"Being unattached to the fruits of one’s actions means discerning where your control stops"
I haven't read it for a while, but I don't think this is the point of what Krishna teaches in the Gita, it's a useful thing to know and obviously a beneficial approach to personal wellbeing but Krishna is describing the ideal state of a Yogi who's consciousness is untouched by his activities, and thus remains free of the effects of them on himself.
Recognising where your control stops is kind of the self-help, optimise your life version, and most people need to hear it but it is really more like 'tips and tricks for living in the maya', Krishna is pointing out the exit.
Well yes, there are many points he has, and the most important being that of reaching self realization through Bhakti. The “point” is debatable. I obviously couldn’t go super deep in an essay, and most people aren’t familiar enough with it to go that deep. I will disagree that I have somehow “missed the point”. I was writing for a specific audience.
I didn't say you missed the point. You are misrepresenting it though. You are making your own philosophical points and then tying them to Gita to give them weight. I don't think this a good thing to do, it is essentially putting words into the mouth of God. For me, this is a very serious thing to do. Maybe you think I'm overreacting but you seem like a good person so I thought it would be good to point it out to you. I don't mean to offend you or be argumentative (on this point anyway, generally I do absolutely love arguing!) I feel more like I'm seeing someone step onto the road in front of a car. Feel free to dismiss me as a crazy internet person on this if you like.
On other more academic points: Reaching self realisation through bhakti also isn't the most important point in the Gita, it is one of the paths of yoga. Are you influenced by the iskcon people by any chance? I noticed you were quoting one of them in the piece.
Always enjoy reading your reflections. So many original and novel observations. You've spotted many patterns, too, that I've noticed, so it's affirming in a way. Mahalo for sharing your thoughts in this space!
It is an enormous tragedy that some of the greatest things ever written, the most sublime ever thought, insights that were born in horror and hardship, have been lost to us through ignorance and intellectual vandalism. It’s wonderful to see them being discovered and kept alive. Thank you for preserving the fire.
Traditio non est adoratio cinerum sed ignis custodia
This is so good 👏👏 The constant dopamine look can show up as spiritual materialism as well, where people use yoga and other practices to justify themselves and not look within. Most of the people I know doing ayahuasca in Peru are not really that interested in enlightenment. It is so easy to sell enlightenment as yoga poses, beautiful people in their 20s and abundance. No one wants to say that enlightenment comes with a lot of grief and shadow work.
Building a consistent spiritual practice is not for the weak.
-If you think it's more "spiritual" to become a vegetarian, buy organic foods, practice yoga and meditate, but then you find yourself judging those who don't do all these things, you fell into an ego trap.
-If you think it's more "spiritual" riding a bike or public transport to work, but then you're judging those in the car, you fell into an ego trap.
-If you think it's more "spiritual" to stop watching tv because it cancels your brain, but then you're judging those who still watch it, you fell into an ego trap.
-If you think it's more "spiritual" to avoid reading newspapers and gossip magazines, but then you judge those who read them, you fell into an ego trap.
-If you think it's more "spiritual" listening to classical music or sounds of nature, but then you're judging who listens to commercial music, you fell into an ego trap.
-You always have to be careful about the feeling of "superiority". It is the most important clue we have to realize that we are dealing with an ego trap. The ego is cleverly hidden in noble thoughts, like to start a vegetarian diet or use the bicycle, and then turn into a sense of superiority towards those who do not follow the same spiritual path. (source: Mooji)
Good point about ayahuasca. I know a lot of people who do psychadelics for ostensibly spiritual reasons but it’s really just to escape from the soul crushing reality of consumer life. I get that. I had to work hard to curb my addiction to cannabis for that same reason. Ironically (or perhaps not), it was getting in the way of real spirituality, which for me was bhakti. Bhakti gave me the strength to finally break the cycle.
This is a rich post with much to engage with. I admire that you go beyond describing the social justice culture and social media narcissism that frustrate you, and describe some of the practices(therapy) and ideologies (Hinduism, Stoicism) that give you stability and improve your relationships.
My impression of the Bhagavad Gita is a focus on balance and maintaining homeostasis. I entirely agree that most women would benefit from more reasoning and philosophy to control the sway of their emotions. On the other hand, I know a lot of men who would benefit from getting out of their heads and spending more time dancing, socializing, and appreciating aesthetic pleasure.
