Keys to Understanding the Bhagavad Gita
August 25, 2015 by Hari-kirtana
PARADOXICAL ETHICS OF THE BHAGAVAD GITA
Last month, I was invited to give a pair of talks about the Bhagavad Gita at ISKCON of DC in Potomac, Maryland. The video below is a combination of the audio recording of my second talk and the Powerpoint slides I used as visual references for it.
A longer explanatory note than last time: The most conspicuous challenge to understanding the ethics of the Gita is the fact that Krishna urges Arjuna to wage war against his family members in spite of Arjuna’s reluctance to do so. We would like to think that Krishna, as the ‘Supreme Ethicist’, would support Arjuna’s antipathy towards warfare but Krishna does precisely the opposite. The ‘ethics of God’ and the delicate subject of whether or not there is such a thing as ethical violence is one worthy of a comprehensive examination far beyond the 45-minutes the forum in which I was speaking allows. Since the talk was so short it should come as no surprise that, as time was expiring, I made a comment that was not accompanied by sufficient context in order to ensure a proper understanding of my intention. I will take this opportunity to provide the missing context:
In response to a question at the tail end of this talk I equated the beheading of “infidels” by ISIS executioners to President Obama’s use of drones to kill al-qaeda operatives. My objective in this comparison was to illustrate their shared characteristics relative to the Gita’s ethical imperatives and to make a categorical distinction between righteous and unrighteous warfare; the difference between good versus evil as opposed to evil versus evil.
For someone who identifies as an American, my example may not have the ring of one-to-one correspondence: America versus ISIS seems like a clear case of good versus evil. Of course, those who sympathize with ISIS will view America as evil; which one is which depends on your affiliation. However much good and evil may seem absolute from the position of our respective world views, good and evil are, objectively speaking, relative concepts insofar as the dualities of the material world are concerned.
The specific point of this example is that both the execution of un-armed non-combatants and the execution of combatants from a remote location (in a manner that is known to result in non-combatant casualties) are acts of cowardice. The chivalrous nature of the Gita’s ethics as they apply to the warrior class demands that the king lead his soldiers into battle and that non-combatants are safely removed from the fighting. This is in stark contrast to a leader who sits safely behind a desk thousands of miles away from the battlefield while someone else pushes buttons of destruction on their behalf or a soldier who executes a defenseless non-combatant rather than taking responsibility for the non-combatants protection, as is required according to the Gita’s rules of warfare.
This cowardly aspect of modern warfare does not in any way diminish the valor of soldiers who fight in defense of the defenseless. Nor does it mean there is no such thing as a just war. In the case of America’s military initiatives, I was making the point that, under the western social order, the military acts on behalf of corporate and business interests, not on behalf of righteousness. Historically, “America’s interests”, a favorite term of foreign policy, means America’s business interests; we ‘defend’ the presumption of America’s unfettered prerogative to consume a disproportionate quantity of the world’s resources. If that means we have to covertly topple another country’s democratically elected government or overtly attack a nation under false pretenses in order to perpetuate our domination of the global economy, so be it. That the advocates of such policies never seem to learn from the adverse consequences of their policies, however self-evident those consequences may be, is testimony to their ignorance: they are intelligent men whose knowledge is stolen by illusion.
History has shown us that evil people do not think of themselves as being evil. And when evil forces face off against another group of evil forces, all you end up with is an amplification of evil, much to the chagrin and disappointment of those who earnestly join the military under the illusion that truth and justice are synonymous with the American way. For an eloquent description of an American soldier’s realization of the discrepancy between chivalrous ideals and sinister reality, click here.
A final note: ISKCON of DC is the local center of gravity for the spiritual community known as the Gaudiya Vaisnava Sampradaya, the lineage of devotional yoga with which I am directly affiliated by initiation. As such, you may occasionally hear me speak inclusively, using the word ‘we’ to refer to myself as a member of the community to which I’m speaking, when I refer to a particular philosophical position or angle of vision shared by the Vaisnava community.
I hope you enjoy the talk and look forward to your comments and questions. – Hkd
Source: http://hari-kirtana.com/keys-to-understanding-the-bhagavad-gita-2#more-1947
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