1. A deity

2. A person

3. A goal or inanimate object

Today, I want to bring up a similar question:

Hinduism is a religion with many different viewpoints — and consequently, many divisions and categories. In my experience, the division between dvaita (dualism, or the worship of a personal God that is separate from us) and advaita (non-dualism, or the worship of an impersonal God that is all-pervading, and part of us as well as everything around us) is a major one. I realize that one discussion may not suffice, but it is an important point to bring up:

How do you choose to think of God? Are dualism and non-dualism irreconcilable? And if so, does Hinduism, as a unified religion, actually even exist?

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Many of us Hindus, as children, were told (or read ourselves) the basic story of the Mahabharata over and over.  I have taken so much from it, and it has truly affected my perspective on life.  That being said, I cannot truly give the epic that responsibility without studying it more thoroughly.  Before this, I had never read more than a children’s version!  I am sure many of you readers may feel similarly, and so one reason why I have chosen to write about my experiences reading these versions is for you to find one that appeals to you.  I hope that all of you will someday (if you haven’t already) pick up a more thorough version of Vyasa’s story.

Having finished Rajaji’s version, I thought I might share with you all a few memorable passages from it.  (If you’d like to read it yourself, here is an online version, which is only 217 pages!)  What I particularly like about this version (who knows, it may be true with others as well) is Rajaji’s delicate commentary throughout the story.  Sometimes it gets to be a bit too much.  Here is a passage from when the Pandavas are attempting to make peace with the Kauravas while simultaneously preparing for battle:

In December 1941, the Japanese were carrying on negotiations with the Americans and, immediately on the breakdown of those talks, took them unawares and attacked Pearl Harbour destroying their naval forces there.  Drupada’s instructions to the brahmana would show that this was no new technique and that, even in the old days, the same method was followed of carrying on negotiations and even sincerely working for peace, but simultaneously preparing, with unremitting vigour, for outbreak of war and carrying on peace talks with the object of creating dissensions in the enemy’s ranks.  There is nothing new under the sun!

A bit much, right? At other times, Rajaji’s words precisely capture the idea of the story.  He details a side story of a brahmana and a dutiful wife with the following end remarks:

The moral of this striking story of Dharmavyadha so skilfully woven by Vedavyasa into the Mahabharata, is the same as the teaching of the Gita, that man reaches perfection by the honest pursuit of whatever calling falls to his lot in life, and that this is really worship of God Who created and pervades all (Bhagavad Gita XVIII: 45-46).  The occupation may be one he is born to in society or it may have been forced on him by circumstances or he may have taken it up by choice but what really matters is the spirit of sincerity and faithfulness with which he does his life’s work.

There are too many times in the Mahabharata where people clearly make the wrong decision.  Rajaji comments thus:

The Puranas wherein right conduct is always preached, sometimes set out stories in which conduct, not in conformity with Dharma, seems condoned.  Is it right, one may ask, for religious books thus to seem to justify wrong?

A little reflection will enable one to see the matter in proper light.  It is necessary to bring home the fact that even wise, good and great men are liable to fall into error.  That is why the Puranas, although ever seeking to instill Dharma, contain narratives to show how in this world even good people sometimes sin against Dharma, as though irresistibly driven to do so.  This is to press home the truth that howsoever learned one may be, humility and constant vigilance are absolutely necessary if one wishes to avoid evil.

Why indeed, did the great authors of our epics write about the lapses of Rama in the Ramayana and Yudhisthira in the Mahabharata? Where was the need to make mention of them and then labour arguments to explain them away, thereby disturbing men’s minds? It was not as though other had discovered the lapses and Vyasa and Valmiki had to defend their heroes.  The stories are artistic creations in which lapses themselves impress the desired moral.  The parts dealing with the lapses deeply distress the reader’s mind and serve as solemn warnings of pitfalls which wait to engulf the careless.  They dispose the mind to humility and watchfulness and make it realise the need for divine guidance.

The modern cinema also projects on the screen much that is bad and immoral.  Whatever may be the explanation offered by the protagonists of the cinema, evil is presented on the screen in an attractive fashion that grips people’s minds and tempts them into the path of wickedness.  Not so in the Puranas.  Although they do point out that even great now and again fell into error and committed wrong, the presentation is such as to warn the reader and not to allure him into evil ways.  This is the striking difference between our epics and the modern talkies, which arises from the difference in the character of the people who produced them.

