Fore-note: I am not sure if this content of my mine was published in the Nirmukta, but since I did not publish this in my blog, I am going ahead with publishing it here. Since it is a reproduction of an article composed a long time ago, some parts may be dated or in need of updating or clarifying opinions. Readers are free to review and point out any inconsistencies.
If
this could in any way provide some reinforcement to the Gita debunking effort
largely borne by Dr Kamath with his Bhagavad Gita (BG) expose series and the
recent article of Mr VN Kumar, I would like to add my points and perspectives
below with the polemical flourish that I am capable of
The few and rare critical
reviews of the Gita
I
am providing here a link
on my blog to an excerpt of an introductory chapter of a book that critically
evaluates the social and cultural impact of Bhagavad Gita (BG) on India. This
book "The
Role Of The Bhagavad Gita In Indian Life" was written by
Premnath Bazaz ( a Kashmiri Pandit and freedom fighter). I have searched high
and dry for this book with no success so far
There
are really very few works that take a critical and dissenting look at the
Bhagavad Gita. The other comprehensive one is ‘The
truth of the Gita’ by VR Narla an
eminent Telugu journalist.
A
historian of repute, DD Kosambi has also made some observations about the Gita,
but never apparently published any full-fledged study of this scripture.
BR
Ambedkar analyzed Vedas, Upanishads and other works of Vedic liturgy in a great
amount of detail and went through many of flaws of contemporary Hinduism with
the precision of a scalpel, but did not write a book exclusively about the BG
All
these 4 above are no more. And of course none of them except for Ambedkar to
some extent were taken seriously.
As
for those living, other than the blogosphere, there seems to be no writer of
repute to bear the cross of questioning the moral and social credentials of BG
My thoughts upon reading the
conventional versions of the Gita
As
for me I have read at least 4 English translations of the Gita and two of them
were by Indian authors and also commentaries on some of its verses by spiritual
cult leaders like Chinmayananda and Prabhupada
I
was struck by the following inconsistencies that were fairly predominant in the
scripture:
- Repetitiveness and redundancy of many of its verses
- Contradictions in many of its verses, with some verses in the same chapter contradicting each other and verses in one chapter being negated by verses in another chapter.
- Lack of coherence of narrative between the verses in a chapter, verses disconnected from or having no relation to the primary idea of a chapter.
- Lack of orderliness in the sequencing of chapters, where one gets a feeling that the current Chapter IV should have come before Chapter III
- Inclusion of verses that are repugnant to human values even going by old primitive standards (verses 9.11, 9.32 and 9.33)
What
struck me about the commentaries and other eulogies of the Gita, was that the
authors seemed to look at the verses in isolation and whether unintentionally
or not, ignore its relations to other verses and chapters and to even broad
ideas espoused by the scripture (Karma, moksha, punarjamna, bhakti, atma,
ego).
Many
of such authors are also silent on whether there exists a hierarchy of yoga
method (Karma, Jnana, Dhyana, Bhakti etc.) or not, with most taking the line of
least resistance which implies any or all yogas are equally good and the more
the merrier. The curious part is that when Arjuna poses a few questions about
comparative merits of the yogas and which is precedent and/or superior to the
other, it is usually met with evasive, political and CYA replies from Krishna,
whom our Hindu religious and spiritual cognoscenti never tires of applauding as
the greatest and wisest teacher of humanity.
Anyone
who makes a comparative study of the current state verses of the Gita, devoid
of religious blinkers, will find the character of Krishna coming across as very
cynical, evasive, inconsistent, shifting philosophical stances according to
convenience, mixing ideas of differing schools of thought at will (Sankhya, Yoga,
Vedanta) without any care or regard for their cogency and
coherence. How could such an
opportunistic and willful entity (seen together with his role in the
Mahabharata) be passed off as a God and that too raised to the towering heights
of religious and devotional frenzy, may forever remain one of the greatest
enigmas of Hindu culture
The true agenda of the Gita and
a history-based speculation of its motives
The
few and rare critics of the BG have labored to point to the casteist and
sectarian agenda of the BG as the most realistic basis of its
composition beneath all its specious and pretentious gloss and dross of
philosophy, metaphysics and devotional appeals.
