The quest for fame deconstructed and redirected

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Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 34 Sambhavitas Chakirti Maranatirichyate Sambhavitas Chakirti Akirti That infamy Krishna says Maranatirichyate Maranatirichyate infamy that actually infamy is better than death or rather death is worse death is better than infamy or infamy is worse than death death is worse and the sentiment it conveys of fame as being defining importance it is not unfamiliar sentiment it comes repeatedly within the Vedic literature and just as the desire for sex is a part of almost irresistible part of the being of most people, similarly the desire for sex is also a part of it’s that close that the desire for name, fame and glory is almost like that so the important thing now is to understand that so here in this particular context of Krishna telling Arjuna that you should avoid acting in a dishonourable way because if you are dishonoured then the scorn the derision, the ignominy that you will face that will be worse than death that is being so the fear of dishonour is being used as a spur to make a person act honourably and for that for spurring a person thus it is stated that the dishonour is the pain of dishonour is worse than the pain of death this principle can also be applied in an opposite way where people are spurred to do things by honour by the desire to be famous and in fact many people consider fame to be a kind of immortality they feel that I may die but if I can live on through my fame that would be wonderful and people are ready to do life defying stunts people are ready to try anything and everything even to the point of risking their lives for fame now at one level this may seem irrational now what good is fame going to do to a dead person and then that person is atheist and thinks that death is the end so if death is the end then one should not then what then once existence is destroyed at the time of death then whether one is remembered after death or not that hardly makes a difference to oneself and if one understands oneself to be a soul then if it is the agrahanic conception of eternal damnation or eternal heaven then you know again where one is going is more important than whether one is remembered here or not and that where one is going is determined by whether according to their belief whether one has faith in the particular manifestation of god particular conception of god so in the personal understanding now next life is determined by we remember whether a particular thing is right or wrong based on we attain a particular destination based on whether we are having based on what kind of conception we have cultivated what we remember at the time of death determines what we will attain thereafter and what we remember at the time of death determines or depends on what kind of attachment we have cultivated throughout our life so essentially the point here is that there is no easy way out of illusion for the conditioned soul who is trapped in material existence and fame is a particularly insidious trap because its appeal is so pervasive in the tradition especially in the western tradition the appeal of fame has been compared to that of sex that means just as a person may feel wow this characterisation of something as subtle sex is intriguing because in the brahminic tradition sex is considered to be a primary cause of bonding and illusion a bond that one needs to resist and break free from so comparing anything to sex conveys its gravity in a very graphic and unforgettable way so in addition to conveying the gravity of the appeal and the bondage of fame another feature that it can point to is the result in terms of what happens in sex there is pleasure in it there is temptation there is a pleasure that comes by indulging in temptation but along with that central to the whole process of temptation is the idea that we are all fractional beings that we are fractional in the sense that we actually live for a fraction as compared to the longevity of the world also and in the back of our mind we all have somehow the desire to perpetuate ourselves and sex with its intrinsic connection to reproduction offers us one way to perpetuate ourselves they say there is biological reproduction fame offers a way for cultural reproduction cultural reproduction means just as a person when reproduced through children who look like oneself one hopes that one can in some way continue to live on as it is often said the father lives on through his son or through his children in general the person lives on through his progeny so similarly when a person tries to do something famous whether it be heroism and badgering whether it be some record-breaking performance in some sports or it be some work of literature or art the point is underlying that is the desire to live on so that desire to be immortal through fame that is what is a defining characteristic of many people who pursue fame often especially in traditions where people are not burned but are buried then on their tombs epitaphs are put epitaphs are epitaphs are short pithy sentences which either describe that person’s contributions or they are sentences about that person’s glories or it can be a quote by that person so the idea is that now firstly the idea of a permanent tomb with a tombstone that itself expresses a desire to perpetuate one’s existence a desire to somehow hold on to and lengthen one’s life in contrast or on top of that writing epitaph is that is the hope that even if I die somehow a part of me will be lying in that tomb and more importantly people come here they will get a sense of me they will remember me and if there is an epitaph written then that epitaph will also shape their memory and in that way my glory will be perpetuated will be