The Enemy Within

The Face of Evil and the Devil Problem

“Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste.” Sympathy for the Devil--Rolling Stones

“Mas vale diablo conocido que diablo por conocer” Mexican Proverb

“A friend of the devil is a friend of mine” Jerry Garcia

The other day I had a question from a friend:

The ‘Devil’ question.

Dear Mahayogi Prabhu can you help me with the ‘Devil’ question. Is there a Vedic Personality similar to the personification of ‘evil’ or lets say all things bad. King of the Demons maybe?? Thank you

This is a delicate question. I have no intimate knowledge of the devil. I would only be an expert on the devil if I had met him and made a pact with him. I assure you that I have done no such thing. And so, lacking intimate knowledge of the devil, I might demure from answering your query.

And yet, I seem to have a flair for considering such questions, so I shall essay an answer. I write to discover what I don’t know; sometimes I discover what I know.

The short answer to this question, as I understand it, is “No.” There is no such thing as a Vedic “Devil.” That is devil with a capital “D.” While there are a great number of small “d” devils and demons, ghouls and fiends, and even demonic “gods,” there is no personality in the Vedas or subsequent Puranic traditions quite like Satan.

So, before we go looking at the Vedic traditions of India for a parallel, perhaps it might be best to explore the Western Biblical and cultural traditions that have given us Satan.

First stop on our tour would be Manichaeism. This was a dualistic heresy started in the third century in ancient Persia. Its founder, Manichaeus (215-75) was considered divinely inspired by his numerous followers. He posits a universe balanced between two forces: Good and Evil. While good is personified by Almighty God, evil is incarnate in the devil. The universe is a conflict between good and evil; a timeless struggle between dark and light.

According to the online Catholic Dictionary, Manichaeism teaches that God is the creator of all that is good, and Satan of all that is evil. Man's spirit is from God, his body is from the devil. There is a constant struggle between the forces of good and those of evil. Good triumphs over evil only insofar as spirit rises superior to the body. In practice Manichaeism denies human responsibility for the evil that one does, on the premise that this is not due to one's own free will but to the dominance of Satan's power in one's life. https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=34725

While Manichaeism was a dualistic religious system that began with the idea of harmonizing Christian, Gnostic, and pagan elements, the system was rejected as a heresy.

The idea of an Evil Power contra-poised against God is heresy since the All-powerful Almighty can have no rival. And yet this doctrine has a strange way of hanging on. St. Augustine of Hippo, arguably the most important of the founding Church fathers followed this system. He faithfully records in his “Confessions,” that as a young man, he was a Manichean for nine years.  He later took pains to write a refutation of their ideas. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1402.htm

And yet Manichaeism lives on, in modern fundamentalist Christianity and even in Islam where adherents speak of the “Great Satan.” In modern fanaticism wherever the universe is considered a battlefield for control between an evil material god, and a good spiritual god there are elements of this ancient point of view.

Manicheaism was exorcised as heresy since while Christians might see Satan as an evil influence, even an evil “god” they couldn’t countenance the view that Satan was as powerful as Jehovah. The One God could have no rival in an Evil Being. Doctrine holds that Satan is a created being, unlike God, who is primordial. And yet, while a heretical point of view, many religion maintain the concept of a primordial struggle between good and evil.

The different strands of doctrine and faith were gathered together by the Italian poet Dante, who wove them together in his great poem La Divina Commedia with such dexterity that his view of heaven and hell tempers our own. Dante in turn influenced Milton who gave us the English view of Satan.

In his heroic attempt to “justify the ways of God to Man,” Milton may avoid the sin of Manicheaism--His Satan is never a true rival to God--and yet as a poet he well understood the need to create a compelling antagonist.

Writing sometime after Milton, the wild visionary artistic poet William BBlake went so far as to claim that Milton had unconsciously, but justly, sided with the Devil. Milton’s Satan defies the decrepit Nobodaddy of creation, saying that he prefers independence to service: “Rather rule in hell than serve in heaven.”

For Blake, the dark angel’s rebellious energy against the oppressive rule of Jehovah is purport of human existence. This view was echoed by the literary critic William Hazlitt, who decided that Milton’s Satan was “the most heroic subject that ever was chosen for a poem.”

English literary tradition from Milton to Mick Jagger has often found that the rebel angel’s Heaven-defying resistance was the mirror image of man’s own rebellion against tyranny, political or religious. The poet Shelley agreed with Blake. While allowing that Satan’s character is flawed, he maintained that Milton’s Satan is the moral superior to his tyrannical God.

This “Romantic” criticism of Milton’s Satan led to what is called the “Byronic” hero or “anti-hero” found everywhere in literature and popular culture as the “bad boy” or ambivalent hero. Examples of Byronic or Satanic heros abound from Napoleon to Batman, the “Dark Knight.”

Catholic Theologian Elaine Pagels points out in her excellent “The Origin of Satan” that Satan is not a personality. The word satan references obstacles on the path to enlightenment. According to Pagels, the traditions that have arisen around Satan is more folklore than Biblical. I quote her work extensively as follows:

“In the Hebrew Bible, as in mainstream Judaism to this day, Satan never appears as Western Christendom has come to know him, as the leader of an “evil empire,” an army of hostile spirits who make war on God and humankind alike. As he first appears in the Hebrew Bible, Satan is not necessarily evil, much less opposed to God. On the contrary, he appears in the book of Numbers and in Job as one of God’s obedient servants—a messenger, or angel, a word that translates the Hebrew term for messenger (mal’āk) into Greek (angelos). In Hebrew, the “angels were often called “sons of God” (benē ’elōhīm), and were envisioned as the hierarchical ranks of a great army, or the staff of a royal court.

In biblical sources the Hebrew term the satan describes an adversarial role. It is not the name of a particular character. Although Hebrew storytellers as early as the sixth century B.C.E. occasionally introduced a supernatural character whom they called the satan, what they meant was any one of the angels sent by God for the specific purpose of blocking or obstructing human activity. The root śṭn means “one who opposes, obstructs, or acts as adversary.” (The Greek term diabolos, later translated “devil,” literally means “one who throws something across one’s path.”)

