Does commitment to ideology make us blind to objective understanding?
Question from Keshav Prabhu is the Marxist view that ideology leads to blindness after a distance true any person in real life follows a ideology and also the truth is relative for everyone so how can one be sure of his path when a person follows a ideology his thoughts, his intellect works according to his ideology but his ideology cannot answer every question does owing to ideology closes doors for open thinking and knowledge of the absolute truth answer if ideology leads to blindness then is this true for all ideologies except Marxism if it's true for all ideologies then why should Marxism be an exception so ultimately even people who say that we should not follow any ideology also have some ideology that is the default social ideology in today's life materialism so we may not consider it or call it an ideology but it is an ideology is basically a system of thoughts, beliefs and perceptions that shape our life and everybody has that so we can't avoid ideologies in any way what we may do in the name of avoiding ideologies just passively commit to the mainstream ideology that is prevailing in the society and that's when people will not consider us ideologically committed so for example today if somebody is not practicing any religion, any philosophy then people say that person is ideologically unmotivated but then that person is definitely motivated by an ideology the mainstream ideology of materialism so once we understand that it's not possible to avoid ideology then we have to look for the ideology that makes the best sense and that enables us to see everything with objective criteria as much as possible not just subjective value judgments so I have personally found the three modes of material nature as a very sound objective criteria that can help us put all of reality including the various ideologies therein in a proper perspective so in Christianity in Islam even in most systems of thought whether they be religious or secular such an objective criteria has not been so systematically delineated and so consistently employed Chinese thought has they have various name for it yin and yang they have the basic idea of two extremes and the reality shaking between the two extremes that is somewhere similar but it is not as comprehensive as the three modes of material nature and the most amazing aspect of the three modes of material nature is that the scriptures do not hesitate to be self-critical with it for a person to be able to make substantial progress in any part self-criticism is very important self-criticism doesn't mean beating oneself down with guilt but it means being open to observe oneself from a detached perspective and examine one's motives and actions so the Bhagavad Gita and the Bhagavatam do glorify bhakti and offer us a world view that is centered on bhakti but at the same time the Bhagavatam third canto in Kapila's teachings talks about bhakti in the three modes and it says how those who are in ignorance they commit violence in the name of bhakti those who are in passion, they are possessive and greedy and power hungry in the name of bhakti or in the name of religion so then it talks about bhakti in goodness and then talks about bhakti in transcendence so here is a system of thought that puts everything in an objective categorized perspective and it doesn't assign to itself in a blanket way superiority over that perspective so bhakti is ultimately transcendental to the three modes but actually the Bhagavatam is so self critical that it also recognizes the reality that bhakti may be transcendental but bhaktas may not be transcendental and to help bhaktas not become self complacent about their own position, their own ideological understanding and their practice so there can be there is this framework of the three modes so as devotees also we shouldn't assume that just because somebody is subscribing to the Krishna conscious ideology, the word ideology has negative connotations in today's usage and that's why most devotees may not use the word ideology but since we are discussing ideology here, I am using that word so it's not that just because of subscribing to Krishna conscious ideology devotees are automatically going to be right in everything that they say all of us have our own filters that come from our own past conditionings, our experiences, our upbringing and various other factors so it is only when we recognize that bhakti is transcendental and it offers us the means to attain transcendence but we are right now not transcendental then we can using the system of three modes, evaluate even our own actions so although we shouldn't go into a judgmental mode by trying to analyze which devotee is in goodness, which devotee is in passion and is some devotee behaving in ignorance but overall three modes certainly provide us a framework at least for evaluating our own actions and the Bhagavad Gita also talks about knowledge in three modes and it talks about intelligence in three modes and again if we see the descriptions that Krishna gives over there are not just self-laudatory Krishna is not saying that just one who sees me everywhere, that person is in goodness and one who fails to see me, that person is in ignorance Krishna although he is God and ultimately one who sees him is in the highest state of knowledge, when Krishna is offering us a material perspective the three modes of material nature are material and when Krishna is offering us a material perspective he gives us objective criteria he says that one who is able to see the spirit underlying matter that person's knowledge is in goodness a person who is able to regulate the mind and senses and pursue a reality beyond what is immediately visible that person's determination is in goodness and a person who sees everything as separate based on external forms and appearances that person's knowledge is in passion and a person who strives for worldly gains even using religion such a person person's determination is in the mode of passion and like that, and then ignorance is very obvious, when a person sees only one fragment of reality, thinking it to be everything you can look at the 18th chapter for this I don't want to make this answer very long so, one who sees everything as a fragment of reality to be everything, that person's knowledge is in the mode of ignorance, similarly a person whose determination doesn't proceed beyond lamentation, moroseness, laziness grumpiness fault finding procrastination that's determination in the mode of ignorance so, essentially what does worldview connote? worldview essentially connotes how we see the world and how we act in the world and for both of these, Krishna uses knowledge for how we see the world and determination for how we act in the world and then he also discriminates intelligence, because intelligence is knowledge in action and he puts that also in three modes so, essentially the three modes are a very good framework for us to not only evaluate our own, not only evaluate all ideologies, but to evaluate our own position while following our own ideology, so that we don't become complacently or self-indulgently blind thinking that we are the best and everyone else is faulty thank you.