Outline Lecture Ten— Abiding by One’s Dharma: Krishna’s Guide for Arjuna

Continuing on the theme of Other-centeredness

Key Terms for Today’s Lecture:
Samsara Moksha Dharma Karma Yoga Bhakti
(Cycle) (Release) (Sacred duty) (Action) (Discipline) (Devotion – to
a specific god perhaps)

Hindu Tradition: Dharma – One’s sacred duty

Mokhsa – release from one’s sacred duty

I) The Bhagavad-Gita as a Universal Manual for Life

a) Historical Context of the Philosophical Poem
i) Section of the war epic, Mahabharata (small part of this massive epic)
(1) More philosophical aspect of the Mahabharata – versus the action and battle
(2) Context to the action in the Mahabharata
(3) The form of the Gita we know is from around 1st century BC
ii) Recounting events in the 12th century B.C.E.—conflict between two Aryan clans
(1) Pandava clan vs. Kaurava clan
(2) Kindred – Pandava (Arjuna) represented the rightful ruler and Kaurava are the
cousins and usurpers of the throne
(a) Arjuna’s dharma to fight the usurpers, he is on the side of the rightful order
(b) Kaurava has Dhritarashtra and the cousins
(3) Arjuna is trembling at the beginning of the battle
iii) On the Pandava side, Arjuna’s aversion to fighting
(1) Moral conflict is between personal feelings and social duties
(a) Page 27 has quote from Arjuna – he trembles because he knows that the other
sides has good men that he must fight
(i) Teachers, cousins, etc., moral conflict between his dharma and the
goodness of his opponants
(ii) He is the only one that can suppress the usurpers
(b) Becomes metaphor through conflicts we must face in life
iv) As such, Gita addressing that ageless, ubiquitous problem of finding wisdom to
reconcile life’s conflicting choices
Premed student, dad is a neurosurgeon, must go to med-school. But you really just
want to write poems. Young female law student, Punjabi family wants you to marry a
man from another family who is a good person but you don’t love.
(1) As a “universal gospel of selfless action” - You don’t have to be a Hindu to find
wisdom in it
(a) The transcendentalist philosopher, Henry David Thoreau
(b) Father of non-violent civil disobedience, Mahatma Gandhi
(i) “The wise man who is not disturbed or agitated by these, who is unmoved
by pleasure or pain, he alone is fitted for immortality” (Ch.2.15)
b) Significance of How the Narrative is “Framed”
i) Old blind Kaurava patriarch, Dhritarashtra’s request to Sanjaya
Sanjaya can see things
 (1) “Tell me what my sons and the sons of Pandu did when they met”
(a) Dhritarashtra is blind and not at the battlefield
(b) Sanjaya doesn’t really answer the question and instead focuses on the internal
struggles of Arjuna
(2) Sanjara instead proceeds to chronicle the internal struggles of Arjuna—why?
(a) To highlight the flaw of pity and attachments
(b) Dhrit was only concerned about his sons and only wanted to know about his
own people
(i) Sanjaya points out the insignificance of his family
(ii) Directly highlights Arjuna’s own flaw of pity that came from his personal
feelings for his family and teachers (Vishna and Druna)
ii) Underscores the centrality of “sacred duty” or dharma
(1) Examples of misguided familial sentiments and attachments
(a) Why flawed: because it is a discriminatory type of pity
(b) You only pity people who you love or who are close to you
(2) “Flaw of pity” vs. pragmatic detachment
(a) However he must fulfill his dharma because he is the only one who can
(i) He must not ignore the potential thousands and tens of thousands of
people who would die if he didn’t lead them
(ii) Look at it from a bigger picture perspective
(b) Little bit like trolley scenario
(c) Can’t allow narrow personal interest to take over the broader collective goals
and outcomes should be
Very different from Confucian ideas: five relations vs. collective over individual

