Oppenheimer and the Gita (2014)

I also study Greek and Egyptian wisdom, it's amazing how much overlap there is when you put all of them side by side.

I've spent a good deal of my 20's exploring the American National Parks and Native American plant medicines, the end result brought me closer to Dharma too.

This will be a lifelong study and metanoia is an ongoing process as I transform lead (anger, lust, greed, pride, vanity, sloth, etc) into gold (peace, love, creativity, humility, earnestness, etc).

Working for the welfare of all by creating economic value for them that is rooted in empathy is, in my opinion, the wisest way forward for capitalism.

tl;dr - All rivers lead to the Ocean, take whatever raft works for you but see it through to the end and know all the others who preach love and truth as the highest virtues as equally valid.

All of this is to say, we know very well (except for some much-debated rare words) what the correct pronunciation of Sanskrit is: it is what the Śikṣā śāstra says, what the grammarians elaborated, what is still heard at every Veda-pāṭhaśāla, and what is still spoken by at least tens of thousands of paṇḍits whenever they want to debate anything technical, or even just as a link language to make chit-chat across (other-)language barriers.

Sanskrit is as alive as it has ever been. It is “dead” only in a very restricted sense of the word — e.g. if you only consider usage as a mother tongue rather than as a language for poetry, technical topics, debate, etc — a sense that is irrelevant in the context of Sanskrit, because by this definition (classical, as opposed to the older Vedic) Sanskrit has been “dead” since the moment of its birth (its codification by Pāṇini, which was so exhaustive that it has become, for millenia, a de facto definition of correct Sanskrit), and you'd have to say that everything of value written in it was written after this moment of death/birth (including, according to scholars, most of the Bhagavad Gita itself). Oh and also, I personally know at least a few dozen people who can and do speak in Sanskrit routinely, and at least three families where Sanskrit is the children's mother tongue, and the primary language spoken at home. So the claim of “Nobody has used it as a spoken language for nearly a thousand years” is hard to take seriously.

In any case, the two kinds of Ts and Ds (retroflex and dental) are contrasting phonemes in Sanskrit, meaning that if you mix them up you'll get different words with unintended meanings — it would be hard to consider the outcome “correct”.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

That's why Lord Krishna said to Arjuna "Whatever you do, do unto Me." You're not the "doer", the "Doer" is Creation/God/shaki/energy/consciousness that's flowing within your body powering it through power of will.

I wouldn't say "society" has assigned to you but more like what Life is has placed.

"Why were you were at that exact time and place?"

"Why did you encounter every single moment at that time and/or place?"

"Why have you met the people you have throughout your life?"

Cause-Effect (Karma)

Even non-action is action which has its effect. That's why Lord Krishna chastised Arjuna for not fighting(non-action) because his ego didn't want to fight.

I've read the original paper linked in the article, and I agree with this interpretation. It seems the teaching of Gita is that one must follow the role the society has assigned to you, no matter what.

> The Sanskrit word [...] “duty”is dharma [...]“the privileges, duties and obligations of a man” [...] However, [...] dharma is “group-centered and group-oriented.”The individual conscience has a role, but it is circumscribed within the consensus formed by good and learned people through the ages. Condemned are“those who place their own reasoning above the authority of tradition.”

> Another way in which the Gita seems conservative to modern Americans [...] is in its refusal to assign the same dharma to every human being. Instead, everyone in the hierarchically ordered Hindu society has a particular role that is determined by one’s class, family, age, and training.

> The book repeatedly insists that one do one’s own duty but no one else’s. [...] one’s obligations as a member of a family or class take priority over one’s obligations as a member of the human race. [...] when “the particular duties of one’s caste and stage in life” conflict with “the universal duties obligatory for all human beings,” the particular duties prevail. [..] “War is evil in any form” [But] Everyone must follow his own particular dharma, even if it requires him to do evil.

> When questioned in later years about his judgment in working on the Manhattan Project, Oppenheimer would defend himself this way “I did my job which was the job I was supposed to do. I was not in a policymaking position at Los Alamos. I would have done anything that I was asked to do.” [...] Later Murray Kempton would criticize [...] “pinnacle of spiritual dispossession” was in fact the spiritual payload Oppenheimer had extracted from the Gita.

> [...] It was Pash’s duty to search persistently for spies, Oppenheimer’s to protect colleagues he knew were innocent, and perhaps a Russian’s to spy for his country—Oppenheimer could accept all this with equanimity because everybody was doing what he was supposed to, following his own particular dharma.

However, the paper says Gita also teaches that one is obligated to perform one's duties. but one cannot control the actual outcome, which is a matter of fate. Nevertheless, one can also choose not to do the correct things one is obligated to do, so it's compatible with free will.

> Hamlet’s delay and demise illustrate the danger of “thinking too precisely on the event”. Unlike Hamlet, however, the Gita does not merely illustrate this theme but instead goes on to stipulate an entire code of behavior based on the insight. It was a code that Oppenheimer would learn to follow, and he would learn it in part from the example of Arjuna. Arjuna’s mistake when he initially refuses to fight is to think that the hand letting loose the arrow is the one that kills. Krishna informs him, however, that actually it is the Lord’s doing, that it is all predetermined.

> Thus, the soldier is not ultimately responsible for his enemies’demise but is a mere instrument like an arrow—or a bomb. The actual killing is the work of some other power.

Also, it says one should detach one's action from its consequences whether things turned to be good or bad, only focuses on one's duties. Thus, Oppenheimer pushed to create the bomb despite it would be used to attack a city, meanwhile he said he was not crucial in the creation the atomic bomb.

> If there is no way for people to dictate the results of their actions, what should be their attitude toward those results? The Gita gave a simple answer: detachment. It was one’s duty to do the work, but one should renounce the “fruit”of the work. That is, one should not have a fixed, insistent desire for any particular result.

I know it would be unpopular, but... From this reading, "I'm just following the order" is the valid justification for the killings if I was a soldier for Nazi Germany, also, I'm obligated to follow all orders from the high command, even if the order is not the optimal one. Also, it's also perfectly valid if I was killed. Finally, it's equally valid if the leadership of Nazi Germany is defeated. The obligation of your role in your current life in the process of reincarnation for the higher spiritual goal matters (for Oppenheimer it's probably just serving his duties), the current life itself doesn't matter.

I'd say few people in the West would accept it, especially after World War 2.

Another example that shows universal values don't exist.

I agree. I don't think I argued against that? Responding to the wrong comment perhaps?

The Bhagavad Gita in particular is a section of the Mahabharata that has seen more revisions over time than the rest of th epic. In fact the name of the purported author "Vyasa" itself means "arranger", implying that he was organizing stories he received from others.