spread far and wide such notions guide the behaviours of many people now it is not easy it may be a little easier to resist the appeal of cross-sex but it is far more difficult to resist the appeal of subtle sex simply because the idea of culture of one reason is that the idea of culture of springs is far more appealing to feel that culture of springs will stay on for a long long time even now say Shakespeare or Wordsworth their written works are talked about or say the music of Mozart or similarly the writings of the Indian tradition of some authors they have been talked on for a long long time and through such talk it is as if conveyed that we are ourselves going to live on although it is thought of that we are going to live on but it is not that we live on actually it is only our memory that may live on for a little bit of time so now this whole appeal of pain as a means for living on after our death this appeal is especially strong when we understand and we believe that we ourselves are not going to live on now in this chapter just before this verse just before the section where this verse comes this is 2.34 and this section is 2.31 to 2.37 the section before that 2.11 to 2.30 Krishna has talked about the eternality of the soul and in fact that section began with Krishna disapproving or hysterizing algorithm for valuing the bodily sentiment so why is it that Krishna after talking about the eternality of the soul then talks about fearing dishonour and comparing dishonour to death actually there are two different issues here first is that for those who truly seriously understand that their souls are eternal that they are no longer captivated by the need to somehow transport their eternality to the spiritual level by the practise of some kind of feign feign sickness feign stance so that’s why we see many saints some saints some people who renounced the world they may have become famous but there are many failures and saints who never achieved anything and they disappeared into the forest even if they had earlier been kings and they performed austerities and departed from the world without any people coming to know about them so in fact they went away from the world of feign and they did not do anything to even tell the world I renounced the world and then it was not some tiger came and ate me while I was in the forest no, I attained enlightenment remember me no, they don’t do anything like that at all so there are many who on understanding the eternality of the soul and concentrating on eternal pursuit don’t care about feign at all when Krishna is telling Arjuna to consider that the pain of dishonour will be worse than the pain of death the point here is not that Krishna is urging Arjuna to pursue feign as a means to immortality rather he is using the concept of consideration of the unnecessary excruciating pain caused by dishonour and he is reminding that feign as a deterrent for Arjuna from impulsively choosing actions that will be adharmic that will take him away from the realisation of the known and that action will perpetuate his bondage so the point of Arjuna’s discussion is not the rejection of is not a recommendation of feign but a rejection of action that will be detrimental to one’s spiritual realisation in the case of Arjuna he is not fighting with that will be an action done out of illusion out of the illusion of bodily conception and it will further aggravate the bodily conception and therefore he should not do it now Arjuna’s special case is the action that will promote him towards spiritual enlightenment and the action that will promote his feign both those actions are coinciding that means in Arjuna’s instinctive case both his actions are happening harmoniously in that both his actions are coinciding both his actions he will achieve both but in the same thing and the path of dharma is such that and in many cultures especially in the culture surrounding us is also dharmic the path of dharma may also provide pain so Krishna’s point is not to recommend the pursuit of pain in fact later on Krishna will tell that the first characteristic of a person within knowledge in 13.8 Krishna says that the person is not obsessed with honour or dishonour in fact the person doesn’t seek honour at all and several places he said be equal in honour and dishonour be equal amongst praise and criticism so that idea of living transcendental to the considerations of fame of being fixed on the path of principles dharmic principles without being deviated by considerations of fame that is a consistent teaching of the Gita and cardinal teaching of the Gita but at this level where Krishna is still in the initial stages of the development of his message Krishna’s focus is more on how Arjuna can transcend illusion illusion of or avoid the action that will perpetuate illusion and at this level just like a father or a parent when the child is not studying the parent can somehow or the other get the child to study now the best consideration would be that say we could say love of the subject this could be a higher consideration not necessarily best another higher consideration would be the concern for one’s long term career but short term concern could be that whether it means that if you don’t study if you fail in your exams then all your friends will laugh at you they will call you as a failure they will taunt you they will deride you and the child will say no no no I can’t tolerate that I can’t tolerate that and that may make the child study that is also sometimes if the consideration of honour and dishonour can be used to push a person to do the right thing that is also good so in the transcendental sense also Krishna uses that strategy over here when he is telling Arjuna to fight somehow he is urging him to fight by saying if you don’t fight people will