One of the most perplexing concepts in Buddhist philosophy is the doctrine of anatta, or ‘not-self’. Many have interpreted anatta to be a metaphysical assertion that there is no self, but I argue that this is mistaken. Rather, in line with Thanissaro Bhikkhu, I understand anatta as a practical strategy that has heuristic value in guiding one towards liberation. Furthermore, I propose that the acceptance of a subjective self can be consistent with and justified in Buddhism. This will be the focus of this essay.

Before I commence, I would like to issue a health warning. The ideas presented in this essay are in no way intended to be assertions of orthodoxy. I concede that they diverge from conventional attitudes, and so are likely to be considered controversial. My defence for this is that the Buddha discouraged reverence of dogma, and instead encouraged the gaining of insight through experience, enquiry, and reasoning, as evidenced by the following passage from the Kalama Sutta:Now, Kalamas, don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, ‘This contemplative is our teacher.’ When you know for yourselves that, ‘These qualities are skillful [sic]; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted and carried out, lead to welfare and to happiness’ — then you should enter and remain in them. (AN 3.65, trans. Thanissaro, 1994)As different people vary in their experiences, interests, and temperament, this empirical approach would lead to each person’s perspective of Buddhism being idiosyncratic. My own perspective is no exception. I therefore do not intend my perspective to be considered the authoritative view, but hope it can be forgiven as a personal interpretation, albeit one arrived at through the reflective approach encouraged by the Buddha.

To begin with, it is apparent, on exploration of the Pali Canon, that the Buddha never denies the existence of the self. To the contrary, he very clearly rejects annihilationism. In the Alagaddupama Sutta, he states:

Speaking in this way, teaching in this way, I have been erroneously, vainly, falsely, unfactually misrepresented by some brahmans and contemplatives [who say], ‘Gotama the contemplative is one who misleads. He declares the annihilation, destruction, extermination of the existing being.’ But as I am not that, as I do not say that, so I have been erroneously, vainly, falsely, unfactually misrepresented by those venerable brahmans and contemplatives [who say], ‘Gotama the contemplative is one who misleads. He declares the annihilation, destruction, extermination of the existing being.’ (MN 22, trans. Thanissaro, 2004)

Another passage can be found in the Yamaka Sutta, where some of the Buddha’s disciples advise Yamaka against annihilationism:Don’t say that, friend Yamaka. Don’t misrepresent the Blessed One. It’s not good to misrepresent the Blessed One, for the Blessed One would not say, ‘A monk with no more effluents, on the break-up of the body, is annihilated, perishes, and does not exist after death.’ (SN 22.85, trans. Thanissaro, 1997)A blanket denial of the self therefore has no basis in scripture, and directly contradicts the Buddha’s discouragement of annihilationist thought.

Interestingly, when confronted with direct questions about the metaphysics of the self, the Buddha often chose to maintain silence. A famous example is found in the Ananda Sutta:Having taken a seat to one side, Vacchagotta the wanderer said to the Master, ‘Now then, Venerable Gotama, is there a self?’ When this was said, the Master was silent. (SN 44.10, trans. Thanissaro, 2004)Edmond Holmes, in The Creed of Buddha (1908), interprets the Buddha’s maintenance of a dignified silence in response to Vacchagotta’s question as evidence of his acknowledgement of the existence of the self:

The words that are ascribed to him – words which may well have been his – suggest that some such thoughts as these were passing through his mind: “The Ego is real beyond all reality, but I cannot hope to make Vacchagotta understand this.” (p. 114)

Holmes suggests that if the Buddha did not believe in the self, he would have answered Vacchagotta’s question in the negative without hesitation, since “metaphysical atomism, like every other development of materialism, is very easy to explain” (p. 142). However, rather than directly answering Vacchagotta’s question in the affirmative, the Buddha remained silent. Holmes proposes that this is because the transcendental nature of the self would have been beyond the comprehension of Vacchagotta’s naïve mind at that stage in his spiritual development, and so Vacchagotta would have misunderstood the affirmative answer to his question. This in turn would have had a negative effect on his struggle for liberation.

Although Holmes’ theory is attractive, I argue that it makes quite an extravagant inference based on the Buddha’s silence. Quite simply, the Buddha may have remained silent because he did not find such metaphysical questions as conducive to Vacchagotta’s quest for liberation. This is evidenced by the fact that when asked by the Venerable Ananda about his silence regarding Vacchagotta’s question, the Buddha replied that Vacchagotta’s spiritual immaturity would have lead him to misinterpret any answer in a way that would bring him further attachment. This by itself is an adequate explanation for the Buddha’s silence, and there is no need to make any further inferences about the Buddha’s metaphysical views.

In addition to his rejection of annihilationism, some scholars have identified instances in the scriptures in which the Buddha appears to affirm the existence of a self. An example is Tony Page’s examination of theMahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra, aptly entitled “Affirmation of Eternal Self in the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra” (2010). Consider the two following passages identified by Page:

The Self (atman) is reality (tattva), the Self is permanent (nitva), the Self is virtue (guna), the Self is eternal (sasvata), the Self is stable (dhruva), the Self is peace (siva).(Trans. Hodge, 2006)The True Self is the tathagata-dhatu [Buddha Principle, Buddha Element, Buddha Factor]. You should know that all beings do have it, but it is not apparent, since those beings are enveloped by immeasurable klesas [defects of mind, morality, and character] … (Trans. Hodge, 2005)

These passages appear to show the Buddha affirming the existence of the self in the metaphysical sense. Reminiscent of the Upanishads, he asserts that each and every being has a self which is real, eternal, and unconditioned.

Those inclined to the Theravada school may question the authenticity of the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra and feel compelled to overlook it. However, as observed by Joaquin Perez-Remon in his controversial book Self and Non-Self in Early Buddhism (1980), the Pali Canon also contains passages in which the Buddha appears to speak about the self in a positive sense. Perez-Remon identifies the following passage from the Mahaparinibbana Sutta:

Therefore Ananda, stay as those who have the self as island, as those who have the self as refuge, as those who have no other refuge. (DN 16, trans. Perez-Remon, 1980)

According to Perez-Remon, this famous passage “appears to assert, implicitly at least, the reality of atta” (p. 20). He also identifies a similar passage in the Dhammapada:

Your own self is your master; who else could be? With yourself well controlled, you gain a master very hard to find. (Dhp. XII. 160, trans. Perez-Remon, 1980)

Again, in this passage, the Buddha appears to uphold the self as something of the greatest importance.It has been argued that when the Buddha speaks about the self in passages such as those presented above, he is merely doing so in a conventional sense in order to facilitate communication, rather than in a metaphysical sense. However, it is when one considers the implications of such a conventional interpretation on the spiritual meaning of the above passages that one is able to appreciate the force of Perez-Remon’s argument. Perez-Remon argues that if the self had been intended in a conventional sense, then the above passages would be suggesting that one should consider one’s impermanent and insubstantial configuration of khandhas as an island and refuge, a line of thought which seems unlikely to have been advocated by the Buddha.

Peter Harvey (1995) argues that despite its scholarship, a problem with Perez-Remon’s thesis is that it attributes to the self qualities such as faith, “which must be seen as part of the personality-factor of ‘constructing activities’” (p. 19). Although Harvey does not accept the idea of a substantial self, he rejects annihilationism, and speaks about a subjective existence in nibbana¹ which he terms ‘nibbanic discernment’. Along similar lines, Miri Albihari, in “Against No-Atman Theories of Anatta” (2002), argues that absolute annihilationism with respect to the self is incompatible with the doctrine of nibbana. To claim that there is nothing beyond the conditioned khandhas is to assume the unsavoury view that there is nothing left to experience, and that nibbana is complete annihilation. However, throughout the Pali Canon, the Buddha frequently describes the state of nibbana in positive terms, as shown by the following examples:

… the subtle, the very-hard-to-see,
the ageless, permanence, the undecaying,
the surface-less, non-objectification,
peace, the deathless,
the exquisite, bliss, solace,
the exhaustion of craving,
the wonderful, the marvelous,
the secure, security,
nibbana… (SN 43, trans. Thanissaro, 1999)There is, monks, an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated. If there were not that unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, there would not be the case that emancipation from the born — become — made — fabricated would be discerned. But precisely because there is an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, emancipation from the born — become — made — fabricated is discerned. (Ud 8.3, trans. Thanissaro, 1994)

Although the above terms from the Asankhata Samyutta can be regarded in a metaphorical sense, they at the very least indicate that there is something it is like to experience nibbana, and that this experience is positive. This refutes the interpretation of nibbana as a state of nothingness, thus implying the existence of subjective experience beyond the khandhas.