Ok, he again goes a little too far in the last paragraph (or sentence).  Rajaji is clearly not of our generation!  But I find the rest of his discussion illuminating.

Rajaji presents an interest view of choices in a chapter on Balarama’s lack of involvement in battle (Krishna’s elder brother is torn between sides and loses all interest in the world):

This episode of Balarama’s keeping out of the Mahabharata war is illustrative of the perplexing situations in which good and honest men often find themselves.  Compelled to choose between two equally justifiable, but contrary, courses of action, the unhappy individual is caught on the horns of a dilemma.

It is only honest men that find themselves in this predicament.  The dishonest ones of the earth have no such problems, guided as they are solely by their own attachments and desires, that is, by self-interest.  Not so the great men who have renounced all desire.  Witness the great trials to which, in the Mahabharata, Bhishma, Vidura, Yudhisthira and Karna were put.  We read in that epic how they solved their several difficulties.  Their solutions did not conform to a single moral pattern but reflected their several individualities.  The conduct of each was the reaction of his personality and character to the impact of circumstances. Modern critics and expositors sometimes forget this underlying basic factor and seek to weigh all in the same scales, which is quite wrong.  We may profit by the way in which, in the Ramayana, Dasaratha, Kumbhakarana, Maricha, Bharata, and Lakshmana reacted to the difficulties with which each of them was faced.  Likewise, Balarama’s neutrality in the Mahabharata war was a lesson.

Perhaps I include these specific passages because I agree with them, but I cannot avoid that bias.  One of the reasons I feel compelled to read the epic in so many different ways is because the story itself appeals to me in so many ways.  For me, the Mahabharata is the truth of life: that we humans are all faced with difficult decisions and we navigate these decisions by following our moral compass, our Swadharma.  That is all we can do to make peace with, and in, the universe.

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“This life is short, the vanities of the world are transient, but they alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive”

Tonight, I decided to find the context of the quote, so that it might provide some sort of background into what he meant.

The quote comes from a letter to the Maharaja of Mysore, in 1984, about his duty to the masses. Here is the text of the letter, as found in the Prose Writings section of Volume 4 of the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. I have bolded portions that sparked my interest — I’m really interested in knowing what you all think of the passage!

Shri Narayana bless you and yours. Through your Highness’ kind help it has been possible for me to come to this country. Since then, I have become well known here, and the hospitable people of this country have supplied all my wants. It is a wonderful country and this is a wonderful nation in many respects …

Nowhere on earth have women so many privileges as in America. They are slowly taking everything into their hands; and, strange to say, the number of cultured women is much greater than that of cultured men … they require more spiritual civilization, and we, more material.

The one thing that is at the root of all evils in India is the condition of the poor. The poor in the West are devils; compared to them ours are angels, and it is therefore so much easier to raise our poor. The only service to be done for our lower classes is to give them education to develop their lost individuality. That is the great task between our people and princes. Up to now, nothing has been done in that direction. Priest-power and foreign conquest have trodden them down for centuries, and at last, the poor of India have forgotten that they are human beings. They are to be given ideas; their eyes are to be opened to what is going on in the world around them; and then they will work out their own salvation.

Every nation, every man, and every woman must work out their own salvation. Give them ideas – that is the only help they require, and then the rest must follow as the effect. Ours is to put the chemicals together, the crystallization comes in the law of nature. Our duty is to put ideas into their heads, they will do the rest. That is what is to be done in India. I could not accomplish it in India, and that was the reason of my coming to this country.

The great difficulty in the way of educating the poor is this. Supposing even your highness opens a free school in every village, still it would do no good, for the poverty in India is such, that the poor boys would rather go to help their fathers in the fields, or otherwise try to make a living, than come to the school. If the poor boy cannot come to education, education must go to him. There are thousands of single-minded, self-sacrificing Sanyasins in our country, going from village to village, teaching religion. If some of them can be organized as teachers of secular things also, they will go from place to place, from door to door, not only preaching, but teaching also.

