividing property among several sons would leave each with too little land to feed a family. A harsh mountain winter ends the short planting season abruptly. The margin between starvation and survival is slender.

“We used to work and eat,” Ms. Devi said, her face etched by decades of blistering winters, her fingers thick from summers of tilling the soil. “There was no time for anything else. When three brothers share one lady, they all come back to one house. They share everything.”

…

“If you marry a different woman, then there are more chances of family disputes,” Mr. Bhagsen said. “Family property is divided, and problems arise.”

Was this precisely the reality of Draupadi and the five Pandavas? Was her loyalty to five husbands key to them sticking by each other (“paanchon mili to ban gaye mutthi” -Lagaan)?

The article continues to say that the practice of polyandry is now outdated:

“That system had utility for a time,” Mr. Bhagsen said. “But in the present context it has outlived its usefulness. The world has changed.”

Do you agree? Maybe the larger question is, and remains, do we marry for some emotion called love, or for more practical considerations? And if it is the latter, which I am inclined to think (because love can presumably sustain itself without marriage, whereas we look for a lifestyle – a practical consideration – when choosing to marry), then could polygamy/polyandry have some degree of usefulness that we are just not willing to admit?

And what about the moral question of having more than one “jeevansaathi”? What restricts us from having multiple soulmates, or life partners? What makes us uncomfortable about being in a nonexclusive relationship? I would hazard a guess to say it has something to do with having some sort of absolute power and control over another being.  But maybe it is about absolute and equal trust and loyalty, which we cynically believe cannot occur between more than two people. What do you think?

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Perhaps April is the month of freedom. It certainly is for at least some major swaths of the population: Jews celebrated Passover during April, commemorating their deliverance from slavery in Egypt at the hand of God. Republicans like me hoped for the freedom to pay fewer taxes on April 15. Even stoners thought about freedom on 420, at least until their buzz hit.

Freedom is generally defined as the right to do something without anybody interfering in it. The Jews wanted the freedom to work, live, move, and worship as they pleased. Tea Party protesters wanted the freedom to spend their money as they pleased. Stoners want the freedom to get stoned as they please. The U.S. Constitution generally defines freedom this way: you have the right to say whatever you want, carry guns without anybody stopping you, and keep your personal belongings out of the sight of others.

For a religious person, though, is freedom really all about doing whatever you want? In a world with meaning, governed by a moral order, can freedom be a simple indifference about things?

This definition seems problematic. While freedom of speech, for instance, seems appealing to us, our religious sensibilities generally tell us that spreading hurtful rumors, being sexually explicit, and lying are all wrong, detrimental to ourselves and to the community. The same goes for the free choices we make as consumers: without wanting anyone to sign-off on our book purchases, we still rightly feel disappointment and even anger when people squander money on the new KFC Double Down (two thick and juicy boneless white meat chicken fillets Original Recipe or Grilled, two pieces of bacon, two melted slices of Monterey Jack and pepper jack cheese and Colonel’s Sauce) in a world where people are starving. Freedom is fine, but we still believe very much that it can be abused.

Is it a useless concept, then? Gandhi was once asked to contribute to a campaign to establish a world charter of human rights, in the days before the UN created one. According to Eknath Easwaran, his response was, “In my experience, it is far more important to have a charter for human duties.” Gandhi’s quote is useful for considering what the real basis for freedom is.

Freedom must be understood in the context of responsibility, and our duties as human beings. As religious people, we believe that we have a duty to love one another, and to live in a manner befitting human dignity. We believe that we have to support one another’s spiritual flourishing, and ensure that everyone, especially the poor, has the ability to live the life that God wants us to live. Those responsibilities begin at home, among our families and neighbors, and extend out to the world.

Freedom has to be the freedom to do our duties, not simply a blind relativism towards our actions and those of others. Freedom of speech is most alive when it is used to defend the vulnerable, as seen in the lives of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Archbishop Oscar Romero. They gave their lives and their voices for the sake of the downtrodden, so that the latter might live in a world where they could flourish and love as they are meant to. Freedom of assembly is most alive when it is used to bring together people for the common good, as seen by the amazing charitable work done by free groups of people, like the Grameen Bank and Lions Club International, groups that take an active concern in the welfare of humanity. Freedom of business is most alive when it is used to find innovative ways to help people get the things they need in the highest quality at the lowest prices, thereby meeting people’s material needs and freeing them up for higher pursuits.

Every freedom has to be oriented towards the good, and towards the well-being of the vulnerable. So many of our debates about rights could be conducted quite differently if we paid attention to what is really human and good. Of course people have the right to criticize the government, because criticism keeps government accountable and communicates the needs that people have. Of course no one has the right to advocate violence; the right to speak is dependent on not causing harm to the good of others, and it is founded in the duty of doing good.

Duties play an important role in figuring out what freedom is ultimately ordered towards, and it is religion and moral philosophy that teach us our natural duties. Learning how to bring our religious understanding of human responsibility into dialogue with politics is one of the great tasks that lies ahead for religious people in the next several years; the world is very thoroughly confused about freedom, and very ready to listen once more to the insights religion can offer.

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Why did my mind immediately latch on to this petty justification of sorts? As much as my rational mind likes to try disprove karma, the truth is, I think about it pretty often — whether it’s by joking around or neatly observing that “what comes around goes back around” in daily situations. Belief in karma goes back to the fundamental idea that our actions make a difference… that there’s some inherent balance in the world and the cosmic energy that our actions regulate.  When we put out negative energy, we get negative consequences… when we grant positive energy to the world, we receive positive effects.  I don’t know if this is just our way of assigning some kind of false regularity to the arbitrariness of everything that happens in our lives, but it’s a pretty comforting principle, and an effective moral guide.

This isn’t to say that our positive actions — deeds of kindness and benevolence, or even self-discipline — should be led on by a fear of negative consequences.  The good things we do should be grounded in our own love and purity of heart — not any other ulterior, selfish motive.  Just as Krishna tells Arjuna in the second chapter of the Gita, we shouldn’t solely focus on the results when we execute our actions.  We should do them for the sake of doing them.  However, when things don’t seem to be going in our way, maybe we should step back and think of the less-than-good things we’ve done lately.  Even if there is no force of karma affecting our lives, at the very least, it will help us pinpoint and try to eliminate our negative thoughts and actions.

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