Continuing the 201, the first part can be found here. This part will focus on reader comments from 101. Also read Sandeep’s critique of 101.
When you say eternal and universal, you are ignoring the fact that human beings evolved rather recently ?
By eternal and universal the reference was to basic values like Truth and Justice which are time and context invariant. The earlier caveat holds, we are only talking about the observable universe without accounting for an relativistic and quantum phenomena.
You use free will a lot in some arguments. How can we be sure that Draupadi really did it out of free will ? It is not something that is easily known. Society can exert pressure in subtle ways that you only have an illusion of free will
We just have to place faith in the author for the Mahabharata goes to great lengths to also talk about the story of Amba who was forced out of her father’s palace and asked to marry against her free will by Bhishma. That violation of her free will eventually becomes the reason for Bhishma’s downfall in Kurukshetra when Amba is reincarnated as Shikhandin.
What if the democratic opinion supports adharmic actions? For example, this could be due to demogougery of ?popular? leaders or not enough courage to do the right thing or just taking an easy way out. This is where the quality of political leadership becomes very important. You cannot justify something adharmic based on just democratic opinion.
Absolutely there can be no moral sanction for Adharmic actions based on democratic opinion. The “what” maybe arrived at using democracy as a vehicle to satisfy Dharma. But ultimately if that “what” requires actions which fail the desireless actions test then there would be no moral sanction for those actions. A good example could be incidents were an entire Village metes immoral punishment for an inter-caste marriage for example.
Why should anyone follow dharma? Will it always improve our well-being? (I am reminded of the story of satya Harischandra.)
If people are not convinced by this, it?d be very easy to lead them down whichever path is seen as improving their immediate well-being.
Sandeep’s opening statement answers this most eloquently. Dharma is that which sustains, protects. People must follow Dharma for it alone ensures that which we call Civilization survives. Dharmo Rakshati Rakshitah
The boundaries between Dharma and Contextual Morality are not all black and white though. In Mahabharata war Krishna himself persuaded Arjuna to kill Karna when he was ?Without Ratha?.
This has been answered in Dharma 201 Part 1. We need to draw a distinction between righteous actions and actions in conformance with a set of rules of engagement in a given context. Arjuna violated the rules of engagement but he did not violate Dharma. His actions were desireless and were limited to upholding Dharma by stopping Karna. He did not indulge in any Adharma by abusing that moral sanction from Krishna for any other material or personal purposes.
It would be important to note though that Dharma (How) and Religion (What) & Contextual Morality (Why) need to find a common ground in real life. One would ask who should win in case of the conflict among the three.
Sandeep answers this in a way in his critique. The “What” and “Why” ultimately have to result in actions that satisfy Dharma else there would be conflict. So while we may have the freedom to choose the “What” and justify the “Why” contextually it is important to ensure that choice is not at odds with the “How”.? It is with this perspective we must view Visesha Dharma that Sandeep refers to. These are choices that have been prescribed with the assumption that in that day and age, in that context, they would have resulted in actions that satisfied the demands of Dharma.
Would an act of prostitution engaged in (by 2 consenting adults) with exchange of services for money be ?dharmic? but ?immoral? & yet ?justifiable? if that is the only means available for the lady to feed her family? I would think not. Thus, I am not sure that the disctinction between How (Dharma), What (Religion) and Why (contextual morality) can be compartmentalized so easily or that ?Dharma? shoudl always win if it is at the expense of morality.
No visitor to a prostitute is desireless in his actions, he is not visiting her out of a sense of duty to provide her with livelihood 
that should settle the prostitution debate as far as the visitor goes.
In my judgement, the ?determination of whether an act is righteous? has both ?how? and ?why? components to it (without getting in to which one is more imortant). This would make the terrorist act of killing innocent civilians ?adharmic? while killing of soldiers by soldiers of another nation during a declared war would be ?Dharmic? for soldiers on both sides. Thus, while I would consider ?Kaurawas? as ?adharmic?, the foot solders (even on the side of Kaurawas) that obeyed the orders of their commanders and faught the war as havng lived by their ?Dharma? of being a Kshatriya. Am I missing something?
You are right in so far as the foot soldiers were doing their duty in following orders. But then there is a larger question which has to do with tolerating Adharma. On this question the foot soldier is no different from a Drona or a Kripa or an Ashwathamma all of who discharged their duty or Visesha Dharma as Sandeep puts it, but they tolerated adharma and fought to defend it and thus suffered consequences.
In your definition of Dharma, how do you define ?righteous?? Does it spring from ethical considerations?
Actions that further Truth and Justice. Also the Gita specifies the “desireless actions” test. Ethical considerations derive from these basic values. However we must draw a distinction from moral do’s and dont’s.