To
accept the plausibility of such a kind of devious strategy of the Gita, it is
important to place into historical context the failure of the 2 foremost texts
of Brahmin theological dogmatism ( Mimamsa Sutras by Jamini and Brahma
Sutra by Bradrayana) in the post-Vedic age in stemming the rising tide of
heterodox movements like Buddhism, Jainism and Lokayata.
It is quite likely that both Jamini and Badrayana may well signify pseudonyms of the prominent or active factions of Brahminical demagogues of their times, out to defend the primacy of the Vedas and Upanishads. Which is what they actually tried to do by means of these two long, prolix and tortuous treatises dealing with the relative merits of the two most fond theological dogmas of 'Karma-Kanda' (part of life devoted to the act of ritual and propitiation) and 'Jnana-Kanda' (part of life devoted to the act of knowledge seeking) and dueling for their primacy.
Though both the treatises run into hundreds of verses, with Mimamsa Sutras being the longer of the two, being replete with laborious yet ludicrous arguments to validate the infallibility of the Vedas and Upanishads, they are not worth the paper, leaf or parchments they were written on. In the light of today's atmosphere of rational and critical thinking, it is amazing that these tomes, whose utterly primitive and nonsensical philosophy can be demolished with a few pages of questioning and critical analysis, were the subject of many long running debates.
When 4 orthodox brahminical philosophies (Sankhya, Mimamsa, Nyaya and Vedanta) could not deter the march of the simple yet appealing thought system of Buddhism, the shrewd Brahmin strategists of the era of post-mauryanism unsheathed the ultimate weapon of the Bhagavad Gita, which was a clever mish-mash of philosophy, social rules, creationism and devotion tailored to sound like a very good clone of the Bible and the Koran.
Thus BG provided a tottering Brahminism the resilience and vigor to overthrow Buddhism and take Indian civilization back to the medieval ages, from which it has never really emerged into light.
Where Dr Kamath’s and Bazaz’s
views on Gita’s authorship meet
What
inspired me into a ‘forensics’ of the Gita, were some articles in blogosphere,
specifically Nirmukta’s BG series by Dr. Kamath, which explored these red flags
of contradictions by quoting and comparing many of its verses esp Chapters 2, 3
& 4, where most of the philosophical conflicts between the Vedic,
Upanishadic and Bhakti schools of thought come through in some of its more
confusing verses. This probably prompted his hypothesis of the multiple authorship of the BG along with suspicions of its varied interpolations,
additions and corruptions.
While I was sparring with a
dyed-in-the-wool Hindu nationalist of my acquaintance, on a different related
issue, this charge was dismissed by him as a standard Marxist line. This
introduction from the book of Bazaz, explores this theme in quite a bit of
detail, quoting historians on both sides of the fence of this argument, with
their theories and observations.
The
author of course leans to the side of naysayers of Gita, but advances many
reasonable arguments in his defence
I
don’t know if the taint of Marxism will ever go away for critics and dissenters
of religious obscurantism, but I hope this discussion and article may be found
to be of some interest.
good to see your post!
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, Babasaheb Ambedkar has given the best criticism of the Gita.
ReplyDeleteAmbedkar wrote that the Gita was written to justify varna by co-opting Sankhya and defend Vedic sacrifice from the charge of selfishness. Thus, I have a beef with Kamath's view. The presence of multiple philosophies in the Gita does not prove multiple authorship. Those varied pholosophies were intentionally mixed by the Geetha.
As far as books go, there is a recent book by Meghnad Desai on the Geetha.
There were so many cults in Indian history, all coopted by the Brahmin. The Ganapatya cult, the Saiva cult, the Vaisnava cult, the Bhagavata cult, the cult of Rama, etc. at least this part Kamath got right.
DeleteI re-read Kamath. He also assumes that bhagavata cult was anti-caste. There is no evidence for this. Just read the Bhagavata Purana. Bhagavata Brahmins were just liberal Brahmins. Unlike pure manuwadis, they said sudras can get moksha. This is what Ambedkar called religious equality, not temporal equality like the Buddha wanted.
ReplyDeleteHi Bhim,
DeleteThanks for your responses and views. I started the critique of Dr. Kamath's analysis of the Gita in Nirmukta in one of my other blog posts. I could not quite complete it. Many of his theories seem to be speculative and appear to exhibit some kind of literal-ism based on his linguistic and contextual parsing of Sanskrit verses. There seems to be too much of inference with very little support of referenced or cited internal evidence from the texts or related historical works.
