Why strive for anything spiritually?

I said I expected to be criticized over this and I wasn't wrong I see.

However, I still think that it is better to avoid sexist language where possible.
I know the term 'makind' was used a lot in those days, but that doesn't mean we need to continue repeating the mistakes of the past.
In terms of the manifest world in which we live, there are male and female. If we want to have harmony in this world, then the oppression of women and their subordination to men has to end.

It is dangerous to think otherwise. Look at Islam and the way women are treated - little better than cattle in some cases, and all because Muhamed was basically a sexist exploiter of women.

It's says something that it takes me, a male, to raise these pionts.

There are many other non PC things in the world's religious teachings, from the Bible suppoorting slavery (as well as the subordination of women) to the racist attitudes of Swami Bhaktivedanta to the general disaproval of gays inherent in most of the male dominated religions we have today.
All of it has to go unequivocally.
We simply can't trust people with such views to guide us.

That said, I've already made it clear that I doubt Vivekananda would use the same language if he were speaking today - I'm sure that as a sensitive being he would have re-phrased what he had to say with no diminuition of the content.

 

I understand what you are saying...and I appriciate you standing up for everybody... but at the same time... I think its making mountains out of molehills to pick on this particular point... there's a difference, in my mind, over this phrase and the mistreatment of women and others in the world religions... ::shrug:: That is just my humble opinion.

 

Yes. And one can see that the whole anti sex celibacy thing also leads to both attachment and sometimes as we've seen elsewhere to neurotic self harming.
Personally though as I said before, I don't think it is realistically possible to live with a partner and children and not be attached.
Even the idea has a dark side. My view is that humans are meant to exercise love towards one another - not disregard each other or see their relationships as something which holds them back from realization of a higher consciousness.
Love is love, and human love means attachment. I wonder actually how one can love something and not be attached to it in some way.

If the divine is everywhere and in everything, then surely there's no need to run away from one's life situation in order to realize it.
A sensible man or woman might see having children as a kind of sacred trust or duty. In my mind attachement and non-attachment don't really enter into it.

 

I agree that Vivekanada didn't intend offence or to be sexist. In that period, there was little talk of women's rights etc, and in the Uk it wasn't to be for another 20 years after Vivekanada's visit that women even got the vote.
What I'm saying is that we can take the essence of the Swami's message but re-phrase it in terms which tend to re-inforce the idea of equality.

We wouldn't accept references to 'niggers' or 'queers' so why accept denegrating references to women even if they weren't intended to be denigrating by the cultural standards of the day.

 

I have clearly explained this in my previous post. A soldier who gives up his family in order to fight against foreign aggression against his country die in the attempt. Hence his family will clearly lose him, and in the process may go down in terms of poverty or die of starvation. But the soldier and his family's sacrifice is vital and important to save the lives of the numerous other families in the country. The evil of the soldier's sacrifice and his familys subsequent destruction is much negligible compared to the great good that came out of his sacrifice, which resulted in saving the lives of innumerable men and their families.

Even if the Buddha's family perished as a result of Siddharthas abandoning of them,the evil in it is negligible compared to the great good that came from his enlightenment and wisdom and efforts.

In fact if we had more Buddha's , the world would have been a much better place to live in.

I do not agree with the abandoning of the Iskconite of his family.
It would have been better if he had not married and went off to monkhood in the first place.
Also he could definetely have pursued Iskcon along with a married life,
Or if he had decided to join the monkhood after marriage due to certain reasons, he should have at least made sure his family was financially secure.

However you never know, perhaps this man too would become a Chaitanya too, and might bring a lot of good to the world, thus offsetting the evil of leaving behind his family.

But I do not wish to recommend that, and I agree with Billblake that there is an evil and unrighteousness in leaving behind ones family, for any cause for that matter. And anyone who still wishes to do this must compensate for the unrighteousness he has committed, through greater good.

Vivekananda has clearly emphasized that detachment should not mean being indifferent or cold or being a stone wall , incapable of feeling.
It is better to be attached and human than to be indifferent and inhuman.

And it is very important people understand the true meaning of non-attachment as taught by Krishna and Vivekananda and others.

 

Ok that's cool - I am more of a Buddhist myself and I've never heard the term attachment used to mean anything other than the purely negative form of clinging/desire that mess up everyone's lives.

 

Well, the Buddha claimed to be completely unattached, for one, and various other gurus, such as Neem Karoli Baba whom I mentioned earlier, have claimed to be so as well (I've actually never seen a quote from him professing that, but that is what he taught and he had presumably mastered his own teachings). I guess I can't know they were unattached, but I myself believe that total detachment is possible, so I have no reason to doubt them.

You're right, this is unacceptable and I would never endorse such a practice. However, parenting can still be done without attachment, I promise

I'm really not trying to be critical or high and mighty, which I probably will come off as, and I'm sorry, but my beliefs tell me that it is impossible to attain true enlightenment while still attached. Love and attachment have nothing to do with each other. I keep insisting on using the word attachment, perhaps just to make a point, but let's just call it clinging... although love comes with clinging 99.999% of the time, this does not have to be the case. I am not saying anything about your lack of attachment. You seem to think that the fact that you are still attached is somehow an argument that total non-attachment is impossible, and that's simply not true. The entire physical the world, the entire earthly existence - happiness, pain, life, death, love, hate, children, parents, cutting the grass, work, music, sex, drugs, TV, comraderie, loneliness, rivers, oceans, trees, animals, sickness, health, these simply meld into one and become part of the dance, part of the dance of life that is done because there is nothing else to do but it is done with total detachment.

