Why rebirth must be true

The Phoenix bird - courtesy Wikipedia

I had part of this conversation with a friend recently, and thought I should share with others.

The topic of our discussion was rebirth (somehow a lunch conversation veered to this, don't ask me why). 

Some religions support rebirth (Hindu religions) and some do not (christianity, except for Jesus Christ?). My argument for why rebirth must be true, though, is not based on religion or theology, but on the more fundamental principle of natural justice. Whether you believe in a God or not does not matter for our purpose here.

So, here's what I consider is the principle of natural justice:  it is a natural order that pervades our world and everything in it. One that ensures that 'justice' is served 'somehow' and one that at least all humans (except the cynical) believe in. Work hard and one shall get rewarded, commit a crime and while you may get away with it for sometime but will eventually pay somehow, etc. are common beliefs we all hold irrespective of our religious beliefs.

Once we accept the 'principle of natural justice', the argument is fairly straightforward. 

Our life experiences show us a lot of extreme examples, and some not so extreme, of things just not adding up. How many of us have seen people that do not work hard at all getting lucky all the time; criminals living a good life; hard working, honest people suffering and being unlucky all the time; and on and on? The principle of natural justice just doesn't seem to hold in so many examples from our life experiences. We may take solace in believing that a criminal may not be able to sleep peacefully despite all riches, etc., but... we all have worries, and this cannot be a good explanation! At the end of the day we do end up saying 'life is unfair', precisely because the principle of natural justice doesn't seem to hold. That is because we tend to close out a person's 'book' at the end of his life (and start accounting for his/her deeds 'at their birth'; and why should we?

If we allow for rebirth in our belief system, the principle of natural justice will 'balance', somehow. We may not see it happen for an individual across a cycle of births and rebirths, but our belief in a principle of natural justice is not stretched unduly by adding rebirth to the equation. So there..

Additionally, rebirth brings with it a lot of explanations for many other 'injustices' we may observe. All of us wonder why one person may be born into a rich family, while another may be born into a poor family or troubled country. There just can't be an explanation for this without beginning to account for an individual's deeds ab initio, at the start of the cycle (wherever that was). Starting to account for deeds at 'this birth' just gets us nowhere. So there, again..

Why it's difficult to trace root cause - the Dharma conundrum today

Sivaji Ganesan presenting his case in court;
 Parasakti - courtesy gokul-r.blogspot.com

'Root Cause' is a phrase you hear a lot in international relations these days, especially as it relates to terrorism. Essentially, a terrorist can blame the victim (of some unjust thing in the past) for his aggression, and in most causes there is a cycle or chain of events (each worthy of blames and counter blames) that leads up to the act(s) in the present day.

I have been thinking a lot lately about how one might deal with root case analysis, and where one might draw the line in determining what might be right or wrong. And.. most importantly, what is rightful revenge?

In yugas past (krita, treta and dwapara) the responsibility of dharma was vested in units larger than the self. For example, in the dwapara yuga, the family was the unit that was collectively responsible for upholding Dharma. So, if Duryodhana did a wrong, Bhishma should not have stood silent. If a kshatriya decides to stop participating in protecting his people (and perhaps - in today's scenario - succumbed to a lobbyist to award a defence contract to a substandard vendor) his family would do good to force him to mend his ways.

Now to the present day.

As a solid example of root cause analysis from recent times, the Post-Godhra Gujarat riots of 2003. Hindu Kar Sevaks were burned alive in an entire rail bogey. The Muslims (per prevailing understanding of the case) that committed this act of terrorism blamed the Babri demolition by 'Hindus'. It wasn't the same Hindus, but belonging to the same community was sufficient justification for this group to indulge in the act. The Babri demolition itself was more or less a desperate last resort after decades (and perhaps centuries) of frustration in the Hindu communities. Babar may have demolished the Ram temple in Ayodhya, but the Muslims of today are not in any way related to him, surely? Should the Muslims though disown the mosque as not rightfully having belonged to them, acknowledging the demolition of the temple in the 1600s?

As we can see, many questions can be raised regarding entire communities' responsibilities, without having any clear answer in the end.      