The view that there is a subjective existence beyond the conditioned khandas that persists after their dissolution is shared by George Grimm, who writes in The Doctrine of the Buddha (1958):

For, though none of the elements constituting our personality nor a soul standing behind it can form our real essence, Still We Are, a fundamental fact which remains even in face of this result. (p. 132)

He then goes on to write:

On the contrary we leave the world, in leaving behind the only thing still belonging to it, our corpse, – everything else we long before threw at its feet – and thus we proceed “to the glory of our Self”, a word not used by the Buddha, but this, not because of its being false, but because, according to what in our previous pages we have been saying, it might give rise only too easily to misinterpretations, in consequence of its relation to personality. (p. 160)

Not only does Grimm assert the reality of subjective existence beyond the khandhas, but he associates it with the realisation of nibbana and our ultimate reality, echoing his earlier observation, “I am: that is the most certain axiom there is” (p. 112).What Grimm is emphasising is the fundamentality of subjective being to existence itself. From a metaphysical perspective, I propose that the denial of such subjective being is fallacious. My existence as a subjective being is a basic fact that is impossible for me to deny. As illustrated by Descartes’ famous maxim, “Je pense donc je suis”, one can doubt the reality of the external world on the grounds that it may be no more than an illusion, but one cannot possibly doubt one’s own existence as an experiencing being, because the fact that one doubts implies that one exists. Any claim that being is illusory is therefore meaningless rhetoric, for there still needs to be something to experience an illusion. Similarly, as noted by Christmas Humphreys (1962), in the struggle for liberation, “it is the Self which is striving to understand itself” (p. 85).

Of course, the Buddha taught that a living being is constituted of a combination of conditioned khandhas. In the Vajira Sutta, the nun Vajira states:

Just as when, with an assemblage of parts, there’s the word, chariot, even so when aggregates are present, there’s the convention of living being. (SN 5.10, trans. Thanissaro, 1998)

The khandhas are a group of physical and mental aggregates which are in a perpetual state of flux and none of which can be identified with a self. Similarly, Hume observed that whenever he tried to direct his attention inwards, he was able to observe only a bundle of perceptions but not the experiencer of these perceptions. However, I argue that Hume’s difficulty was due to an attempt to objectivate something which is fundamentally subjective. Of course, he could not experience his self, because it is his self that is experiencing. What is experiencing is not an object that can be observed, but the subject. It is the existence or blank screen in which the bundle of perceptions manifests, and without which they could not manifest. Kant was fully aware of Hume’s error, and in his Critique of Pure Reason (1781) observed that “there must be a condition which precedes all experience, and which makes experience itself possible” (A 107).

My perspective therefore is that I am, or my self is, my consciousness. I am not referring to the vinnana khandha, for which ‘discernment’ is a more suitable translation, but to the subjective existence or blank screen in which all of my experiences are realised. The fact that I exist is the necessary condition for everything that I experience to be realised. The matter of my body is always being lost and replaced, and my mental state is always changing. However, there must be an existence for these physical and mental phenomena to manifest, and for the state of nibbana to be realised after the dissolution of the khandhas.
Others, including Peter Harvey and Thanissaro Bhikkhu, have also advocated the existence of unconditioned consciousness in nibbana. They identify instances in the Pali Canon in which the Buddha asserts the existence of such consciousness, such as in the following passage from theBrahmanimantanika Sutta:

Consciousness without surface, endless, radiant all around… (MN 49, trans. Thanissaro, 2007)

As argued by Thanissaro Bhikkhu, this consciousness does not refer to the conditioned vinnana khandha, but to unconditioned existence beyond space and time. In this sense, it is eternal, as it is not conditioned by time. This supposes a dualism between conditioned phenomena and this unconditioned consiousness. Peter Harvey (1990) elegantly describes the process liberation as this consciousness becoming “’unsupported’ (apatitthita) and free of constructing activities, so that it is released, steadfast, content, undisturbed, and attains Nibbana” (p. 63).

Although Harvey accepts that it is consciousness that attains nibbana, does not refer to it as self. I can appreciate his hesitation, for the term ‘self’ can appear to denote a substantial object which one owns, and so the application of the term to anything is likely to encourage further attachment. Others, such as Thanissaro Bhikkhu, argue that the terms ‘self’ and ‘not-self’ do not apply to the unconditioned after the dissolution of the conditioned khandhas. Again, I can sympathise with this view, for if what is not self is no longer there, there would be no need to categorise anything by applying concepts such as ‘self’ and ‘not-self’.  However, I argue that this is partly an issue with semantics. By identifying consciousness with self, I am not attempting to objectivate it or attribute to it any concepts associated with conditioned phenomena, but acknowledging it as the subjective basis of existence. Indeed, there is no object which I can equate with ‘I’, for ‘I’ is only a subject.

A similar view is expressed by the Burmese scholar Shwe Zan Aung in “A Dialogue on Nibbana” (1918). Aung depicts a Socratic dialogue in which the protagonist Agga, a Buddhist monk, presents his perspective that nibbana is one’s fruitional consciousness, and defends the existence of individuals innibbana. He does so by qualifying that individuality refers to each consciousness being a different subjective reality, and not to the characteristics of any substantial soul or ego. Consciousnesses differ from each other not because of any tangible properties, but merely with respect to their subjective personalisation:

Agga. This grammatical distinction is due to your view of the mind as subject and of Nibbana as object. But the latter cannot be an object without a subject. The fact is that the subject and the object are merged in an intuition. This follows from Buddhaghosa’s dictum that Nibbana is the fruitional consciousness itself. Nibbana is not thought but lived. Else Nibbana would be merely lip-bliss.Sumana. Am I to understand you to say that individuals exist in Nibbana?Agga. It all depends upon what you mean by ‘individual’. If you mean a soul in the sense in which it is generally understood in the West, I would reply No, because the ego idea is but a concept. But if you use the word as a mere label for realities, I would say Yes. Sariputta was a distinct individual from Moggallana on this side of the veil. Why should not their continuations be individually distinct on the other side?Each lives his own Nibbana. (Paccattam veditabbo vinnuhi). But it does not follow that they draw a line of demarcation between meum and tuum on the other side any more than they do on this side.

To further support this idea, there are instances in the Pali Canon in which the Buddha makes positive statements about individual beings after they had attained nibbana:

That is Mara, the Evil One. He is searching for the consciousness of Vakkali the clansman: “Where is the consciousness of Vakkali the clansman established?” But, monks, it is through unestablished consciousness that Vakkali the clansman has become totally unbound. (SN 22.87, trans. Thanissaro, 2005)

The Buddha also makes a similar utterance about the clansman Godhika in the Godhika Sutta. These passages suggest the acknowledgement of the existence of individuals in nibbana, very much in the manner suggested by Shwe Zan Aung’s protagonist Agga.

What I have presented in this essay so far suggests that the interpretation of the doctrine of anatta as a metaphysical denial of the self is incorrect. Rather, I propose that a more correct interpretation of the doctrine is the view advocated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. He writes in his essay “No-self or Not-self?” (1996):

In this sense, the anatta teaching is not a doctrine of no-self, but a not-self strategy for shedding suffering by letting go of its cause, leading to the highest, undying happiness.

