Can Yogis be politically active?
In The Yoga Sutras of Pantajali, Sri Swami Satchidananda discusses cultivating attitudes toward four different kinds of people. As a practicing yogi, your utmost importance is placed in achieving peace. This peace is ultimately achieved by uniting with the Divine with the recognition that this Divine is within us as it is also within each and everyone of us.
Now the four different kinds of people: the "happy", the "unhappy," the "virtuous," and the "wicked." Swami Satchidananda urges friendliness and compassion to these respectively. In my mind, the first two have to do with with feelings. One feels happy or one feels unhappy. On the other hand, the virtuous and the wicked, in my opinion, have to do with morality. Unlike the ephemeral feelings of happiness or unhappiness, the virtuosity and wickedness seem to go beyond spontaneous human emotions. They seem to speak of human disposition, seated more deeply within human psyche. One cannot be virtuous one moment and not virtuous the next. Likewise, one cannot be wicked on moment and not wicked the next. For these last two Swami Satchidananda urges delight and disregard respectively. Regarding "wickedness," he writes that maybe if we leave them alone, they will come out of their wickedness. "Don't try to advise such people," he writes, "because wicked people seldom take advice. If you try to advise them you will lose your peace."
Because in trying to convert these people into good people, I will lose my peace, and my peace is of UTMOST important above all else, I am not to try to give them any help in how to stop being wicked. I understand Satchidananda to be saying this: if you find peace within yourself, and you radiate this peace, this peace will cause othersfollow your example and find their way to peace and, therefore, enlightenment. This is what it means to detach from the world, by detaching from the world, by this "involution," one sets a chain reaction of sorts. This is enlightenment. The more wickedness you see, the more inward you turn.
I have a problem with that. Since there will always be "wicked" people as these people are not to be advised, we also have to be willing to live with this fact. This seems to be extremely undemocratic and defeatist. Isn't democracy all about getting that majority to agree with you? How do you get someone to agree with you if you don't try to advise them?
I know lots of politically enegaged people. I know lots of yogis. I also know that lots of yogis supported Barack Obama in 2008, but it was also a taboo to publicly acknowledge such favoritism then. Since then Seane Corn publicly supported Occupy Wall Street movement, she now tours with Michael Franti, another outspoken yogi who seeks justice. The two were in Wilmington, NC, my hometown, recently to support the overturn of HB2, the anti-transgender bathroom bill. And this year, more than ever, more yogis are speaking up against Trump and on behalf of Hillary Clinton because, seriously, Donald Trump is the antithesis of everything yogic. But I digress.
Well, I guess Satchidananda is right. I am getting agitated and disturbed just by this mere thought. The question to ask yourself is, "what is more important? My own peace or the peace of others at the cost of my own?"
Saturday, July 30, 2016
Friday, July 29, 2016
I should really be finishing up the syllabi for my fall classes. With only 2 weeks until classes start, typically I would have them all done by now. This year is different. I am glued to my newsfeed.
I have a recurring thought about the state of affairs in American politics. It concerns the ethics of voting.
You hear people say it. They say, "political discussions don't belong at the dinner table!" Or "please no political posts on Facebook!" Or "No more tweets about the presidential election!" Then, ultimately they say, either, "please vote your conscience", or "vote your heart."
1. "Vote your conscience"
We have to think about that a little bit. When such a statement is made about conscience in the context of voting, the significance of the ACT of voting is highlighted. Moreover, it establishes a connection between conscience and the choice you make for political office. Why? The undeniable fact is that your vote may contribute to someone being elected has implications, not only for you, but for all others who may have to live your choice for the next 2,4,6 years. Therefore, it is not an act done lightly.
Then, what does it mean to say "vote your conscience"? We first need to examine what conscience is. Conscience, by definition, is the voice in your head that tells you how to choose between right and wrong. Conscience tells you what is right. Conscience turns voting into a deliberate, moral activity.
How then is it possible that there such a range of what people believe is right? BernieOrBusters, for example, are convinced that they are right in rejecting Hillary Clinton's nomination, be it because the election was rigged (oh, how Americans love conspiracy theories!), or she is just as bad as Trump (really? They have bought the Right's demonization of Clinton for over 20 years), or they want a third party (a great idea, but starting with the office of the president is a BAD idea.)