I also agree that women have born the brunt of the downsides of social media with the fetishization of youthful beauty, or “that Instagram face.” I wish we had better language around intellectual and artistic seduction. I’m constantly telling my friends that I have an intellectual or literary crush on so and so. It’s not sexual — they can be men, women, straight, or gay — but it is a kind of seduction. I would love to feel desired for something I wrote rather than a selfie.
In the spirit of balance, my concern with too much of a focus on philosophy and reasoning is that it can take us down a path toward solipsism and distrust, where we are constantly questioning ourselves and others’ motives.
Something I admire about both social justice ideology and Christianity (in theory), though I subscribe to neither, is their focus on caring for others. Or ideally: caring for each other.
Like you, I also grew up without recognition from my parents or family, which pushed me down a path of endless striving for extrinsic incentives. Philosophy and therapy helped me diagnose the problem. But only reciprocal social solidarity — mutual attention, mutual care, shared purpose — helps me transcend it.
As always, I appreciate you sharing your reflections with such honesty.
Agreed about balance; too much in either direction is bad for the person and society. I’ve actually said something similar about intellectual crushes; I have one right now on Brandon Sanderson. You’re right that in theory social justice is about caring for others but that’s the veneer; it’s mostly about feeling good about yourself, it seems. Meaning, the motivation is selfish. For me that cancels any virtue from what good it might do (and it’s not doing much good).
It seems to me like the "social justice" movement has been hijacked and turned into a "social superiority" movement. There's too many "holier than thou" attitudes among SJW nowadays for my liking. The movement currently has the same flavor as the religious right-wing, Bible-thumping fanatics they claim to condemn. This is why I avoid both groups like the plague. I'd rather exist as a free thinker than conform to the creeping radicalism that has gripped people on the ends of the spectrum.
This sort of thing leads to emotional indulgence, and I think temperance is essential for a life well lived. I, too, feel unmoored because of the tribalism and constant victimhood.
If social justice warriors are concerned with their own reputation and judging others, I wonder if we could come up with a new word for someone who genuinely cares about communal well being without seeking external validation. Aspen Institute has tried "weavers," which isn't gonna go far.
I think people like this exist and unfortunately their genders skew toward men. But, men also haven't had the evolutionary role of upholding social order, so it makes sense that they care less what people think. Especially those men who are socially and economically successful. In fact, as my own income has grown and I've become more confident, I've come to care less about the opinions about those people with less career capital/earning power than me. It enabled me to extricate myself from a group of toxic feminists without feeling like I've given up some kind of valuable network. I think these people exist and need to find each other somehow. The most descriptive for me has been 'free thinkers'. I've been lucky to find some women like that out there.
Beautifully written, educational. Unfortunately philosophy programs are being eliminated, the federal government isn’t willing to fund these programs because they don’t show enough evidence that they produce jobs.
It’s depressing that despite my multi disciplinary education still didn’t lead me here, and instead was long on postmodernism as a kind of philosophy. Also undergrad philosophy is more concerned with logic than the type I’m trying to write about, sadly.
Despite being employed in higher ed, this is my major issue with a lot of academic disciplines, generally speaking. It's not even just philosophy. Fields like anthropology, sociology, and all of the "studies" (American Studies, Asian Studies, Religious Studies, Gender Studies, etc) are guilty of the same crime. Too much of scholarship in the last 20-50 years has been written by scholars for scholars (sometimes about scholars); it rarely represents the people outside of academia they claim to represent. It's a set of privileged reflections at best, or assertions of superiority at worst. Because let's be real: scholarship is not written for an audience outside of the academy. This is why the trend of "scholarship written for scholars" has continued and has now gone off the rails. It's the reason why these disciplines are increasingly seen by others outside of academia, especially the federal government, as unworthy of funding and irrelevant to the world outside the academe. It's a tragedy, in my limited opinion, because there's so much lost potential.
I've been writing precisely because of this issue. I think there's so much to be explored from the layperson's perspective that is just lost, and an even bigger problem is that women seem totally disinterested in these topics.
My danger is fury toward progressivism and its mind-boggling hypocrisy. Progressivism itself is blatantly guilty of everything it projects on patriarchy, whiteness, heteronormativity, etc. I'm constantly -- obsessively, compulsively -- trying to turn progressivism's critique back on itself, trying to make progressivists acknowledge what they are really doing. I'll say "Do a search and replace on DiAngelo, replacing 'White' with 'Woke' and you can see what's really going on." But it never works. They refuse to apply their principles to their own movement. They will never "do the work" when it threatens the real source of their privilege and power. Etc. Etc. Etc.