The doctrine of anatta, therefore, is not a metaphysical assertion, but a practical strategy that guides one to let go of attachment to conditioned phenomena and thus to achieve liberation.

This is view is supported by the way the term anatta is used in the Pali Canon. Consider the following passage from the Girimananda Sutta:

And what is the perception of not-self? There is the case where a monk — having gone to the wilderness, to the shade of a tree, or to an empty building — reflects thus: ‘The eye is not-self, forms are not-self; the ear is not-self, sounds are not-self; the nose is not-self, aromas are not-self; the tongue is not-self, flavors are not-self; the body is not-self, tactile sensations are not-self; the intellect is not-self, ideas are not-self.’ Thus he remains focused on not-selfness with regard to the six inner & outer sense media. This is called the perception of not-self. (AN 10.60, trans. Thanissaro)

Here, the term anatta is not used to deny the reality of the self, but to describe conditioned phenomena as not being the self. Therefore, the correct translation of anatta is not ‘no self’, but ‘not self’.

Indeed, it makes sense for the doctrine of anatta to be a practical strategy and not a metaphysical assertion. After all, it was not in the Buddha’s interests to teach metaphysics, but to help people to overcome suffering:

Both formerly and now, it is only stress that I describe, and the cessation of stress. (SN 22.86, trans. Thanissaro, 2004)

As a practical strategy, the doctrine of anatta teaches one to avoid falsely identifying oneself with conditioned phenomena, and thus to free oneself from attachment. It also helps one to overcome greed, for if even this body and this mind do not genuinely belong to me, how could I possibly justify being strongly attached to material possessions? Finally, I argue that it promotes respect and compassion for others, for the recognition of the insubstantiality of the material differences between people encourages one to respect others as being equal and to treat others as one would wish to be treated. When viewed in this light, one is able to appreciate what a wonderful teaching the doctrine of anatta is.

References

Thanissaro B (2002). “When You Know for Yourselves…” in The Karma of Questions. Metta Forest Monastery. 2002.

This essay originally appeared, here.

1. Pali for nirvana

Some terms come with a built-in halo. We use words like inclusive, liberation, empowerment, and diversity to characterize that which we aim to praise. For example, when a murderer gets off on a technicality, we say that he has been released rather than liberated. A club that welcomes membership from all who should be invited is inclusive, whereas one which denies membership to some who are entitled to it is exclusionary. Importantly, a club that has a highly restricted membership but does not deny membership to anyone who is entitled to it is not exclusionary, but exclusive. A club is exclusionary when it unjustifiably denies membership to some; it is exclusive when its membership is justifiably limited. In short, many terms do double-duty as both descriptive and evaluative. Or, to put the matter more precisely, some terms serve to describe how things stand from an evaluative perspective.

This is not news. However, it is worth noting that a lot can be gained from blurring the distinction between the descriptive and evaluative senses of such terms. For example, when one succeeds at describing an institution as exclusionary, one often thereby succeeds at placing an argumentative burden on those who support it. Now supporters of the institution in question must not only make their case in favor of the institution; they must also make an additional argument that it is not, in fact, exclusionary. Sometimes what looks like argumentative success is really just success at complicating the agenda of one’s opponents.

The point works in the other direction, too. When one successfully casts a policy as one which furthers diversity and empowers individuals, one has already made good progress towards justifying it. Very few oppose diversity and empowerment, and so a policy which is understood to embrace these values is to some extent ipso facto justified; those who support the policy in question simply need to announce that it serves diversity and empowerment. This is vindication by association.

The trouble with halo terms is that their power derives from their vagueness. As we have noted, everyone opposes exclusionary institutions and supports inclusive ones because everyone agrees that institutions should include all who should be included. And there’s the rub. There is far less agreement over the details concerning who is entitled to inclusion and why; in fact, on any issue of substance, there is great disagreement over these matters. Halo terms serve to distract away from the controversial details and towards the wholly endorsable but nearly vacuous verbal formulae: Include everyone who should be included! Permit the permissible! Do what’s right! These are not judgments so much as slogans parading as judgments.

In Philosophy, pluralism is a halo term, and it is put to use in a wide variety of contexts across a range of disciplinary sub-fields, including political philosophy, ethics, logic, metaphysics, and epistemology. But the term is used also in discussions about the nature of Philosophy itself. Sometimes, entire schools of thought are characterized as pluralistic, and others are dismissed for being “narrow” or otherwise non-pluralistic. In the arena of professional Philosophy, there is consequently a lot of jockeying for control over the term and its application. Much of this is somewhat embarrassing and rightly contested.

Naturally, trouble emerges when one tries to get a clear sense of what philosophical pluralism is. In a newly published book, Pluralism and Liberal Politics, one of us (Talisse) has tried to work through these complex issues. The term is often used to designate a commitment to a range of admirable traits, including open-mindedness and toleration. Sometimes it is also meant to convey an appreciation of diversity, or even the view that differences are good and should be encouraged. Self-identifying with the view seems, further, to correlate with other commitments, like taking underrepresented groups seriously, maintaining dialogue, and avoiding dogmatism about both the nature of Philosophy and the variety of value. Yet, in the end, all such conceptions of pluralism are vacuous. Here’s why. No conception of toleration or open-mindedness recommends those virtues across the board. Every conception of toleration identifies limits to what deserves toleration; and every conception of open-mindedness draws a distinction between possibilities that are worth being open to and those which are not. No advocate of toleration recommends that we tolerate real-world bands of armed fascists bent on world domination; no proponent of open-mindedness would suggest that we give closed-minded dogmatic bigotry a try. Every conception of toleration and open-mindedness identifies limits to what must be tolerated and seriously considered. But that is to say that on any conception of toleration and open-mindedness, there will be some views which are intolerable and unworthy of serious consideration.

Here again is the rub. Even the most dogmatic among us takes himself to be tolerant and open-minded; on his view, he tolerates everything that deserves toleration and openly considers all positions worthy of consideration. As it turns out, the dogmatist simply has far more circumscribed conceptions of what deserves toleration and serious consideration. So the disagreement between the dogmatist and others is not properly characterized a disagreement concerning the value of open-mindedness or toleration. The disagreement rather concerns the substantive matter of what the proper scope of toleration and open-mindedness is.

One may be tempted to cast the dogmatist as someone who employs an unduly narrow conception of what must be tolerated. And this may be correct so far as it goes. But, in the end, it does not go very far. Once again, every conception of the scope of toleration identifies limits to the tolerable. And for every conception of toleration, there is some other conception that charges the first with undue narrowness. To return to our original point, although our use of terms like toleration sometimes suggests that there is a simple, clean and purely descriptive way of separating out the tolerant from the intolerant, there is in the end no way of eschewing the substantive evaluative issues.

Accordingly, if pluralism is the philosophical position that recognizes differences within a given domain of philosophical inquiry and advocates toleration and open-mindedness across those differences, it is nearly vacuous. No one in Philosophy advocates intolerance and closed-mindedness; rather, philosophers differ over substantive questions concerning what kinds of differences can be plausibly seen as philosophical differences, as opposed to differences between Philosophy and something else, such as natural science or literary theory. Those who vie for the label in order to apply it to their own favored position or agenda within Philosophy are involved in political sloganeering, not meta-philosophical argument.

Yet there seems to be a paradox at the heart of the idea of pluralism as a political movement within Philosophy. Political movements must be set against an opponent. But philosophers who embrace the pluralist label present themselves as the champions of legitimate philosophical opposition, and welcoming of the full variety of philosophical difference. They are bound, then, to see their opposition as deriving from outside of Philosophy properly construed. For if they recognized the opposition between pluralists and non-pluralists as a dispute within Philosophy, they would have to embrace the legitimacy of both sides, and would have no basis for a political movement within the discipline. As it turns out, like everyone else, the self-described pluralists advocate for toleration of the tolerable, and inclusion of that which is entitled to inclusion. And it turns out that for the self-described pluralists, the category of the tolerable and to-be-included extends only as far those who see Philosophy in roughly the same way they see it.