“The satan’s presence in a story could help account for unexpected obstacles or reversals of fortune. Hebrew storytellers often attribute misfortunes to human sin. Some, however, also invoke this supernatural character, the satan, who, by God’s own order or permission, blocks or opposes human plans and desires. But this messenger is not necessarily malevolent. God sends him, like the angel of death, to perform a specific task, although one that human beings may not appreciate; as the literary scholar Neil Forsyth says of the satan, “If the path is bad, an obstruction is good.” Thus the satan may simply have been sent by the Lord to protect a person from worse harm.”

Excerpt From: Elaine Pagels. “The Origin of Satan.”

I hope I have not strayed too far from the original question by considering the development of the Devil’s “character” in Western myth and cultural tradition. But what we see in Western Christianity is a movement away metaphor. The idea of dark angels as metaphor for dark impulses hardens into a kind of comic book character: “the devil.”

This becomes all too often an escape mechanism for personal responsibility: “The Devil made me do it.”

But the Devil does not lead us into temptation. The modernist Pope Francis is leading a movement to change the Lord’s Prayer: instead of saying, “Lead us not into temptation,” he wants the prayer to read, “Let us not fall into temptation.” The idea is that “temptation” is internal. It is not caused by an external force like the Devil. In our desperation to escape responsibility for our own sins, we look for bogeymen who can take the blame. The Devil with his horns is a convenient scapegoat.

Still I am escaping my friend’s question, which was about the Vedic Personality of Evil. My intention was to first get a grip on what we mean by “Personality of Evil.”

Is there a Vedic Devil? As I have said, the short answer is “No.” There may be some good candidates. Various figures and personalities in the Puranic stories might be said to embody evil. There are many powerful demons mentioned in the histories, from the Mahabharata and Ramayana to the Bhagavat Purana. There are demons like Kumbakarana and Ravana who challenges Ram himself. Hiranyagarbha and Hiranyakashipu are good candidates. But Ram pauses in the middle of the battle to hear instructions about good government from the demon Ravana. And the Bhagavat teaches us that even such terrible demons have come to earth to teach us a lesson about the Lord’s pastimes and avatars.

After all, there is no Ram without Ravana. Without the terrible demon Hiranyakashipu there can be no deliverance of Prahlada at the hands of Nṛsimhadeva.

It has been argued that without the betrayal of Judas there would have been no sacrifice by Christ and no salvation for mankind, thereby making Judas the greatest of the apostles.

The Satanic era of dark mills and factories decried by the poet William Blake is supposed to be presided over by Kali, the dark spirit of the iron age. But only in the Age of Kali does Caitanya Mahaprabhu appear to save the fallen souls with the power of the holy name.

And if Kali is not the embodiment of sin, then who is responsible for the darkness of this age of evil? If there is no personality who causes us to do evil, then who is the culprit?

It’s an old atheist trick to accuse God of evil. If God exists, why doesn’t he do something? How can he condone the terrors of this world? Who is the source of all this horror?

To find the face of evil there is no need to seek out a devil’s mask; we have only to look in the mirror. God has not created evil as a scourge to man; we need only look within to find the fault.

God is not at fault for creating a universe filled with evil. Evil is our own creation.

To understand this, we may now turn for a moment from the problem of the personification of evil and the Devil Himself. Let’s look at the problem of evil as it is seen in the most ancient of scriptures, the Vedas.

If Western Christianity considers Evil as nascent with the Fall, a product of Adam’s temptation, a stain that blackens the soul from birth, the Vedas have distinct point of view.

“Evil” as such is seen from different perspectives. If dharma is religion and duty, then the opposite is “evil” in a sense. Adharma is bad conduct, avoidance of duty, irreligious behavior. On a social level this means rule-breaking and criminality. On a higher, more spiritual, level adharma means forgetfulness of one’s true spiritual nature or self-interest. Ignorance of self-realization is a kind of adharma. Forgetfulness of one’s eternal nature as spiritual energy is the root of all evil. Such forgetfulness is the beginning of ahaṁkara or false ego. Ego begets a dark kind of intelligence based on a perverted sense of self. This in turn engenders mental “selfishness” and choices based on lust, anger, greed, pride, illusion and envy. The point of dharma as a life-principle is to correct this forgetfulness and ignorance. But Evil as such is not an innate principle of Vedic teaching. It is not that darkness is a force opposed to light. Darkness is the absence of light--not a rival entity. Englightenment is turning toward illumination-the divine light, especially the light of God Himself, the Divine Personality of Godhead, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, Reality the Beautiful.

It is our ignorance that turns us away from light--not some supernatural angel or demon. As we reject our identity as divine light, servants of the divine God, our misidentification draws us into the shadows of false ego. And it is through false ego, misdirected intelligence, and are mind driven by false choices that we embrace the dark side. We become involved with the shadows of a kind of holographic puppet show that we accept as reality.

While the supreme may have enabled this illusion through the agency of his divine energy, called Maya, he is not responsible personally for the evils that befall us. Neither is Maya the devil. Once again, it is not that an evil force contra poised to God has created evil as an objective reality. God himself has no hand in forcing us to participate in the illusion. He has not “led us into temptation”.

According to Vedic knowledge, Maya or illusion acts as a kind of stage director providing us with the props to put on our show. Under the illusion of false ego we act as the protagonists in a shadow reality. the holographic universe projected through kind of mass hypnosis, aided and abetted by the illusory energy, and confirmed by the immanent God as Paramatma is certainly real. And yet because of its temporal nature it is unreal. The duality of the material world is real, but if the only reality is eternal, then only God and souls exist.

Maya, then, helps in the creation of our dream like existence. But Maya is not the devil.

Vedic knowledge offers us no convenient devil. If there is any devil, then, he is within us. The problem of good and evil is one of remembering our true self-interest. Spiritual life begins with understanding this principle the soul is eternal. And if the soul is eternal what relation has a living soul with the living God.

The most ancient of discussions on the nature of evil is found in the Book of Manu. in this ancient law book, Manu speaks as the primordial Man, the conscience of humanity giving the law. But while he prescribes a list of punishments for a host of evil deeds he reserves judgment on the problem of evil itself, since evil has already been defined as simply a turning away from good.