The Trumpsters. They really believe that the world is in a tail spin. God may strike a blow any time now. Because gays. ISIS is going to infiltrate our society and we may all die. Or ISIS will send jihadists from abroad and we all die. Or the world as we have known it is slowly disappearing. That happens. I could go on and on.
They all think they are right.
The problem is that there is no fixed idea of what is right. What we perceive to be right depends upon what we bring to our thought process, which has been conditioned by our experiences. We can't possibly know what others' experiences are so we rely on ours. If you are a white male, you are going to see the world as declining for you. If you are a female, you are going to see the world gradually opening up for you. If you are a black male, you see the world that devalues your life. If you are a black female, you see the world that says you are either a ho or mammy. Etc.
So then, the real dilemma is that it is difficult to see the world outside your experiences. Because conscience cannot ever be objective, there has to be more than that for us to use when we vote.
2. Vote your heart
Just as people say to "vote your conscience," they are also likely to say, "vote your heart." Shall we define "heart" here just as we did" conscience" Anatomically speaking, heart is an organ that pumps your blood. Your heart stops, you die. Unlike your brain. Your brain stops functioning, you are "brain-dead." That means that you lost your capacity to think, but your heart is still pumping. You are technically alive, but we lose the ability to think and reflect and thereby lose what defines us as humans--as sentient beings. So then heart and brain are seeming opposites with opposing functions.
But that's not all that heart is. As we saw above, if conscience is a guide for doing the right thing as opposed to the wrong thing, then what does heart have to do with voting? Typically, we say, "follow your heart" when trying to help others with decisions. Heart, of course, is a metaphor for our warm and fuzzy feelings as opposed to calculated rational thinking. So when you follow your heart, make a decision on your feelings. You are guided by, not by a sense of right and wrong, but rather by a sense of what you love and what you don't. So then we might argue that "voting your heart" means that we do less deliberation and more intuition centered around you. As such, it is radically individualistic. Even more than conscience, heart can never be objective. It's always subjective.
So then is the act of voting destined to be an individual choice based on subjective views of the mind or heart? Here is an interesting article that I came across a couple of days ago.
http://qz.com/717255/ethicists-say-voting-with-your-heart-without-a-care-about-the-consequences-is-actually-immoral/
This one particular paragraph is worth examining.
The following example is is even more pertinent.
Voting, therefore, is not a matter of pure conscience or pure heart. It is a matter of conscience AND heart. Your heart may tell you what agrees with you. It tells you what makes you feel good. Then that feeling must be followed by your conscience so that you may make, based upon the feelings that are present in your heart, a conscious, ethical choice. Not just for you. For all human beings. It turns out that the every individual act of voting has enormous implications for the collective.
Think about it.
I have a recurring thought about the state of affairs in American politics. It concerns the ethics of voting.
You hear people say it. They say, "political discussions don't belong at the dinner table!" Or "please no political posts on Facebook!" Or "No more tweets about the presidential election!" Then, ultimately they say, either, "please vote your conscience", or "vote your heart."
1. "Vote your conscience"
We have to think about that a little bit. When such a statement is made about conscience in the context of voting, the significance of the ACT of voting is highlighted. Moreover, it establishes a connection between conscience and the choice you make for political office. Why? The undeniable fact is that your vote may contribute to someone being elected has implications, not only for you, but for all others who may have to live your choice for the next 2,4,6 years. Therefore, it is not an act done lightly.
Then, what does it mean to say "vote your conscience"? We first need to examine what conscience is. Conscience, by definition, is the voice in your head that tells you how to choose between right and wrong. Conscience tells you what is right. Conscience turns voting into a deliberate, moral activity.
How then is it possible that there such a range of what people believe is right? BernieOrBusters, for example, are convinced that they are right in rejecting Hillary Clinton's nomination, be it because the election was rigged (oh, how Americans love conspiracy theories!), or she is just as bad as Trump (really? They have bought the Right's demonization of Clinton for over 20 years), or they want a third party (a great idea, but starting with the office of the president is a BAD idea.)
The Trumpsters. They really believe that the world is in a tail spin. God may strike a blow any time now. Because gays. ISIS is going to infiltrate our society and we may all die. Or ISIS will send jihadists from abroad and we all die. Or the world as we have known it is slowly disappearing. That happens. I could go on and on.
