Existentialism and Hindu Philosophy

[ratananmol]

Friends: Some reflections on what is life and perception.... I am interested in the
developing my perspective of my existence. I had heard about Sartre before but never looked deep enough. Today i chanced to see what is "existentialism" and find my perspectives converging with this thought (See http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/1964/sartre-bio.html). It was to my surprise that my favorite author is Hermann Hesse whose writings are a cornerstone of existentialist philosophy. Although i have not read enough but i think intuitively the road to hindu thought (which manifests in the buddhist ideas and writings by "Rajneesh") flows from the blurrings btween the "good and the bad" the theme of existentialist ideas..
I open the floor to learned members: i know at least a few people will make sense of this and put their ideas for the inquisitive minds.:cool:

[vinodks]

Its good that someone is interested in developing one's own perspective in understanding existence:-)).. eventually, everyone has to..
At one point I was very interested in philosophy and existentialism too, more towards literary aspect of it than philosophical, and enjoyed reading Sartre, Camus, Kafka, Nietzsche, Andre Gide and Hesse, whose writings touch upon the subject at varying degree.. But too much delving on the subject tends to affect you in dry and pessimistic way, so I started liking fantasy, childern books, humor and other low-brow non-sense stuff:-))...
Yes, Hesse's Siddhartha is good mix of Buddhism and Existentialism but I won't draw more conclusive parallels between Hinduism and a new trend of thinking developed in late 19th century...

-vinod

[ratananmol]

Dear Dudee ji and Vinod:
In simple terms..i am a human being who feels pain,pleasure, grief, joy, sorrow, sadness and elation...to me the politcal debates did not make much sense untill seen thru the prism of ideologies. I was introduced to Marxism thru my college syllabus in BA-we read a bunch of political economy ideas including marxian ideas which are very well laid out by the genius himself.
In existentialism we reject any prevailing isms which are recognised to be less than perfect..the problem is that man needs a model to move and comprehend the outside world to rationalize his responses but the biases created by different isms. The best way to learn and remain human is to reject any ism..the judgement of right or wrong must be created by self and not to a written rule. When infact we view the world thru eyes of curiousity nothing that constitutes learning can be labelled wrong....the broad egalitarian ideas that make up the sufi ideologies have the same theme (kabir, bulla shah etc) were the early proponents of this line of thought..if you dress up these ideas and add western terms to these they become Existentialism. Recently, Ghalib wrote the following...
khuda puche ga hashr mein in parsaon se;

gunha kyun na kiya, kya main Raheem naa tha?

"On the day of judgement, GOD will ask the "pure" or "un-sinfuls";
Why didnt you commit a sin? Didn't you belive in Me being the "most Merciful and Forgiving" ?
I think these are my initial ideas on this topic..
(This topic was also initiated by myself at dudee's website where i had more hits and responses...since we have two things to compare the jugdement follows: jatland is lagging at least on topics like these)

[sampuran]

Dear Dudee ji and Vinod:In simple terms..i am a human being who feels pain,pleasure, grief, joy, sorrow, sadness and elation...to me the politcal debates did not make much sense untill seen thru the prism of ideologies. I was introduced to Marxism thru my college syllabus in BA-we read a bunch of political economy ideas including marxian ideas which are very well laid out by the genius himself.In existentialism we reject any prevailing isms which are recognised to be less than perfect..the problem is that man needs a model to move and comprehend the outside world to rationalize his responses but the biases created by different isms. The best way to learn and remain human is to reject any ism..the judgement of right or wrong must be created by self and not to a written rule. When infact we view the world thru eyes of curiousity nothing that constitutes learning can be labelled wrong....the broad egalitarian ideas that make up the sufi ideologies have the same theme (kabir, bulla shah etc) were the early proponents of this line of thought..if you dress up these ideas and add western terms to these they become Existentialism. Recently, Ghalib wrote the following...On the day of judgement, GOD will ask the pure&;un-sinfulsWhy didnt you commit a sin? Didn't you belive in Me being the "most Merciful and Forgiving&I think these are my initial ideas on this topicThis topic was also initiated by myself at dudee's website where i had more hits and responses...since we have two things to compare the jugdement follows: jatland is lagging at least on topics like these)Anamol bhai Talking of existantialism, I would be an illiterate.The problem with isms is not the spirit behind, but design defect. Most of these categorise man to be just another object with only material needs. They dont cater to the higher needs and aspirations. And when somebody like Stalin or Hitler or Mao convinces himself that his only way of thinking is correct, others become sacrilage. Enemies within. Targets of voilent reaction. Ghalib';s quote is his imagination. Sin and no-sin are man's categorisations. Somebody like an almighty God would have hard wired man so that the ;later would not commit a sin, if God did not want him to. The challange before ism, philophosies, societies etc is HOW TO TAME THE BASAL INSTINCTS OF MAN SO THAT CIVILISATIONS CONTINUE TO PROSPER. YEWT HOT TO FREE HIS INTELLECT AND SOUL FOR THE SATIATION OF HIGHER NEEDS AND CONTINUED EVOLUTION OF LIFE.