Good point about the aloofness and negativity, but I don't think a truly high being would fall into that trap. You're right too that saving the world is an extreme example, but you see it's the striving to do good that is the problem. The enlightened person wants to do good just as much or more than anyone else, but he understands that the striving and desire will only impeded his progress. Haven't you ever been surrounded by people you thought were misguided? The ego strives to correct them, but the englightened person knows that it won't work. The englightened person doesn't struggle against stubborn people trying to will his way upon all... he simply loves, and whoever is ready to listen will hear. Striving and desire lead to overextension... overextension leads to failure.

I think there are different levels of enlightenment. I do not think I have achieved the highest state, but I think I've seen a glimpse. Obviously you're free to believe whatever you want, and I can only offer my opinions - I have not meant to claim, and shouldn't claim, that anything I've said has any meaning unless it has meaning for you. All I know is that it has meaning for me For me, enlightenment = total love = total acceptance = total detachment.

The example holds for anything, really. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with any of those things. They are just temporary diversions, nothing more. The only issue is when people become attached to these deversions and try to devert themselves from reality as much as possible.

Very good point. However, once a total state of non-desire has been reached, then even the desire to be unattached falls away. It's kind of hard to explain, but I feel like when enlightenment is reached the person realizes that the secrets of the universe were in front of his face the whole time, and because of this, the whole attachment/non-attachment thing kind of falls away as well as the person is just wrapped in a warm blanket of total love. Another point that I still think has yet to sink in is that wanting something and attaching to it are not the same. One can seek enlightenment and seek non-attachment without being attached to it.

 

An unforunate example drawn from the annals of conflict - but actually it isn't strictly true. Take World War 1 - pointless slaughter for what? No-one really seems to know, but probably an imperial trade war.
Had the Germans won, I doubt they'd have invaded Britain and begun slaughtering the families of service men, so they were actually fighting not to protect their families but to prop up the vile institution that was the British Empire against the expansion of German Iimperial ambitions.
They were brainwashed with the ideas of heroic sacrifice etc.they were even told very significantly that they were fighting for 'God, King and Contry'. So boys as young as 14 were ready to line up in neat rows to be machine gunned down.

Once again - if they refused to fight the thing would never have taken place.
If people weren't brainwashed by nationalistic ideas which are often associated by the propagandists with religion, we'd all be much better off.
It is attachment to such stuff that leads people to throw away their lives in other people's conflicts, and to no good end.

 

We have discussed this already in War and the Bhagavad Gita,and I don't want to discuss this again, as it is not relevant to the topic.

You yourself has stated in that thread that you will not hesitate to go to war under certain circumstances.

Please understand the message I am trying to convey.

 

I do understand but disagree. I don't think non-attachment is a possible state for the normal human being.


It is interesting that Vaishnavism deals with this issue in the way it does.
One has no choice but to be attached, so be attached to the divine - that seems to be the underlying idea.

So love for example is to be directed to god rather then the usual objects.

This seems more realistic to me, although even here I can see inherent problems.

 

Perhaps if you direct your attachment towards God you strive for a higher spiritual state and perhaps even that falls away and you are finally totally unattached...but you just needed that little intermediate period...

 

You're right, I mean it's all just word tricks... what is "attached" anyway, you know? If you give up all attachments except attachment to the divine and your family, you're probably doing fine

 

Nah there is no trick, attachments are very real, and they are mental realities rather than physical objects that one can study. In my opinion, Attachments are to be given up in a sense that we should be aloof to attachments, while doing our duties responsibly.

 

Amma says, "Children, both wordly and spiritual life can be led side by side, but we must act without attachment and expectation." We feel sorry when we think, "I have done this; I want to reap the fruit of it. If we think that everything is God's, then we have no attachment. God is the only Truth".

No matter how much wealth we have, unless we properly understand its value and use, we will experience only sorrow. Even if we derive from it is only temporary. It cannot give eternal happiness. If we understand how to use wealth properly, we will enjoy the wealth of happiness and peace.

A juggler does so many tricks. He dances and rolls on the ground, but as he juggles his mind is always fixed on the object. Just so, with practice you can learn to fix the mind on God while doing any work.

Small children may worry that the Sun has disappeared at sunset. In the morning when it rises, they rejoice at its return. They don't know what the truth is. Likewise, we rejoice and grieve like them with gain and loss.

If one's child is sick, we are willing to wait without sleep for any length of time in the hospital waiting room. We have time to linger for hours in a shop simply to purchase some costumes. But we have no time to pray to God. Children, when we love God, we will easily find time to pray to God.

Children, you may be scientist or doctor or engineer, let the rational aspect of yourself shine forth when you are in the laboratory and when you are among other professionals. But when you go home you should be able to drop the role. At home you are coming back to real life, and you should be able to move from your head into your heart. You should have the strength to stop thinking about your science and experiments. How boring and dry life would be if you went directly to your room without even glancing or smiling at your wife and children. Think of the stress and strain this would create in the family. If the head of the family doesn't interact with his wife and children, everyone will find home life boring and sad. Love creates smiling laughing faces and compassionate hearts, and is expressed in sweet and pleasant words. You can choose both head and the heart. There is no problem in this, but there should be a balance, for if you choose logic and rational thinking alone, you are in all troubles. Love will not create any trouble, fear, anger or tension.