consider you as a coward who has fled from the battlefield and they will lampoon you and that will be excruciatingly painful so in the process of bhakti a devotee does not act for faith but not does a devotee act to run away from faith so essentially Krishna here is urging Arjuna to fight and he is using various arguments to make Arjuna fight one of the arguments is the argument in failing and this does not does not support the idea of making faith the main purpose of one’s life and working somehow frantically to pursue faith as to many people in their lives so here we focus primarily on this reality that faith it is its appeal is so great especially because of our conscious or subconscious fear of our mortality and our somehow the hope that through faith we will be able to in some way to live on in spite of our mortality now actually we won’t live on that means where we will be so that will make no so where we will be and what our situation will be that will depend entirely on the actions that we do in this life not on the recollections that people have of us after we have left this life so still as sadhakas when the motive starts troubling us when we start thinking that I want to be famous we can tackle it at various levels we can deal with it at various levels at the first level we can also its not wrong to use it somehow I will fix my name Krishna thats the principle given in the Puranas and quoted also in and we can utilise that principle to avoid things that are spiritually harmful so for example if we feel tempted to act in ways that will cause that will be dishonourable then we can check ourselves from that kind of action by reminding ourselves that actually this can bring me a lot of that is actually the advantage of living in a devotional culture that in such a culture our short term that in a devotional culture we will get honoured if we do activities that are devotionally conducive, positive so for example if somebody does sadhana does a seva laudably does some meet some difficult challenges for the sake of Krishna now all this is very positive so if the at one level if the consideration of fame makes us act in honourable ways in honorableness then that is good so Prabhupada would also say that vows of initiation you should treat them as a word of honour and you must honour your word so the idea is that the consideration of dishonour if a devotee after taking initiation does not stick to those vows then that is unfortunate and the devotee should avoid such an unfortunate conduct and so the fear of the disgrace that may come if that can help us to avoid doing the negative or on a more positive note impel us to do something noteworthy yes that is not the purest motive but we have to know that we need to become devotees first before we can become pure devotees so any way we can engage in devotional service that is good but at the same time we can also at another level we can deal with the fame motive is to recognise that to go deeper and recognise that the craving for fame comes from this need to be recognised and the need to be recognised in a perpetual sort of sense that means to have our memories endure for a long time that sort of endurance of our memories can happen when we do something glorious but we need to recognise that if we understand that we ourselves are spiritual beings and we are going to continue to exist at an arena beyond the physical beyond the mortal and as souls we are immortal but our existence itself will get transported to the eternal spiritual level if we learn to purify ourselves by loving Krishna and come to a pure spiritual state of consciousness then that understanding can also act as a very good impetus for pushing us onwards in our journey towards Krishna now taking another step forward this understanding can free us if this is what I am actually needing that the fear of my mortality and the desire to perpetuate myself if that is what is actuating me towards seeking fame then surely I can gain fame in then surely I can seek fame by surely I don’t have to seek fame I simply have to seek spiritual realisation because once I am spiritually realised then I will come to an eternal level of existence and ultimately that is what I am aspiring for and of course we can also rise to a still higher level of consciousness and consider that actually speaking I am eternal and I have an eternal relationship with Krishna and Krishna loves me so much that he recognises me, he values me cherishes me so much that he accompanies me as a super soul manifestation in my heart and he is there with me always no matter what happens so when God is recognising me and loving me why do I need to bother about doing some kind of physical or social or cultural acrobatics to somehow draw the world’s attention for a few flickering moments instead if I can reciprocate with Krishna then I can relish his love eternally so this can understanding of Krishna’s presence and love and the desire to reciprocate with him that can actually take us to a level of consciousness where we without caring for faith strive primarily for the reciprocation of devotion with Krishna and striving for that reciprocation of devotion we can happily move ahead in our in doing our activities without being distracted or weakened by the fame motive so that desire for perpetual existence which is if not for perpetual existence for at least perpetuating our existence beyond our biological life span biological life span that desire for perpetuating our existence which is at one level sought through sex at another level sought through fame which is aptly referred to by Raksha Das as subtle sex that longing for eternal existence is perfectly and perennially fulfilled in learning to love and serve Krishna and thus elevating ourselves to an eternal ecstatic level of existence