Suppose two of these men go to a village in the evening with a camera, a globe, some maps, etc. By telling stories about different nations, they can give the poor a hundred times more information through the ear than they can get in a lifetime through books. This requires an organization, which again means money. Men enough there are in India to work out this plan, but alas! they have no money. lt is very difficult to set a wheel in motion; but when once set, it goes on with increasing velocity. After seeking help in my own country & failing to get any sympathy from the rich, I came over to this country through your Highness’ aid.

The Americans do not care a bit whether the poor of India die or live. And why should they, when our own people never think of anything but their own selfish ends? My noble Prince, this life is short, the vanities of the world are transient, but they alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive. One such high, noble-minded and royal son of India as your Highness can do much more towards raising India on her feet again and thus leave a name to posterity which shall be worshiped. That the Lord may make your noble heart feel intensely for the suffering millions of India, sunk in ignorance, is the prayer of — Vivekananda.

What do you think of the passage as a whole? I tend to agree with Swamiji’s ideas of education — however, the quote that I for so long idealized seems to lose its power in the context of the passage. It seems like Swamiji only uses it to implore the Maharaja for support, which, for me, someone adds a different perspective to the quote itself.

At the same time, the words of Swami Vivekananda (for me, at least) are so powerful that even though in this scenario, they seem to have a specific purpose, they are still applicable even when pulled out of this context — the idea of selfless service as a duty, as the very nature of life is very morally appealing to me; and that makes me more comfortable with incorporating the idea into my life, even though the quote is a bit out of context.

What do you think?

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First, two points:

1) I think asking what Hinduism considers “moral” is a more interesting question than what it considers “legal”. I see every religion as providing an objective (some kind of divinity) and a decision rule to achieve that objective (some kind of moral code), so to really determine what a religion “means”, focusing on the moral rather than the legal is more useful. Furthermore, I think the answer to this particular question is quite different depending on whether you take “prohibition” to be a moral or legal one.

2) I’ve noticed that in interpreting Hindu texts to determine what Hinduism says about a moral issue, people often commit three logical fallacies:

• Divinity implies morality: We are used to assuming that if a divine being performs an act, that act must be moral, or at least acceptable. For example, if Krishna has premarital sex we assume that Hinduism cannot prohibit it. (Please note that what I mean by divinity here is “divinity as a position”, whereas I mean “divinity as a state of being” in my definition of religion above.)
• Morality must be fully expressed in a single individual: We are used to being able to find a single individual who is moral in every way and conversely, if we cannot find a single individual who follows a moral code in its entirety, we assume that a strict moral code, if it even exists, must be weak. For example, if we cannot find a single perfectly moral person in the Mahabharata or even the Ramayana, we immediately discount either epic’s ability to describe a moral code or fall into the usual comments about Hinduism’s “diversity” or “openness”.
• The outlining of a path to morality makes acts done along that path moral: This is a particularly prevalent logical fallacy since Hinduism adopts such a gradual approach to spiritual development – see the four stages of life outlined in the Manusmṛti. For example, we see sexually explicit sculptures on the exteriors of the temples at Khajuraho and assume that if Hinduism recognizes that at some stage in life we might feel sexual urges, Hinduism permits us to fulfill those sexual urges.

These logical fallacies are what I think make finding a clear moral code in Hinduism so difficult. We cannot just say something is moral “because God says so”, we cannot find any paragons of moral virtue in the epics (though Bhishma comes close enough for me), and many of those who do come close to moral perfection were not always so (Prabhasa must be born as the mortal Bhishma precisely because of his sin of stealing Nandini). By contrast, in the Abrahamic faiths, divinity does imply morality since God is the source of morality, morality is embodied in individuals like the prophets, and many of these prophets do not show any sort of moral development because they had always been perfect.

This has even stronger implications when you consider formulating a response to our favorite question: “What is Hinduism?”. If you accept my definition of a religion, a philosophy that offers some kind of divine state of being as its objective and some kind of moral code as the decision rule for achieving that objective, then defining Hinduism reduces to explaining how Hinduism defines that divine state of mind and associated moral code. Therefore, if we are unable to articulate what Hinduism’s moral code is, we find ourselves unable to define Hinduism.

