Jagat

I think I am slowly coming out of my Jordan Peterson phase, though it might take a bit longer. To me he represents an aspect of the Western critique of the East. When the critical eyes of all these great Western thinkers turned to India, they were nearly all dismissive in each their own way.

Without situations there are no stories. Without stories there is no rasa . Therefore, the existence of evil in the world is only to create situations. With no obstacles to overcome, love is unrealizable in its scope. Someone may object: What about horrendous evil? Evil is not being condoned. Simply it is being said that the greater the evil, the greater the p otential for heroism. And love shines all the brighter in the darkness. This of course requires accepting the world-view of the Bhagavad Gita which says that there is no true death, no true suffering. We are engaged in a play in which the only reality or value is Rasa. raso vai sah . This of course includes the karma doctrine, which means that everyone answers for their evil. But the law of karma does not answer ultimate questions about evil, for it too faces the problem of infinite regression. There is a hierarchy of rasas, which are arranged in order from horror ( bibhatsa ), fear ( bhayanaka ), a...

Literalist concepts of God were made to be mocked; they are for children. And even understood symbolically, many concepts of God are fraught with problems. In the present day world, crude literalist forms of Islam and fundamentalist Christianity are leading the charge to cause doubts in the minds of reasonable people about all forms of the religious life. And for good reason. The purpose of the "God idea" or "God symbol" is to elevate humanity both as individuals and as social beings. If it appears to do the opposite, then what can this mean? Some defenders of religion say that it has done more good than bad, but since there is no way to measure such things it is quite easy to point out that plenty of pretty horrible evils have been wrought in the name of God and religion. Even if such a jaundiced view were to be true, on its own, it hardly functions as a decisive proof that religion does not have a positive function or that God does not exist. Thinking of God ...