Re Vl-IV: Chapter 10 - Krishna

[Michael Bailey]

Michael Bailey wrote:
> and Arjuna bought that?  What a load of militaristic hooey!

-- okay, I forgot I resolved this year to get out of debt or at least
not get any deeper, to read The Recognitions, and to try to make
better comments on the list...

> Robin Landseadel quoted:

>>        THE ORIGIN OF KARMA

>>        battle of KURUKSHETRA, when Arjuna, a famous warrior and
>>        friend of Krishna refused to take arms against his brethren on
>>        the ground that he was not ready to kill his relatives for any
>>        wealth in this world.

Right on, Arjuna!

>>      . Going against his 'karma' would lead him to worse,
>>        Krishna told Arjun, because it will make him responsible for the
>>        death of all those who have joined him in the belief that he will
>>        fight with them,

but wait, not if he is able to prevent the battle!  His lofty position
makes him influential: one of those whom Pynchon (Slow Learner intro?)
calls those "with the power to do something about it."

>> and it will also lead to despise and insult from
>>        his opposition who will only laugh at him as a coward.
>>

appealing to his pride.  Not worthy of serious consideration as an
argument. Their thoughts about him will surely be much worse if he
undertakes to slaughter them!

>>         He said that the people he will fight in this
>>        war will not be killed by him, but by their own karma....
>>        Krishna went on to tell him that even while killing them, he will
>>        only be acting a 'means' in the fulfilment of the destiny of those
>>        persons, whose karma has destined them to die in this battle.

poisonous sophistry.  demolishes the basis of morality: that there is
any reason to restrain oneself out of consideration for others!

interestingly, guess who carried around a copy of the Bhagavad-Gita:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himmler
Himmler told his personal masseur Felix Kersten that he always carried
with him a copy of the ancient Indo-Aryan scripture, the Bhagavad Gita
because it relieved him of guilt about implementing the final
solution; he felt that like the warrior Arjuna in that he was simply
doing his duty without attachment to his actions



-- 
--
"Frenesi's eyes, even on the aging ECO stock, took over the frame, a
defiance of blue unfadable."