This article originally appeared on 3 Quarks Daily.

I was recently asked if there is a form of secular meditation that I could recommend. Perhaps there is, but the reason behind this question is more interesting than the question itself. The question arises out of an understandable frustration with religion—its often dated and written-in-stone moral laws, its infighting, its lack of objectivity, and its metaphysics. But it also arises out of a sense that meditation has something to offer human society if it could be severed from its religious baggage.

However, traditional meditation itself tends to be light on religion. In classical India, meditation was an inquiry into the nature of consciousness by those who had already understood the essence of religious dogma and thus the underlying purpose behind religion’s moral codes. Meditation was to be embarked upon by those of not only good moral character (with a heart relatively free from desires/attachments), but also of the ability to distinguish between relative moral laws and their ontologically grounded principles. Thus meditation’s moral underpinning was one that positioned a contemplative to determine moral law with the ongoing application of reason relevant to time and circumstances. As a result, the mystic was not one burdened by religious law, nor was he or she immoral. The contemplative determined personal moral standards on the basis of accepting as moral that which proved favorable to meditation and rejecting as immoral that which did not. As an alternative, a purely secular morality is illusive at best. Proponents base such a morality on the belief that human life has inherent value, a stance that is no more empirically verifiable than one based upon a belief in God, as value itself lies beyond the purview of empiricism.

Meditation does not foster the kind of religious infighting that turns so many away from religion. While genuine meditative experience is varied, all such experience treads the common ground of ego effacement. It fosters a deep sense of unity with others giving rise to universal compassion. While practitioners experience nuanced differences that give rise to particular disciplines with distinct goals ranging from voidistic to theistic, the common ground of the interior experience is considerable, and all such inner experience also results in a largely unified response to the outer world, such as detachment from the temporal and compassion for all sentient beings. This unifying experience, unlike a strictly religious orientation, does not lend to the kind of infighting and even violence we see among the religious, behavior that is not conducive to the practice of meditation itself. Indeed, ahimsa, or nonviolence, is a cornerstone to the moral foundation of contemplative life. Meanwhile, secular life is no stranger to infighting, as one living being is food for another in the struggle for existence.

While both religion and mysticism are often considered entirely subjective experiences, meditation is at the same time an objective methodology, a science so to speak. It is an effort to understand the actual nature of consciousness as opposed to how one might like it to be. Thus it puts to rest the personal prejudices, emotional attachments, and partisanship that might cloud one’s inner perception of the sky of consciousness by obscuring objectivity. This is the same basic objectivity employed in any scientific undertaking. Sensual restraint and stilling of the mind assist one in turning inward to understand and experience consciousness. Of course, here I speak of a theory-driven objectivity, an effort to verify the postulate of the sacred texts as to the enduring nature of consciousness. However, we should not think that science is not also theory driven in its objectivity. Charles Darwin wrote, “How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation [objectivity] must be for or against some view [theory] if it is to be of any service.” Even the process of observation within modern science is subject to subjective human bias. Aside from this bias, which can compromise objectivity in any undertaking, science itself has shown through quantum mechanics that the observer invariably influences that which is being observed. Thus Werner Heisenberg pointed out that science is no longer the study of nature itself, but rather the study of humanity’s “investigation of nature.” So if we are to look for a more comprehensive objectivity, we must look to something that transcends humanity’s inherent biases.

As for meditation’s metaphysics, what do they really say? While different traditions may have different metaphysical ideals, these ideals only create conflict when they have not been arrived at through the common foundational experience of meditation. Thus the idea of meditation is to rise above carnal drives—to control the mind and senses in a manner that appears superhuman, if not supernatural. Its ground is pure objectivity, which gives the necessary footing to climb the mountain of spiritually subjective experience. Such attainment is tantamount to a philosophical transcendence of death. It is an ego death to be sure. And if the material ego, or identification of self as Finnish, Indian, male or female, black or white, Lutheran, Hindu, and so on is slain on the altar of meditation, we have reasonable philosophical grounds to say that self has died, while life of a different kind altogether continues on. In the words of Thomas Merton, “To renounce the pleasure of one’s dearest illusions about oneself is to die more effectively than one could ever do by allowing oneself to be killed for a clearly conceived personal ideal.”

For that matter, it is really only the philosophical arguments based on scientific materialism, as opposed to the empirical science itself, that the secularist can use to counter the transcendental claims of meditation. Surely there are many such philosophies: physicalism, epi-phenomenalism, functionalism, etc., but there are also equally credible empirically based hypotheses for an enduring consciousness.¹ Still, there is ultimately no conclusive empirical evidence that supports the idea that consciousness either does or does not transcend biological death.²

So is there really a need for a secular form of meditation? Some may still desire one and attempt to strip meditation of its metaphysics for their purposes. But that raises the question as to whether such persons are actually practicing meditation at all. In the least, meditation is aimed at ego death, nothing less. Therefore one might argue that employing meditative techniques for something less than this is not meditation at all. And if ego death is objectively desirable, giving rise as it does to compassion and other universally supported qualities, why argue with the success arising out of a religious context? If a light form of religion has proven useful in helping to foster ego death and the deathless mystic experience, what is the need to discard them?

Talk of secular meditation is one thing, but we are still waiting for the first secular mystic to arrive, one who upon attaining ego death makes no metaphysical claims about the nature of the experience. Even though Zen Buddhism and Vipassana are sometimes thought to be forms of meditation that one can engage in without attaching any metaphysical beliefs to the process, there have been no Buddhists adepts to date who, upon attaining the Buddhist goal of enlightenment, have taught us that the ego death experience itself dies with biological death. Meanwhile, from the nonsecular quarters every adept to date has described his or her experience of enlightenment as one of transcending death as well as religion.

1. The work of physicist Henry Stapp is an excellent example of credible science. His quantum interactive dualism posits a causal, non-local consciousness that arguably survives biological death. His hypothesis is well explained in his books Mindful Universe: Quantum Mechanics and the Participating Observer and Quantum Interactive Dualism: An Alternative to Materialism.
2. It is worth mentioning that the research of Pin van Lommel documented in his book Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience offers considerable evidence that consciousness is non-local and that is has no biological makeup. For more than twenty years van Lommel systematically studied near-death experiences in a wide variety of hospital patients who survived a cardiac arrest. In 2001, he and his fellow researchers published his study on near-death experiences in the renowned medical journal The Lancet. The article caused an international sensation, as it was the first scientifically rigorous study of this phenomenon. His study was later published in Consciousness Beyond Life. To date there has been no credible refutation of the study’s conclusion: that consciousness is ontologically independent of the brain.

Saints tell us that Rama and Krishna are the same person. Yet Ramacandra was the personification of perfect moral character and Krishna appeared to be a cheater in some respects. To understand this apparent contradiction, we must try to understand the meaning of lila, divine play. God can be moral or immoral in appearance, yet whatever he does is absolute good. Conversely, the moral realm is not absolute: an act that is immoral in one instance may be moral in another. Morality is the means to check the evil of exploitation arising from material attachment. If we have no such attachment, then we cannot act immorally. Such is the position of Krishna, and of Rama as well.

While Rama lila emphasizes morality, Krishna lila emphasizes the possibility of life beyond the reach of morality. It is important to be moral, but it is also important to know that moral life in and of itself is not the zenith of spiritual pursuit and that the apparent immorality of Krishna is something different altogether. Caitanya Mahaprabhu was a perfect sannyasi, moral to the nth degree, yet he meditated constantly on Krishna’s apparently immoral affairs with the Vraja gopis. In doing so, he himself was never involved in extramarital affairs. Indeed, he exhibited the morality of Rama, both as perfect householder and later as a perfect sannyasi.