In the Christian universe there is only one life. At birth we understand with original sin. We have one short life to reform ourselves by turning away from the devil and accepting a life of redemption with Jesus Christ. If we are successful, and eternal life in heaven awaits. But if we fail, we are condemned to an eternal life in hell.

The Vedic conception has no such simple analysis. Heaven and hell and life on earth are part of an eternal cycle: the circle of birth and death. One may rise and fall on the wheel of karma, but as long as one is concerned with mortal happiness and unhappiness one is condemned to constant birth and rebirth on the wheel. Only by discovering one’s true spiritual self-interest does one become liberated from the wheel of karma. And while liberation in a general sense means becoming transcendental to the wheel of karma, there is a higher sense. True liberation means discovering one’s complete identity as an eternal servant of God, Krishna, and participation in the divine pastimes of the sweet absolute.

There is a dichotomy in the problem of Dharma. For Dharma simply means good conduct within one’s own society. Dharma can mean good participation in the world of birth and death. Insofar as good karma and good participation in the system of heaven and hell is temporary good behavior in the material world is something like good behavior in a prison. The prisoner achieves benefits through good behavior, but these benefits accrue only within the prison system. According to the Bhagavat even the merits of heaven and hell belong to the world of karma. So in a higher sense, Dharma must go beyond the good conduct required to achieve the merits of heaven.Law aims only at the good conduct aspect of Dharma. His law looks at evil and violence in terms of bad conduct which must be punished. But essential to his teaching is really the idea of “hate the sin, not the sinner.” The idea that evil is in the world is found nowhere in his philosophy. How then could there be a personification of evil? In the round cycle of eternity every soul may find redemption and no one is consigned to the flames of hell forever. The Vedic law as it pertains to the world of karma is concerned with what is to be done and what is not to be done. It contains no concept of ultimate evil and so no one personifies evil.

In general Vedic Dharma promotes compassion and mercy as virtues. Good Dharma involves moral propriety, social responsibility, compassion and generosity. Higher Dharma appeals to self-sacrifice, self abnegation, and finally dedication to God himself

if we find the ancient law of Dharma in the book of Manu, a higher analysis of spiritual principles may be found in the Bhagavad-Gita. There, Krishna defines evil as a function of different influences. This analysis is subtle.

While much Christian theology seems to view the problem of evil in terms of black-and-white hell hot and sin black, God vs. the devil Krishna not only sees scales of gray but different hues of color.

Just as all color is seen by human eyes is an effective light and shadow that can be broken into three primary colors, Krishna explains that all phenomenon falls under the influence of three primordial qualities. These qualities will develop into all the varieties of mental and physical phenomena. If evil is a function of darkness and darkness of facet of light the different colors and shadows present in our material phenomena as the stuff of matter are a consequence of the presence or absence of these different influences called gunas. The “influences” are the threads from which the holograph of material phenomenon are woven.

When the predominating influence is that of tama-guna, or that of ignorance, evil is more present than good. So the problem of human life becomes elimination of darker influences.

Insofar as we fall under the power of bad influences, we may be subject to temptation or evil. But Vedic knowledge informs us that our descent into darkness is ultimately our own personal choice. We may not blame our lack of enlightenment on any devil, natural or supernatural. Temptation, like false ego and ignorance is internal. In this sense, the enemy is within.

In a talk given on 28 November 2013

Śrīla Bhakti Rakṣak Śrīdhar Dev-Goswāmī Mahārāj advises how we can avoid our six enemies.

Śrīla Mādhavendra Purī perhaps said,

kāmādināṁ kati na katidhā pālitā durnideśās
teṣāṁ jātā mayi na karuṇā na trapā nopaśāntiḥ
utsṛjyaitān atha yadu-pate sāmprataṁ labdha-buddhis
tvām āyātaḥ śaraṇam abhayaṁ māṁ niyuṅkṣvātma-dāsye
(Śrī Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu: Paśchima-vibhāga, 2.35)

“O Lord of the Yadu dynasty, Kṛṣṇa, I have come to Your feet to explain my position. Please consider it.”

What is that position? “Kāmādināṁ kati na katidhā pālitā durnideśās: for so long I have left no stone unturned to satisfy my masters: kāma, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, and mātsarya. These inner six enemies have very cruelly and harshly exacted such a great amount of service from me. But I have not received any remuneration from them, not a drop of peace. I have not been paid anything. From time immemorial, I have been rendering service to these enemies, but up till now, I have not seen any satisfaction in their faces. They are as hard as before.

“Pālitā durnideśās: and what have I not done? Whatever they have ordered, instantaneously I have obeyed that. In the middle of night, my lord said, ‘Oh, you must go there and steal something, some fruit from there.’ ‘You must charge your enemy with a bomb.’ Krodha, anger, roused me at midnight to kill someone, and I obeyed. So what have I not done to carry out the order of these enemies living within me?

“Now I am disgusted, my Lord. I am now fully disgusted.

kāmādināṁ kati na katidhā pālitā durnideśās
teṣāṁ jātā mayi na karuṇā

“I could not satisfy or propitiate them. Na trapā nopaśāntiḥ: and in my own self, I also find that no reaction has yet come in me for that. Na trapā: I am not ashamed. Nopaśāntiḥ: I have not made any reactionary or temporary truce: ‘I will stop. I can’t do this for the time being. Give me some rest.’

“But somehow,  I don’t know why, or how, I have run to You. I have run to You! Utsṛjyaitān, somehow I have avoided their vigilant eyes and run to You.

utsṛjyaitān atha yadu-pate sāmprataṁ labdha-buddhis
tvām āyātaḥ

“I have approached You. Śaraṇam abhayaṁ māṁ niyuṅkṣvātma-dāsye: You are the real shelter who can save me from these enemies. I have felt this dictation from inside. Māṁ niyuṅkṣvātma-dāsye: please give me some engagement. If You engage me, then they will all fly away in fear. If only they hear that You have given me shelter and engagement, then, whatever their account book may say, they will fly away.”

If we can make any contact with that plane, with the nirguṇa bhūmi [land of dedication], then other plenary influences will withdraw at once.

nehābhikrama-nāśo ’sti pratyavāyo na vidyate
svalpam apy asya dharmasya trāyate mahato bhayāt
(Śrīmad Bhagavad-gītā: 2.40)

And we will be saved from great disaster.

