The Gold Standard

by Bhutatma dasa

Deconstructionism is a theory of textual interpretation that challenges the belief in ultimate or objective meaning. It rejects claims to objective truth by asserting there is no direct, single interpretation of a literary work, but rather many valid interpretations, as the meaning of literature is dependent on the reader’s experiences and the impersonal forces that surround the work’s creation. At its core, it is decidedly “anti-metaphysical,” and is therefore opposed by anyone who accepts the principle of absolutes, including the belief that bona fide religious texts are dictated by a supernatural being.

In the view of the deconstructionist, the author’s intent is not particularly significant, as the work’s meaning is defined by the reader’s perception. Srila Prabhupada was not on board with this sort of open interpretation, “The author of a book knows very well what is the purpose of (his) book. That is my statement.” In a lecture in Vrndavana in 1976, he elaborated on this point by referring to the book Shah Jahan by D.L. Raya. Shah Jahan appears to be the story of the Shah’s son, Aurenzab. However, because Raya’s intent was to show how all the exploits of Aurenzeb tortured the soul of his father, it is the Shah who is the main character and therefore the book is named Shah Jahan. Prabhupada quotes the author, “Because Shah Jahan was living, sitting in the Agra Fort as a prisoner, and all the reactions of Aurangzeb’s activities, the killing of his other sons, usurping the empire, that was beating on his heart; therefore he was suffering. He is the hero.”

This endorsement of direct, objective understanding of a text does not mean that there is no scope for new spiritual insights. These insights are invigorating and encouraged by Srila Prabhupada, and as such, he approved philosophical speculation. “Anyone may read Bhagavad-gita and Srimad Bhagawatam repeatedly throughout his whole life and yet find in them new light of information.” (SP purport SB 1.1.19) However, he carefully distinguished philosophical speculation from mental speculation by insisting such contemplations never lose their grounding in the clear explanations of the acaryas. The authorized meaning of the text must not be lost in the process. The deconstructionist, however, is really only limited in his interpretation of a book or passage by his own imagination.

The impropriety of relying on a reader’s subjective perception to create new and fanciful meanings for a religious text is certainly familiar to all devotees. Nevertheless, over the years I have seen the same mistaken idea promoted (sometimes overtly, sometimes tacitly) in relation to creatively defining a person’s spiritual position. As deconstructionism calls for the observer (reader) to be the arbitrator of what a text means, the same flawed practice of “constructing meaning” has been used as a process for determining a person’s spiritual qualifications. As a result, devotees who lack the objective qualifications for accepting an exalted spiritual position are nevertheless “awarded” such transcendental status and heedlessly forge ahead on the “strength” of their followers’ perceptions. But if anything is to be based on objective standards, would it not be the credentials for assuming the most esteemed spiritual posts? Without objective measures, every devotee swiftly becomes a “law unto himself”, with the awesome power to create a spiritual master by his or her individual fiat.

It is essential to maintain unassailable objective standards, based on qualities of consciousness, as the basis for representing the Divine at the highest level. For example, a person must have manifestly transcended the four defects (“without trace of mistake, illusion, cheating, and imperfection” SB 1.3.25). If we abandon these, out of either expediency or vanity, and gauge a person’s spiritual status via subjectively constructed measures, we are left with a form of spiritual anarchy. Consider it in this light, if we should take such a notion seriously, it would also necessarily work in the other direction— meaning, the self-realization of exalted souls such as Narada Muni would be somehow dependent on our acknowledgement!

The qualifications of a spiritual master, such as the above mentioned freedom from the four defects, are true and objective standards that require one to possess a state of consciousness untouched by the material energy. Real standards have nothing to do with what a conditioned soul believes or doesn’t believe. In this domain, there is no place for the “construction” of anything, specifically none via a perceiver who sees the world through a conditioned mind and imperfect senses.

If I can be allowed to make a poetic leap, the entire enterprise all seems sadly akin to Berkeley’s idealism, a philosophy that can be debunked, as they say, with a wooden bat in a dark closet. The point being, there is a world that exists independent of our perceptions. Imagining doesn’t make it so. Krishna defines what is real and we are well-served to follow His guiding principles. True knowledge is reality distinct from illusion, and so it is that both the objective standards for understanding sacred texts, as well as the objective standards for recognizing people of super-consciousness, must be eternally preserved and treasured. It is non-negotiable.

