I have been wondering for some time on modern readings of injunctions of various ancient scriptures on how people of different natures must lead their lives.
Take, for example, the lifestyle a brahmin is supposed to follow. The ideal in this case, is a life of abnegation, with the guideline to give up most 'good things' of life, such as alcohol, meat and womanizing. The lifestyle of such a person must also involve ritual worship and extensive study. Now one could definitely not think much and just follow the 'rules' - but such a literalist view may never reveal what those injunctions are meant to be for.
On the other hand, if someone leads an intellectually oriented life, and that person wants to excel at such a life, it seems that they would naturally end up following a lifestyle in line with those ancient injunctions! Conduct, relation to ideals and reflection - these underlie the injunctions on everyday life (abnegation etc), worship and scriptural study. Even if someone indulges in the 'good things', if they are truly introspective, they will eventually understand that moderation alone will give a stable and happy life.
Thinking like this, it seems to me, that modern commentators (i.e. the generation of interpreters of our scriptures educated entirely in English/or other colonially imposed languages/media) often miss the whole point of ancient religious traditions. The aim of those injunctions was not to produce dour men with colourless lives - rather, those injunctions stemmed from observing the lives of successful people. So instead of focusing excessively and 'dos and don'ts' and 'virtue and sin', it would be better if commentators of religions instead spend time in understanding and expounding the lives that led to those injunctions. Basically, focus on 'living life' and not on suffocating life! Although, rather unfortunately, the goal of a vast majority of religious traditions has been world-transcendence and perhaps that's why these morbid 'dont-doisms' are around.
4 comments:
But weren't the "lives that led to those injunctions" filled with "transcendental consciousness", whatever that means?
Not necessarily! The Buddha experienced life in full before renouncing it. On the other hand within the Vedic fold, Sri Krishna and Sri Ramachandra led a full life in the complete Yogic spirit, in which there is nothing to 'renounce'. I would say, the main heroes of Mahabharata, and for that matter most of the Puranic literature like the Bhagavata (which records even passionate moments of sages such as Parasara, Kardama, Vishwamitra, Vyasa etc) are all people who led life as heroes, rather than escape from it under the load of injunctions.
That is a very good point. The Vedic side, on that count, seems far less exclusively monastic compared to Buddhism.
However, and this could be just me, I hardly feel inspired by the stories of the characters you mentioned. One can't even begin to try to imitate Sri Krishna, almost everything he did was counter-intuitive. As for Sri Rama, I keep being put off by the thought that he led a very sad life, full of suffering, just because he lived according to Dharma. Now one could resort to the Adhyatma Ramayana contention that Rama was in fact joyful through all these, identified with his Real Nature, but that is hardly something the common man can look forward to. The question becomes : what if you suffer due to Dharma and don't gain the Ramanesque maturity to face the suffering?
Even Vishwamitra : I shudder to think of going through the kind of scary ups and downs he went through. It is not clear if hell is less pleasant than that.
I agree that sometimes these lives are scary, but then thats why they are heroes! Vishwamitra's life strikes awe in us. In these lives, all are epic sized - the triumphs, as well as tragedies. Anyhow the point I think is notable, is that, all these people lived their lives to full. They were not trodden under the weight of dont-doisms.
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