“Please, grant me some shelter.”

That is the advice, instruction, of our Guru Mādhavendra Purī: “Anyhow, run. When they are a little unmindful of you, at that moment run, take shelter.”

Reality the Beautiful

Here's a nice verse from the Bhāgavatam for your contemplation.  Some divine hand moved me to look at this closely and I was inspired to try make a poetic translation, as an exercise.

SB 2.1.36

वयांसि तद्व्याकरणं विचित्रं मनुर्मनीषा मनुजो निवासः ।

गन्धर्वविद्याधरचारणाप्सरः स्वरस्मृतीरसुरानीकवीर्यः ॥३६॥

vayāṁsi tad-vyākaraṇaṁ vicitraṁ
manur manīṣā manujo nivāsaḥ
gandharva-vidyādhara-cāraṇāpsaraḥ
svara-smṛtīr asurānīka-vīryaḥ

vayāṁsi—varieties of birds; tat-vyākaraṇam—vocables; vicitram—artistic; manuḥ—the father of mankind; manīṣā—thoughts; manujaḥ—mankind (the sons of Manu); nivāsaḥ—residence; gandharva—the human beings named Gandharvas; vidyādhara—the Vidyādharas; cāraṇa—the Cāraṇas; apsaraḥ—the angels; svara—musical rhythm; smṛtīḥ—remembrance; asura-anīka—the demoniac soldiers; vīryaḥ—prowess.

Reality the Beautiful

The birds show us the colors of His art;

The words of Manu show us His deep thought.

His dwelling place is all of human kind.

His music is the holy songs of angels,

His violence is the war of demon nations.

Not sure if I got it right here, so here's a more expanded version. 

The Lord’s hand is everywhere. His art is seen in all the colorful birds; their splendor reminds us of His perfect beauty. His thought is found in Manu’s law whose words remind us of His intelligence.  His home is humankind; for man is made in God’s image.

His musical rhythms may be heard in the songs of the Gandharvas (heavenly musicians), the Chinnaras and Vidyadharas (celestial singers, and dancers) and all the hosts of angels who surround Him.

Their music reminds us of the divine flute-song of Śrī Kṛṣṇa. His military might is seen in all the armies of the Asuras and warlike titans. Their violence reminds us of the awesome power of God.

Here's Prabhupāda's purport:

The aesthetic sense of the Lord is manifested in the artistic, colorful creation of varieties of birds like the peacock, parrot and cuckoo. The celestial species of human beings, like the Gandharvas and Vidyādharas, can sing wonderfully and can entice even the minds of the heavenly demigods. Their musical rhythm represents the musical sense of the Lord. How then can He be impersonal? 

His musical taste, artistic sense and standard intelligence, which is never fallible, are different signs of His supreme personality. The Manu-saṁhitā is the standard lawbook for humanity, and every human being is advised to follow this great book of social knowledge. Human society is the residential quarters for the Lord. This means that the human being is meant for God realization and association with God. This life is a chance for the conditioned soul to regain his eternal God consciousness and thus fulfill the mission of life. 

Mahārāja Prahlāda is the right type of representative of the Lord in the family of asuras. None of the living beings is away from the Lord's gigantic body. Each and every one has a particular duty in relation to the supreme body. Disruption in the matter of discharging the specific duty assigned to each and every living being is the cause of disharmony between one living being and another, but when the relation is reestablished in relation with the Supreme Lord, there is complete unity between all living beings, even up to the limit of the wild animals and human society.

 Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu displayed this living unity in the jungle of Madhya Pradesh, where even the tigers, elephants and many other ferocious animals perfectly cooperated in glorifying the Supreme Lord. That is the way to peace and amity all over the world.

Our dedication is to the ideal

Attachment to Ignorance

Confessing one’s ignorance is easy. Admitting one’s mistakes is more difficult. Often we will fight for years for an opinion we formed in only seconds. This, then, is the mark of true ignorance: to ignore all evidence which runs contrary to an opinion. This kind of ignorance is the worst kind of fanaticism.

The other day a student told me, “Class is over.” I checked my watch. “There’s two more minutes,” I said. “No, teacher.”

They showed me the internet time on a new cell phone. I checked my watch again. It’s an old windup watch my brother gave me, a Soviet Polyot. He told me he won it from a Russian submarine captain in a poker game. I had to admit my old tick tock watch was wrong. The student had his way; class was dismissed. An honest man admits his mistakes. When the teacher is wrong he looks for guidance from some higher authority.

I consulted Śrīdhar Mahārāja once, about blindly obeying teachers. What if a teacher is wrong, but insists on his ignorance? Shall we go on blindly following? After all, we are supposed to take the words of the guru very seriously.

He told me to imagine being on a train. If I go a few stops and feel the train is going in the wrong direction, what do I do? I can ask the other passengers and find out where the train is going. But once I am convinced that I am on the wrong train going in the wrong direction, do I stay on the train?

Or do I watch for the next stop, get off, and look for a train going in the right direction?

Our dedication is always to the ideal; not to the institution. The institution may betray us. New directors come and go. But we must remain chaste to our high ideal. We do not wish to make the perfect the enemy of the good. We must be practical and do our best to advance the ideals of the mission. But when there is a clash between the mission and its ideals, we must eventually choose the ideal or lose the mission.

We may criticize an institution only so far as we have power to change it. And we are powerless, we may seek backing from a higher power. But when there is neither power to change, nor higher authority to help us promote the ideal, then we have no choice but to go alone and seek out like-minded souls when we meet them.

It may be pointless to get off the train in the middle of nowhere. We may need to ride to the next big station to reverse our course. But at some point it is disaster to continue going in the wrong direction.

Our most precious capital in life is our time. We cannot afford to waste our time in following the wrong path. As soon as we understand where the right path is we must take it or pay the consequences. Progress means elimination and new acceptance. And opportunities come but once.

As Shakespeare put it:

“There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.”

Our short life is a special opportunity to discover meaning, to seek truth, to become enlightened. Attachment to ignorance is an obstacle along the path.

I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now.