As mentioned in this post of mine, some of it is dated and is in need of referential and evidential support. Any references and opinions that you may provide are most welcome.
Thanks for the reply Ranganath.
DeleteIt may interest you to know that the Manu Smriti is against the doctrine of nishkama karma and calls it absurd. I do not have the reference, but you can google "laws of many desire."
This makes me believe that these two counterrevolutionary texts were written by opposing camps of Brahmins.
I think it makes sense that there were at least two camps. The Vedic Brahmins who wrote Manu wanted state support for knowing the Vedas but did not wNt to share their religion with so-called impure people. But the temple Brahmins of the cults wanted people to come to their temples, so they had to open the gates to shudras and women .
The Manu Smriti says that temple Brahmins are degraded. The enmity between these two groups needs to be explored more.
Actually the quote is not by Albert Einstein but by Einstein Prodolsky.
ReplyDeleteEinstein Prodolsky’s famous quote on the Bhagavad-gita is: “When I read the Bhagavad-gita and reflect about how God created this universe everything else seems so superfluous.
To Ranganath R:
ReplyDeleteIf we accept the argument, that there is actually no God, no one controlling this universe, then the following questions arise:
1.Why are we forced to grow old and die?
2.No one likes to grow old and die, then, why this is being forced upon all of us?
Can our dear super brilliant Ranganath answer this simple question?
MMD,
DeleteI decided to publish your response, despite its immaturity and its irrelevance to this post, as an afterthought. But I am hoping that other readers chancing upon may understand the nature and idiocy of the typical troll responses.
There are many faults with your position, framing and opinions in this comment of yours. Firstly it is the existence of God, that is an argument in itself and not the denial of God that is the primary. Atheism has mostly arisen as a response to the theist position of God's existence. So your comment starts with a basic flaw of shifting the burden of proof on the atheists. Provide proofs of God's existence first. Arguments are not a proof or validation of a theory or position.
That the universe is being controlled, is a play of words or language. If we counter pose that the Universe is self controlling or self controlled by the laws and forces that have been evolving, changing and adapting itself, since its beginning, that will undercut the argument of an active agent like God, controlling or directing the Universe. Unless there is an agreement on what is meant by controlling and how active agent based controlling can be distinguished from non-agency based controlling, these arguments and debates will go nowhere.
It does not necessarily follow from the argument of the existence of God that it validates the progression of birth, ageing and death as a normal sequence. What is stop a God from making this sequence operate in the reverse?. From such an assumption, we can argue why God is not able to make such changes at will, thereby making a case for the fallibility of God, and from there the improbability of the existence of such a being.
Both your arguments 1. & 2., work to weaken the case against God. In a naturalistic universe or world, such a repeatedly observed phenomena would be normal and predictable. But if a omnipotent agent God were to be controlling, we should deviations from the norms in your arguments 1. & 2., in response to prayers and other solicitations that theists and devotees are making all the time. It is religion that says that devotion and obedience to God is the path to immortality. Atheism or other forms of unbelief do not promise that or have any such expectation. But centuries of devotion and faith of theists have not procured then any immortality. All saintly begging and pleas have fallen on the deaf ears of God, so far!
So you have got this whole argument completely backwards. I am not surprised since arguing based on information or knowledge is not the strong point of the faithful. Making invalid assumptions and asking wrong questions is the staple of theist ignorance.
Your stoic silence to my question on "what is the purpose behind the existence of this creation" ? is definite proof of your defeat and inability to answer the fundamental questions regarding life. This is where atheists like you get caught not knowing how to respond to the questions of life? Let me remind you of your ignorance once more by stating the questions again.
ReplyDelete1. What is purpose behind the existence of this universe?
2. Why do we exist at all?
3. What is the ULTIMATE purpose of life?
4. Are we all not suffering birth, death , disease and old age? (Do you have a solution to old age, disease and death?)
Unless you are able to answer these questions, your intellectual rhetoric will not enlighten anyone.
Ys
MMD
MMD,
DeleteYour posts are a an almost perfect example of the saying about how "Fools can ask way more questions than any wise person can answer".