They all think they are right.
The problem is that there is no fixed idea of what is right. What we perceive to be right depends upon what we bring to our thought process, which has been conditioned by our experiences. We can't possibly know what others' experiences are so we rely on ours. If you are a white male, you are going to see the world as declining for you. If you are a female, you are going to see the world gradually opening up for you. If you are a black male, you see the world that devalues your life. If you are a black female, you see the world that says you are either a ho or mammy. Etc.
So then, the real dilemma is that it is difficult to see the world outside your experiences. Because conscience cannot ever be objective, there has to be more than that for us to use when we vote.
2. Vote your heart
Just as people say to "vote your conscience," they are also likely to say, "vote your heart." Shall we define "heart" here just as we did" conscience" Anatomically speaking, heart is an organ that pumps your blood. Your heart stops, you die. Unlike your brain. Your brain stops functioning, you are "brain-dead." That means that you lost your capacity to think, but your heart is still pumping. You are technically alive, but we lose the ability to think and reflect and thereby lose what defines us as humans--as sentient beings. So then heart and brain are seeming opposites with opposing functions.
But that's not all that heart is. As we saw above, if conscience is a guide for doing the right thing as opposed to the wrong thing, then what does heart have to do with voting? Typically, we say, "follow your heart" when trying to help others with decisions. Heart, of course, is a metaphor for our warm and fuzzy feelings as opposed to calculated rational thinking. So when you follow your heart, make a decision on your feelings. You are guided by, not by a sense of right and wrong, but rather by a sense of what you love and what you don't. So then we might argue that "voting your heart" means that we do less deliberation and more intuition centered around you. As such, it is radically individualistic. Even more than conscience, heart can never be objective. It's always subjective.
So then is the act of voting destined to be an individual choice based on subjective views of the mind or heart? Here is an interesting article that I came across a couple of days ago.
http://qz.com/717255/ethicists-say-voting-with-your-heart-without-a-care-about-the-consequences-is-actually-immoral/
This one particular paragraph is worth examining.
The purpose of voting is not to express your fidelity to a worldview. It's not to wave a flag or paint your face in team colors; it's to produce outcomes. . . If they are smart, they'll vote for the candidate likely to best produce the outcome they want. That my very well be compromising, but if voting for a far-left or far-right candidate means that you're just going to lose the election, then you've brought the world further away from justice rather than closer to it.This passage pretty much tells us that voting far-right or far-left who have no chance of winning, therefore, affecting any meaningful outcome, is throwing our votes away. There is just no meaning in it with the winner-take-all election. Can humans actually be ok with meaningless actions? Can voting your heart really equal this type of meaninglessness?
The following example is is even more pertinent.
As a citizen, I have a duty to others because it's not just me and my principles, but everybody. . . I have to consider how what I do will impact other people. For example, if I was a die-hard Bernie supporter, I might say my principles tell me to vote for Bernie. But I'm not going to let my principles condemn other people to suffering.How did voting get so complicated? What we consider to be a private act of conscience or heart is actually not an individual or even private act that calls upon one's ability to think or intuit. It's a collective act whose outcome affects EVERYONE. Your vote matters, not just to yourself, but also to others. Voting is the ultimate collective action in any democracy.
Voting, therefore, is not a matter of pure conscience or pure heart. It is a matter of conscience AND heart. Your heart may tell you what agrees with you. It tells you what makes you feel good. Then that feeling must be followed by your conscience so that you may make, based upon the feelings that are present in your heart, a conscious, ethical choice. Not just for you. For all human beings. It turns out that the every individual act of voting has enormous implications for the collective.
Think about it.
Tuesday, July 26, 2016
Strange things are happening in the world of American politics.
1. It reads like a spy/ conspiracy/ cold war/ cyber war fiction.
Russia's Putin hates Clinton, but loves Trump. That has been known for a while. At the same time, Trump's admiration of Putin for the law and order that Putin established at the expense of massive civil liberties in Russia is also well-known. In fact, Trump himself has shown a dictarorial bent, including trusting, it seems, only his own flesh and blood. Russia's official agencies hack into the DNC email and Wikileaks publishes it.
Some interesting developments on this here and here.
