Gita 16.24 Absolute Knowledge doesn’t have to be dogmatic and open-mindedness doesn’t have to relativize everything

Transcript

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Thank you Scripture is a guidebook for action Now, absolutism and dogmatism are two different things No We can have absolute sources of knowledge without being dogmatic Absolutism is a state of conviction Dogmatism is a state of cognition malfunctioning That means that there is Let’s consider to understand the difference between these two Let’s look at open mindedness and relativism Open mindedness means that we are not close minded, that we are not narrow minded that this is my understanding but some alternative understanding may also be possible and I am open about it this is my understanding of things but things may be that way also things can be seen from another way also so open mindedness means that we don’t insist that we are not closed to additional inputs in knowledge or to alternative forms of knowing we are willing to learn not just new knowledge but also we are willing to learn new ways of knowing that is open mindedness Now we can have faith in absolute knowledge and still be open minded so that means that there is a higher reality there is what we could call as God a higher being and there is a reality which is absolute and that absolute reality can give us absolute knowledge absolute means that which is we could say reliable that which corresponds with reality at the same time we also understand that no one book or no one path or no one teacher has a monopoly on the absolute truth the absolute truth is unlimited and that unlimited absolute truth can reveal oneself through different sources different channels so we can be we can have faith in the absoluteness of the revelation that we have got through a particular tradition at the same time we can have open mindedness towards the revelation that has come to us through some other tradition so because we understand that okay the absolute has revealed has been revealed through my tradition but even that revelation how much have I understood it my understanding of it is limited yes there is absolute revelation but that does not mean that it is exhaustive revelation where there is nothing more left about the absolute to know the absolute can exist at multiple levels of being can manifest in multiple ways and can be comprehended in multiple dimensions and therefore other people may also have an understanding of the absolute which is something which I can I can be enriched by so I am open to it I am ready to open myself to those ways of understanding that is what we could say is that is open minded position and this is this open minded position is non dogmatic so dogmatism means this is the truth and this is the only truth and this is all there is and everything else apart from this is wrong so dog absolutism is not the same as dogmatism dogmatism is often entails a denial of experienced reality a rejection of the knowledge acquired through our senses then on the other hand we have the the other extreme is relativism wherein people start claiming that that all knowledge is relative and that there is no absolute knowledge at all now this itself is a self contradiction because then we are making relativism an absolute principle because absolute means we could say that is all so relativism is what applies in all situations if that is what we say that means we are not rejecting all but we are applying applying relativism to all and thus we have the absolutism of relativism that means there is all knowledge is relative but this particular sentence is not relative all knowledge is relative but the item of knowledge that the statement that all knowledge is relative is not relative it is an absolute statement so it is a self contradictory assertion so relativism leads to people staying in a mode of staying in ignorance and staying in uncertainty staying in fear staying in a state of intellectual paralysis because we just don’t know so relativism can be used to rationalize anything and everything and actually rationality itself can become compromised and even even consigned to the garbage heap if we do not understand that we cannot have the absolute relativism because ultimately we use rationality to understand this makes more sense this doesn’t make so much sense this is logical this is not logical so if you start saying everything is relative then we will not have we will not have any scope to use rationality to evaluate which among the options are more rational or less rational because somebody will say yeah you are more rational but still it is relative only so relativism doesn’t just relativizes truths it actually reduces all truths to the level of untruths or at least all truths to the level of subjective conceptions so there is truth with a capital T and there is truth with a small t so there is no truth with a capital T there are only truths with small t’s and those truths with small t’s are things which all that we can know and even that we cannot really know because we may change our opinions and now it’s good to learn and grow and learning and growing involves requires changing of one’s positions that’s fine but the important thing is that relativism as an absolute principle is incoherent it is self contradictory so we can avoid the two extremes of relativism wherein we say we cannot know anything at all all knowledge is relative and dogmatism where we put a stamp of stamp of total inflexibility and we just presume that or we just assume and impose that this is all that there is and there is nothing more to be analyzed, discussed, learned so dogmatism puts a seal on knowledge the seal of finality or in terms of seal of know nothing more now that is not what absolutism is absolutism is that this is true but that doesn’t mean this alone is true there can be alternative modes of knowing also and so and there can be other revelations that can come in different ways so when Krishna is speaking the Bhagavad Gita and he’s telling us do this and don’t do this we see within that also there are multiple levels of instructions that he gives for brahmanas he says act in this way, kshatriyas act in this way so for brahmanas he recommends non-violence, tolerance, shama, forgiveness as a virtue, for kshatriyas he says that don’t flee from fight, fight courageously so there is there is the understanding that that there can be descending form of knowledge and in that sense the knowledge that comes in a descending form is absolute but then there is there is open mindedness to understand that not all people are at the same level and the absolute knowledge needs also to be customized, needs to be appropriately understood, appropriately applied appropriately realized so there is open mindedness and thus Krishna at the end of the Bhagavad Gita we see he doesn’t call upon Arjuna to accept that knowledge simply based on based on his authority I am God, I am speaking this, you accept it no, Krishna asks Arjuna to use his intelligence to evaluate Vimrishshaitada sheshena Ithe chisita kuru Vimrishshaitada deliberate, how to deliberate? As much as is needed you can deliberate and then Ithe chisita kuru as you desire so you can do, so the point here is that Krishna is telling Arjuna that Krishna is being very non-dogmatic here in terms of not imposing his authority and demanding acceptance rather Krishna is using all his, Krishna has used his supreme intelligence to present the Bhagavad Gita and now he is he is looking at, he is asking Arjuna to use his intelligence to understand and then do as he desires so this is a non-dogmatic approach so this way we can be open minded without being relativists and we can seek absolute knowledge without being dogmatic, thank you