Let me at the very outset make it clear that I do not know much of the subject that I am going to broach today (not that I knew much on my earlier subjects… but what the hell… it is my blog after all). From my meager readings on the Hindu Philosophy (as distinct from Hindu religion) I would like to discuss some of my inferences.
The entire philosophy, it seems, boils down to a simple law of nature – one has to face the consequences of one’s actions. Good actions have good consequences, bad actions have bad outcomes, and no action has no consequences. This is obviously understating at its worst. But I feel that is what it is – essentially.
The reader can quote myriad examples of people carrying out noble activities yet spending their entire lives in abject misery and on the other hand crooked people of all shades thriving. However the catch in the philosophy is that time is not limited to one lifetime. Nature tries its best to create a zero balance in a single life time, however, many a times one life time is not enough to balance the book of life. To go through the consequences of one’s activities, one may have to take rebirth. If you do good you may have to come back to enjoy the fruits of the good deed and like wise to face the consequences of the bad deeds. As long as you keep taking new births and live through entire lifetimes you keep on carrying out actions and hence the cycle goes on. How does one then achieve freedom from this vicious cycle of rebirths?
It seems if one can manage to carry out actions without attachment then one does not accrue any karmic baggage. By that logic if one manages to carry out the noblest of deeds or even the vilest of crimes totally dispassionately without any attachments thereof one does not accrue any karma. Hence the stress on focusing on the activity rather than the fruits of action. Nature is bound by its own law to reward / punish all actions. And if one doesn’t exult in good times and mope around in bad, Nature simply doesn’t know what to do. On the practical level too one can use this law to one’s advantage. One way is to not to take credit. Do your best and make a sincere effort to let someone else take the credit. One other way could be to do a good deed without any expectations of rewards whatsoever – in fact refusing any compensation outright. For the more worldly, an easier method would be to do more than what one is compensated for. Nature, bound by her laws, obviously can’t let that happen. She will keep trying to find out ways to reward you.
That is one reason why magic stones and chants will never work. They are against the grain of the Hindu philosophy. Bad times and misery are inevitable and they are good because they are Nature’s way of reducing your negative karmic debt. No amount of rings on your fingers or taveezs around your neck will help. At best they can maybe postpone the inevitable. But isn’t it better to get it done with and out of the way? Pundits point out that these rings and other assorted religious jewelry help in reducing the intensity of the misery. Doesn’t gel. If you slapped someone unfairly then Nature will find a way to slap you back and cause you the exact same amount of misery that you had inflicted. Wearing a sacred ring in the hope of getting a lesser intensity slap won’t work as that goes against the philosophy expounded above. The fruits of your deeds are always in proportion to the actual deeds themselves.
Actually praying to God too won’t work on the same grounds. Nature (or God if you will) too it seems doesn’t have the power to break its own laws. What works however is that it gives the praying person a (?false) sense of security (surely God will look into the matter and help me out …just this one last time !!!). It is this sense of security that enables a praying person to actually ride out a crisis better. Same goes for pujas, rituals, offering coconuts (isn’t it unfair that mankind has progressed to pizzas and what not but has still kept the Gods on coconuts) to the deities and so on. Think about these from a rational angle and one tends to be amused but they have their uses.
And the interesting thing about Hindu philosophy is the way our ancestors have gone about merging it with religion and rituals to implement it. Take for example the practice of forsaking the pleasures of the flesh (the eating variety and not what you might be imagining). Devout Hindus will not touch meat (actually all non vegetarian food) on so called sacred days like Mondays, Thursdays and so on. However if you look at the fine print, Hindus are actually strictly prohibited from eating flesh ever (for various reasons – some upheld by the science of today and some not). However our ancients must have fast realized that this was never going to happen. Then someone must have got the brainwave of dedicating particular days to Gods and presto!! Shiva devotees will not touch flesh on a Monday for the fear of pissing off Lord Shiva (although they would happily gorge on all shades living organisms on the remaining days without sparing a thought to the feelings of the Almighty). It is the same principal at work when pictures of various Gods and Goddesses are plastered on the places where people spit their beloved Paan juice or urinate freely. But what it usually results in is that although the Gods are left pretty much alone they are as often as not surrounded by an uncanny halo of red spittle.
Hindus have historically found out all kinds of ways to circumvent the dictates of conscience mostly using religion as an excuse. Let me quote some examples from a treatise no less than the Mahabharat:
Maharaj Shantanu had a son Gangeya (later famously known as Bhisma due to the intense vow that he made) but there is no clear mention of who the mother of the child was (lots of speculation there though Рsome so risqu̩ as to make even the Kamasutra feel like a nursery rhymes book!!).
Shantanu later married Satyavati (for which his son had to take a vow that no man should ever have to – but more of that later)
Satyavati had an earlier child (out of wedlock) by the famous Saint (sic!) Parashar Muni, a son named Dwaipayan (meaning conceived on an island – that is where our revered Muni had taken the young Satyavati to satisfy his unholy desires). This son was later popularly known as Ved Vyas.
Shanatnu and Satyavati had two sons Chitrangada and Vichitravirya. Chitrangada mercifully passed away at an early age. However no such luck with Vichitravirya. Bhisma kidnapped three lovely princesses (quaintly named Amba, Ambika and Ambalika) for Vichitravirya. Lots of chaos ensued and Vicitravirya finally managed to marry Ambika and Ambalika. However the pleasures of bigamy was too much for Vichitravirya to handle and he too kicked his bucket (in the middle of the act actually).
Male heir was a necessity those days but these were not forthcoming without a husband. Hence religious sanction was given to Ved Vyas to assist the process. He not only managed to help out Ambika and Ambalika but also managed to impregnate a maidservant in the child bearing process (mistakenly it seems!!).
Ambika, Ambalika and the maid servant (with the saintly Ved Vyas’s help) gave birth to Dhritarasthra, Pandu and Vidura respectively. Dhritarasthra married the princess Gandhari and managed to beget a 100 children (how?? – a triplet a year for 33 years??).
Pandu didn’t learn from the mistake of his late dad Vichitravirya and married Kunti and Madri. Kunti, true to tradition had an earlier child (out of wedlock again), whom she had conveniently managed to lose before marriage to Pandu. Pandu too had cardiac problems during the act (what else did you expect?) and was warned off from fornicating by the family physician. After that both his wives managed to produce five children between them. How again one might ask?
The interesting thing in the above examples is that religion was invoked to give moral sanction to all these acts. My objective here is not to be blasphemous towards Hinduism alone but to be equally profane and irreverent towards all religions. I could quote hundreds of similar examples from almost all of Hindu mythology (and I suspect from all books in all religions). But again the issue to be remembered here is that all ages have had different social customs and taboos. And this age of ours is no exception. But religion invariably has been used (and misused) in all ages to suit the needs of mankind. Would it be too much off the mark to say that it was not God who created Man but it was Man who has created God for his own narrow ends?