Atheists have no problems with any of these questions or the inability to find complete or satisfying answers to many questions of life and existence. Many alternative secular explanations have been offered to these questions. These are all publicly available, and with Google's search capacities, there are no excuses for theists to pretend a denial of such non-religious theories. But there are no easy remedies for religious conditioning and obsession. Science and technology has shown that it can fight disease, and prolong life, in which your religion and devotion have miserably failed. If your religion and God can find a solution to ageing and death, you can blow your trumpet, till then count your days to the grave with some embroidered Rudrashka beads and good luck with that 'miracle cure'.
You are free and most welcome to examine the secular position on these questions and issues and if you can find issues or objections with that, you can lay them out with meaningful counter arguments, not empty rhetoric of why and why not. Then we can see if there is any point in continuing this debate.
I have already mentioned that the burden of proof is on the believers and devotees. You or your religion or your Gita or any scriptures don't have any convincing answers or explanations to these questions. So just stop this charade and baiting and move on, instead of exposing your ignorance further and making a jackass of yourself.
Just try understand your absurdity with a cool head.
DeleteYour philosophy is this:
1. There is no controller behind this universe
2. There is no intelligence behind this creation
3. Therefore the universe has come into existence from nothing.
So, effectively you are saying that
"EVERYTHING COMES FROM NOTHING"
This is the abysmal conclusion you have come to with all your intellectual power. I cant help laughing that an intelligent educated person is subscribing to the rubbish nonsense that "Everything has come into existence from nothing".
Practically we never have had any experience that
"something has come from nothing". Never ever has this been experienced. And you say that this whole universe has come from nothing! I dont find english words to describe your stupidity.
Ys
A jackass (MMD)
MMD,
DeleteYou need to watch your framing of arguments and semantics when you deal with your adversaries in a debate or response.
Not one of your points about the skeptic or secularist perception of the Universe is correct or is anywhere close to your ignorant and faulty enumeration of it.
Atheist and naturalists (AN) have denied any single or singular force or entity such as God or universal energy or consciousness that is controlling the Universe, which is what the theist position is. AN have asked for proofs of that belief from the theists, and none are forthcoming. Forces of gravity, electromagnetism, strong and weak nuclear energy by large control and regulate the workings of the universe. But there is also the factor of the adaptability of the species that adjust to these forces. There is as of today no clear answer to the question of why these came about, but only some tentative and revisable theories of how they could have arisen from Big Bang and expansion of the Universe from the explosions of the Big Bang. It is worth giving away anymore to someone too lazy to Google these topics and research them. Suffice it to say that your God or Gita have nothing to do with this.
Intelligence is a relative term. What appears as intelligence of the universe to you, could be the operation of the combination of the mechanistic working of various forces of nature, with its intervening variations and variables. Is the shining of the sun an intelligence or just how specific types of planetary bodies like stars operate and exhaust their energy, to others. the same goes for gravity and wind. Without understanding or agreeing on the meaning, significance of creation and evolution or the difference between them, there is no point in proposing a human like agency or intelligence to the natural forces or the state and operation of the universe. Even if we agree on the intelligence of the Universe, its supernatural creation or supervening control by divine agency does not necessarily follow from that premise.
If after knowing that there are many astrophysical based cosmological theories of how the Universe came about, if you still on attributing the Universe came from nothing to AN, what can we say about your state of knowledge or reasoning.
Please acquaint yourself about what the skeptics and AN being theorizing and revising their knowledge of the world and Universe based on emerging and varying evidence. Then we can continue.
The problem with atheists like you is that you take it for granted that nature is working automatically without any controlling agent in the backdrop. If you study nature very carefully and minutely, you will be amazed as to how intricately it has been designed.
DeleteOn the one hand when you see an intricately designed system, (the motherboard of a computer for eg.) you spontaneously shower all praise on the designer and the intelligence, but on the other hand you fail you appreciate that this universe is millions of times more intricately designed than the most wonderful design ever created by man. It does not strike your dull intelligence that there does exist the infinitely intelligent "conscious being" behind this most wonderful machine of nature.
To percieve that supremely intelligent person, as a concrete reality requires a totally different approach at the attitude level. The Gita says that 3 things are required for knowledge of God.
