VL-IV: Chapter 10 - Krishna

[Robin Landseadel]

Note that Gandhi's term for non-violent protest was Satyagraha.

	GANDHI ON SATYAGRAHA (TRUTH-FORCE)
        Satyagraha is a relentless search for truth and a determination
	to search truth....Satyagraha is an attribute of the spirit
	within....Satyagraha has been designed as an effective
	substitute for violence.... Satyagraha is a process of educating
	public opinion, such that it covers all the elements of the society
	and makes itself irresistible....The fight of Satyagraha is for the
	strong in spirit, not the doubter or the timid. Satyagraha teaches
	us the art of living as well as dying....Satyagraha, of which civil-
	resistance is but a part, is to me the universal law of
	life....Satyagraha can rid society of all evils, political, economic,
	and moral...A genuine Satyagraha should never excite
	contempt in the opponent even when it fails to command regard
	or respect....Satyagraha thrives on repression till at last the
	repressor is tired and the object of Satyagraha is
	gained....Satyagraha does not depend on the outside [for] help;
	it derives all its strength from within....The method of Satyagraha
	requires that the Satyagrahi should never lose hope, so long as
	there is the slightest ground left for it....In the dictionary of
	Satyagraha, there is no enemy. Since Satyagraha is a method
	of conversion and conviction, it seeks never to use the slightest
	coercion... For a Satyagraha brigade, only those are eligible
	who believe in ahimsa--nonviolence and satya--truth... A
	Satyagrahi has infinite patience, abundant faith in others, and
	ample hope....A Satyagrahi cannot go to law for a personal
	wrong....In the code of the Satyagrahi, there is no such thing as
	surrender to brute force.

http://www.carolmoore.net/articles/gandhi-quotes.html

http://books.google.com/books?id=RZDIUlha-UMC&pg=PP1&dq=satyagraha#PPA3,M1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyagraha

The basic principles of the Civil Rights movement of the Sixties as  
practiced by Martin Luther King, Jr. were derived from the writings  
and actions of Mohandas K. Gandhi. Gandhi himself was a Hindu.

	Gandhi's Philosophical Education
	Gandhi's father was a principled man, and his mother was a
	deeply religious woman in the folk tradition of Hinduism.
	Gandhi drew moral and spiritual inspiration from his parents
	throughout his life. He did not read The Bhagwat Gita until he
	was a young law student in England, and at that time he began
	his formal philosophical education. . .

	. . . Finally, Ghandi applied himself to the memorisation of the
	Bhagavad Gita and succeeded in committing to memory the
	entire part of the Mahabharata, the great Indian epic, that forms
	the basis of modern-day Hinduism. Gandhi was, of course,
	attracted by chapters that stressed selfless action, involvement,
	duty and discipline, that is karma-yoga, and raja-yoga
	(salvation through bodily discipline) and less by parts that dealt
	with bhakti-yoga (salvation through devotion), and jnana-yoga
	(salvation through knowledge). (Bhana) It is curious that he
	would not have been as attracted to salvation through
	knowledge, as it was his self-read philosophical education
	which led him to the concepts of Satyagraha that became so
	successful for he and his followers. . .

http://web.pdx.edu/~psu17799/gandhi.htm

The underlying question in Vineland is "what happened to the Sixties?  
Where did all that will to do good go?" I have every reason to suspect  
that Inherent Vice will take a harder look at that question than the  
view we've been granted in Vineland. But note how much of Vineland is  
an inquest into the death of the Sixties, how we are guided through  
suppressed histories, "revisionist" versions of the stories we were  
fed from the "tube," that cozy global propaganda, a variety of  
brainwashing we all live with that's designed to produce false memories.

Prairie's view of Frenesi through the 24fps film editor gives her a  
different angle from the post-punk view of the Sixties she acquired up  
in her neck of the woods. Part of the Post-Punk [and let's face it  
Charlie, post-punk pretty much means postmodern] point of view of the  
Sixties was that it was a sellout—Bodhi Darma Pizza, anyone?—and part  
of that attitude developed due to the taking of complex religious  
concepts from alien cultures [the fabulous dark "other"ness of the  
mystical east] and then packaging them in ways that are comprehensible  
[and saleable] to the sensibilities of Californians [and Cali  
wannabees] in the 60's. The cognitive dissonance can give you tinnitus.

Against the Day makes it pretty clear that the themes of Karma and  
Buddhism continue to be important threads in Pynchon's writing.

On Feb 17, 2009, at 8:33 AM, Joseph Tracy wrote:

> I was once at an organizing meeting to train those those of us  
> preparing for picketing and speaking with shoppers about the UFW  
> boycott. Joan Baez was there and someone mentioned the Baghavad Gita  
> as a manual for courage . . .