1. Rich and poor alike evade taxes. Whatever the tax code, someone is bound to be unhappy. Either the evader is being fraudulent, or is stretching the spirit of the law and the tax code to his benefit (example, Apple setting up a Nevada office). Here, the evader is going to rationalize their behaviour by accounting for their 'other' contributions to society, job creation perhaps. In this case, the evader's complaint may be that there is no other benefit to job creation, just whatever profits he is able to make. Society (the government or the people collectively) is unable to meet all the needs of the individual at a sufficient level of granularity (even in something like the tax code) thereby guaranteeing legal noncompliance. How does one determine what the 'right' level of tax is, anyway?
2. In the kali yuga, families continue to exist more or less as the institution they once were. However, the son or daughter does their own thing even if the parents object, not something one would be able to do in an earlier yuga (and still have a clear heart, because one is really breaking Dharma). That the mata and pita are to be respected comes with its caveats (arbitrarily assigned by the son or daughter) today. For example, if the father owed money to someone, not every son is going to feel the responsibility to repay. I bet that a good majority would want to shrug responsibility, citing one or more reasons that may actually seem reasonable. "My father has no assets, so no inheritance, no loan repayment" is an argument one can definitely make, and probably win in court as well. 
3. How about pre-marital physical contact? The Dharma for a man (or boy) is to not lust after any woman who isn't his wedded wife. Similarly, the Dharma for the girl is to gain approval from her parents and be wedded to the man first (as her first husband of course; Elizabeth Taylor and her 4 marriages aren't a great example of Dharma compliance here). "She was willing"/"I didn't make the first move", etc. are perfectly acceptable today (read the story of Ahilya and Indra on another post for reference and the repercussions both face for adultery). What relaxation, per our needs, of Dharma, leads to is a twisting of the first principles of Dharma and its institutions (marriage, family, etc) that make it difficult to track right and wrong.

Parikshit and the advent of Kali Yuga

Image courtey: Wikipedia. Raja Ravi Varma. 

It is during King Parikshit's reign that Dwapara Yuga ends and Kali Yuga starts.

Several Puranas talk about Kali (not to be confused with KaaLi), but I believe that the Bhagavata Purana provides the most accurate account of Kali and his advent. (Why not all of the 18 Puranas are to be considered accurate is a topic for a different day).

A few years after the Mahabharata war, Krishna and the Pandavas depart the earth. Parikshit, the only surviving prince of the Kuru lineage (son of Abhimanyu and Uttara) becomes the king of Bharatavarsha.

Parikshit encounters Kali beating a cow and bull (the cow representing the earth and the bull representing Dharma). Curiously the bull stands on one leg, Dharma being on its last leg in the Kali Yuga). Parikshit first aims his sword at Kali to finish him off, but lets him stay on in a handful of locations (on earth?): where there is gambling, alcohol consumption, animal slaughter, prostitution, and finally gold.

And of course, after Parikshit departs, Kali (as was destined) spreads to other places, but I'd think that these five locations would be of special interest to Kali.

Vedic schools of thought talk of Kali and his influence going beyond mere 'locations'. What really is impactful is Kali's ability to influence human thought, and draw the individual towards Adharmic activities. Kali's influence essentially pervades all that is based on the five essential material elements (pancha bhoota). The Dwaita school of thought holds that Kali's influence does not reach (in addition to Vishnu and Lakshmi) Brahma and Vayu, and their consorts Saraswati and Bharati. Gods that are further down the ladder (taaratamya) do get influenced.

Now, who is Kali, and what is his agenda? My answer to this question starts at the basics, with the classification of souls according to their innate nature. Souls are classified as (predominantly) sathva, rajas, and thamas. Most are familiar with what these stand for. Still, I'd like to call out rajas (also called nitya samsaari in some vedantic treatise) as being the class of souls that are not evil, but those that do not recognize Vishnu (Brahman) as the supreme being that runs the show. Thamas is the class of souls that actively refuses to recognize Vishnu and indulges in activities that disrupt the saadhana (path towards liberation) of the Saatvic souls. Kali (who also incarnates as Duryodhana in the Mahabharata) is considered the foremost of the Thamasic souls, and hence his move to influence other souls (and derail them in their saadhana) as much as possible.

The Kali Yuga is estimated to run about 432,000 man years, starting about 5000-6000 years ago. When no Dharma is left on earth, the Puranas foretell great misery (periods of subsequent drought, scorching heat, incessant rain, etc.) and the incarnation of Kalki who destroys the world and kicks off pralaya for the birth of a new world.

This page contains a good description of what Kali Yuga is expected to bring (progressively). Reads like a doomsday prediction, but I'm sure many see it coming.

The bad news is that even after just 5000-odd years of Kali Yuga (and 400,000+ more years to go) cultural relativism has set it deeply amongst us. A simple answer of 'no' to something clearly evil like abortion, for example, is difficult for many to accept, and debated endlessly as if there is no simple answer based on Dharma. 