One approach to determining Hinduism’s moral code is to approach the question from an Abrahamic perspective. However, the three logical fallacies I outlined above are not just valid logical inferences for the most part in Abrahamic faiths: they permeate discussions of Abrahamic morality. In other words, the Abrahamic approach is the wrong set of logical tools to apply in interpreting Hinduism. Nonetheless, there is still value to be gained from comparing the Abrahamic faiths with Hinduism, so long as we take care to use the interpretive techniques uniquely appropriate to each belief system.

Another approach, the one that is far more pernicious in my view, is to completely sidestep these logical fallacies and take refuge under the intellectually flimsy scaffolding of “new age” thought. This sort of thinking typically presents Hinduism as “open”, “diverse”, and “spiritual” rather than “religious”. These people recognize the three logical fallacies as fallacies and often take great pains to emphasize Hinduism’s differences with the Abrahamic faiths – but then instead of searching for a source of morality other than divine beings, instead of putting together a moral code by examining the moral actions of several partially immoral people, instead of recognizing that all stages in a path of moral development are not themselves moral, they talk about the “humanity” or “realism” of characters in Hindu mythology, use this as grounds to justify an extraordinary level of permissiveness, and in the very worst cases take an “anything goes” attitude. I call this pernicious because the inevitable result of this sort of thinking is the dilution of the religion. Not only do these people abandon all rigor, but they elevate theological lassitude to a virtue!

…

If this sounds harsh, please note that I am not criticizing what I do think are valid claims of Hinduism’s tolerance and its rich history of internal debate. Hinduism is a tolerant religion and does have remarkable internal dialogue. However, there is a difference in how Hindu scriptures answer the questions: what do people do (descriptive), what can people do (legal), and what should people do (moral). Too often the answers to these questions are confused.

The reason Hindu texts bother to include the descriptive or legal at all is a reflection of Hinduism’s true strength: Hinduism holds that a moral code must be internalized. Internalization is the process by which you transforms the authority of a moral code from an external source (e.g. “God says so” or “Hinduism says so”) to an internal one, your own conviction that the moral code you have chosen is the decision rule best suited to fulfilling your objective. The descriptive and the legal exist in Hindu texts not as a moral endorsement of any descriptive norms or legal principles but as a means of presenting several possible paths of action and then repeatedly testing your conviction by illustrating how characters might falter along the particular paths they have chosen. Internalization occurs as stories and philosophical debates (and Swadharma discussions) and 1) force you first to first refine your beliefs and articulate them clearly to yourself and then 2) deepen your resolve once you have convinced yourself that your actions are 100% consistent with your goal.

In other words: the burden is yours and yours alone. Because everything is governed by karma, the mechanical, unbreakable law of causality, a supreme moral judge or final moral judgment do not exist – the only things that matter are that we choose our actions, every action has a consequence, and we are solely responsible for those consequences. Some interesting conclusions come from this recognition. First, even if intent aggravates karmic consequences, it is not a necessary condition for those consequences. Even if you unknowingly cause harm to someone, you are still responsible for that harm. Second, repentance is completely meaningless in Hinduism because there is nobody to whom you can repent. Asking for repentance is asking someone to absolve you of the consequences of your actions. This is not just “weak” – it is impossible because repentance is a request for a logical contradiction, a denial of the law of causality. Third, self-punishment is also completely meaningless because it is really nothing more than a form of repentance. You might punish yourself, irrationally hoping that in doing so you might absolve yourself of your perceived sins, but again, you are asking for a logical contradiction, praying that someone will magically suspend the law of causality for you. You might try to convince yourself that you are only trying to understand the pain of those you have harmed, but 1) this so-called understanding is worthless if you already understand the consequences of your harmful act, and 2) if you truly do understand those consequences, you understand that no amount of self-punishment will ever counterbalance what you have done. Self-punishment is one of the clearest acts of weakness, made more dangerous by the irony that so many of its practitioners trick themselves into believing: that it is in fact an act of supreme self-control.