Knowledge and Ignorance

by Michael Dolan, B.V. Mahāyogi

I think it was Socrates who said “the only thing I’m sure of is that I know nothing,” although he was echoed by Newton over a thousand years later. When Sir Isaac was awarded some recognition for his knowledge, he accepted saying “Well, the difference between us is that you think I know something, where I know I am quite ignorant. That puts me in a better position than you, so I accept the prize.” I’m sure I’ll get lots of corrections from friends who remember it differently. But my point is about knowledge and self-knowledge.

Dylan had a good line: “I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.” Mark Twain noted, “When I was twenty I thought my father was a complete idiot. When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

I was absolutely convinced that I knew everything when I was in my twenties. As I grow older I am convinced that I know very little if anything.

I have friends who assure me that the earth is flat, that the sun goes around the earth, and that we never went to the moon. Others tell me that vaccines are bad for you, that we should all carry fire-arms, that Coca Cola causes cancer but cider vinegar cures it.

As a teacher I have learned from my students that young people always have all the answers and never lie. Meantime, the television assures me that the Mexican Peso will never be devalued that the President’s wife is chaste and that the President himself is an honest man. While surfing the internet I discover that Christian men are destroying their coffee machines to support the election of a child molester in Alabama. Americans paused the mass murder of fellow citizens to celebrate a day of Thanksgiving, honoring the memory of the native peoples who were murdered while we were stealing their land to construct our cities.

My Mexican friends always wonder about Thanksgiving. It’s a holiday they don’t quite understand. If I tell them it’s a day when families get together they wonder why don’t they get together on other days? I explain about the turkey and the big dinner, but no one believes me. Turkey, they feel, is not delicious. Besides it’s a mess to prepare. How could there be such a big deal about eating turkey?

Well, I explain, it’s all about the pilgrims and the Indians. I tell them the story of “Squanto the Indian” and how he helped the first colonists survive the bitter winters of Virginia.

But my Mexican friends are not fooled. They know what happened to the “Indians” and how they were massacred and exiled to Mexico. Many tribes escaped the reservation by going South to the Sonoran desert. Why would the Gringos have a feast day in their honor? Thanksgiving hysteria can’t possibly be based on family, food, or Indians.

I throw up my hands and confess my ignorance. My friends are sad they have put me on the spot and are left scratching their heads. There must be some reason the Gringos go crazy on this day in November, but they can’t get their heads around it.

I must confess at this point that I do not eat turkey or spend the day sitting around a table repeating platitudes about “family” and “giving thanks.” You should know by now from reading this blog that I’m a card-carrying Hare Krishna, and Thanksgiving is not a day on my holy calendar.

Thanksgiving is not a day on the Vaishnava Calendar

I don’t even eat meat, much less turkey. This has provoked any number of discussions and family arguments whenever I have gone home to be with relatives for the holiday season.

But I have learned not to argue with or preach to family members. It only brings grief. As Andrew Carnegie once said, “The man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.”

And yet, I have found that even amongst the Krishna people there are disagreements. While I try to adhere to a strict vegetarian diet, my friends tell me that sugar is poison, gluten is worse than poison, genetic tomatoes cause mutation, and that Monsanto is the devil. Cookies and macaroni contain eggs, processed cheese has rennet--an animal ingredient, and even bread is based on yeast which is a tiny animal. So one must not eat meat, fish, eggs, macaroni, cookies, coffee or tea, and even milk produces animal cruelty. The poor cows. Fasting is a virtue.

On the other hand, I am told, Veganism is bogus, we are not members of the cow protection society, and that one must eat to keep one’s strength up for preaching. It’s hard to know what to eat anymore.

While I consider myself “well-read,” I am also ignorant of the many conspiracy theories that explain why the world is drifting into a bad place. Apparently NASA scientists in league with the Deep State have brainwashed us into believing that the world is round and that satellites work.

Friends assure me that The New York Times and Harvey Weinstein were responsible for 911 and that professional actors involved in perception management staged the recent massacre in Las Vegas. I’m not sure this stuff really withstands journalistic scrutiny, but I don’t think I can really trust the news anymore.

It’s amazing how ignorant I am. My lack of knowledge is astounding. What a conundrum. I have spent a lifetime reading, studying, and trying to learn. But where once I was convinced I knew absolute everything, now, I’m not so sure.

This predicament reminds me of the words of Bhaktivinod Thakura, the great Bengali saint and teacher. Having spent his life as a high court judge, Bhaktivinod later decided to dedicate everything to the devotional life. In his song cycle Sharanagati, He laments the time he spent in learning and reconciles himself to surrender in divine love:

Bhaktivinod Thakura as High Court judge

1.bidyara bilase katainu kala,
parama sahase ami
tomara carana, na bhojinu kobhu,
ekhona sarana tumi

2. porite porite, bharasa barilo
jnane gati habe mani
se asa bifala, se jnana durbala
se jnana ajnana jani

3. jada-bidya jato, mayara vaibhava,
tomara bhajane badha
moha janamiya, anitya somsare,
jibake karaye gadha

4. sei gadha ho’ye, somsarera ‘bojha,
bhavinu aneka kala
bardhakye ekhona, sakti na abhave,
kichu nahi lage bhalo

5. jibana jatana, hoilo ekhona,
se bidya abidya bhelo
abidyara jwala, ghatilo bisama,
se bidya hoilo selo

6. tomara carana, bina kichu dhana,

somsare na ache ara
bhakativinoda, jada-bidya chari
tuwa pada kare sara

Confidently, I spent my time in the pleasures of mundane learning and never worshiped Your Lotus feet, O Lord. Now You are my only shelter.

Reading on and on, my hopes grew, for I considered material knowledge to be life’s true path. How fruitless was that hope, and how feeble that knowledge proved to be. I know now that all such knowledge is ignorance.

Knowledge of this world is knowledge born of Your illusory energy (maya). It impedes devotional service and makes an ass of the eternal soul by encouraging his infatuation with this temporary world.

Here is one such ass who for so long has carried on his back the burden of material existence. Now in my old age, for want of the power to enjoy, nothing pleases me.

Life has become agony now, my knowledge has proven itself worthless, and ignorance has penetrated my heart with the intolerable, burning pain of a pointed shaft.

O Lord, I seek no other treasure in this world than Your lotus feet. Bhaktivinoda abandons everything to make them the sum and substance of his life.