Rama is a maryada purusa, a perfectly dharmic (moral) lover. He draws this from Balarama, who is the maryada purusa in Krishna’s life and is Krishna’s immediate expansion from whom all other expansions and avataras issue. Balarama is one of Krishna’s gurus. At the behest of Yasoda’s vatsalya bhakti, he makes an effort to see that Krishna behaves properly. Still, he does not interfere with Krishna’s parakiya rendezvous with Radha, which highlights the sacred, not inappropriate, nature of such meetings. But Balarama himself is not directly involved in Krishna’s parakiya rasa, and his lila with his gopis is a maryada-lila. In Prince Ramacandra we find this maryada to the extreme: he vowed to have only one wife—eka patni vrata—at a time when it was common for monarchs to have harems. Ramacandra embodies the entirety of Balarama’s maryada, while the other qualities of Balarama are not fully present in him.

Within this maryada is Rama’s love for his devotees and their love for him. Thus it is not ordinary maryada. Although this love is contained in a form of moral appropriateness, it burns brightly in rasananda (sacred aesthetic rapture) beneath the surface. Laksmana’s sakhya rasa with Rama is most touching. Even while the better part of Rama’s lila involves the search for Sita, it is Laksmana’s sakhya and more so Hanuman’s dasya that stand out. The supporting roles of Laksmana and especially Hanuman are most compelling, and Valmiki develops them beautifully. The entrance to Rama lila is in dasya bhakti, and thus for all spiritually practical purposes it is Hanuman who is the most important figure in Ramayana. This dasya bhakti, realized by the grace of Rama nama, is what we find in the heart of Valmiki Rsi.

Although the sacred aesthetic rapture between Rama and his bhaktas is the heart of Rama lila, such bhakti-rasa cannot be developed to its peak of spiritual eroticism within his lila. When Ramacandra passed through the Dandakaranya forest, the sages residing there in meditation desired to become his devotees in the emotion of transcendental eroticism. However, Ramacandra informed them that in this incarnation he was not able to fulfill their desire because he had taken a vow to have only one wife. He then told them that they could only attain this devotional status in relation to his appearance as Krishna.

As for sakhya, in Rama lila we find that the sakhya of Laksmana is not allowed to fully blossom because he is the younger brother of Rama and therefore lacks the equality that is central to sakhya rasa. The revered Krsnadasa Kaviraja therefore writes that Laksmana vowed never to take birth again as the younger brother. Consequently, as Balarama in Krishna lila he is the older brother of Ramanuja—Krishna. He is just enough older that he can assume the role of an elder at times, but the actual difference in age is negligible—so negligible that Balarama and Krishna are really equals in friendship, formalities aside. Indeed, despite the dasya and vatsalya aspects of Balarama’s love for Krishna, it is he who is Krishna’s best friend. He is the example, the very deity of brotherly love. Because he presides over vatsalya, sakhya, and dasya, we find a touch of parental love and that of a servant, but it is his sakhya that stands out. In Krishna lila he has full freedom—visrambha, pranaya—while as Laksmana in Rama lila he had to acquiesce to the sometimes unpalatable, dutiful commands of Ramacandra. Thus if our heart calls for sakhya or, more so, madhurya rasa, we must go to Krishna lila, and that through Sri Caitanya and Nityananda.

Rama lila draws us beyond Vaikuntha by speaking to us of the possibility of sakhya, vatsalya, and madhurya, even while it does not afford us those opportunities itself. In this way, it indirectly points to Krishna lila while directly offering the prospect of the dasya bhakti of Hanuman to the humanlike majesty of Rama. The realm of service to Rama is distinct from the Vaikuntha of Narayana, where the prospect is daysa bhakti to the majestic four-armed Godhead. There we find dasya and only the slightest hint of sakhya—gaurava-sakhya, friendship in awe and veneration—and no hint of proper friendship, parental, or romantic love. The hint of these possibilities comes in Rama lila, and in Sri Caitanya we find the dutifulness of Rama, even as Sri Caitanya is preoccupied with tasting and distributing the love of that great cheater, Gopijana-vallabha.

You have to become like liquid. Liquid can go into any shape. For example, when you are talking to people about spiritual life, you need to adjust your words to suit your audience. You have to understand where they are coming from, what loka (planet) they are conceptually residing on, and make your words understandable from that perspective. You have to become so fluid. And if you are living a vital spiritual life, you will be fluid enough to be able to bend down: trnad api sunicena taror api sahisnuna amanina manadena kirtaniya sada hari, “Being humble like a blade of grass, being more tolerant than a tree, expecting no admiration yet showing others veneration, you should glorify Hari constantly.” (Siksastakam 3) There is no spiritual life without humility.

True humility is nistha, the beginning of enduring spiritual experience. True humility appears not occasionally but continuously—during both the day and night, while resting and waking. Humility of this type is the beginning, nistha. At this time, the principal anarthas are gone, and you can actually remember Krishna. This kind of remembering does not mean just thinking about Krishna in your mind. It is the experience of remembering: smaranam. The experience is as if you have been here before, as if you are coming home.

The doorway to this experience is sadhu-sanga. We find in Caitanya-caritamrta, “Sadhu sanga sadhu sanga sarva sastre kaya lava matra sadhu sanga sarva siddhi haya.” Lava means a fraction of a second. In that amount of time, all perfection can come. Pujyapada Sridhara Maharaja once said that a little bit of sadhu-sanga may seem very small like an atom. But inside is great power. Just a little association has the power to change our lives. Of course, we must take advantage of such opportunities. If we do not take advantage of sadhu-sanga, we will not be able to activate our potential. When that potential does come out, the shape that it will take will be so different from what we now think of as Krishna consciousness.

Actually we cannot “think” of Krishna consciousness. It is beyond conception. For the sake of practicing, we try to get a handle on what Krishna consciousness is, but ultimately we have to go beyond the maya of conceiving. We have to understand that the whole mind has to stop for the heart to come out. Our heart is suppressed underneath the mind. All the time we are thinking, thinking, thinking, “How can I make my life better?” There is no way that whatever goes on between your ears will produce the kind of life that will satisfy you. It’s not possible. So stop thinking. Chant Krishna nama. You have to chant with this kind of faith: “There’s nothing I can do, nothing that I can think of, that will improve my situation or enable me to come closer to what I really want than by just hearing this chanting.” We should try to chant japa like this at first. In time, the heart will come out and then there will be longing for Krishna.

Many years ago in the old San Francisco temple, devotees were coming from everywhere for the Ratha Yatra. At that time I was chanting japa and I had my first experience in a small way of what I’m talking to you about: chanting Hare Krishna and not thinking. Being lost in the chanting. I found myself in a pasture with cows. Krishna wasn’t there, but I knew he was nearby. Nothing I could have thought about, for example a picture of Krishna or the Deity, could match this experience. Similarly, in the Chicago temple I was once speaking to the devotees casually after prasadam. I was so absorbed that I began to remember, to enter familiar territory in a manner that exceeded any blissful experience that I had encountered to date. I was no longer in Chicago. The lakefront was transformed and the sky itself melted into the ground and a new yet seemingly familiar landscape arose. So thinking about Krishna is good, but when the mind turns off—when bhakti takes over the mind—the self comes out and experiences itself directly in relation to Nama Prabhu.

Of course, we want a spiritual life, not just a spiritual experience. But we should have some spiritual experience that will ground us. All of your reading and all of your hearing is as valuable as it fuels your practice in such a way that you are grounded in experience. Then you will never waver, rasa-varjam raso ‘py asya param drstva nivartate (BG 2.59). This quote from the Bhagavad-gita shows that experience is the real pramana (evidence). Tasting is the pramana, and all philosophy and logic wane in comparison. We should try to practice spiritual life in good company, such that we get some experience. Every day we should be living for movement on the inner landscape, to progress from anartha-nivrtti to nistha to ruci and so on. Our spiritual life is not just what we do externally. Every day, practice in such a way that you are more eager for spiritual progress. Then you will be able to gravitate towards the essence, the heart of the whole thing: to be a devotee of Caitanya Mahaprabhu.