II) The Broad Appeal of Hinduism in India

a) More Ascetic Paths towards Moksha
i) Vedic Culture – vehicles to Moksha
(1) Tradition based on the sacred writings, known as the Vedas
(a) Extraordinary method – very exclusive/extraordinary approach
(2) Rig Vedas—collection of 1,028 hymns (compiled 15th to 8th centuries B.C.E.)
(a) Achieve moksha through rituals
(b) Some aimed towards certain gods, but most focus on rituals
(c) Maintaining the order of the cosmos – by chanting hymns
ii) The Upanishad Tradition (8th to 5th centuries B.C.E.)
Reaction to the veda tradition
(1) Shift from sacrificial ritual to spiritual contemplation
(a) Buddha renounces his family and comes upon some teachers who he
surpasses – teachers were from Upanishad
(b) Inner contemplation in order to achieve Moksha
(2) Ultimate goal is the identification of Brahman and Atman
(a) Introduces difference between Brahman (soul that is in everything) and Atman
(individual soul)
(b) When Atman fuses with Brahman you attain Moksha
(c) Krishatria (warrior class) – popular to contemplate and renunciate, and
Brahmin (Priests) – always contemplating and renunciating
 (d) Most people can’t do either of these things
b) Two “Norms” towards moksha in Hinduism
i) “Extraordinary Norm” or renunciation of worldly life (Sannyasa)
Not everyone can do this
Fast-track that only some can do
(1) Surrender “self” and all other attachments
ii) “Ordinary Norm” or Disciplined Action (Karma-yoga)
Ordinary; for lay people; we can’t just renounce everything
(1) Acting according to one’s “dharma” or “sacred duty”
(a) This is the path of ordinary norm – karma yoga
(b) Achieving wholesome or good karma by doing our duties
(c) Positive rebirth – don’t need to achieve moksha right away
(d) Build up good karma by following your dharma
(2) Accessible to all
(3) Karen Armstrong: “Anybody could love and imitate Vishnu, and learn to
transcend selfishness in the ordinary duties of the daily life”
(a) Over multiple rebirths you start climbing the caste ranks
(b) Once you’re at Brahmin you can get on the fast track
iii) Bhagavad Gita as a manual for the “ordinary norm”
(1) Manual for the ordinary norm
(2) Why it’s widely read
(3) Teaching people how to fulfill karma-yoga through disciplined action

III) The Wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita

a) Dialectic of Pragmatic Detachment
i) “Be intent on action (karma-yoga); not on the fruits of action (phalam)”
Action is essentially the pragmatic part
Do your duty
Detachment is the discipline part
Do not become attached to your actions
(1) Avoid performing deeds with an eye on how they might benefit you personally
Do not do thinks in order to gain something
Do good things because they are good
ii) Karma-yoga also means acting without attachment to results
iii) “Desire-less action” = “lucid action”
Only one that can get you to moksha
(1) “Passion” and “dark inertia” represent manifestations of the “goal-obsessed” ego
(a) Two other action types
(b) We obsess over the outcome over the action itself
Triad of action
b) Disassociating Actions from Ego
i) What’s in it for me?
(1) This is the question that determines if we engage in something
(2) If you truly love something do you need a result to justify your actions? No
(a) Don’t do things where you only look at the result
 ii) Associating results, good or bad, with the “self”
Aint I great? I’m so good because of the things I do – I’m so bad, I’m in the wrong
career
Associating action results with the self and self-worth
Dangerous because often the results are because of something that is outside our
control
Because of this the results are all on us_ me me me me me good or bad
(1) Cassandra’s wisdom—my own “Krishna”
(2) “You don’t have to overdo it, just do it. There are not many who take the work
seriously—you do. This is your best and this is all that’s required of any of us.
Not to overdo—not to outdo—but to do our best. This is enough. To try to do
more is to dislocate [God] from the equation.”
This is exactly what the Gita is all about – like putting the Gita in modern context
iii) Performance without over-playing the role of the “self”
Don’t assign the self a role bigger than it has
Each person is just a dot in the universe
Whatever happens it’s never just one self
Krishna: Don’t assume you’re the biggest most powerful or important
c) Disempowering or empowering ideology?
i) Use of dharma as rationale for the Hindu caste system
Exploited as an oppressive system
(1) Duties of each caste—“intrinsic being” ordained by the universe
(a) Brahman—purity, knowledge, judgment
Social hierarchy is justified by this – philosophical:
(b) Kshatriya—heroism, resolve, charity

(c) Vaishyas—farming, cattle herding, commerce

(d) Shudras—Be of service

Not in the caste system? The untouchables

(2) One’s “dharma” is contingent on one’s caste
ii) Where is an individual’s “free will” or accountability in all of this?
(1) Peculiarly western idea
(a) Free will? A lie
(b) There are so many other factors inform choices that it is not just free will
(2) In most eastern traditions this is an illusion
(a) In the Gita when Arjuna is shown his pity he realizes the flaw of pity
(b) Krishna reminds Arjuna that in believing in his own free will he is lying to
himself
d) Dialectic of “Self”
i) Absolute free will based on assumption of an autonomous self
ii) What we consider “free will” or individuality is actually a delusion
iii) True “self” in the full identification of atman with Brahman?
iv) Self and discipline
(1) Without discipline, egotistical “self” is “like an enemy at war”
 (a) Arjuna – it is not about just killing the enemies on the battlefield it is also
about defeating the doubts in his head
(2) “Desire” and feelings obscure the “embodied self” (“embodied” means infused
with the universal Brahman)
e) Devotion (Bhakti) as the Path to the Disciplined Self
Despicable polytheistic religion to westerners
However all the gods are different incarnations and manifestations of Brahma
Its all about which god you ‘connect with’
i) Sublimation in Krishna
Submit to me – submit yourself to the universal
(1) Incarnation of the cosmos, antidote to individuality, “lord of discipline incarnate”
ii) Total devotion to a god leads to total abnegation of the ego
iii) The basis of Hindu polytheism
(1) Idea of the “divine eye”—Darsan
iv) Hinduism at its best represents path of inner cultivation of diminishing egotism
through total sublimation in a god
(1) The qualities of a “yogi” (37)