[shobhitdeshwal]

Existence of me..... Who am I??

Here I stand, and if I shut my eyes, and try to conceive of my own existence, "I", "I", "I"...... What is the idea before me? The idea of a body. Am I, then nothing but a combination of material substance? The Vedas say NO... I am a spirit living in a body....

Now comes the question of the spirit!!! Something which we are not allowed to talk of.. as this is something..the soul... which does not peish... goes from one bosy to the another and keeps its journey on and on and on.....

I... This word in itself does not mean a thing to me... I whether I am a body or a soul in a body... does not make sense.. I am because I am here... had there been no world for me to explore, to experiene and to live in.. the I in me would have lsot its meaning......

Vedanta philosophy.. though not much sought after... spells this clear and loud..... I am a part and parcel of the energy of the supermasive force...... God.. is what people call it in the language.. but that is a force.. which guides us through differnt phases and with different articles...... When I die... I know no what would happen... when the soul does not die.. ad changes its body... then the questions of heaven and hell seem naive... All has to be here...So the force will guide me to do the best in this body and the other and yet another one.....

The question which pertains here is of the ultimate existence.... of the force.. which distributes its parts within us..... and make us all self sufficient to feel the heat of the world!!!

[vinodks]

Anmol, Sampuran and Shobhit, good ideas. Categorization of ideas in isms makes one more of a book keeper of thoughts, perceptions, impressions and experiences than genuine "observer". But academicians like to categorize, (Aristotle was obsessed with categorisation; categorising kinds of human feelings, actions, objects like plants, flowers and what-nots. And his ideas influenced western thinkers more than anyone else.) which is good because people can benefit from other's ideas and more ahead from there rather than re-inventing gravity. Use of isms for analysing personal experiences is sort of mechanical makes one feel trapped. No knowledge of such ideas may also make one like dog chasing its own tale. E.g. I found "gestalt" ideas and "transactional analysis" in psychology very compeling and was wondering what are these games that people in society play until I read something that defined those raw thoughts in concrete terms -"psychological games", so knowing something is better but knowing too much can cause "psychological nausea" that characters in Sartre's novels feel. With these modern thoughts people have lost capability of having faith, I don't know if its good or not. Personally I would prefer faith over reason.
Study of isms is useful if you happened to be in humanity dept but otherwise spend time in reading comics or visit Jatland or j a t w o r l d and enjoy

-vinod

[shobhitdeshwal]

Vinod Bhai...

Fiath... is a vauge term as I term it!!!! Faith is something you can not define ever.. never qulaify or quantify.... Faith could be established on as small things and as large things as possible.... But.. to look beyond the faith.. reason is a must..... One can have faith in the existence of soul.... but... to have an understanding.. reasoning for the same is a must......
For me.. reasons start when faith fails me.......
Ahh.. Belief... a sister of faith... It keeps me driving for the reason.... Beyond faith...
And well said.. the study of isms... Is confined to books and thesis..... but to speak is as important as to think.... As... It gives a view of the other side of the coin as well.... And.. this is not a bad forum for the same I guess..
Anmol has started a good thing here... Where we could understand the underlying philosophy of person!!!!

Cheers!

Shobhit Deshwal

[ranjitjat]

Dharampalji, we all want you to post on this site. Please be back and make Jatland more interesting with all of your "Dudisms". We have been missing you ever since you posted last on this site.