The following excerpt is adapted from Sri Guru and His Grace, which can be downloaded in PDF format, here.

The original spiritual master is Nityananda Prabhu. He is the general representation of guru. In the spiritual world, he is the guru-tattva principle in the four primary mellows of devotion, excluding the conjugal mellow. In madhurya-rasa, Baladeva’s representation is Ananga Manjari, the sister of Radharani.

The position of Nityananda is greater than that of Baladeva. Why? He is distributing prema, divine love. And what is prema? It is higher than all other achievements. If one can give divine love, then all others must be subordinate to him. If Krishna is subordinate to Mahaprabhu, then of course, Balarama is subordinate to Nityananda. They are similar, but when magnanimity is added, Balarama becomes Nityananda. That Balarama who can distribute divine love, who can perform that higher function, has come here as Nityananda. Our foundation must be solid and proper. Then the structure should be erected. Otherwise the whole thing will go down (heno nitai vine bhai radha krsna paite nai). We can get a solid foundation from Nityananda Prabhu.

One day Nityananda Prabhu came to Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s house in Mayapura. Mahaprabhu’s mother, Saci devi, and Visnupriya devi, his wife, were also there, as well as other devotees. Suddenly, Nityananda arrived, quite naked. Mahaprabhu managed to give him some cloth. And perhaps He was concerned that the devotees might have some misconception about Nityananda Prabhu. So, to prevent this he asked Nityananda Prabhu for his kaupina, his loincloth. He tore it up and distributed it amongst the householders that were present, instructing them, “Keep a piece of his loincloth, as a kavaca, an amulet, and tie that with a thread to your arm or wear it around your neck. Please keep it with you. Then you will be able to achieve sense control very soon.” Nityananda Prabhu has control of his senses to the extreme degree; he does not know anything of this world. His vairagya, indifference to the world of mundane transaction, is of such a degree that he can appear naked amongst both male and female. So, the grace of Nityananda Prabhu will construct a firm foundation for us. If there is a firm foundation, then we may build a great structure over it. If we have faith in Nityananda, then that faith can bear any amount of weight. It won’t betray us.

To get the grace of Nityananda Prabhu, we should try as far as possible to study the character of Sri Gauranga Mahaprabhu, to serve him, to serve his dhama, and his devotees. That will easily help us attain the grace of Nityananda Prabhu. And there will always be so many practical dealings in our present stage, but we must always keep the highest ideal over our heads. With this ideal we shall be able to make progress. Our ideal, our highest model – that is our all in all in life. To be acquainted with the conception of the highest ideal and to be on the path of realization of that goal is the greatest wealth in one’s life.

So, Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada has laid stress amongst the Westerners on devotion to Nityananda. First, we must get his mercy. And then, afterwards, we can get the mercy of Radha-Krishna. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu means Radha-Krishna (sri krsna caitanya radha-krsna nahe anya). First achieve the mercy of Nityananda Prabhu, and then Gauranga Mahaprabhu, and then Sri Radha Govinda. In these three stages, we must raise ourselves up.

The following is an adapted excerpt of Swami Tripurari’s upcoming commentary on the mangala-carana slokas of Sri Caitanya-caritamrta.

Typically, the avataras who teach the dharma of each yuga appear in the world through Mahavishnu. As the primal purusa of this world, he is a prominent yet partial manifestation of Bhagavan Narayana, who is a person of many faces. The many faces of Narayana appear in the world for different purposes: for lila, for establishing dharma, and so on. In this way, they assist him in his form of Mahavishnu, the compassionate overseer of the world.

Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s descent is somewhat different from that of other avataras in that he is none other than svayam-bhagavan Sri Krishna, the source of Narayana, who is himself but one of Krishna’s many faces. Nonetheless, when Mahaprabhu appears in the world, he does not defy convention. Thus he appears at the request of Advaita Acarya, the Mahavishnu of Gaura-lila.

Krsnadasa Kaviraja relates how Advaita Acarya, who at the time was arguably the leading Vaishnava in West Bengal, expressed frustration at the impiety of the general public and its ambivalence, if not opposition, to the practice of Sri Krishna sankirtana, the dharma of Kali-yuga. His frustration in turn gave rise to immense compassion. As empathy more readily arises in one closer to suffering, Advaita Acarya, the overseer of a world of suffering, is a veritable abode of compassion. By contrast, Krishna’s world revolves around his love for Radha, a love that renders him devoid of any tangible experience of the suffering of others and thus arguably less capable of directly expressing compassion.

Descending at Advaita’s request and fulfilling the role of yuga-avatara, Sri Caitanya is naturally full of compassion for the world’s inhabitants and their perpetual suffering in cycles of birth and death. But this aspect of Mahaprabhu is only one side of his descent, constituting his external reason for incarnating. While secondary, this role as yuga-avatar is unique, as it is no doubt informed by his internal reason for incarnating, to taste the highest form of divine love—ujjvala-rasa—that is the domain of Sri Radha. Here we find a theistic ladder of love on which compassion for worldly suffering lies at the bottom rung and the prema of Radha is the final step into a love that is unlimited and ever-expanding.

The compassion of Sri Krishna Caitanya is saturated with prema. As the yuga-avatara, he not only benedicts the world with a means of deliverance from its karmic web through Krishna sankirtan, but also grants entrance into the ujjvala-rasa of his intimate circle of devotees, a dispensation that is atypical of a yuga-avatara.Thus, the combination of Sri Krsna Caitanya’s exalted prema, along with his compassion, is the combination of madhurya (sweetness) and audarya (magnanimity) that leads to the possibility of drowning the entire world in love of God, and it is Sri Advaita’s compassion that opens the gates to Sri Caitanya’s compassionate dispensation.

Despite his absorption elsewhere, Sri Advaita asks Krsna to show compassion to his constituents, a request Krishna apparently cannot refuse. However, neither can he fulfill it in any way short of a benediction that corresponds to who he is. Thus, at Advaita’s request, Sri Krishna Caitanya fulfills the role of the yuga-avatara and then some, blessing the world with the opportunity to taste ujjvala-rasa.

It is one thing to bless the most qualified with the highest benediction and quite another to bless the least qualified (as people are considered to be in Kali-yuga) with the highest benediction. Sri Caitanya’s compassion is of this nature; blessing the masses—the least qualified—with the highest benediction, that which Krishna himself has come to experience. Therefore, Sri Rupa Goswami has described Sri Caitanya as the most compassionate avatara—maha vadanyaya avatara, and he blesses the world with Krishna prema—krsna prema pradaya te.

The method of worship that Advaita attached to his request was simple. He worshipped Saligram with water from the Ganges and blossoms of the tulasi. This simplicity of Advaita’s puja is notable. Kaviraja Goswami cites the Gautamiya-tantra: “Sri Krishna, who is very affectionate toward his devotees, sells himself to a devotee who offers him merely a tulasi leaf and a palmful of water.” Advaita Acarya is certainly an uncommon devotee, and his method of worship was pure. Although Ganges water and tulasi blossoms are not difficult to acquire, Advaita offered them with uncommon love, and thus the world knows something about love that in our times has never been known before.

The word gita means “song.” Just as in the Bible the Song of Solomon has traditionally been known as “The Song of Songs” because it was interpreted to symbolize the ultimate union of Israel with God (in terms of human married love), so the Bhagavad-gita is, for Hinduism, the great and unsurpassed song that finds the secret of human life in the unquestioning surrender to and awareness of Krishna.