But in my better moments I suspect the problem has nothing to do with choice of target, and that the root problem is with the critical logic itself. Regardless of target -- regardless of whether a real oppressor or some phony surrogate is in the critical cross-hairs -- this philosophy itself is a ressentiment generator, and whoever uses it will radiate misery.
You’re right about the fury - it’s why I’m trying to turn away from it in my writing because it’s constantly bubbling in the background. The problem is that most people make up their minds without considering the logic of the opinion (something Jonathan Haidt finally drove home for me in the righteous mind). Their sense of self is tied up in it, and I might still be mired in that world had I not been rejected by my supposed friends for being insufficiently woke. They did me a favor. The desire for social approval is just too strong an impetus for most people to resist, which is evolutionary. Logic is almost against our nature.
I think, at least for me, the anger was both justified and productive. I don't regret being angry, and I don't regret the alleged "harm" it caused. Many people cry "harm" whenever anything challenges their ideology. But when they challenge the ideologies of others -- invariably from a perch of power and privilege -- they call that necessary discomfort. It's all necessary discomfort.
But when you have the power you get to say who is the terrorist and who is the freedom-fighter, who is traumatized and who is "fragile", who is deserves protection and who deserves only eye rolls when they object to systemic humiliation and mistreatment.
And you get to say who is weak and who is strong. Progressivists are too strong to be made to admit that they're the strong ones.
Suffering has been made trendy. It's bizarre to me. It's become a contest of who has suffered more. But if we make it a contest about who has suffered more, we all lose. It's a zero-sum game. It's why I've largely stepped away from these conversations. You can't win. No one wins. Everyone loses.
Spot on. Thanks for your articulate reminder. Love that I'm sitting here with my coffee, laptop and a favorite book The Great Work of Your Life by Stephen Cope where he applies the BG in similar ways.
Which commentary on Gita do the readers here prefer? Go.
"Being unattached to the fruits of one’s actions means discerning where your control stops"
I haven't read it for a while, but I don't think this is the point of what Krishna teaches in the Gita, it's a useful thing to know and obviously a beneficial approach to personal wellbeing but Krishna is describing the ideal state of a Yogi who's consciousness is untouched by his activities, and thus remains free of the effects of them on himself.
Recognising where your control stops is kind of the self-help, optimise your life version, and most people need to hear it but it is really more like 'tips and tricks for living in the maya', Krishna is pointing out the exit.
It's about non-grasping.
Well yes, there are many points he has, and the most important being that of reaching self realization through Bhakti. The “point” is debatable. I obviously couldn’t go super deep in an essay, and most people aren’t familiar enough with it to go that deep. I will disagree that I have somehow “missed the point”. I was writing for a specific audience.
I didn't say you missed the point. You are misrepresenting it though. You are making your own philosophical points and then tying them to Gita to give them weight. I don't think this a good thing to do, it is essentially putting words into the mouth of God. For me, this is a very serious thing to do. Maybe you think I'm overreacting but you seem like a good person so I thought it would be good to point it out to you. I don't mean to offend you or be argumentative (on this point anyway, generally I do absolutely love arguing!) I feel more like I'm seeing someone step onto the road in front of a car. Feel free to dismiss me as a crazy internet person on this if you like.
On other more academic points: Reaching self realisation through bhakti also isn't the most important point in the Gita, it is one of the paths of yoga. Are you influenced by the iskcon people by any chance? I noticed you were quoting one of them in the piece.
Always enjoy reading your reflections. So many original and novel observations. You've spotted many patterns, too, that I've noticed, so it's affirming in a way. Mahalo for sharing your thoughts in this space!
It is an enormous tragedy that some of the greatest things ever written, the most sublime ever thought, insights that were born in horror and hardship, have been lost to us through ignorance and intellectual vandalism. It’s wonderful to see them being discovered and kept alive. Thank you for preserving the fire.
Traditio non est adoratio cinerum sed ignis custodia
I enjoyed this article. I read the Bhagavad Gita after seeing Oppenheimer, and I appreciate these insights on how to apply its lessons. Bravo, Radha!
Beautiful writing, as always!
Thank you. This really brought me back to this text and really humbled me.