1. Seriously search for a genuinely God realized soul
2. Render service to him.
3. Inquire from him submissively.
Unless these 3 conditions are met, its not possible to percieve God. God is not your servant that he will appear at your command like a waiter in a hotel.
The first person to hear the Bhagavat Gita from Krishna was Arjuna. After hearing the Bhagavat Gita from Krishna directly, Arjuna accepted Krishna as God in the 10th chapter. How then could anyone else come to different conclusion regarding the BG?
DeleteIf one does not accept the conclusion of Arjuna, then why study at all?
This argument is old hat and has been debunked by so many skeptics and scientists. It is called the argument from design and is an example of the fallacy of false analogy.
DeleteAs a favor to you, I am providing a link to the debunking of this by now stale argument for the existence of a supernatural agent.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_from_design
Enjoy the agony of your ignorant and half baked arguments being torn to shreds.
Your God does not appear because it does not exist, except in your imagination fed on the fattening diet of religious crap. I have more respect for domestic helpers and hotel employees, than for devotion crazed idiots who consider themselves to be slaves of a religious fantasy figure.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteAll right.
DeleteLets accept your atheistic theory for argument sake.
But it fails to explain the origin of life. Scientists say that life came from dead matter but they have been unable to prove it. It remains a speculative theory full of faults and errors.
If Life actually came from matter, then you demonstrate it practically. Produce one mosquito in a lab and show it. I will accept that there is no God. Here is the ultimate challenge for you.
If you cannot do the above your atheistic philosophy gets crushed into dust.
First let me call out your misrepresentations and fallacies in argument.
DeleteYou are making the classic mistake of the argument from ignorance fallacy.
You have not provided any evidence of your understanding of the secular position on the origin of life or theories like Evolution and Big Bang. These are theories supported by a lot of explanatory, observational and evidential backup, research and inter-disciplinary investigative and cross-referential work. They are theories because of their tentative nature, till they are replaced by a better theory using the same framework of evidentiary support. That is the epistemology of most theories of science and empiricism. This is a lot of terms and word soup. But certain things cannot be simplified beyond a point. To find faults with a theory, you need to examine and understand it. When you know zilch about it, dismissing it as speculative and full of faults and errors will not work. Theories don't care about whether you like or support them. Ignorance of fools like you is not a repudiation of any theory that has found broad scientific consensus across the world. It will take more a theist and religiously blinded frog in well like you to shake the foundations of these scientific theories.
Your God reference is not a theory, it is an assumption only. It has no support in the form of empirical proof or evidence. You are simply shifting goalposts by positing criterion of godlessness which is preventing the perception of God, which are all unverifiable and non-falsifiable, which renders them completely invalid. An invisible, impenetrable, odorless dragon in my garage is not a testable hypothesis. The same goes for your God hypothesis. It will remain a hypothesis, as long as no good, reliable and repeatable method is there to validate it.
This requires an appreciation of the worldview and philosophy of science and secular methods of understanding the nature of reality of which we are a small part. That you don't get it and seem nowhere close to be getting is not my problem
You are making lots of assumptions and opinions based on your ignorance of the scientific and naturalistic positions. One of your statements " Scientists say that life came from dead matter" is completely false and a misrepresentation. Quote the source which specifically used the term 'dead matter'. You are completely distorting the view that the basis and source of the origin of life and its growth is material, with energy also being considered a part of matter. Do you know how to distinguish dead matter from live matter, or whether this distinction is even workable in a material and scientific context?.
Science is multi-disciplinary and there are many branches of its study and work like astrophysics, particle physics, quantum physics, microbiology, chemistry, paleontology and the like, that is relied upon by secular philosophy to make its case on how world works or came about.
You are far behind in the learning curve of familiarizing yourself with the advances made by these sciences. You are still rehashing the arguments from 400 years ago, when the state of knowledge, discovery and understanding of phenomenon was nowhere close to what it is. That is good for trolling, not for bettering anyone's understanding of the world and reality.
Asking or challenging scientists to produce a moth or a mosquito is a case of the error or fallacy of conflation. You are conflating the ability to explain with the need to recreate or manufacture what was explained. It is like telling Newton that his theory of gravity is not valid or acceptable, until he or team can reproduce gravity in a lab or a different controlled setting. I don't expect you to understand the absurdity of your silly challenges. There are better things to be done than falling for your idiotic baits.