Bhaktivinod Thakur as devotee dedicated in surrender

Atma and Reality

ATMA

by Michael Dolan/B.V. Mahayogi

Look into the night sky. We see the same stars and constellations that were observed by Greek astronomers eons ago. We see the stars and wonder: what if the stars could see us?

Is the universe sentient? Is the cosmos aware? Scientists are unsure of the true nature of consciousness. How we think and feel is still a mystery in spite of all attempts to decode the mind and create an artificial intelligence. If consciousness exists it seems to pervade everything. But how can life exist in the vastness of space?

In trying to unravel the mysteries of the universe we must consider: is space a new frontier or the gateway to timeless wisdom? Can it be possible that in our attempts to reach for the stars we shall finally discover the inner self?

The light you see from the stars is millions of miles distant. In fact, some of the stars in the night sky burned into supernovas centuries ago, but their light still reaches us. What you see with your eyes no longer exists. Their light is only fugitive energy from a once proud star.

Remarking on the almost supernatural power of music, Shakespeare once remarked, "Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies?" We invest almost supernatural power in mathematics. In fact our understanding of the physical reality of our universe is based on mathematics: It is a mathematical model of dead starlight. Astronomy is supposed to be a hard science, based on objectivity. But mind and matter are inseparable. And if we cannot objectively discover how mind and matter interact, then how far is subjectivity responsible for our analysis of reality? How can we know the universe if we do not know the self?

Given the materialist bent of conventional thought we begin with material reality and mind evolves out of matter. But the words mind and matter are no more than conventions. We must dive deeper to know the truth. What we hear, smell, taste, and touch is supposed to be "matter," but in many ways this concrete reality is a mental construct. We use the word "mind" to describe a wide swath of conscious phenomenon from mere sentience to emotion, humor, mood, thinking and cognitive function. But what is the true "stuff" of reality? How is it constructed? Where does it come from? And does it have any meaning?

Astronomy is the hardest of science: we study space dust eons old at the final frontiers of the universe. But then even the stars we see in our telescopes are mental constructs. Millions of light years hence many of these stars have already faded into oblivion. We examine their light as through a time machine, but the stars themselves are gone. We study long lost stars, knowing that these lights that still guide our ships no longer exist. The Hubble Space Telescope, for example, can see objects that existed only in the past. When we see a picture of a galaxy 100 million light years away we are in a sense traveling through time; we see that star system as it looked millions of years ago. How it looks today is impossible to know. Some of those stars have long since ceased to be active. They have exploded into supernovas millions of years ago and yet their light still reaches us, telling the story of a reality that no longer exists. 

While their stars burned out long ago, their light is real. And what will remain of our own sun, a million years hence? Long after the sun explodes, the light from own solar system will survive for millions of years into the future as it is beamed across the universe. Radio waves traveling at the speed of light will carry news of the first atomic wars beyond Alpha Centauri and past the Dog Star into the Orion Nebula thousands of years after the earth planet has ceased to exist. Our beamed earthly TV programs and Twitter musings will penetrate far-off planets long after this world has faded into oblivion.

Will extra-terrestrial life-forms have the intelligence to decode our civilization based on the evidence of radio waves millions of years hence? Will they be able to reconstruct our own reality as easily as we pretend to deconstruct the mysteries of the Big Bang?

And what, in any real sense, will remain of what you now see and hear and feel? The 3rd law of thermodynamics is called entropy. The idea is that any organized system tends to disorganize over time. Science tells us that the entire space-time continuum will erode into chaos, leaving nothing more than an empty, motionless void; a vast sea of nothing. In that weird nirvana time will no longer exist and space will have no content.

Our imaginary extra-terrestrial watching reruns of would be disappointed to learn that the earth no longer exists. He would certainly feel cheated if he could travel at warp speed to find a vacuum in place of a solar system. Where great civilizations once ruled he would see nothing but space dust. How easy then to conclude that it was all a lie, an illusion, a strange hologram. But if nonexistence was the rule before the universe came into being, and if everything ends in nonexistence, how could anything be said to exist? In the end our reality of concrete matter is no more than a momentary illusion, a kind of hologram.

If consciousness really is the background of all reality, the idea of a hologramatic universe is not as far-fetched as it appears to be. Our own human brain constructs a 4-dimensional hologram of reality. This version of reality is reinforced by social conditioning and a kind of mass hypnosis into an interpretation of matter, space and time.

Time is an especially difficult problem; it is certainly an aspect of this hologramatic reality; but if nothing existed in the past and nothing exists in the future, how can anything be “real”? If a thing has no existence in the future, if it had no existence in the past, how does it have any concrete existence at all? Time would seem to give meaning to existence, but while science may try to understand how and even why things work, science is neutral when it comes to meaning. To understand how things work is a different task from understanding what they mean. And insofar as science ignores meaning it ignores what it is to be human.

But as humans it is only natural for us to wonder what things mean. The French Philosopher Albert Camus felt that since life has no meaning the noblest act would be suicide. His point of view animated much of the 20th Century and continues to be felt today. Insist on the concrete nature of reality all you want. It dissolves for all of us at the moment of our death.

So what is real, after all? We want to believe in concrete reality. But stone turns to dust. What about the subjective nature of reality then? Is that the key to existence and meaning? After all, does dust evolve into consciousness? Or is this entire time and space continuum a kind of quantum hologram that depends on consciousness?

As astronomers gaze into the light of dead stars, quantum physicists in the twentieth century turned their attention to the secrets of the atom. Just as the macrocosm raises important questions about being and the origin of the universe, the microcosm holds powerful mysteries about the subjective nature of existence.

Einstein, Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi, Erwin Schrodinger, and Robert Oppenheimer were strange mystics who unleashed the secrets of the atom. Nuclear weapons and fireballs capable of world destruction were only mythical nightmares until these men showed the practical application of their insights. But while researching the freak movements of electrons and protons they stumbled on the strange world of quantum reality where the line between consciousness and matter blurs. They discovered that observations made at the subatomic level affect the very reality under study. At some point, they found, consciousness determines subatomic reality.

So, is the mind in the world? Or is the world in the mind? Is mind and consciousness a mere product of chemical and electrical transactions created in the human brain? Or does consciousness have an existence apart from physical reality? Consciousness itself becomes what is known as a “hard” problem for science, since its very study enters the realm of the metaphysical.