At the end of the day, the DNC chair is forced to resign and Bernie supporters are livid that their conspiracy theories were confirmed. The party convention preparations that had been going smoothly are rocked to the core. Trump's numbers rise and is again tied in the polls with Hillary Clinton. It looks from the outside like Putin has been the grand puppeteer playing with American voters to affect the election results in his favor. Whoa!
2. Many Bernie supporters are no different than some Trump supporters. Both groups purport to vote for their candidate for their children and grandchildren. They share the same goal, just with different candidates. Watch this video:
https://www.facebook.com/claudia.stauber/videos/10208776020210828/
"I don't give a fuck about Trump. Trump is dangerous for this country, but so is Hillary Clinton."
She sounds and acts crazy. Has she been following the same Hillary Clinton as I have? Years of being in the spotlight, granted some bad, but also much good, but overall an intelligent, unjustly maligned woman?
I voted for Bernie Sanders in the primary. I was a Bernie supporter. But he never gained a wide appeal. But his supporters created this persona of Bernie who seemed to do no wrong. The idea of Bernie was separate from Bernie, the person. Hence, the boos when Bernie the person stated during his speech that Hillary Clinton needs to win over Trump. I don't understand these people. So thoroughly beholden to the perfectionist fallacy. Bernie was their perfect candidate, so when he wasn't, he was booed. Which is why now they are saying that they are going to vote for Jill Stein.
3. Jill Stein is the Ralph Nader of this election. She does not have a long political history like Clinton, so there is not much that one can fault. No fault, therefore, translates into perfection for many Bernie supporters now turned Stein supporters. False equivalency, anyone?
Stein sounds just like the woman in the video. She insinuates that Trump and Clinton are equally bad. Maybe Trump is a little worse because he is a racist. Stein has stated that Clinton has already done what Trump is promising. Awww, only if things were that simple. Again, false equivalency, anyone?
I remember 16 years ago (16 years already!!!) when Al Gore ran for president against George W. Bush. Bush wasn't really a well-known political figure because the governorship of Texas is more of a figure head for the state than an actual policy maker, and people thought that he would govern much like his dad. They bought his "compassionate conservative" label for himself. People liked the guy. He was goofy, he would be a great beer buddy.
Gore, on the other hand, was boring. He talked too much. He was too professorial. He was too stiff. No one would want to have a beer with him. Many progressives voted for Ralph Nader because they were not satisfied with Gore. Protest vote.
Then while the Supreme Court was taking time to decide who won the election, many cried for the White House to be occupied because it didn't matter who was in it. They were the same, good or bad. And what happened? We started 2 wars, spent trillions of dollars in them, thousands of American soldiers dead, and untold number of Afghans and Iraqis dead. Oh, how different the world would be now if Gore had become president. . .
4. Americans love revolutions. We are taught early on that is how the country came to be. Revolutions are good. Revolutions are sacred. Revolutions are how we bring about change.
Revolutions only work when the majority participates in them. Think about Ron Paul. He ran many times for president, promising a revolution. Remember his rEVOLution? But he didn't get anywhere because his supporters were seen as fringe. Bernie supporters also love revolutions. They call their support of the idea of Bernie a revolution. It failed to gain support of the majority. Then it is not a revolution. It's a failed attempt at a quick change.
What Bernie supporters need to do, instead of acting up, booing, stamping their feet, yelling at the top of their heads like petulant children, is to spread their revolutionary ideas and bring the majority of the populace to agree with them over time. America does need to change. Badly. Will it happen through reforms? Doable. Will it happen through a revolution? I don't know, but if it is a revolution, there had better be the majority of people backing it.
1. It reads like a spy/ conspiracy/ cold war/ cyber war fiction.
Russia's Putin hates Clinton, but loves Trump. That has been known for a while. At the same time, Trump's admiration of Putin for the law and order that Putin established at the expense of massive civil liberties in Russia is also well-known. In fact, Trump himself has shown a dictarorial bent, including trusting, it seems, only his own flesh and blood. Russia's official agencies hack into the DNC email and Wikileaks publishes it.
Some interesting developments on this here and here.
At the end of the day, the DNC chair is forced to resign and Bernie supporters are livid that their conspiracy theories were confirmed. The party convention preparations that had been going smoothly are rocked to the core. Trump's numbers rise and is again tied in the polls with Hillary Clinton. It looks from the outside like Putin has been the grand puppeteer playing with American voters to affect the election results in his favor. Whoa!