Go get a learning. You are too pathetically ignorant to even troll with any impact.
Let me repeat for your understanding since you are unable to see the simple truth being intoxicated by the pride of your erudition.
DeleteAny person with common sense can understand the difference between a "living body" and a "dead body". what is that difference?. That difference is that a dead body lacks "consciousness". Now we have following questions in front of us:
1. why does the consciousness disappear at the time of death?
2. what makes the consciousness disappear?
3. why is medical science unable to keep the consciousness within the body despite all its advancement?
4. where does that consciousness go?
You are unable to answer these simple yet very important questions.
why are you evading them? If you are really in knowledge, then whats the difficulty to answer the above?
MMD,
DeleteAnother completely backwards argument which is totally consistent with your train of nonsensical argumentation throughout this comment thread.
Even if consciousness appears to have non-physical feeling and features, its basis is very much physical and is dependent on the body. Though there are many gaps in the current understanding of consciousness, and its puzzle is far from completely solved, there is no argument with the observation that the end of the body or death is also the end of consciousness. Death of the brain is also the end of consciousness, as we know and experience it. Since consciousness is the function of brain, consciousness cannot survive or outlive the brain. Consciousness does not go anywhere, it ceases to exist just like other parts of the body. If and when science, medicine and technology figure out a way to prolong individual life, consciousness will also prolong that much. In the current state of things, there is no way to preserve or transfer consciousness devoid of a physical placeholder like collection of body parts.
Even if that ever happens, it will not be religion, faith or prayer that will do it, but the collective ingenuity of our thinking and effort.
This one from MMD is vintage cognitive dissonance.
ReplyDelete"The first person to hear the Bhagavat Gita from Krishna was Arjuna. After hearing the Bhagavat Gita from Krishna directly, Arjuna accepted Krishna as God in the 10th chapter. How then could anyone else come to different conclusion regarding the BG?
If one does not accept the conclusion of Arjuna, then why study at all?"
This belief in the literalism of the Gita is too hilarious to be debunked with a straight face! Looks like theists want to stare blankly though criticism of Gita's story telling and historicity and pretend as if that never exists. That Krishna is a god or an incarnation or that he is the author or orator of the Gita are all assumed without any care for logic or evidence. This whole thing about Krishna lecturing Arjuna in the middle of a thick battle where the armies are standing still as this 15 or 17 chapter ramble of a dialogue goes on between Krishna and Arjuna, which is being witnessed by Sanjaya miles away with telescopic vision (what about the audio) and narrated to Dhirithirashtra, is huge a cock and bull parable, in which it is easy to poke so many holes. Who cares if a dim witted and scared Arjuna accepted Krishna as god, after he bullied him with his Vishwarupa (another cock-and-bull imagery gone wild). Does the conclusion of a scared and confused Arjuna even matter when deep and critical analysis of the text reveal it to be a cocktail of most of the confused and convoluted spiritualist ideas of ancient and medieval India. When the Mahabharata itself does not accept Krishna as a God and has him abused and cursed by Gandhari, what is the value of Arjuna's acceptance of Krishna as a God.
Testimonies are no substitute for evidence and proof. The whole legendary edifice of Gita leaks with inconsistencies and gaping holes in the narrative. It is a man made work and it has the errors and problem that are expected of human effort, and thus will be subject to criticism and iconoclasm, which it cannot escape by invoking the bogus theory of divinity and appeal to authority.
The Gita says that if one purifies his consciousness, and then dies and quits his body in that state of purified consciousness, then, such a person will not have to accept another body, but becomes liberated by entering the spiritual world which exists beyond time and space.
ReplyDeleteWhy do you feel this philosophy is wrong or incorrect?
DeleteThere are multiple problems and errors in this speculation of the Gita. I can list them in no particular order of importance as:
There is no such thing as purifying the conciousness, since calling someone's thoughts, emotions and mental processes as pure or impure is subjective and judgmental. It is also a result of conservative and puritanical social/cultural conditioning. Since secularists are more or less relativists, we reject this absolutist framing of something as pure and impure; pure or impure compared to what?. One person's purity could be another's impurity. The extreme postulate of ridding one mind of all thoughts, desires and emotions is impractical and fixating of the mind on something or some entity to the point of abstraction and void, also cannot escape the contradiction of the theory of the subject and object dissolving into oneness, as this duality cannot be resolved whether physically or mentally. Since purification is in itself a questionable concept, purifying the consciousness is a redundant and futile activity. Then there is also the unresolved question of who decides whether someone's consciousness is the purest or not. When the concept of purity is incapable of a unique or absolute definition, this constitutes a total failure of this requirement of purifying one's consciousness.