Please be back.

regards,
$umit



Dear Vinod & Anmol
Thank you very much for starting nice thread. This is good information. I think Jats can handle the new experience very well. What ever we exchange here is information.
Every Atma can feel Good/bad, right/wrong/true/false. We all having experiences in our daily life. Atma has knowledge by experience of life.
If we listen to our inner voice. We can realise the true experience of life.

ISM is a name. See above
our friend Sumit is asking about Dudism. I never thought that some thing like Dudism is there in this world.
To me Dudism- Jatism- Humanism Insaniyat is the same.
Sachi kahana aur Sukhi rahana.
Work is worshp- DO KARMA
Khun pasene ki kamai karo-
khub kamao- khub khao aur khus raho
NishKam Bhawana sy Karma karo
Good or bad Phal ki ichha na karo

[vinodks]

Hi, This discourse on faith vs reason is old but recently new light had been shed on it when people started to bridge the gap between eastern mysticism and western rationalism. So many people talk about this these days but the first philosopher who realized its importance is Robert Pirsig, whose novel "Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintainance" is partially about this debate, faith vs reason.
This is story of a guy who rides over mid-western part of US on a motorcycle with his son and in parallel writes down his ideas. Faith begins when reason starts to fail. He gives non-intellectual, non-conceptual and simple way of looking at life, and revolts againt chicago university's humanity dept's faculty, in short he revots against isms, exactly the thing we are talking here. He is so anti-Aristotlian and introduces a new concept "Metaphysics of Quality". Quality is the main thing that defines everything, it is soul in us, it's heat combustion system in motorcycle, it's driving force in our life, it's the reason, it's sole truth. When I said faith, it's not just blind belief in supernatural things. It's faith in purpose of things, faith in order and beauty of things. Pirsig went to Banaras to study Hindu mysticism and his thoughts are heavily influences by it. He then wrote "Lila -Inquiry in to Morals". As it happens to most of philosophers, he had mental breakdowns. But Zen and Art... is sweet, grab it.

-vinod


Vinod Bhai...

Fiath... is a vauge term as I term it!!!! Faith is something you can not define ever.. never qulaify or quantify.... Faith could be established on as small things and as large things as possible.... But.. to look beyond the faith.. reason is a must..... One can have faith in the existence of soul.... but... to have an understanding.. reasoning for the same is a must......
For me.. reasons start when faith fails me.......
Ahh.. Belief... a sister of faith... It keeps me driving for the reason.... Beyond faith...
And well said.. the study of isms... Is confined to books and thesis..... but to speak is as important as to think.... As... It gives a view of the other side of the coin as well.... And.. this is not a bad forum for the same I guess..
Anmol has started a good thing here... Where we could understand the underlying philosophy of person!!!!

Cheers!

Shobhit Deshwal

[deepakchoudhry]

Friends: Some reflections on what is life and perception.... I am interested in the
developing my perspective of my existence. I had heard about Sartre before but never looked deep enough. Today i chanced to see what is "existentialism" and find my perspectives converging with this thought (See http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/1964/sartre-bio.html). It .:cool:

Dear Ratan,

Pls read "The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali".

Regards,

Deepak

[vinodks]

Hi, I just now remembered that long time(2001AD) back couple of my poems had published in Asian Age newpaper(I don't know if they are still in business); basically there used to be a suppliment on saturdays and there used to be a corner where they used to publish poems from readers. One of mine was regarding Existentialism. I hunted up archived files in compu and now it looks so silly and juvenile. I laughed but I am pasting it here anyway, hesitantly though.

-vinod
--------------------
To An Existentialist

Freedom you cherish now
Will make you lame.
All beliefs destroyed
And no one to blame.
The Reason will sterilize
The innocence of a child.
The Heart will not smart
With too correct a mind.
Devoid of pleasure and pain
You will seek in vain
The fire spent long ago
And faded from memory lane.
Mind saturated with whiteness
All surprises withered
A person you will turn into
No one has ever heard.
Striving for consistency
Against yourself you fought,
In hope to expurgate irrational
You became a carcass, washed-out.

[ratananmol]

Vinod:
the poem is good but in no way reflects the underlying philosophy...but far from it...your personal opinion is not doing justice to this line of thought...