Re Vl-IV: Chapter 10 - Krishna

[Joseph Tracy]

  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 .  I had just read it for the first time and  
was disappointed to find it was the fighting instructions for a war  
that was dubious in its justice. I was 18 or 19 and nervous to  
question the leaders but I stood up and said that I had just read the  
Gita and it didn't seem like a good model for nonviolent resistance.
It was kind of funny, but they basically wanted to "spiritualize" the  
battle and told me I didn't get it. I acquiesced, and am glad for  
what i learned from this association in the antiwar, pro-justice  
movement of the time, but was not satisfied with their answers on  
that point.
I think the movement of the time was often too infatuated with things  
eastern and did not recognize that there was the same variety of  
interpretations of "sacred" writings as exists in western traditions,  
along with the same history of religious  backing for wars.
The truth is that Tolstoy, Gandhi,  Martin King,  and Buddha were  
all , to varying degree, religious renegades who drew concepts from  
the larger religions  selectively. I think Karma is a concept that is  
large and deep in all spiritual traditions and and the Gita is for me  
the equivalent of Calvinism- a shoddy dishonest and morally flawed  
interpretation of the concept .

All of that said. Krishna in CH 10 is part of the recognition that  
24fps had some reckoning and premonition before the College of  the  
Surf  events that  they were on he verge of a great battle and were  
heading into real life-threatening danger.


On Feb 16, 2009, at 11:02 PM, Michael Bailey wrote:

> 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."