While the Vedas provide Hinduism with its basic ideas of cult and sacrifice and the Upanisads develop its metaphysic of contemplation; the Bhagavad-gita can be seen as the great treatise on the “active life.” But it is really something more, for it tends to fuse worship, action and contemplation in a fulfillment of daily duty that transcends all three by virtue of a higher consciousness: a consciousness of acting passively, of being an obedient instrument of a transcendent will. The Vedas, the Upanisads, and the Gita can be seen as the main literary supports for the great religious civilization of India, the oldest surviving culture in the world. The fact that the gita remains utterly vital today can be judged by the way such great reformers as Mohandas Gandhi and Vinoba Bhave both spontaneously based their lives and actions on it, and indeed commented on it in detail for their disciples. The present translation and commentary is another manifestation of the permanent living importance of the gita. Swami Bhaktivedanta brings to the West a salutary reminder that our highly activistic and one-sided culture is faced with a crisis that may end in self-destruction because it lacks the inner depth of an authentic metaphysical consciousness. Without such depth, our moral and political protestations are just so much verbiage. If, in the West, God can no longer be experienced as other than “dead,” it is because of an inner split and self-alienation that have characterized the Western mind in its single-minded dedication to only half of life: that which is exterior, objective, and quantitative. The “death of God” and the consequent death of genuine moral sense, respect for life, for humanity, for value, has expressed the death of an inner subjective quality of life: a quality that in the traditional religions was experienced in terms of God-consciousness. Not concentration on an idea or concept of God, still less on an image of God, but a sense of presence, of an ultimate ground of reality and meaning, from which life and love could spontaneously flower.

Realization of the Supreme “Player” whose “Play” (lila) is manifested in the million-formed, inexhaustible richness of beings and events, is what gives us the key to the meaning of life. Once we live in awareness of the cosmic dance and move in time with the Dancer, our life attains its true dimension. It is at once more serious and less serious than the life of one who does not sense this inner cosmic dynamism. To live without this illuminated consciousness is to live as a beast of burden, carrying one’s life with tragic seriousness as a huge, incomprehensible weight (see Camus’ interpretation of the Myth of Sisyphus). The weight of the burden is the seriousness with which one takes one’s own individual and separate self. To live with the true consciousness of life centered in Another is to lose one’s self-important seriousness and thus to live life as “play” in union with a Cosmic Player. It is he alone that one takes seriously. But to take him seriously is to find joy and spontaneity in everything, for everything is gift and grace. In other words, to live selfishly is to bear life as an intolerable burden. To live selflessly is to live in joy, realizing by experience that life itself is love and gift. To be a lover and a giver is to be a channel through which the Supreme Giver manifests his love in the world.

But the Gita presents a problem to some who read it in the present context of violence and war, which mark the crisis of the West. The Gita appears to accept and to justify war. Arjuna is exhorted to submit his will to Krishna by going to war against his enemies, who are also his own kin, because war is his duty as a prince and warrior. Here we are uneasily reminded of the fact that in Hinduism as well as in Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, there is a concept of a “Holy War” that is “willed by God,” and we are furthermore reminded of the fact that, historically, this concept has been secularized and inflated beyond measure. It has now “escalated” to the point where slaughter, violence, revolution, the annihilation of enemies, the extermination of entire populations and even genocide have become a way of life. There is hardly a nation on earth today that is not to some extent committed to a philosophy or to a mystique of violence. One way or other, whether on the left or on the right, whether in defense of a bloated establishment or of an improvised guerrilla government in the jungle, whether in terms of a police state or in terms of a ghetto revolution, the human race is polarizing itself into camps armed with everything from Molotov cocktails to the most sophisticated technological instruments of death. At such a time, the doctrine that “war is the will of God” can be disastrous if it is not handled with extreme care. For everyone seems in practice to be thinking along some such lines, with the exception of a few sensitive and well-meaning souls (mostly the kind of people who will read this book).

The Gita is not a justification of war, nor does it propound a war-making mystique. War is accepted in the context of a particular kind of ancient culture in which it could be and was subject to all kinds of limitations. (It is instructive to compare the severe religious limitations on war in the Christian Middle Ages with the subsequent development of war by nation states in modern times-backed of course by the religious establishment.) Arjuna has an instinctive repugnance for war, and that is the chief reason why war is chosen as the example of the most repellent kind of duty. The Gita is saying that even in what appears to be most “unspiritual” one can act with pure intentions and thus be guided by Krishna consciousness. This consciousness itself will impose the most strict limitations on one’s use of violence because that use will not be directed by one’s own selfish interests, still less by cruelty, sadism, and mere blood lust.

The discoveries of Freud and others in modern times have, of course, alerted us to the fact that there are certain imperatives of culture and of conscience which appear pure on the surface and are in fact bestial in their roots. The greatest inhumanities have been perpetrated in the name of “humanity,” “civilization,” “progress,” “freedom,” “my country,” and of course “God.” This reminds us that in the cultivation of an inner spiritual consciousness there is a perpetual danger of self-deception, narcissism, self-righteous evasion of truth. In other words the standard temptation of religious and spiritually minded people is to cultivate an inner sense of rightness or of peace, and make this subjective feeling the final test of everything. As long as this feeling of rightness remains with them, they will do anything under the sun. But this inner feeling (as Auschwitz and the Eichmann case have shown) can coexist with the ultimate in human corruption.

The hazard of the spiritual quest is of course that its genuineness cannot be left to our own isolated subjective judgment alone. The fact that I am turned on doesn’t prove anything whatever. (Nor does the fact that I am turned off.) We do not simply create our own lives on our own terms. Any attempt to do so is ultimately an affirmation of our individual self as ultimate and supreme. This is a self-idolatry which is diametrically opposed to “Krishna consciousness” or to any other authentic form of religious or metaphysical consciousness.

The Gita sees that the basic problem of man is his endemic refusal to live by a will other than his own. For in striving to live entirely by his own individual will, instead of becoming free, man is enslaved by forces even more exterior and more delusory than his own transient fancies. He projects himself out of the present into the future. He tries to make for himself a future that accords with his own fantasy, and thereby escape from a present reality which he does not fully accept. And yet, when he moves into the future he wanted to create for himself, it becomes a present that is once again repugnant to him. And yet this is precisely what he has “made” for himself—t is his own karma. In accepting the present in all its reality as something to be dealt with precisely as it is, man comes to grips at once with his karma and with a providential will that, ultimately, is more his own than what he currently experiences, on a superficial level, as “his own will.” It is in surrendering a false and illusory liberty on the superficial level that man unites himself with the inner ground of reality and freedom in himself which is the will of God, of Krishna, of Providence, of Tao. These concepts do not all exactly coincide, but they have much in common. It is by remaining open to an infinite number of unexpected possibilities which transcend his own imagination and capacity to plan that man really fulfills his own need for freedom. The Gita, like the Gospels, teaches us to live in awareness of an inner truth that exceeds the grasp of our thought and cannot be subject to our own control. In following mere appetite for power, we are slaves of our own appetite. In obedience to that inner truth we are at last free.

In his acceptance address for the Nobel prize in literature, Alexander Solzhenitsyn cited a Russian proverb: “One word of truth outweighs the whole world.” He also quoted Dostoyevsky: “Beauty will save the world.” If one word of truth outweighs the whole world, the world must be very false. But this truth is unpalatable, given the extent of beauty in this world. So much is this so that we cling to the beauty of the world, even when we are told the simple yet profound truth that it will not endure. How then will beauty save us, when attachment to it seems to be the cause of samsara, suffering in rounds of repeated birth and death? For Dostoyevsky, beauty will save us because its manifestation in art, literature, poetry, and the like is a semblance of the divine beauty that truth must ultimately personify. The aesthetic experiences of reading great literature, viewing a drama, and reciting poetry are experiences of the threshold of transcendence. Having tasted a drop of truth, we will be driven to drink deeply from its cup.