This is so good 👏👏 The constant dopamine look can show up as spiritual materialism as well, where people use yoga and other practices to justify themselves and not look within. Most of the people I know doing ayahuasca in Peru are not really that interested in enlightenment. It is so easy to sell enlightenment as yoga poses, beautiful people in their 20s and abundance. No one wants to say that enlightenment comes with a lot of grief and shadow work.
Building a consistent spiritual practice is not for the weak.
One of my friends recently shared this quote:
-If you think it's more "spiritual" to become a vegetarian, buy organic foods, practice yoga and meditate, but then you find yourself judging those who don't do all these things, you fell into an ego trap.
-If you think it's more "spiritual" riding a bike or public transport to work, but then you're judging those in the car, you fell into an ego trap.
-If you think it's more "spiritual" to stop watching tv because it cancels your brain, but then you're judging those who still watch it, you fell into an ego trap.
-If you think it's more "spiritual" to avoid reading newspapers and gossip magazines, but then you judge those who read them, you fell into an ego trap.
-If you think it's more "spiritual" listening to classical music or sounds of nature, but then you're judging who listens to commercial music, you fell into an ego trap.
-You always have to be careful about the feeling of "superiority". It is the most important clue we have to realize that we are dealing with an ego trap. The ego is cleverly hidden in noble thoughts, like to start a vegetarian diet or use the bicycle, and then turn into a sense of superiority towards those who do not follow the same spiritual path. (source: Mooji)
Good point about ayahuasca. I know a lot of people who do psychadelics for ostensibly spiritual reasons but it’s really just to escape from the soul crushing reality of consumer life. I get that. I had to work hard to curb my addiction to cannabis for that same reason. Ironically (or perhaps not), it was getting in the way of real spirituality, which for me was bhakti. Bhakti gave me the strength to finally break the cycle.
This is a rich post with much to engage with. I admire that you go beyond describing the social justice culture and social media narcissism that frustrate you, and describe some of the practices(therapy) and ideologies (Hinduism, Stoicism) that give you stability and improve your relationships.
My impression of the Bhagavad Gita is a focus on balance and maintaining homeostasis. I entirely agree that most women would benefit from more reasoning and philosophy to control the sway of their emotions. On the other hand, I know a lot of men who would benefit from getting out of their heads and spending more time dancing, socializing, and appreciating aesthetic pleasure.
I also agree that women have born the brunt of the downsides of social media with the fetishization of youthful beauty, or “that Instagram face.” I wish we had better language around intellectual and artistic seduction. I’m constantly telling my friends that I have an intellectual or literary crush on so and so. It’s not sexual — they can be men, women, straight, or gay — but it is a kind of seduction. I would love to feel desired for something I wrote rather than a selfie.
In the spirit of balance, my concern with too much of a focus on philosophy and reasoning is that it can take us down a path toward solipsism and distrust, where we are constantly questioning ourselves and others’ motives.
Something I admire about both social justice ideology and Christianity (in theory), though I subscribe to neither, is their focus on caring for others. Or ideally: caring for each other.
Like you, I also grew up without recognition from my parents or family, which pushed me down a path of endless striving for extrinsic incentives. Philosophy and therapy helped me diagnose the problem. But only reciprocal social solidarity — mutual attention, mutual care, shared purpose — helps me transcend it.
As always, I appreciate you sharing your reflections with such honesty.
Agreed about balance; too much in either direction is bad for the person and society. I’ve actually said something similar about intellectual crushes; I have one right now on Brandon Sanderson. You’re right that in theory social justice is about caring for others but that’s the veneer; it’s mostly about feeling good about yourself, it seems. Meaning, the motivation is selfish. For me that cancels any virtue from what good it might do (and it’s not doing much good).
It seems to me like the "social justice" movement has been hijacked and turned into a "social superiority" movement. There's too many "holier than thou" attitudes among SJW nowadays for my liking. The movement currently has the same flavor as the religious right-wing, Bible-thumping fanatics they claim to condemn. This is why I avoid both groups like the plague. I'd rather exist as a free thinker than conform to the creeping radicalism that has gripped people on the ends of the spectrum.
This sort of thing leads to emotional indulgence, and I think temperance is essential for a life well lived. I, too, feel unmoored because of the tribalism and constant victimhood.
If social justice warriors are concerned with their own reputation and judging others, I wonder if we could come up with a new word for someone who genuinely cares about communal well being without seeking external validation. Aspen Institute has tried "weavers," which isn't gonna go far.