More questions and comments in 301 as we take this debate further.
Filed under: Dharma-debates, Flat World Hindutva
What exactly is desireless action?
Any trade by definition is a negotiation between two individuals needing something which the other individual can provide. So, trade is not a desireless action? Does desiring “desireless action” count?
As I understand desireless action means not emotionally invested in the “end result” of the action. But there is nothing adharmic about having a desire for the action itself.
Jujung – you are right partially but think what this means in this context
there is only one end result in visiting a prostitute and it is the experience. So in this case there is no distinction between the action and its end result.
Please put the dharma posts in a separate category.
Yoss Boss where has 101 disappeared
off topic – is shiv sena going to bail out UPA?
reason….
I dont think so…..If they do….its the end of the road for them with the NDA….This would be the second and final time they double crossed the NDA, first being support for that Idiot Mahamahim Shrimati Patil, Rashtrapati,Bharatiya Ganrajya….
Quite honestly, I dont think, that they will risk their political identity in Maharashtra at this juncture, they know that middle class votes comes to them coz they are ASSOCIATED with the Sangh Pariwar.
SS supporting UPA. No way.
“Muslims lost an opportunity – Sandhya Jain”
http://www.dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?main_variable=EDITS&file_name=edit3%2Etxt&counter_img=3
Swapan Dasgupta nails that PIG Amar Singh, read on:
Quote:
There may be one reason for shiv sena – I dont think they want elections right now. With BJP victories in gujarat and karnataka, and Modi holding mammoth rallies in Mumbai, and sena weakened by so much splits.
In fact, those in favor of the deal now may all have that one factor in common – a fear of immediate elections. It is possible the congress sensed it, and turned that problem into an opportunity to dump communists.
Shiv Sena could abstain from voting saying this is a matter of ‘national’ interest.
Thanks for responding to the previous question, but I have more.
1. In part 1 you said that arjuna could have been angry when he killed karNa but that wouldn’t make the action adhArmic because his external actions didn’t involve taking home karNa’s wife ( arjuna killed karNa’s son before the final battle with karNa so chances are that his wife would have been alive ) etc.
But here you say that “No visitor to a prostitute is desireless in his actions, he is not visiting her out of a sense of duty to provide her with livelihood”. So what makes the first action ( killing karNa ) dhArmic and the second ( prostitute ) adhArmic?
2. In the gIta the bhagavAn, while describing knowledge of God ( with whom he was identifying himself then ), says : “dharmAviruddhO bhUtEShu kAmO’smi bharatarShabha” – “On RShabha among bharatas, I am the desire in beings that doesn’t contradict dharma”. By your definitions desirelessness is a prerequisite for dharma right?
froginthewell,
As I understand, desirelessness by itself is not a prerequisite for being dharmic. Buddha considered desire itself as a root cause of misery, but such a desireless life is suitable only for ascetics not for a civilization. What Krishna says is you need to do your duties (karma, for that leads to your improvement) but not crave for the end result (otherwise that would cause you misery).
Yossarin,
Kama by itself is not adharmic. Why it cannot be allowed to trade is not entirely clear to me? Why is “providing livelihood” (say satisfying hunger) dharmic and why is “buying sex” (satisfying another body need) adharmic? (You may argue this body need is not as pressing need as the other one, but that’s only coz of our current physiology.. it’s not unreasonable to think of cases where the sexual need could be a matter of importance.) It can only be a moral do/don’t act depending on a particular time and setting.
Regarding Arjuna and Karna’s situation, that he has to resort to breaking the rules of engagement to uphold the same weighs heavily on him for the rest of his life. That the victors of the war also lost everything they held dear is a point to consider. It is also important to note that all the pandavas go through hell initially for their actions (dharmaraj too for lying about aswathama). While as individuals they are in error for their actions, as warriors their duty is to upheld dharma. So I feel there is always this conflict within each of us which we need to address.
So what does the dharma say when it comes to abortion?
>>Why is “providing livelihood” (say satisfying hunger) dharmic and why is “buying sex” (satisfying another body need) adharmic? (You may argue this body need is not as pressing need as the other one, but that’s only coz of our current physiology.<<
The answer to this is very nicely given in Ayurveda granthas and Shiv Sutras of Shiv Maha-Purana and even Yoga Sutras
1 As Shiv Sutras and quantum mechanics has already proven. The matter in the body is actually the dense form of energy only. Now when a person is buying sex, he is actually crossing his auric energy (or panchkoshas) with a women, whose job is to satisfy LUST (aka the semi naked whores and TIE WEARING GIGS OF MEDIA)(so thepeople coming to her have the basest animal instincts)and having sex with the same destroys a person’s Sattivic (or Spritual) AURA, replacing it with black, darker energy. According to Shiv Sutras any disease starts with the energy imbalances in the etheric body, and according to quantum physics, the darker subtle energy when strong destroys the vital energy.
