What I've been reading

[forsyth]

So, the other weekend, I read the Bhagavad Gita. It's renowned to be one of the greatest poetic epics of India.

Which is why I can't get past the feeling I must be missing something. Maybe it's not a very good translation, or maybe it's something that sounds better spoken, or maybe I just came into it with too many of my own attitudes (but how else can you come into something? Whose attitudes should you have?), because I didn't get much out of it. There were a couple general impressions I got through the whole thing, one was Krishna going "Oh m3, I r0x0r," the prince going "You r0x0r, Krishna, tell me more about how great you are." Another was, not unsurprisingly, justification for the caste system of India, telling people to be happy where they are and do the jobs they've been told to do, which doesn't really make it unique.

Then there's the third, which is also shared with a lot of other kinds of religion and philosophy, and I think has done a lot of damage to things. There was constant emphasis through the whole thing on the world being fake, just an illusion, something to be denied and transcended. Denial of the world as real and putting "us" as separate from it is one of the things that helps lead to mindsets that end up with people treating the world like something to be used up, not somewhere we have to live. We're not separate from the world, we're a part of it. It's not something for us to just use however we want, we need to live here, too. Denying the world, or your body, as real, or as "you" is, I think, one of the worst separations that's happened in thought and has caused a lot of harm throughout the ages.

So, maybe I'm just biased. Or did I miss something? Or just have a bad translation?

[meta: mindscribbles]

Comments

[leticia.livejournal.com]

Heh. But you stop short on that logic. Dude, if you deny the world and your body, you don't use it up, because it has nothing of value for you. People who are denying the world don't try to stockpile wealth at the expense of everyone and everything.

I think that there are two things keeping you from enjoying it. The first is, of course, your biases. You're judging not the written word but the beliefs of the person(s) who wrote the written word. Also, classics are rarely as good as they're made out to be.

[forsythferret.livejournal.com]

Hmm, you have a point, Leti. I didn't consider it all the way to that ending, which would make sense. Though considering he's lecturing a prince, I'm inlined a little bit to doubt it, but.

I was crossing it with one of the more noxious type of "biblical literalist", who go from a line about "and Man shall have dominion over the plants and the beasts" and using that as justification for treating the world like crap. And then there's the guys who think the end of the world's coming, so why bother? But none of them were around when this was written, so it's not really fair to involve them. Just like it's not fair to compare the God Hates Fags people to... well, anybody sane, really.

On the other hand, the bits justifying the caste system still irk me, the "do what you're born to do as the highest honor" bit. The same as other things that say don't make waves, all this will be sorted out after you die, it strikes me as just encouraging people not to think or to bother and try and make things better now.

It's important to remember to make a distinction between people who are honest and sincere in their beliefs and are trying to be good people, and those just using religion as a cover or excuse for what they want to do anyway. I still think denying the world as real is problematic and dangerous, because it also helps people to cut themselves away from things and not try and help things be better. We're here, now, might as well make it as good as we can, no matter what happens later. Something we should all be happy to work with anybody else of good will to do.