I think people like this exist and unfortunately their genders skew toward men. But, men also haven't had the evolutionary role of upholding social order, so it makes sense that they care less what people think. Especially those men who are socially and economically successful. In fact, as my own income has grown and I've become more confident, I've come to care less about the opinions about those people with less career capital/earning power than me. It enabled me to extricate myself from a group of toxic feminists without feeling like I've given up some kind of valuable network. I think these people exist and need to find each other somehow. The most descriptive for me has been 'free thinkers'. I've been lucky to find some women like that out there.
Beautifully written, educational. Unfortunately philosophy programs are being eliminated, the federal government isn’t willing to fund these programs because they don’t show enough evidence that they produce jobs.
It’s depressing that despite my multi disciplinary education still didn’t lead me here, and instead was long on postmodernism as a kind of philosophy. Also undergrad philosophy is more concerned with logic than the type I’m trying to write about, sadly.
And much philosophy is done by academics for academics, and not terribly useful outside of academia.
Despite being employed in higher ed, this is my major issue with a lot of academic disciplines, generally speaking. It's not even just philosophy. Fields like anthropology, sociology, and all of the "studies" (American Studies, Asian Studies, Religious Studies, Gender Studies, etc) are guilty of the same crime. Too much of scholarship in the last 20-50 years has been written by scholars for scholars (sometimes about scholars); it rarely represents the people outside of academia they claim to represent. It's a set of privileged reflections at best, or assertions of superiority at worst. Because let's be real: scholarship is not written for an audience outside of the academy. This is why the trend of "scholarship written for scholars" has continued and has now gone off the rails. It's the reason why these disciplines are increasingly seen by others outside of academia, especially the federal government, as unworthy of funding and irrelevant to the world outside the academe. It's a tragedy, in my limited opinion, because there's so much lost potential.
I've been writing precisely because of this issue. I think there's so much to be explored from the layperson's perspective that is just lost, and an even bigger problem is that women seem totally disinterested in these topics.
My danger is fury toward progressivism and its mind-boggling hypocrisy. Progressivism itself is blatantly guilty of everything it projects on patriarchy, whiteness, heteronormativity, etc. I'm constantly -- obsessively, compulsively -- trying to turn progressivism's critique back on itself, trying to make progressivists acknowledge what they are really doing. I'll say "Do a search and replace on DiAngelo, replacing 'White' with 'Woke' and you can see what's really going on." But it never works. They refuse to apply their principles to their own movement. They will never "do the work" when it threatens the real source of their privilege and power. Etc. Etc. Etc.
But in my better moments I suspect the problem has nothing to do with choice of target, and that the root problem is with the critical logic itself. Regardless of target -- regardless of whether a real oppressor or some phony surrogate is in the critical cross-hairs -- this philosophy itself is a ressentiment generator, and whoever uses it will radiate misery.
You’re right about the fury - it’s why I’m trying to turn away from it in my writing because it’s constantly bubbling in the background. The problem is that most people make up their minds without considering the logic of the opinion (something Jonathan Haidt finally drove home for me in the righteous mind). Their sense of self is tied up in it, and I might still be mired in that world had I not been rejected by my supposed friends for being insufficiently woke. They did me a favor. The desire for social approval is just too strong an impetus for most people to resist, which is evolutionary. Logic is almost against our nature.
I think, at least for me, the anger was both justified and productive. I don't regret being angry, and I don't regret the alleged "harm" it caused. Many people cry "harm" whenever anything challenges their ideology. But when they challenge the ideologies of others -- invariably from a perch of power and privilege -- they call that necessary discomfort. It's all necessary discomfort.
But when you have the power you get to say who is the terrorist and who is the freedom-fighter, who is traumatized and who is "fragile", who is deserves protection and who deserves only eye rolls when they object to systemic humiliation and mistreatment.
And you get to say who is weak and who is strong. Progressivists are too strong to be made to admit that they're the strong ones.
Oh crap, I'm mad again.
Suffering has been made trendy. It's bizarre to me. It's become a contest of who has suffered more. But if we make it a contest about who has suffered more, we all lose. It's a zero-sum game. It's why I've largely stepped away from these conversations. You can't win. No one wins. Everyone loses.
Truly. They give you a bad buzz and an even worse hangover.
It’s just a fundamentally disempowering ideology that masquerades as empowering
Spot on. Thanks for your articulate reminder. Love that I'm sitting here with my coffee, laptop and a favorite book The Great Work of Your Life by Stephen Cope where he applies the BG in similar ways.