2. According to Ayurveda, the vital energy (Kundalini)is pulled towards the root chakra and nether regions (the seven narakas are defined below the sex or second chakra) when a person indulges in sex. However, if he is engaging with only his wife, their auras cross so many times that the energy they even out (Most of the divorces in fact are mainly due to the disbalanced chakras because of the predominance of one type of energy in one person and the opposing type in another)and if indulgence is controlled the make up would be fast
So there is nothing “WRONG” per se, except the destruction of self, as the present day definations are defined on the basis of the Satanic Christian Theology, where even mother and sisters are nothing more than objects of lust
Sea Lion, quote from Shivapurana as much as you want, but unless there is reason to believe that the word “shakti” used in these places can be translated as a word “energy” that is also suitable to be used in the quantum mechanical sense of the term – and unless you spell that reason out – your writing will only contribute to entire Hinduism being misrepresented and ridiculed.
Now for the rest – that prostitution does damage to an individual’s mental level I do not doubt. And purANas do speak of the virtues of “conserving” semen. However does that per se make the action of prostitution “adhArmic” or not – it is a non-trivial question. Kings who were supposed to be upholders of dharma have been said to have huge harems ( and still somehow managed to be childless! ).
Jujung – thanks for your reply. But I still would like to see scriptural quotes regarding the dhArmicity of prostitution. I am pretty sure the manu-smRti would call it adhArmic, for instance.
And purANas do speak of the virtues of “conserving” semen.
Is that for everyone – married householders and ascetics alike, or for the latter?
>>Sea Lion, quote from Shivapurana as much as you want, but unless there is reason to believe that the word “shakti” used in these places can be translated as a word “energy” that is also suitable to be used in the quantum mechanical sense of the term – and unless you spell that reason out – your writing will only contribute to entire Hinduism being misrepresented and ridiculed.<>Kings who were supposed to be upholders of dharma have been said to have huge harems <<
By the way WORD “HAREM” is an ARABIC word and harems arrived with the Islamic invasion of India, AND ISLAMIC KINGS WERE NOT UPHOLDERS OF DHARMA BUT ISLAMISM
>>Sea Lion, quote from Shivapurana as much as you want, but unless there is reason to believe that the word “shakti” used in these places can be translated as a word “energy” that is also suitable to be used in the quantum mechanical sense of the term – and unless you spell that reason out – your writing will only contribute to entire Hinduism being misrepresented and ridiculed.
Dear froginthewell.
As per quantum mechanics, everything is energy, remember the Eienstien’s theory of relativity E=mc^2. As per quantum theory matter is a dense form of energy, and even from simple physics everybody knows that matter is composed of particles vibrating at a particular frequency.
And any moron would also know that Shakti, or Kundalini is NOT MATTER, so it has to be energy, because according to physics there is no other form existing.
By the way, it seems that either you did not read the reply properly, (just reading Shiv Mahapuran might have incited your SICKULAR sense) or misrepresented it. I’am talking of AURIC FIELD OF ENERGY. By the way that can be photographed by Kirilian Photography.
>>Kings who were supposed to be upholders of dharma have been said to have huge harems <<
By the way WORD “HAREM” is an ARABIC word and harems arrived with the Islamic invasion of India, AND ISLAMIC KINGS WERE NOT UPHOLDERS OF DHARMA BUT ISLAMISM
kaafir : for everyone abstinence is virtuous. Here is a quote from Manusmriti :
“There is no sin in eating meat, in (drinking) spirituous liquor, and in carnal intercourse, for that is the natural way of created beings, but abstention brings great rewards.”
Sealion : Nothing sickular here. My contention is can be described in terms of your statement :
is NOT MATTER, so it has to be energy, because according to physics there is no other form existing.
This notion is what I object to. For instance our scriptures talk of the “subtle elements” with which the “sUkShma-sharIra” is made of. That doesn’t mean it has to be matter as understood by physics. Similarly the kuNDalinI “energy” need not be energy as understood by Physics. Unless you have had some experience yourself that kuNDalinI can be related to “the capacity to do work”, work being the line integral of force against displacement – which is roughly how physics understands energy. There is no reason to limit our beliefs to only what Physics claims to exist.
Sea Lion : harem is the translation I used for “antaHpura”. I can quote from, say, raghuvaMsha if you wish if you want to.