The 20th century pioneers of quantum physics created a paradigm shift that is not well understood even today. What is the intersecting point between perception and reality? And how is it possible that, in this age of technology, while so much attention has been devoted to how things work , so little has been focused on inner life?

The East has often been dismissed by the West as “Third World” but yet many ideas born in the east have much to teach us. The ancient yoga philosophy of India, for example, has gradually gained in popularity throughout Europe and the Americas. This is, in part, because the Vedanta and its essential commentary the Bhgavata provides us with a remarkably supple and flexible way of seeing into the self, the atma, and beyond.

The Vedanta was known to the quantum physicists and atomic scientists of the 20th Century. According to its synthesis, material reality exists as a kind of mass hypnosis. The time-space continuum, in this view, is a function of what is called Atma--the stuff of being.

Atma may be translated as consciousness, but this is misleading. Since consciousness is a “hard” problem, different disciples define consciousness in terms of its phenomenological functions. Again, since science is interested in “how things work” and not in “what things mean,” the “problem” of consciousness becomes a question of defining its functions.

So, we find that “consciousness” in scientific language becomes divided into such terms as “sentience, awareness, nervous reaction,” even “thinking, cognition, metacognition.” If all of these can be mimicked by machines then they have no metaphysical component. If a machine can be made to “think” or “feel” then the problem of metaphysics ceases to exist. This has been the life mission of many geniuses at important universities and corporations internationally.

The destruction of metaphysics is an important mission, since the absence of metaphysics means that we no longer need “meaning.” Scientists often feel a prick of conscience when reminded that their research focuses not on meaning but exploitation. The consequence of 150 years of petroleum exploitation, for example, has left the world devastated. But since the time of Comte and Spencer, we have been reminded that “meaning” is not a part of science. The attempt to kill metaphysics through analysis dates back to the conflict between Plato and Aristotle. Plato felt that it was important to consider the ideal world. Aristotle was convinced that it was sufficient to classify the workings of the “real” world. Aristotle is known as the first scientist.

Plato and Aristotle

The destruction of metaphysics extends to problem of consciousness when it is determined that there is no need to search for our inner self. The inner self as such does not exist, since after all we are only talking about various functions of an organism.

Awareness is one function, sentience another. Self-awareness may be a higher-level function. But functions are verbs, what a thing does. Western thought finds that as long as we define consciousness through its effects, there is no need to arrive at its essence.

Vedanta has quite a distinct take. The Atma is a given, an axiomatic truth. It is a simple waste of time to deny one’s own existence in the name of some contorted view of “objectivity.” The 20th Century physicists proved that the dividing line between subject and object disappears at the subatomic level. Western science and philosophy has yet to adapt fully to this finding.

This is, in part, as a consequence of the anti-scientific current in European life as represented by the Church and its followers. Scientific thought since the time of Galileo was persecuted in the West for contradicting religious dogma. The reaction was powerful. Scientists became determined to eradicate metaphysics. But the determination to pursue a political line has also polluted the so-called truth-seekers of science with deleterious effects. The anti-metaphysical dogmas of Western scientism are well-known and prevent true intellectual curiosity. The attempt to destroy consciousness by defining it out of existence is one such example.

If consciousness is not a “pure” scientific definition of Atma, one may look to spiritual texts and consider Atma as “soul,” but the problem is that it also stands for “world-soul” or collective consciousness. The atma is the living force that pre-exists this universe and will survive it when all has turned to ashes.

Vedantic interpretation holds that once the incredible power of Atma is allowed it becomes a facile matter to understand the universe in terms of a hologram, a kind of mass hypnosis quantum multiverse, if you will. 21st century scientists are only beginning to detect “gravity waves.” Gravity is a subtle force that keeps us from floating off the earth planet. It can neither be seen, touched, felt, or tasted. The Atma is not detectable by mind or senses or through such mundane instrumentation as microscopes and telescopes.

Some conception of “atma” is found in Western science and philosophy, but it is generally quite primitive in comparison to the yogic science. French Philosopher Rene Descarte, for example believed in an absolute distinction between what he called “mind” and body and is usually taken as the point of departure for such study. He felt that the mind was located in the pineal gland. The truth is more subtle. How exactly atma interacts with physical reality at the molecular plane is impossible to ferret out, since at some point the process involves too much subjective observation. The truth about the soul is far subtler than the Cartesian paradigm would admit.

Atma, or consciousness, is all-pervading, ever-present, and indestructible. To describe its mechanism is to enter into a tautology, for only through Atma can we observe and discover the nature of Atma. Only through atma can we practice the earthly art of observation and only through sensual observation can we describe the mechanisms that we consider to belong properly to the world of time and space. But since atma exists beyond time and space, this is a hopeless task.

Vision is evidence of the eye, but the eye cannot see itself. We see atma only with atma. Only when the eye of soul is fixed upon the infinite may it begin the true process of self-discovery. But the process of self-discovery exists beyond the scope of mere sensual observation. We may see the self-evident atma by means of consciousness. But we cannot observe consciousness through the senses, since sensual discovery and mental activity operate below the level of consciousness.

Observing the self through mechanistic analysis is something like running outside the house and looking in the windows to try and see yourself at home.

You are much more than you seem to be. There is more to the universe than atoms in the void. Academic rivalry between the followers of Aristotle force us to define biology in terms of physics. But this is a false argument promoted for the sake of dissolving metaphysics. You know who you are. But the ancient yoga school of the Vedanta says, “Go deeper. This life is meant for self-discovery.” Mechanical detection of the atma through physical technology is impossible. But why live under the restrictions of those who would reduce us to mere physical objects?

Conventional wisdom holds that what we know as mind or consciousness or awareness is somehow generated from matter. As such it can give only a partial and distorted idea of reality. After all there are different "states" of consciousness: waking, dream, deep thought, alpha and so on. Which interpretation of reality is correct? The "mind" has an ephemeral quality. Scientists feel it is more "objective" to begin by putting "matter" in the center of their model of reality. According to this model, inorganic matter somehow generates organic biology which "evolves" into higher life forms. While this model is based on a number of speculative and unverifiable assumptions, scientists feel more comfortable with the idea that mind is based on matter than the idea that mind or atma generates the entire material cosmos. Unfortunately for the model, no one has any idea what matter would look like in the absence of mind.

