Bhagavad Gita Training

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Gunas, Are they Great Means of Ridicule?

Gunas, Are they Great Means of Ridicule?

The Second Vatican Counsil maintains there is divine wisdom in other religions.

The Bhagavad Gita is used to promote avatar worship nowadays too. Cults are for that, and what is more, they tend to mar after taking human rights away to some degree, some ways or others.
The book can be used:

For demagogy which ridicules;
For bulwarking of perhaps corrupt swami monks;
For blocking self-regulated and relaxed coping under other sets of circumstances than the common ones of ancient India;
For conform or tendentious indoctrination.

The ancient Sanskrit poem is a dialogue that takes place on a battle-field, just as a great war between opposing forces is about to begin.

Is lying also an old Hindu tradition? It is!

The poem's carnal "hero" is a prince called Arjun(a). Many values endorsed in the poem are spanned or meted out according to a divisional society that is caste-bound. And a God of personal characteristics is identified with the brahman of the Vedic society.
The earliest Gita commentary that has come down is that of the great philosopher Shankara, who also reorganised the swami system of monks. [See Acm] Much from his ancient, voluminous output is included in Nikhilananda is translation of the Gita, favourably welcomed by Columbia University for its scholarly calibre. [Wy; Wara]
In the early 1800s second- and third-hand translations of the Upanishads appeared in Europe, and they had a profound effect on certain thinkers, notably in Germany, where Arthur Schopenhauer admitted Vedic influence on his thought. [So: fronted]
The Bhagavadgita is a fruit of Vaishnavism. One basic thought is the Upanishad notion that atman (self) is Brahman (ultimate reality) inwardly. In line with Vedic teaching, Krishna tells that great nonattachment requires inward knowledge (jnana) of the true nature of the self; and also being good at discerning between one's inner self and one's environments.

Three Gunas

The gunas are three non-substantial elements, or more accurate, they are mental classification devices:

Sattva: often understood as brighness, goodness and harmony;
Rajas: activity, desperate passion included;
Tamas: inertia, slovenness, darkness, sombre understanding.

Many attributes are seen as threefold through guna classification: For example, one may say devotion has three sides (and many others), for example:

Harmonious devotion, which is fit for Sat (Being);
Desperately passionate devotion (of so-called rajas);
Stubborn, inert devotion, which appears to be the form ranked last of the three.

Now reconsider: To contemplate may be seen as sitting inert, looking sloven and stupid over and over - as a very tamasic activity if you judge the book by the cover - by outward appearances only. But according to the Gita's systemic thinking, to contemplate is of sattva, is good and the like (elevating, good, bright), no matter what it looks like.
From this we may get an inkling that when the gunas are nothing (they are not found in nature, but in some minds because they are classificatory ideas), classifications based on them have flaws.

Literature
So: Deussen, Paul tr: Sixty Upanishads of the Veda, vol 1- 2. Banarsidass. Varanasi, 1980.
Wara: de Bary, Waldemar and Embree, Ainslee, eds: A Guide to Oriental Classics. 2nd ed. Columbia University. New York, 1975.
Wy: Tuxen, Poul tr: Bhagavadgita. Herrens Ord. Gyldendal. København, 1962.

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