The "Good or Bad" series: Ashwatthama

Image: netra-creative-vision.blogspot.com

Ashwatthama should be an easy call. The son of Dronacharya, Ashwatthama develops enmity towards the Pandavas and loyalty to Duryodhana (not unlike Karna) and commits several wrongs that seem to me to be unparalleled in the Mahabharata.

Ashwatthama is considered a partial avatara (amsha) of Shiva..

When Ashwatthama is still a child, Dronacharya is insulted by King Drupada (father of Draupadi) when he goes to ask for a cow to feed milk to his son. It is only after this incident that Kripacharya offers him a position as a teacher to the Pandavas and Kauravas. There perhaps was some anger in Ashwatthama towards Drupada (and hence Draupadi) due to this slight.

Ashwatthama's real enmity towards the Pandavas starts when they kill Dronacharya on the battlefield due to a 'lie' by Yudhishtira. When Drona is told by many that Ashwatthama is dead (not entirely untrue, because an elephant by the same name had died), he refuses to believe anybody but Yudhishtira. Yudhishtira confirms the death of the elephant, but Krishna blows his conch to blot out Yudhisthira's reference to the elephant. Drona, on hearing this, drops his weapons, and sits down in meditation on the battlefield. Seizing the opportunity, the Pandavas (Arjuna?) finish him off. Surely this must have angered Ashwatthama enough to commit all the atrocities he eventually does at the end of the war.

As a side note, it is interesting that there are several warriors in the Mahabharata that are considered unbeatable at one point or another. Bhishma is the first, whom even Parashurama is unable to beat (the Amba story), and he is only taken out when Shikhandhi is used to make him drop his weapons. The second is Arjuna, although his case is slightly weak, given that he is protected against Karna once or twice. Drona is deemed unbeatable in the Mahabharata war (although he is beaten by Arjuna in the Virata parva battle), and hence the Pandavas resort to trickery to take him out. Bhimasena is of course invincible and he routs most of the key bad characters in the entire Mahabharata.

Towards the end of the war, Ashwatthama resorts to killing several warriors in the Pandava camp including the sons of the Draupadi/Pandavas (mistakenly assuming that they were the Pandavas themselves) in stealth at night, not becoming of even a lowly soldier let alone a top warrior in an army.  

Ashwatthama also directs his brahmAstra at the womb of Uttara (daughter of king Virata, wife of Abhimanyu) to finish off the as-yet unborn Parikshit, since he would be the last of the Kuru clan. Krishna uses his chakra to protect the child and mother, but only ends up reviving the child after a still-birth.

Lastly, Duryodhana, in his death bed, requests Ashwatthama to have a child with his wife Banumati, so that that child can be the ruler of Hastinapura. While Ashwatthama does not actually oblige, he neither accepts not refuses to Duryodhana, not a good quality for someone who should immediately know the right Dharma.

On the last item, Vyasa himself sires Pandu and Dhritarashtra (with Ambika and Ambalika) to keep the Kuru clan alive. Is that considered Dharma because he is a rishi and God Himself? Or is it because Vyasa is a son of Satyavati (the fisherman's daughter who is married to Shantanu) and he is obeying his mother's command and acting on behalf of his now-dead younger brother Vichitravirya? In this case, the continuation of the clan is for the good of humanity, perhaps, while not so in the case of Duryodhana? 

To hell with relativism - a look at the Ramayana

Image courtesy: realchristianity.wordpress.com, cartoonstock.com

I have come to believe that relativism - moral or cultural - is dangerous. There are several reasons why I believe that.

In case you are not familiar with the terms moral relativism and cultural relativism, here are simple definitions in my own words:

Moral relativism holds that morals (standards) are relative and what one may hold as the right thing to do in a certain land is not necessarily the right thing to do in another. For example, the idea that if it is immoral for most of humanity to kill one another, a cannibalistic society can still do what it pleases.

Cultural relativism is similar. For example, the idea that while I may consider equal rights to men and women as sacred, I would tolerate cultures that do not hold the same standard. 

  

Today's attitudes in the liberal, democratic world are largely culturally relativistic (though may be not morally relativistic). Let's look at the Ramayana in the lens of cultural and moral relativism and see where that might lead us. 

