Duty and Destiny in Hinduism
Karma and Reincarnation
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Outline
• 1) Ethical Dilemma of Kinship Society: India
and Greece
• 2) Argument for immortality
• 3) Karma, Duty (Dharma), Reincarnation
• 4) Two approaches to Karma
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“Better to live on beggar’s bread
With those we love alive,
Than taste their blood in rich feasts spread
And guiltily survive!”
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Alternate translation
• 5. Better to live in this world even on alms than to
slay these high-souled Gurus. Slaying these Gurus, I
should taste of blood-stained enjoyments even in
this world.
• 6. Nor do I know which for us is better, that we
should conquer them or they conquer us, - before us
stand the Dhritarashtrians, whom having slain we
should not care to live.
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Historical context: Greece v. India
• Compare with Antigone: brother kills brother
without apparent regret
• Greek warrior does not flinch at war between kin.
– New arena of action: the legal state
– Kinship duty survives only with woman’s duty to bury the
dead.
• Indian warrior Arjuna is deeply concerned about
kinship:
– He is intimately connected with neo-kinship system
• Legal state of Greece; neo-kinship state of India
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Krishna’s Reply
• 12. It is not true that at any time I was not, nor thou,
nor these kings of men; nor is it true that any of us
shall ever cease to be hereafter.
• 13. As the soul passes physically through childhood
and youth and age, so it passes on to the changing of
the body. The self-composed man does not allow
himself to be disturbed and blinded by this.
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The transience of matter
• 14. The material touches, O son of Kunti, giving cold
and heat, pleasure and pain, things transient which
come and go, these learn to endure, O Bharata.
• 15. The man whom these do not trouble nor pain, O
lion-hearted among men, the firm and wise who is
equal in pleasure and suffering, makes himself apt
for immortality.
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Being and Non-being
• 16. That which really is, cannot go out of
existence, just as that which is non-existent
cannot come into being. The end of this
opposition of 'is' and 'is not' has been
perceived by the seers of essential truths.
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Immortality
• 17. Know that to be imperishable by which all
this is extended. Who can slay the immortal
spirit?
• 18. Finite bodies have an end, but that which
possesses and uses the body is infinite,
illimitable, eternal, indestructible.
• Therefore fight, O Bharata.
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The true Self does not die
• What is killed is not the true Self, but the
shadow, the illusion – which does not really
exist anyway.
– Recall Plato’s cave
• The true Self is eternally linked with the Self of
others: this is the true (spiritual, philosophical)
meaning of kinship.
– Plato: the part of us that recognizes immortal
truths must also be immortal
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Do your duty and fight!
• Do your duty (Dharma) as a warrior prince –
your destiny in this life as determined by your
caste duties
– Compare Socrates: his duty is to follow the law
• Without attachment to consequences (joy
over victory, sorrow over deaths etc.)
– Get off the emotional rollercoaster
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Philosophical Argument
• Krishna does not present these ideas as dogma that
must be accepted on his authority
– It is not because the gods say so that it is true
• He presents a rational argument for these positions
– The gods say it is true because it really is true
– And so we should be able to understand it by our own
reasoning
• As an iron age society
– India has the experience of republican government: people
creating their own societies
– And so thinking for themselves
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(1) Being
1. Being cannot come out of non-being
2. If once there was nothing at all, now there
would be nothing.
3. Hence being is eternal
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(2) Non-Being
1. Inasmuch as anything is not, it cannot be.
2. Nothing can come out of nothing.
3. Non-being is nothing and can never become
anything
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(3) That which changes
1. Changing beings seem to be a mixture of
being and non-being
2. Changing things come into being from what
they no longer are and pass away into what
they are not yet.
3. Change includes both “is” and “is not,” being
and non-being
4. But only being is; non-being is nothing!
5. So change is an illusion! (Maya)
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(4) Who/what are you?
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Who are YOU really? A changing being?
1. You were a baby but are not one now
2. You will be an old woman, but are not this yet.
3. As an old woman you will no longer be what you
are now.
4. Are YOU these changing forms that you tend to
identify with?
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(5) Illusion of these fleeting forms
• Inasmuch as I am a changing being of time, I am
focused on past and future, which do not exist.