From this perspective, mind is a phenomena or function of matter and has no independent existence. But what if the reverse were true? If we are capable of looking outside the paradigm, we will find quite a different reality, one far more in keeping with our human experience. If we consider the power of consciousness as a separate energy form, more elusive than light or gravity but equally influential, we may find that the world is the product of mind and not the other way around. Were it possible to awaken to the potential of the atma, what would we learn about reality? While conventional science is concerned with unlocking the secrets of how the universe works, what if it were possible to probe the meaning of consciousness? The answers are not easily discovered. But perhaps the questions are worth asking. An interesting place to look is within the mystic system of the Vedanta. The ancient yoga systems and teachings of meditation are worth exploring, for it is in their wisdom teachings that we may find the key to the nature of reality and consciousness.

Seek and ye shall find.

Faith

It seems to me that it all comes down to faith. One who has been touched by God has faith. There is no proof for this. It is an audacious statement. How do we know who has been “touched” by God? But this is just the point, isn’t it. Knowledge and faith are really quite separate. Knowledge implies certainty reached through judgment; faith is beyond judgment.

Take the soul. There is no proof for the existence of any such thing as “soul.” Even to use the word “consciousness” strains the credulity of logic. After all, consciousness, awareness, mind, sentience, and thinking all refer to different things. A computer is a machine and is certainly not sentient in any real sense. And yet, machines “think.” Don’t they? And if “thinking” is not what machines do, what is it then?

If we reserve thinking for humans, then what exactly is it that cephalopods do? Can an octopus think? Are plants sentient? And if they do, then do they have souls?

There is no proof for the immortality of the soul beyond what we ourselves can see and feel and intuit. But then, if something is self-evident should we deny it simply because we lack the linguistic tools to explain subjective experience in purely objective terms? We can create no mathematical model for spirit or soul. But mathematics is a language we have invented to describe an objective world. We have no mathematics for spiritual experience. Are we then to conclude that spiritual experience is invalid, since we cannot break it down into a symbolic language meant to describe material experience?

We cannot “know” the soul in the same sense as we “know” material and phenomenal things. But since the world “out there” is a function of the world “in here” it is impossible to “know” in any absolute sense.

Plants and insects experience reality very differently than we do. Is the human experience of reality the “only” and therefore “best” version?

Like a child determined to fit a round peg into a square whole, the materialist wants to show how all phenomenal experience is a product of what he calls “matter.” But “matter” itself is elusive. “Matter” is impossible to define.

Materialists reject subjective reality as counter-intuitive. “I know what I see; this is matter.” But so many truths are counter-intuitive, or else we would all conclude that we live on a flat earth. That the earth is round is counter-intuitive, a conclusion arrived at through some serious thinking. The natural observation of day and night leads us to the conclusion that the sun moves around the earth. Our natural observation also leads us to conclude that matter creates spirit. Both ideas are incorrect. Matter does not create spirit any more than the sun moves around the earth. These are “objective” conclusions which avoid deeper ways of interpreting reality.

There is no mathematical proof that you or I or anyone else exists. And, if we begin with such dry logic it is absurd to say that there is anything like an eternal soul. But in the East, where human wisdom was born thousands of years ago, the existence of the soul or atma is a self-evident truth; an axiom which must be considered before anything else.

We have no objective proof for the subjective world. But then again the phenomenal world of objects must be based on the subjective world of consciousness. Without the subject there is no object.

Don’t take it from me. I am only a frog in a well, croaking obscenely. My voice is insignificant. Buy we may take hope and inspiration from the learned and realized souls who have gone before us. The immortality of the soul has been affirmed throughout human history from the time of Krishna, Vyasa and Shukadev in ancient India, to Jesus Christ and his apostles at the dawn of the present era in Jerusalem. Philosophers and thinkers from Plato to Plotinus to Hegel, Schopenhauer and the modern mystics and saints have affirmed the version of Vedanta. So many greater, nobler and wiser souls have walked on the path before us.

Can we so easily dismiss their hard experience of the self-evident character of the soul? Or should we not rather do our best to discover this self-evident reality for ourselves?

They tell us, “Seek and ye shall find. Knock and the door shall open.” The background hum of the universe fills the air with the underlying sound of reality: “Om.” Om is the universal sound of affirmation, meaning, “Yes. It exists. Divinity is real. Soul is eternal.” Listen closely and you can hear it.

Faith has its own eye to see reality. It is curious that you and I can see, but we can’t see the eye, which is the instrument of sight. I can’t see the eye, but I have sight. Should I conclude that the eye doesn’t exist, since I can’t see it? We see with the eye of the soul, but we can’t see the soul itself. Should we conclude that soul doesn’t exist? Or should we rather think that although I can’t see the soul, it must exist.

Argument can be useful, of course. But argument works through negation. “It is not this,” leads us to “This is it.” A good argument eliminates options just as a detective spends a long time eliminating potential suspects. We arrive at truth through the process of elimination. But trial and error is insufficient to arrive at the truth. And the tendency to negate is not checked when it arrives at the soul. So that when logic and argument is faced with subjective reality it turns upon itself. Thus “objective” argument cannibalizes the “subjective” self. And so argument never arrives at its “object.”

Through argument the subjective self tries to discover itself by applying an objective language used for objects. Since the subject cannot be turned into an object by this artificial process the result is circular, a tautology. The self trying to contort itself into an object through argument fails to discover itself through this method. It is a fatal redundancy for logic. The process is akin to trying to see yourself in your house by running outside and looking through the window.

And when logic is unable to recover from this fatal error it declares the self nonexistent. This is the fatal flaw of logic and argument.

Argument can be useful to some extent when we want to try to give some backing to a theistic view. But as Kant insisted, reason has its limits. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. We may use argument to convince someone to open their eyes, but we can’t make them see. Sight exists quite apart from rational thinking and spiritual vision is quite distinct from logical argument. As long as one believes that vision will distract from critical thinking there is no hope of convincing them to open their eyes.

Therefore it is said, “Seek and ye shall find. Knock and the door will be opened.”