The quest for the beauty of the world no doubt must be balanced with the harsh truth—the knowledge—of its ephemeral nature. But there must be more to truth than this if it is to save us. The harsh truth of the ephemeral is its inability to deliver enduring beauty. This, however, is but “one word of truth.” It no doubt outweighs the entire experience of the ephemeral world, but it is not the whole truth. And half truth, we are told, is worse than no truth at all. If we are to live in the light of truth, that truth must be inherently beautiful. It must possess the full face of beauty, which truth’s mere triumph over falsity lacks. The beauty of the world is what makes life worth living, and this tells us that without beauty even truth is lifeless. If truth is merely the negation of the material world—“Not this, not that” cry the Upanisads—can we live in the void that is thus created, forever silent and still? To do so is the idea of those who tread Vedanta’s path of knowledge. Realizing the emptiness in the world’s apparent fullness is itself a profound fullness, but as the Buddha says, it is merely the fullness of emptiness. If we move from negative numbers to zero, then zero appears to have positive value. But are there positive numbers as well? This is the question raised by those who tread Vedanta’s path of love—bhakti, with whom I concur.

It is our quest for beauty—real, enduring beauty—that will save us from settling for only the few words of truth that render the world false. This quest will move us from zero to an infinity of positive values. It should drive us onward to the whole truth of infinite conscious beauty, about which one cannot say enough. The great stalwart on the path of knowledge, Sankara, reasoned “consciousness is truth, the world is false.” But this is not enough, nor is the world altogether false.  We must progress from this half truth to the whole truth of the beauty of consciousness in its fullest expression, a beauty whose mere reflection is the charm of the world. It is this beauty, the reality behind the reflection, that India’s sacred Upanisads and devotional Vedanta refer to when they speak of Krishna. Sri Krishna, the speaker of the Gita, is, in Hegel’s terminology, “reality the beautiful”; in Upanisadic language “Krishna is sacred aesthetic experience—rasa.” And we are to drink from the fountain of beauty and charm that is Krishna, one in purpose with the center, while taking our proper place on the circumfrance in eternal service to the center. Knowledge that turns us from the temporal and the exploitation of the world to the inner self—the atma—is but a stepping stone to the dance of love. Really, love is the highest knowledge. In love there is something to do. And in love one knows what to do, not merely what not to do.

This article was adapted from Aesthetic Vedanta: The Sacred Path of Passionate Love.

Guidance must come from those above you. It is very rare, but it is most valuable to us. Whatever directions are coming from above, we must selflessly embrace that as all in all. This is the clue: this is the key to the hidden treasures in your heart. I will not work with my whims or serve men on my level. But we shall very eagerly obey what directions will come from the above plane. This is service proper and it will be a real help for progressing on the path of dedication and self-giving.

What is necessary for our progress is very rarely to be found. It comes from a higher plane and we must surrender ourselves to substantiate that reality within us.

viracaya mayi dandam dinabandho dayam va
gatir iha na bhavattah kacid anya mamasti
nipatatu sata-kotir nirbharam va nayambhas
tad api kila payodah stuyate catakena

The Cataka bird is a kind of bird that drinks only rain water from above. This class of bird is always looking high in the sky for rain drops to fall. There may be much water available here on the ground, but this bird will not take a drop. They are waiting for that rain water which comes from above. Sufficient rain water may come, or thunder may come, but still they will not take a single drop from the earth.

Our attitude should be like this. Whatever directions will come from above for us to do, we shall take that on our heads as our life and soul. But we shall never take any plan from this mundane world. The Director, the Master, the Lord is there and I am connected with Him. This sort of practice is helpful. We may take the Holy Name, or hear the devotional musical chants, but the very life will be that it is coming from the above place; and I am carrying out that order.In this way, I may be taken above to the higher planes. I shall be directed to the higher layers and I may go there eternally. I am preparing myself only to carry out this spotless, uncolored order and surrender without any questioning. If we are sure it is coming from the higher layer, then we shall live selflessly at his disposal. We want selfless service to the higher and not to any mundane source. This is what is necessary for real progress in the line of self-dedication and self-giving. This is service. Many signs and symptoms are there to indicate the higher directions descending from Gurudeva. We shall whole-heartedly embrace the directions given by Gurudeva.

The sum and substance is that by obeying the directions from the higher, we can make progress towards the higher planes. By serving the higher, we can hope to be selected by the higher. We may then be taken up into that higher layer if we are considered qualified through our dedication. If we want to go towards that high, high, super-conscious region, then this is the process of self-giving that will be the main tenure of our lives. Revealed truth is necessary. No intelligence or reason can be applied here. If we apply any reason, then we will be nowhere. A man who is expert in argument will defeat another man not so qualified in argument, but the truth remains regardless. Intellect and reason have no position there because truth, super-consciousness, and dedication do not come within the jurisdiction of intellect, logic, and reason.

We can invite that high guest only by serving, by honoring, by self-giving, by heart-giving and never otherwise. It is not possible to enforce, to capture or to encase him by any intrigue or by any conspiracy. This will have the opposite effect. This is considered as Satan in another color. God realization means saranagati, self-surrender unto him. We can approach him not only through self-abnegation, but with deep self-surrender. This self-surrender, saranagati, will take us in connection with the higher, nobler substance. This self-surrender, self-giving is to be cultivated at all cost. Service is to God, and not to misconception, maya. We must be very careful that we are not serving maya in a charming form. In the form of God – in a godly form – some maya is coming to take us away from our service. So, in our present position, we must very carefully consider the propriety of our service – that to whom we are giving that service are not themselves serving maha-maya.

So, jnane prayasam udapasya namanta eva. To hatefully give up all proposals that the intellect will offer to you. To hatefully throw out what your intellect will come to propose to you. What the intellect will be able to judge and accept or not accept, that must be of a lower type. So, summarily you are to reject that and understand you must bow down your head, namanta eva. We are to approach the higher substance in this way.

The beginning of your real self-interest is to bow down your head, capturing your heart automatically. Try to connect with that section where you will always be with folded palms as a servant and never as a master. Such abnegation, such courage of self-giving is necessary if you want to live in the higher plane. Otherwise, you will become a master and reign in hell. In Satan’s words, “It is better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven.” But, in wholesale self-giving, just the opposite is necessary.

Even tears and cries will have no value if the inner tendency of self-giving is not awakened there. Seva, service, is self-giving—this is the main principle of life in the devotee. This self-giving is really meant towards the higher planes and not here and there around us in this mortal word. Otherwise, in another way, this self-giving tendency may be captured by the hateful things of this perishable world. Jnana, knowledge, is supposed to be very, very pure and free from doubt. In the majority of persons, knowledge is considered very innocent as it does not mix with these gross material things. The higher personalities consider knowledge to be very pure, very innocent, and spotless. But, if this knowledge is not connected with Krishna, then it must be rejected. In Srimad Bhagavatam it is written:

naiskarmyam apy acyuta-bhava-varjitam
na sobhate jnanam alam niranjanam

“Knowledge is widely considered as pure, innocent and spotless. But if it is not connected with the positive absolute good, then it is your enemy and it will devour you.”

You are to consider like that, then you will become a qualified candidate. This is jnana-sunya-bhakti, self-surrender, is so pure that even connection with knowledge that is considered to be very innocent and spotless is also rejected. Such a degree of self-surrender is necessary for the higher association of devotion proper. Jnana-karmady-anarvrtam, the charm of material acquisition and the charm of mastery, of knowing everything are both rejected. We do not know anything in the infinite, even in magnitude or quality. We cannot know anything in the infinite. It is a flow of autocracy. What can we know?Knowledge means not to store so many false incidents and sell them to the world for some name and fame. No! That is to be hatefully rejected, given up. But, service—unconditional self-giving—is noble and will take you to the higher, super-conscious region. Jnana and karma are both discouraged. We are discouraged from handling matter and knowledge. Knowledge will not apply in that plane of dedication. That is the plane of absolute will, the flow of absolute autocracy and no rule or regulation can work there. So, false gathering, false storing has got no value there, no market value. Indeed, no market is there! Therefore, only by self-surrender, self-giving will you have such high quality of devotion. So, a serving, a self-giving attitude is our friend. We are a unit of serving attitude and service means to surrender to the higher. The higher means uncontaminated with material and intellectual acquisition. This sort of higher devotion swiftly carries us to Krishna’s divine abode where love, beauty, and charm reign supreme.