2. Many Bernie supporters are no different than some Trump supporters. Both groups purport to vote for their candidate for their children and grandchildren. They share the same goal, just with different candidates. Watch this video:
https://www.facebook.com/claudia.stauber/videos/10208776020210828/
"I don't give a fuck about Trump. Trump is dangerous for this country, but so is Hillary Clinton."
She sounds and acts crazy. Has she been following the same Hillary Clinton as I have? Years of being in the spotlight, granted some bad, but also much good, but overall an intelligent, unjustly maligned woman?
I voted for Bernie Sanders in the primary. I was a Bernie supporter. But he never gained a wide appeal. But his supporters created this persona of Bernie who seemed to do no wrong. The idea of Bernie was separate from Bernie, the person. Hence, the boos when Bernie the person stated during his speech that Hillary Clinton needs to win over Trump. I don't understand these people. So thoroughly beholden to the perfectionist fallacy. Bernie was their perfect candidate, so when he wasn't, he was booed. Which is why now they are saying that they are going to vote for Jill Stein.
3. Jill Stein is the Ralph Nader of this election. She does not have a long political history like Clinton, so there is not much that one can fault. No fault, therefore, translates into perfection for many Bernie supporters now turned Stein supporters. False equivalency, anyone?
Stein sounds just like the woman in the video. She insinuates that Trump and Clinton are equally bad. Maybe Trump is a little worse because he is a racist. Stein has stated that Clinton has already done what Trump is promising. Awww, only if things were that simple. Again, false equivalency, anyone?
I remember 16 years ago (16 years already!!!) when Al Gore ran for president against George W. Bush. Bush wasn't really a well-known political figure because the governorship of Texas is more of a figure head for the state than an actual policy maker, and people thought that he would govern much like his dad. They bought his "compassionate conservative" label for himself. People liked the guy. He was goofy, he would be a great beer buddy.
Gore, on the other hand, was boring. He talked too much. He was too professorial. He was too stiff. No one would want to have a beer with him. Many progressives voted for Ralph Nader because they were not satisfied with Gore. Protest vote.
Then while the Supreme Court was taking time to decide who won the election, many cried for the White House to be occupied because it didn't matter who was in it. They were the same, good or bad. And what happened? We started 2 wars, spent trillions of dollars in them, thousands of American soldiers dead, and untold number of Afghans and Iraqis dead. Oh, how different the world would be now if Gore had become president. . .
4. Americans love revolutions. We are taught early on that is how the country came to be. Revolutions are good. Revolutions are sacred. Revolutions are how we bring about change.
Revolutions only work when the majority participates in them. Think about Ron Paul. He ran many times for president, promising a revolution. Remember his rEVOLution? But he didn't get anywhere because his supporters were seen as fringe. Bernie supporters also love revolutions. They call their support of the idea of Bernie a revolution. It failed to gain support of the majority. Then it is not a revolution. It's a failed attempt at a quick change.
What Bernie supporters need to do, instead of acting up, booing, stamping their feet, yelling at the top of their heads like petulant children, is to spread their revolutionary ideas and bring the majority of the populace to agree with them over time. America does need to change. Badly. Will it happen through reforms? Doable. Will it happen through a revolution? I don't know, but if it is a revolution, there had better be the majority of people backing it.
I ran across a very interesting article today. It
was about Rosa Luxemburg and the idea of reform vs. revolution. Luxemburg rejected the reformist attitude of the Social Democrats and embraced Communism. For her, reforms do nothing to bring about the change that was needed to bring down capitalism and exploitation of workers. Only a mass revolt will do. As she said, "Only when the great mass of workers take the keen and dependable weapons of scientific socialism in their own hand, will all the petty-bourgeois inclinations, all the opportunistic current, come to naught." (http://www.solidarity.net.au/mag/back/2009/13/rosa-luxemburg-reform-or-revolution)
For Luxemburg, "socialism could not be achieved by capturing the capitalist state through parliament because the state ultimately represents the capitalist class." As a political theory, however, Luxemburg's idea is problematic. Let's say the mass strike and revolt is successful. What then? Can the true workers' paradise be achieved? That's what the Bolshevik Revolution was about. That's what Leninism was. Luxemburg could not have known what was ultimately to become of the Bolshevik Revolution because she was assassinated in 1919 and never saw how unrealizable it is. As my friend Kevin Amidon says, "Rosa Luxemburg was right. The left's great WEAKNESS is that Leninism always trumps reformism."
