Gita 16.08 Materialism strips not only the other world of reality but also this world of meaning

Transcript

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Bhagavad Gita 16.8 Asatyam apratishtham te Jagadāhur anīśvaraṁ aparasparasambhūtam kim anyat kāma haithukam Krishna is here in the Gita 16.8 depicting the mentality of those who adopt a wholly materialistic worldview who claim that life has no purpose other than bodily pleasure in fact what these people say is something even more fundamental they argue that actually life itself the world itself is originating in desire kim anyat kāma haithukam so ultimately they hold this world as asatyam there is no reality to it apratishtham that it has no foundation Krishna uses the word pratishtha else where brahmano hi pratishtham that I am the foundation of Brahman so what exactly is the point being made when it is said that actually there is no foundation to this world we know that whenever we live we all strive for some kind of purpose some kind of meaning we all have some kind of worldview whether we acknowledge it or not and it is our underlying worldview that gives us meaning to our life to the extent we adopt a worldview which makes our life meaningless to that extent we cut the foundation under us in English there is a saying to pull the rug under a person’s legs that means we all need the ground under us to be steady so that we can function so that we can do something constructive so that we can at the very least stand upright if somebody pulls the rug under our feet that means the very foundation on which we are standing that foundation is challenged it is shaken and people fall down to live without a foundation is to have the rug pulled from under our feet when that happens then we become subjected to an extreme level of uncertainty and insecurity when people who have lived in areas that are not earthquake prone are suddenly subjected to earthquakes then they even if they survive those quakes they can become very fearful one reason why earthquakes can be so profoundly scary is that they destroy or at least disrupt that which we think is very secure that which we think is indeed the basis of our security the ground under our feet if the ground under our feet itself starts shaking then where do we go for stability we human beings are not like birds who can fly in the sky so the ground is the basic foundation on which we live and to find that that ground underneath is not as steady as it seems it is that is profoundly disorienting so when we find that the ground under our feet has been taken away say for example there is a warrior who wants to fight and that warrior suddenly finds that the ground under standing was a trap door and the trap door is open and they are sunk deep into a dungeon into a ditch into a trap what will they fight they are already trapped so through these three metaphors of the rug being pulled from our feet the ground underneath giving way taking us into a trap through a trap door or an earthquake shaking a shed shaking the ground under us all these are ways in which we can understand how disorienting or devastating the shaking of the ground under us can be similarly when we come to know that life itself has no foundation that there is no ultimate meaning to life that there is no foundation of reality on which we stand then that kind of conception can be profoundly disorienting for the human psyche in western intellectual history a prominent thinker was the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and he is best known in theistic circles for his infamous declaration God is dead but his declaration was not in a mood of celebration it was in a mood of profound loss because he understood that if there is no God then there is no basis for any meaning in life there is no foundation to life and we are resigned to a meaningless existence so what exactly do we mean when saying that materialism removes the foundation of our existence that materialism postulates that life itself has no foundation how exactly does a materialistic world view pull the rug from under our feet consider say the expression I love you now we are not talking here in the sense of any ultimate meaning and purpose of life yes that ultimate meaning and purpose is surely destroyed by the materialistic world view but even apart from that we are talking right now simply about the immediate world view wherein we recognize that life is meaningless if we reuse it purely to a materialistic level in materialism there is no foundational fundamental meaning to anything because matter simply exists without even being aware of its own existence what to speak of seeking any kind of meaning or accepting the notion of any ultimate meaning indeed the overall purpose of our existence is to progress towards a more fulfilling level of life now materialistic people may not necessarily think of something non-material as life’s ultimate purpose but still even at a materialistic level they want their life to be purposeful they want some sense of context purpose meaning to their life without that they just set themselves up for profound frustration so say people want a good house a good family a good job a good social circle and these are in their conception the ingredients of a meaningful successful life but materialism takes away the meaning even from this so for example if you really seriously consider it young people when they form a relationship they long to hear someone else say to them I love you but what is the meaning of I love you if I and you if we are simply materialistic creatures then we are nothing more than biological robots and love is nothing but a surge of chemicals in the cranial cavity of a biological robot so what is left for a meaningful life in such a blinkered myopic meaningless surge of chemicals in the cranial cavity of a biological robot so although we may not often think about our life in such drastic terms but the plain fact of life is that materialism doesn’t just strip our life of otherworldly meaning it strips our life of even this worldly meaning that as soon as we accept a materialistic world view we not only reject the existence of some other world therefore making life have no context and purpose beyond that and death can come at any time so in a sense life has no context or purpose overall but even in this life materialism reduces love to a surge of chemicals reduces the joy that we get in relationships to simply the secretion of certain enzymes in certain areas of the brain and all this is it strips life of any ultimate meaning that the chemicals accumulating in a cup in front of us don’t have any meaning similarly chemicals accumulating in some kind of receptacle in some area of the brain are they have no reason to be any more meaningful that’s how life actually ends up profoundly meaningless even in this world we often choose materialism as a world view because it allows us the freedom to have material enjoyment but actually materialism makes material enjoyment meaningless materialism materialism makes even material enjoyment unenjoyable if we really think in serious philosophical terms that we will understand that every time we try to approach a deep meaningful relationship with someone if we started thinking in strict materialistic terms we would end up postulating that we would end up concluding recognizing based on the materialistic world view that this is nothing but a surge of chemicals and a surge of chemicals has no meaning whatsoever thus our whole life becomes profoundly meaningless and it is this profound loss of meaning that is of great consequence for any thoughtful person it makes people believe that there is really nothing that they can do to make their life any more meaningful because materialism traps our existence within an overall context of meaningfulness or rather meaninglessness not meaningfulness and that’s why we need spirituality to have a foundation of foundation to our life to have a sense of fundamental meaning in our life which will enable us to move forward towards pursuing something richer, pursuing something higher pursuing something more fulfilling and the more we do this the more we move forward towards joy towards taste towards love the spiritual world view explains that love is not just a surge of chemicals in our brain it is actually emerging from our very core which is spiritual consciousness is an innate faculty of the soul and it is this consciousness which enables us to function in any way in life it is consciousness that gives us emotions that enables us to relish reciprocation and it is consciousness that ultimately underlies our search for meaning and it enables us to ultimately find meaning in our life so by basing our sense of self identity in our eternal connection in our spirituality we can get a foundation that will not shake we can get a foundation that will not be taken away from us and actually spiritual wisdom goes further and explains that our foundation is not just in terms of our capacity to pursue reality our foundation is not just in our capacity to pursue spiritual reality but is also in our capacity to connect with ultimate spiritual reality the ultimate spiritual reality is Krishna and to the extent we can progress towards spiritual reality to the extent we can make that spiritual reality make our connection with Krishna the foundation of all that we do the basis of our life the purpose of our existence the rationale for our living to that extent we can have a fulfilling life a life that is founded in spiritual reality and a life that will be culminating in our elevating ourselves to the highest spiritual reality