Consciousness ends or extinguishes with death. It does not survive the clinical and biological process of death, as consciousness is nothing but the function of the brain. Since brain does not survive death, consciousness also does not survive. There is no question of consciousness quitting the body and waiting for other bodies. There is no path or mechanism for the consciousness to surivive or escape the condition of death. So the Gita is dead wrong on this, because its authors are peddling ancient ignorance about how the body and the brain work. They didn't know much about clinical science then, but by now we should know better than that. While the above statement does not mention soul, that seems to be implication and it is clear that soul is a fiction of religion and other thought systems that believe in dualism. Death is a state of liberation regardless of whether consciousness is purified or not, and every dead being is assured of this liberation. So making Moksha or liberation conditional on the fulfillment of some religious or spiritualist criterion of purity or devotion is all a complete bunk.
A spiritual world which exists beyond time and space, is a religious fiction. If something exists beyond time and space, it cannot be verified or validated. Without evidence or any kind of empirical support, these claims have to be rejected as improbable and a product of thought and imagination. If something exists beyond time and space, how can anything enter it and and by what means. Authors of Gita had only their naked eyes to look at and percieve the extent and immensity of the cosmos. Given their limited knowledge of space, physical and material forces at work and astrophysics, their speculations are understandable. But it is nowhere close to the reality of how our observable universe works.
Since these opinions are completely contrary to the knowledge of the world and beings in it, it is not just wrong, it is totally wrong-headed.
MMD
DeleteReference one of your earlier comment 'Create a mosquito in a lab ' . Please do not walk into a Trap
It is possible . If not today then a few years down the line . And creation of a Mosquito in a lab does not and would not disaapprove existence of God .
Man by just knowing a few laws has created electricity, computers , airplane , nuclear bombs .. once he gets to know a few more insights on bio organisms - one will be able to create beings of ones choices . Not just Mosquito. And it will still be handiwork of Krishna .
"Consciousness ends or extinguishes with death. It does not survive the clinical and biological process of death, as consciousness is nothing but the function of the brain. Since brain does not survive death, consciousness also does not survive. There is no question of consciousness quitting the body and waiting for other bodies"
ReplyDeleteIn the very beginning of the Gita the eternity of consciousness is established. It very clearly and explicitly stated in the Gita that consciousness does not end with the destruction of the body, but rather survives the destruction of the body. Infact, Krishna defines nature of consciousness in the 2nd chapter as follows:
1. It cannot be cut by weapons
2. It cannot be burnt by fire
3. It cannot be dried by air
4. It cannot be moistened by water
The whole philosophy of the Gita is based on this fundamental truth.
If you donot accept the most basic assertion of Krishna in the BG, then why study Gita at all? In what way will you understand the other chapters if you are unable to comprehend the most basic of all instructions in the Gita?
We can go around this in our own circles. But I will try one more to cut the chase.
DeleteGita's statements about consciousness are merely claims. They are not empirical truths or even verifiable claims. Even calling them as transcendental truths is a misnomer or word play and a case of shifting the goalposts of validation and rendering them incapable of verification or falsification. Inerrancy of the Gita is an article of blind faith and does not cut any ice even with other belief and non-rational systems like Judaism, Islam or Christianity, let alone evidence based skepticism. Stating a claim however clearly or emphatically it may be made is not the same as establishing and incontrovertibly validating it. If the Gita does not provide any proofs of the eternity or indestructibility of the individual consciousness, statements are of no use. Krishna saying that I know it and that I am a know-all does not work as a proof. Puncturing the literalism of Krishna's divinity as well as many other absurdities of its assumed background, shows that what is food for the goose of believing minds is not that for the gander of doubt and disbelief.
There can be many reasons for analyzing Gita, beyond belief and religious considerations. Its historicity and social implications are good enough reasons for critical analysis.
There is no fundamental truth in the Gita, only claims and speculations that are the result of the religio-social context of the times in which it was written.