Whose side are you on?

Moral Imperative

It has been typical of theologians and even such philosophers as Kant to rush into the moral imperative, to discover the divide between good and evil. This leads us to conceive reality in an almost manichean sense: black and white, good and evil, right and wrong, sin and piety. And while the strict dichotomy between good and evil has been rejected as the Manichean heresy, the fight between right and wrong nonetheless predominates for its simplicity.

Which Side are you on?

We all love arguments. It's strange that while it only takes a moment to form an opinion, we will spend a lifetime defending it. 

"I'm right, you're wrong!" If I disagree with you on some political position, on say a local traffic problem, instead of working through the relevant arguments, it’s easier to pigeon-hole me in terms of black and white. Am I a conservative or a liberal, a democrat or a republican? 

I am forced to choose sides. Either part of the solution or part of the problem. Or as Nobel-prize winning poet Bob Dylan once said, "He not busy being born is busy dying." Many arguments are reduced to trivia by this sort of analysis. 

Either/or is an attractive way to frame logical arguments. Scientists do their best to frame phenomena in terms of rational and irrational. As soon as a question looks irrational, there is no need to consider it, since it is outside the purview of reason and therefore “nonscientific,” by defnition. 

The either/or approach to reality is incredibly useful and so we try to stick to it whenever possible. Unfortunately it begins to fall apart in human situations. Does a mother love her children. Yes or no? The answer is usually yes. But does she love each child equally? Well, there are gradations.

Good and Evil, Black and White, "Us" vs. "Them"

Leaving side the discussion of the relationship between conscious living energy and inert matter, most religions focus on the problem of good and evil.  "Whose side are you on? Satan or the Church?" The focus on good and evil obscures the issue: our involvement with material nature is more subtle than we think.

Either/Or paradigm

The either/or paradigm is simple. It dismisses subtlety and reduces everything to a choice between yes or no. Accept Jesus and enjoy eternal life or reject him and burn in hell forever. This is not, of course the nuance position of a fully developed theology. And yet such a polarized version is often preached from the pulpit around the world. It is not that Christianity is necessarily reductive; rather we may think that the average worshipper is interacting with his community at the social level where one chooses; he wants something simple and easy to understand. 

The formulas of dogma and socially-conscious religion are designed to give some comfort and guidance to those who move on this level. It may be said that just as humans move through different levels of consciousness their social and religious institutions are adapted for those levels.

Primitive Religion: Social and Religious Institutions

So basic tribal communities who worship fire may have a basic grasp of religious principles and morality at a primary level; at the manomaya level. At this level religion might be what is good for the community. The greater good of the tribe constitutes “right” and what violates the taboos of the tribe is “wrong.” 

Moral Imperatives:  Black and White

Black and white is easy. Color is more complex. Anyone who has tried his hand at drawing and then painting understands my point. Even black and white is not as simple as it seems at first glance. Black and white drawing may include shades of gray, chiaroscuro, values and gradation. But it is always easier to frame an argument in terms of black and white.

Gradations vs. Black and White

Yes and no, black and white, work well for most situations. But, for example, at the quantum level is light a wave or a particle? Well, it depends. It could be both. An appreciation for higher levels of subtlety is necessary at higher levels of thought. I'm not saying that good and evil don't exist, but that there is a higher reality.

Color vs. Black and White

The first time this was brought home to me in a very powerful way was when I was working at Guardian of Devotion Press in San Jose, California. We had had moderate success at publishing our own books. There is an adage in publishing that “Freedom of the press is guaranteed for one who owns a press.” In fact we had already faced some opposition from those who would censor our message. One of the printing companies we had gone to objected to what we had said about Jesus and refused to reprint our book. In the end, we decided to buy our own printing press. We invested a chunk of money in a beautiful Heidelberg Kord. When the day came, I asked my boss, “Who’s going to run the press?” and he said, “You are.”

More than 2 Variables

I had no experience in the matter, but how difficult could it be? Two weeks later, having studied the manual carefully and having read everything I could on printing, I fired up the press. It was a mess. I was confronted by a problem that went beyond either/or. There were too many variables. Ink viscosity vs. fountain solution feed, vs. roller pressure, static electricity, paper thickness. It appears that there were a number of subtle adjustments that might render a wide gamut of results. While I had had success in running a photo-typesetter, correcting problems with photographic paper and developing chemicals, I was baffled. And printing in color? Amazingly complex. We hired a professional.

The world is not black and white

The world is not black and white. A proper analysis of reality is not merely a question of logic vs. illogic. Physics may work fine when avoiding the question of consciousness as long as the problem is restricted to exploding gas. But try to decode the biological world with physics. It won’t make any sense. Perhaps this is why manicheanism was declared a heresy in the first place. It is not a philosophy supple enough to solve real life problems.

Levels of consciousness, koshas and gunas.

A deeper analysis reveals that there are further gradations. If it is superficial to see the world in terms of "Black and White," it is  primordial to go deeper. Beyond the quotidian politics of the world of exploitation a bit of introspection reveals something about our inner life.  Beyond the Either/or mentality of me vs. you, or us vs. them, self-analysis reveals that there is gradation everywhere. An example of this is in the world of consciousness. Here we find different coverings to the immortal soul. In Sanskrit these are called "koshas."

The six “koshas” are classifications that help us analyze reality in terms of consciousness. As we have seen annamoya refers to almost dormant states of consciousness at the metabolic level, where pranamoya comprises the range of life forms that are awakened to the level of emotional consciousness. 

Manomaya begins with human life. It may be argued that there is some overlap between animals and infants at the basic inklings of the manomaya level. Jnanamoya is where the mind awakens to the intelligence and is capable of reason at the complex operational level. Vijanamoya is spiritual awakening, metacognition, an advanced understanding of the self; Anandamoya is harmony with the Supreme in bliss consciousness.

The six koshas levels, or “coverings of consciousness” are:

1. Annamoya metabolic/nervous awareness

2. Pranamoya physical and emotional awakening

3. Mannomaya mental awareness

4. Jnanamoya intellectual awakening

5. Vijnanamoya spiritual awakening through knowledge

6. Anandamaya bliss consciousness.

Bliss Consciousness

The innate nature of the soul is bliss consciousness as confirmed by Rupa Goswami: anandamoya-bhyasat. Our real self-interest will be served not by bickering over money, power, and property in this world, but by dedication to the higher power. 

As Śrīdhara Mahārāja puts it, "Our real aspiration must be to have a direct connection with him, leaving aside the charm of his created substance. We should want to negotiate how we can have a connection with the Creator himself. We should inquire whether it is possible for us to have a life and that soil. We should try to understand what are the layers of reality in that realm of consciousness, and how we can go higher and higher in that plane. We should inquire about that and find out how we can enter there. We must try to understand what is the key to the entrance into that transcendental abode. This should be the basis for search for truth. We should inquire into how to become free from both the plane of renunciation and the plane of exploitation.”