I was talking with a friend about Rama a few years back. The conversation quickly came around to how he thought Rama was an aggressor because of the Ashwamedha Yagna. Contrast Rama's 'aggression' with, for example, Ashoka, who 'renounced' violence and became a peace loving king. This is an argument of a moral relativist. Peace is definitely the ideal to strive for, but for the kshatriya (the ruler, the politician, etc.), the duty is to protect his people. However, the duty of the kshatriya is also to protect people beyond his borders. Afterall, Indian culture talks of the principle of Vasudaiva Kutumbakam, that the entire world and its people is one family. So, while the Ashwamedha Yagna involved the king's (Rama) army going from kingdom to kingdom asking its ruler to accept the leadership of Rama, that ruler was still autonomous. The leadership of Rama meant that Rama Rajya would come to that kingdom as well, and Rama Rajya would not strip the ruler of his individuality, merely ensure that tresspasses from the right path, if any, would be prevented.

Here the relativist can of course ask: "What makes Rama Rajya superior to the other governments?", "Why should Rama be superior to others?", etc. This is a question born out of our experience from today's worldview where no form of government is without significant flaws. So, if the US asks extremist Islamist despots to give up their dictatorship and embrace 'democracy', the decision is not a no-brainer even for the people. Comparison with Rama's Ashwamedha Yagna is therefore not congruent.

With Rama Rajya, there was no doubt. We are talking about the ideal government, with all its people happy with the rule. For what it is worth, MK Gandhi did want to see Rama Rajya in India after independence (which most Indians conveniently ignore when they talk of Gandhism); although the ideal, how Rama Rajya would be achieved would have been up in the air (much like the Islamists' ideal of a 'just' Khilafa). During the Ramayana, people in other kingdoms will not have seen Rama as an aggressor, and only a tyrant or egoistic king would have seen the need to protest the leadership of Rama.

I know I will not have convinced the relativists, but it is important to see Dharma, the good of the people, truth, etc., as objective and non-relativistic concepts. Without that, there is no way to arrive at the correct answer to important questions, for example, Arjuna's question of whether he should fight his own relatives. Ashoka might have advised diplomacy or surrender.

The pursuit of happiness

Image courtesy: lynndove.wordpress.com

(This post is not related to any of the epics directly..)

Why do we do what we do in life? Why do we go to work, have kids, go to the park for a walk, or study hard? While all these activities may have some intermediate benefits, the ultimate goal of all humans is happiness. There is not one thing that we do that is not in some way aimed at making us happier.

Let's of course leave cases such as masochism out of the picture for now, even though they can be explained without much trouble.

Just one Mahabharata reference related to 'happiness'. Kunti prays to Krishna (not sure when in the Mahabharata) to give her constant sorrow, because she believes that only when in sorrow do we tend to think about God. When happy, we may of course praise God, but the tendency is to tie that momentary happiness to our own accomplishment or activity - "I worked hard and got my bonus", for example. Mere mortals like us would, of course, never pray to God to deal us a tough hand. So, was Kunti an idiot?

As I write these lines, I feel like this post is going to be long winding, but I'll try to keep this concise.


Rebirth. To begin with, we must agree that our lives and transit through the material world necessarily involves a cycle of birth and death. That is, our present lives are not the first and last. I have a simple way of explaining why this must be the case. We all have a sense of natural justice, and even if a human grows up without seeing any other human (eliminate bias and influence), that sense of natural justice is going to prevail. For example, this 'lone' human is not going to kill indiscriminately because something might tell him that that is incorrect. Even when we know that some form of natural justice pervades the world we inhabit, we see injustice all around us. I am not talking about 'local' events here, but the 'full lifecycle'. That is to say, some criminals lead perfectly happy and affluent lives, while some honest hardworking people face nothing but misery. There's of course a continuum between these two extremes. So, if justice didn't prevail in this birth for some people, there must be at least one rebirth and a better model yet, a birth-death cycle that would account for all their good and bad activities. How the 'accounting' takes place is a longer discussion of course, with many schools of thought explaining how good/bad and heaven/hell work.    

Rebirth, of course, is a very difficult concept for us to imagine or accept. If I am going to be born again, am I going to have a different father and mother, a different spouse, different children, and am I going not going to be rich? Let me life the life I have now as well as I can, why should I worry about a rebirth or plan for it in any way? Who is going to count my bad deeds and punish me? I can explain why I cheated on my wife, etc. As a result, much of our pursuit of happiness is short-sighted. Most of us never give any thought to much beyond a good living in this life, and in many cases it is instant and other forms of gratification that we crave. However, the moment we acknowledge that some form of natural justice exists (whether or not we accept the existence of a supreme being) we should ideally start thinking beyond our current lives, and how things might work outside of our limits of knowledge.

