2764. The Bhagavad-Gita is the most important Hindu scripture. It is mostly speeches by Krishna, an incarnation of God, to Arjuna, his disciple, who is also a warrior chief.
2765. The Bhagavad-Gita starts with Arjuna and Krishna between two armies which are about to start a great battle. Arjuna sees many relatives and friends in both armies. He protests that being victorious and becoming king would leave him unhappy because he would have to kill so many relatives and friends whom he loves. He does not want to fight.
2766. Krishna urges Arjuna to fight. His main argument is that man is basically a spiritual being and that the spiritual being is eternal, is outside of time, never changes, and is untouched by the dream world of birth and life and death. Therefore, Krishna says, Arjuna should not restrain himself from killing people because the spiritual being cannot really be killed.
2767. Krishna’s main argument is that because man is a spiritual being, it is OK to kill people. This argument is completely wrong. It ignores the fact that common people, including Arjuna, are subject to joy and suffering, and therefore to good and evil.
2768. Yes, man is basically divine, but that doesn’t make it OK to go around killing people for no reason.
2769. It is a great truth that man is really an immortal timeless indestructible spiritual being. This tends to distract one from the fact that Krishna’s conclusion is totally the wrong answer.
2770. Krishna is urging Arjuna to fight. So it appears that Krishna is teaching a warlike militant attitude. But this is not true. He is teaching pacifism. He says men are really outside of time and are not affected in any way by events in this world of time and space. Therefore it makes no difference whether you kill or not. It makes no difference whether you get killed or not. It makes no difference whether you do good or evil.
2771. Krishna teaches that nothing you do in this world makes any difference. Nothing that happens in this world makes any difference. No action or event in this world has any importance at all.
2772. The third basic reason for evil is the despair and rage that come from believing that life is an eternity of torment and misery with no hope for improvement. If you are stuck in eternal suffering with no hope of escape, then nothing makes any difference and there is no good or evil. This is similar and opposite to what Krishna says. If you are outside of time and unaffected by this world, then nothing makes any difference and there is no good or evil. The truth is that you can do something. The truth is that what you do does make a difference. The truth is that there is good and evil. There is hope for happiness. There is hope for enlightenment. It is worthwhile to pursue happiness.
2773. It is false and evil to teach that actions and events in this world have no importance, that there is no good or evil. Yet this is the main ethical teaching of the Bhagavad-Gita about worldly affairs. This explains the obvious tendency to pacifism in the culture of India.
2774. Krishna is teaching indifference to war. There are no glorious causes worth fighting and dying for. At the same time, there is no reason to refrain from killing and being killed. War is not a great evil to be avoided if at all possible. Krishna urges Arjuna to fight, but gives no reasons why this is a war worth fighting. There is no discussion about when fighting and killing others is a good thing and when it is a bad thing.
2775. The main ethical teaching of the Bhagavad-Gita is that one should work to achieve enlightenment. The teaching that wars and other worldly matters have no importance is very harmful both to the individual and to civilization and thus makes it much more difficult to achieve enlightenment.
2776. The theory is that if you want to achieve enlightenment, you should ignore the world. You should ignore all worldly matters. The world will take care of itself. The world is in a steady state of worldliness. The man seeking enlightenment should avoid thinking about worldly matters. This theory is false. The world is not in a steady state. The world gets better because good men work hard to make it better. The world gets worse because evil men work hard to make it worse. If good men ignore the world, then evil men will rule. The world will become a nightmare of slavery, war, suffering, and ignorance.
2777. There is also a theory that the spiritual man who meditates on God and ignores the world does good in the world by sending out his “good vibrations” of peace and harmony into the world. This may be true. But it is not enough. There are many evil men who are not affected by “good vibrations”. They must be investigated, prosecuted, shot, and otherwise dealt with effectively.
2778. The world cannot be saved by ignoring it.
2779. Krishna uses another argument to justify killing people. He says they are going to die anyway. This is one of the main justifications used by criminals who are paid killers. The victim is going to die anyway. The killer is just changing the time of the victim’s death. This argument makes any murder OK. It excuses any random slaughter of innocent populations.
2780. Krishna also appeals to Arjuna’s pride as a strong man and a warrior. According to this argument it is OK to kill people just because you are strong enough to kill them. Might makes right. I am able to kill you; therefore it is ethical for me to kill you.
2781. Appealing to one’s pride in strength and endurance as a fighting man makes sense if it has been clearly established earlier that there is a just cause which is worth fighting and suffering and killing and dying for. But if there is no just cause, if men just want to demonstrate their capacity for fighting and suffering, then they should take up boxing or football or some other activity which is not harmful to others.
2782. Krishna says that he, being God, is reborn from time to time in order to strengthen goodness and reduce evil in the world. Thus Hindus believe that saints and saviors of all religions are equally valid. This doctrine was strongly promoted by Ramakrishna, the most highly respected Hindu of the 19th century. It was also strongly promoted by Yogananda, the most highly respected Hindu of the 20th century.
2783. The idea that all religions are equally valid results in intellectual pacifism for Hindus. They tend to have no interest in intellectual discussion. They want to meditate and to try to reach a high level of spiritual awareness.
2784. Thus Hindus fail to recognize that Type 2 religions, specifically Christianity and Islam, deny that man is God and deny that there is any such thing as a high level of spiritual awareness. Hindus fail to observe that Christians and Muslims teach as a central doctrine that heaven is not a high state of blissful self-awareness but a place where one goes after death, and that only belief in and obedience to the true God will result in God’s favorable judgment followed by admission into heaven. Hindus incorrectly dismiss such ideas as unimportant doctrinal details.
2785. Hindus are happy to welcome Christians and Muslims to enlightenment. But Christians believe that Hindus and Muslims cannot be saved. And Muslims believe that Hindus and Christians cannot be saved.
2786. Krishna says you should do right actions. He also says you should not desire anything. You should not desire good results from your right actions. But what makes an action right is the fact that it has a good result.
2787. Krishna is teaching that meditation on God is what is important in life. The ideal is devotion, bliss, tranquility, and serenity. The ideal man when he meditates withdraws his awareness from the senses and puts his attention on God.
2788. Krishna says that the ideal man does not desire things of the senses. He does not desire profit or to have things. He lives without pride or passion. He has no fear or anger or joy or sorrow about profit or loss, success or failure, or good or evil, in the material world.
2789. Krishna says that meditation is far more important than right action. And even in right action, there should be no desire for the result that makes it good.
2790. The purpose of having no desires is to avoid emotions, and thereby to increase success in meditation.
2791. Thus the Hindu believes that poverty is a virtue.
2792. Thus the Hindu believes that he is wise when he is indifferent to good and evil. When evil men rule and bring ruin to civilization, he believes that such worldly matters are not important and not worthy of his attention.
2793. The Hindu ideal really is to go into a motionless state of superconscious divine bliss. And stay there. The ideal really is no action whatever. But in this world no action means death. So the solution is a compromise. You can act. But you must not desire the product of your action. This is nonsense.
2794. Desire is the spring of action. You act because you want something.
2795. The way you get something done is you picture what you want. Then you figure out what you need to do to get it.
2796. The way you get something great done is you envision a glorious goal. Then you describe this glorious goal to others and get them excited about it.
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This article is Chapter 90 in LIBERTY FOR ALL MEN EVERYWHERE – The Theory And Practice Of Freedom by Dale Samson. This book is available at http://www.libfame.com.
© Copyright 2010 Dale Richard Samson. Partial quotations of this chapter are permitted with attribution. Cite source as Dale Samson's LIBERTY FOR ALL MEN EVERYWHERE at http://www.libfame.com.