• This mental attitude involves us in Maya (Illusion)
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China: This is the realm of Yin/Yang duality of
Daoism
• My true being is in the present moment of Now,
of Being, the moment of I AM
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The Dao is the one before the two
• Inasmuch as I AM, I AM Eternal, Divine
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(6) Practical Conclusions
1. Focus therefore on what you must do NOW,
your duty in the reality of present Being, not on
illusory ideas of past and future.
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The Way (Dao) for you is determined by your
Duty (Dharma)
2. Don’t dwell on possible future consequences,
which exist now only as imaginings in your
mind.
3. Discover your true, immortal Self as a basis for
action
4. This is not about contemplation but action
(karma = action)
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Higher Concept of Karma/Action
• 1) Debased conception of action/Karma as
justification of caste system
– Why are you poor? Why are you born into a lower
caste?
– =punishment for past life sins
• 2) Hindu Vedanta Philosophy: Higher
conception of Bhagavad-Gita
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Karma
• 1) (Bad) Karma: Action that attaches to
consequences
– Full consequences unfold over many lifetimes
• 2) Alternative: Action without negative karma
because detached from outer consequences
• => Freedom from wheel of birth and death
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Why is someone in a lower caste?
• 1) because of choices in a previous life?
• 2) because one is a devoted soul who wishes
to spread joy and light in these conditions?
– A Saint or Avatar: Like Buddhist Bodhisattva
• 3) Recall Ulysses’ reason for choosing a
modest lifetime.
• Therefore: do not judge from appearances.
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Higher meaning of Caste
• Four types of personalities from the God-Man
Purusha: all should be honored
• 1) Brahmin: People focusing on higher
spirituality and/or intellect (head)
• 2) Kshatriya: People engaged in organizing life
and enforcing law and order (arms)
• 3) Vaishya: People interested in facilitating
good relations with others (legs)
• 4) Sudra: People involved in meaningful work
(feet)
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“Bad” Karma
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Not punishment but experience
1) I choose to experience what wealth means
2) But there is no wealth without poverty
3) Therefore to experience wealth, I must also
experience poverty
– So the poor person may have been rich in a
previous life
– Or will be so in the next one
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Karma and Duty/Dharma
• Karma: letting external consequences decide
one’s action
– You always experience the full consequences of
your actions
• Duty—Dharma: Action without concern for
consequences:
– acting on the basis of duty coming from your inner
Self or true nature
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Historical Context of Hinduism
• 1) Re China: kinship persists
– The divine is in nature, is nature (animism)
– The Dao is the no-thingness that unites all things
• 2) Re Greece and Rome: freedom of iron age
peasant is affirmed and lost
– The human individual is essentially free
– But loses his/her freedom>Stoicism
• 3) India: Animism + Freedom + Diversity
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1) Animism
• The divine is not a separate reality outside the
world
– No separation of God and Human: advaita
vedanta
• It exists all around us
• And in us: it is our true nature
– Our body is the “avatar” of our true, divine spirit
– Recall film “Avatar”
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2) Freedom
• We create our own lifetimes according to the
inner logic of our own actions
• When we experience seemingly negative
circumstances, this is because we have chosen
this as part of our evolution
• Thus we remain free even in apparent
unfreedom
• = Teleology!
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3) Diversity
• There are multiple paths of development
• 4 main types of experience (spiritual meaning
of caste)
• Multiple forms of experiences
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All Deities Express One God: Brahman
• “Nay, and of the hearts that follow other gods
• In simple faith, their prayers arise to me,
• O Kunti’s son, though they pray wrongfully.”
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Adaptation to diversity
• “In order to pacify the tribals, their gods might
be incorporated into the array of gods
worshiped in the temple by the priests, just as
the tribal peoples would begin to worship the
major gods of Hinduism.” Spodek, 270
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Trimurti (Hindu Trinity) and Avatars
Brahman (Divine Nature)
Brahma (as
Creator) with
Saraswati
(Knowledge)
Vishnu (as
Preserver) with
Lakshmi (Love)
Shiva (as
Destroyer) with Kali
(Transformation) or
Parvati
Gods and Goddesses
Human
Avatars
Krishna with
Buddha
Radha
Arjuna, and
YOU--when
enlightened
Ganesh
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Krishna and Radha
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Lord Ganesh
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