Now, back to Kunti (and whether she was an idiot).
All the happiness we experience in life, whether momentary (like eating an ice cream) or extended (like romance) are very materialistic or physical in nature. Still, these 'happy' states are not impenetrable. You can eat one extra cone of ice cream and regret it because it numbed you, or hurt yourself while on a beach with your loved one. The human mind, of course, is accustomed to assuming that the current happiness will never go away, and we make that mistake over and over again.

Sure, everyone knows that life has its ups and downs, etc. based on experience, but most of us want to just put up with this (not knowing a way out), while secretly wanting eternal happiness.

Kunti prays to Krishna to give her constant sorrow because while the sorrow may be physical and material, if she can hold Him in her thoughts, that will be happiness and bliss (that is of a non-material kind). She rightly realizes that the only way to sail through both the ups and downs is to hold God in her thoughts. For, no other source can comfort one through sorrow. Even in times when we might consider ourselves happy (when we've received a raise at work, for example) news that a colleague received a larger raise will tell us that we weren't really 'happy' in the true sense of what we want in the 'happy' state. We ideally want happiness that is uninterruptible, and that state cannot be material or physical in any way.

So, no, Kunti was most definitely not an idiot. If God did grant her constant sorrow and sped her material and physical experiences, may be she would not have to go through a multitude of rebirths. When unaware of how many lives we may have lived already, this doesn't seem like a big deal to us, but once we do realize it, the feeling is not unlike doing the same exact thing at work every day for years and years together. Nobody wants that, and an escape is what we would crave. That is exactly what Kunti must have been shooting for - the concentrated experience that will get her through the material world as quickly as possible. And, of course, the non-material world would mean heaven and uninterrupted happiness for the good.

Law and Order, Dharma

Courtesy: Wikipedia.org

I have always believed that law and order is the primary duty and reason for existence of the government in a state. All other regulations or activities that one would expect a government to do will fall under law and order.

To begin with, life is probably the most important thing that living beings covet. The state must first protect life. That is, when we step out to go to the market, we should not fear for our lives, or face any intimidation that includes potential for violence against our selves.

Going up the 'pyramid', personal belongings, the environment and natural resources, etc., become important. These get into areas where no one man is necessarily affected directly, but the state needs to take on the responsibility for future generations, as well as for the protection of nature in general.

In some ways, the United States, and the modern Western world in general, are successful and just societies (relatively) because of the presence of reliable and effective law and order. Even Jinnah believed this, while unfortunately other Indian leaders of the time unfortunately didn't accord law and order as much importance.

The Manusmruti is probably the oldest book on law and order, and is supposed to cover not just crimes and such but a horde of other do's and don'ts, rituals to be followed, duties of the different classes of people, etc. I began reading a translation of Chanakya's Arthashastra a few months ago. Like the Manusmruti, the Arthashastra too is not necessarily an account of the laws in vogue at the time they were written. The Manusmruti is of course much more ancient than the Arthashastra.

By the way, here's an interesting article by Stephen Knapp on the 'Purpose of Government According to the Mahabharata' where he discusses Manusmruti.

In the Mahabharata, Yudhishtira is hailed as 'Dharmaraja'. An example of his sense of justice is when he chooses to have Nakula brought back to life when all his brothers are killed by a divine 'demon' (Dharma, who Yudhishtira is an avatara of?) Yudhishtira's reasoning for bringing Nakula back in spite of the chance of bringing the powerful Bhima or Arjuna back was that his father had two wives, and he the first wife's son was alive. It was only just to have a son of the other wife alive too, ahead of Arjuna or Bhima. The 'demon' (who was just testing Yudhishtira) brings back all his brothers alive anyway, overjoyed by Yudhishtira's Dharmic stance. Dharma is hence a matter of not just law, but of ethics as well. No punishments for not being Dharmic in many cases.

There probably are some things that are plain obvious to us regarding dharma. Should I kill an animal and eat it just because it is going to be tasty? No. How can you drink milk, it after all is from the cow and intended for its own calf? This is more difficult to answer, but the shrutis (Vedas), Puranas and the Manusmruti all talk of the cow's products as being made available to mankind, and therefore not being off limits. Protecting mankind is the duty of the cow, and taking care of it is ours (putting it between two buns isn't). On other topics, the question of dharma can become tricky, especially since most of us have very limited knowledge.