It is foolish to be infatuated with revolutions in my humble opinion unless there is the complete capability and the certainty of mass revolt.
Another way to successfully revolt with only the minority of people backing it is with arms. Right now, there are plenty of these people: believers of certain religions and gods who use arms to force change onto the masses even if the masses don't want it. But we know that's not a revolution. There is another word for it. It is terrorism.
Think about it.
For Luxemburg, "socialism could not be achieved by capturing the capitalist state through parliament because the state ultimately represents the capitalist class." As a political theory, however, Luxemburg's idea is problematic. Let's say the mass strike and revolt is successful. What then? Can the true workers' paradise be achieved? That's what the Bolshevik Revolution was about. That's what Leninism was. Luxemburg could not have known what was ultimately to become of the Bolshevik Revolution because she was assassinated in 1919 and never saw how unrealizable it is. As my friend Kevin Amidon says, "Rosa Luxemburg was right. The left's great WEAKNESS is that Leninism always trumps reformism."
It is foolish to be infatuated with revolutions in my humble opinion unless there is the complete capability and the certainty of mass revolt.
Another way to successfully revolt with only the minority of people backing it is with arms. Right now, there are plenty of these people: believers of certain religions and gods who use arms to force change onto the masses even if the masses don't want it. But we know that's not a revolution. There is another word for it. It is terrorism.
Think about it.
Thursday, July 21, 2016
I am back!
It's election season again!!
And what a circus it has been. And I purposefully don't include the Democrats here in the circus even though there were tense moments when Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders vying for votes to be the nominee. They were for the most part civil. That's right civil.
Which is completely lacking on the Republican side. Nothing about the primary season was civil. Now that is post primary season, there is even less civility. Donald Trump has created a cult of celebrity that he used to mesmerize people into believing that he can govern. The GOP convention is happening in Cleveland this week, and the scenes and words from the convention have confirmed not only that Trump is a demagogue, but also that he is turning the entire GOP into a band of rabid worshippers.
I am writing this the day after Ted Cruz, himself a candidate to the extreme right, called for Republicans to vote their conscience. And he was heavily criticized for not uniting behind the candidate.
What's going on at the GOP convention is so far is that the GOP has lost all of its principles and its ability to govern, it shapeshifts to suit the mercurial candidate's mood, has abandoned the most basic clause in the Constitution that "all men are created equal", and has turned into a bizarre freak show featuring white folks hell-bent on demonizing the Other (first it was the black president, now it is the female candidate) to a degree that it is turning into a bloodthirsty band of hateful, rabid brown shirts.
That's all for now, folks. More to follow.
And what a circus it has been. And I purposefully don't include the Democrats here in the circus even though there were tense moments when Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders vying for votes to be the nominee. They were for the most part civil. That's right civil.
Which is completely lacking on the Republican side. Nothing about the primary season was civil. Now that is post primary season, there is even less civility. Donald Trump has created a cult of celebrity that he used to mesmerize people into believing that he can govern. The GOP convention is happening in Cleveland this week, and the scenes and words from the convention have confirmed not only that Trump is a demagogue, but also that he is turning the entire GOP into a band of rabid worshippers.
I am writing this the day after Ted Cruz, himself a candidate to the extreme right, called for Republicans to vote their conscience. And he was heavily criticized for not uniting behind the candidate.
What can I say? It used to be that conservatives were principled people, perhaps even ideologically stubborn to a fault. That was actually admirable, even if it was sometimes impractical.http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/288642-kasich-doesnt-regret-skipping-convention
What's going on at the GOP convention is so far is that the GOP has lost all of its principles and its ability to govern, it shapeshifts to suit the mercurial candidate's mood, has abandoned the most basic clause in the Constitution that "all men are created equal", and has turned into a bizarre freak show featuring white folks hell-bent on demonizing the Other (first it was the black president, now it is the female candidate) to a degree that it is turning into a bloodthirsty band of hateful, rabid brown shirts.
That's all for now, folks. More to follow.
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