…

So what does Hinduism have to say about premarital sex? Briefly, I think Hinduism is unambiguously negative in a moral sense and weakly permissive from a legal sense. First, none of the arguments involving Krishna and the gopis are acceptable as they fall into the “divinity implies morality” fallacy. (I also question how sexual Krishna’s relationship with the gopis really was – I always read the story as an allegory of bhakti. Of course, hypersexualized interpretations of Hinduism are popular with academics like Wendy Doniger. Second, none of the arguments about Khajuraho and similar depictions of sexuality are valid because they fall into the “moral development” fallacy. Note that the explicit sculptures are on the outsides of the temples: the point is that you have to transcend lust in order to enter. Any reference I have found to sex in Hindu texts falls into this category as well. For example, the Manusmṛti mentions the “Gandharva marriage” as those that “has sexual intercourse for its purpose” (3.32), a reference that is sometimes taken as a permission of premarital sex, but 1) the context is clearly within marriage, 2) the Manusmṛti itself says that the sages do not permit this form of marriage for the members of any caste (3.24), and 3) within the same text, celibacy is described as a precondition for the acquisition of higher knowledge (e.g. 2.96-99). In other words, the texts describe and may even permit premarital sex (though I can’t find anything explicitly permitting it), but the moral ideal of celibacy is quite clear. Note that this ideal is not just premarital but throughout life. Perhaps nobody exemplifies this ideal better than Bhishma, on whom the Devas shower flowers when he takes his vow of celibacy. Notably, Bhishma is the closest we come to complete moral perfection in the Mahabharata.

While we might have to search a little harder for the answer, Hinduism does offer well-defined moral guidelines. Hinduism might recognize more obviously than other religions do that our world is not morally perfect, that we alone choose our actions, and that true moral codes cannot be handed down but must be internalized. All of these are strengths. But none of these mean that Hinduism does not take clear stands. Denial of this conviction is what makes Hinduism weak; affirmation of it is what makes Hinduism strong.

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Before I dive into a new thought for this week, I wanted to reiterate the working definition of “morality” that we tentatively agreed upon, and in doing so quickly summarize what I remember of the discussion. (Please feel free to correct me, and to mention all the other details I’ve forgotten! I would feel terrible if I left someone out.)

• As Aneesh put it, a person’s moral framework is his/her view of the world, a system of determining what is “right” or “wrong” to the person.
• As Madhura expressed it, this view of the world can, may, and perhaps even should change with time.
• As Anjali’s and Sarvagna’s points about Two-Face and his coin of destiny showed, there is a distinction between what a person decides is moral and how that person goes about deciding what is moral. It is perfectly possible to go through life choosing our path at every moral fork by flipping a coin; what matters is the commitment we make to following through with the outcome of the coin flip.
• Indeed, as Sarvagna argued, the choices one makes of what situations to “flip a coin for” are themselves moral, reflecting an underlying “moral compass”, so to speak. (Evolutionary ethics / moral universals, anyone?)
• And finally, as Priya’s question at the beginning of the discussion revealed, what is “moral” here is what each one of us regards, whether consciously or subconsciously, as absolutely fundamental to our understanding of the world itself.

As discussions go, this was a substantial step forward, and I’m glad we got to discuss it in detail. There are two other questions, however, that we did not get enough time to address in the discussion after we discussed this idea of morality:

1. How does this system of morality fit in with our understanding of Dharma?
2. What happens when two different systems of morals clash?

I want to open up discussion on Question 2 in the particular context of an individual’s personal system of morals clashing with what his particular social context agrees is moral. I emphasize this context because it brings up the thorny question of cultural and moral relativism, and I want to see if we can address it in a dharmic context. I present two scenarios, and I’d like to hear your opinions on both of them.

Scenario the First:

A person sincerely believes that all red-headed women over six feet tall are spies trying to engineer a takeover of his country, and mounts a systematic campaign to kill them all. Society, shocked by his obvious insanity, locks him up in a mental asylum forever.

Scenario the Second:

A person sincerely believes that those who support and enforce untouchability are immoral and evil, and mounts a systematic campaign to kill them all. Society, shocked by his obvious insanity, locks him up in a mental asylum forever.

Is there a distinction between these two scenarios? If so, on what philosophical or moral grounds do you distinguish between them? To what extent is your response universalizable (if, that is, you think it should be)? And is there a role for Dharma here?

I look forward to reading your comments.

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