The King of Heaven

by Paratrikananda dasa

He watched the small insect venture cross the desk toward his lunch. Poising to swat it out of existence, he abruptly remembered something he read:

If you don’t attain Krsna in this life, then again you go back to the process of birth and death. That’s all. And in that process of birth-death, sometimes you become Indra and sometimes you become that small bug, that’s all, according to your karma.

He broke off a bit of cookie and shared it with his tiny brother creature. Then, slouching upon a spongy, synthetic draped throne he repaired to his digital domain. This was his kingdom. Here, in a sunlight hampered cubicle, he reigned over an infinity of binary vassals. With his mighty mouse scepter he commanded an involuted mesh of petrochemicals, processed sand, and spun metal, to flick little sparks of fire from one point to another. You wouldn’t know it, but he used to chuck lightning bolts across the skies in grand fashion—he was once the king of heaven.

Did Intelligent Design Happen by Chance?

By Caitanya Candra dasa

I took the opportunity a few nights ago to watch the documentary entitled “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.” The actor and dead-pan comedian, Ben Stein produced and starred, and was doing a fairly good Michael Moore impression as a neo-nebbish on the move. The documentary depicted Mr. Stein traversing the globe interviewing proponents and opponents of “intelligent design,” (ID). The conflict centered primarily on academics that had been denied tenure, or sanctioned in some way by their colleagues, simply for questioning many of the conclusions surrounding theories of evolution, and for propounding the possibility that something other than chance caused human life. Wow! The question with which I had been grappling for most of my life was going to be debated by the most educated people on the planet. I was in.
Full-disclosure requires that I mention that I majored as an undergraduate in Mass Communications and Broadcast Production; I worked in radio and video production; I currently teach secondary English, writing, and debate; I have a doctorate from UCLA in the field of Education; I worked and taught in academe for twenty years; and, I am a Vaishnava who allows for the possibility of the Vedic version of ID—despite (or perhaps, as a result of) my post-graduate training as an empiricist. My interest and understanding of the subject and methods flow from several founts. And, I have found myself arguing aspects of both sides at various points in time.
The documentary’s Ph.D proponents of ID contended that the universe is much too complex and ordered to have happened by chance. Proponents claimed that they were not suggesting religious “creationism,” per se. Some think that alien intervention in our early history might account for evolutionary processes (or gaps). Scientist and writer Arthur C. Clarke’s 1968 novel 2001 A Space Odyssey spoke to this directly—but the text is located in the fiction section. Nor did proponents of ID suggest that they might use scientific methods of inquiry to prove their claim. Instead, proponents seem to be trying to find the holes in evolutionary theory as propounded initially by Charles Darwin. Of course, this isn’t hard given that Darwin himself noted a number of the inconsistencies (as would any good researcher). Academic opponents (primarily objectivists who believe nothing that cannot be empirically verified) dismiss the design premise as unsupported superstition. Curiously, many appeared to accept evolution as absolute fact, despite the persistent gaps in understanding.
Stein’s piece did a half-hearted job of trying to appear “fair and balanced” for the first hour. It allowed the proponents to appear to be bitter at not making the academic fit. After all, denial of tenure after fifteen years of work is pretty much a show-stopper for an academic—almost no other institution will touch you. It made the opponents of ID appear to be self-righteous, pompous egoists (which they probably were). The alleged “persecution” of IDs may well be a response to the early days of scientific inquiry when the church persecuted scientific thinkers with imprisonment, torture, and death (in that order). In this regard, academics may be somewhat gentler than their religious counterparts.
Still, it took the better part of an hour to discern on which side of the debate Mr. Stein’s self-described “conservative” sensibilities lay. In the last thirty minutes, however, the piece began likening opponents of ID to Nazi’s—literally. Stein visited a Third Reich concentration camp and droned in a voice-over how Hitler used Darwin’s theories to support the notion of eugenics and “genetic cleansing” of “inferior races.”
It is fair to say that my background has given me a comprehensive understanding of the art of using mass-media and rhetorical techniques to manipulate an audience, but I still felt disappointed that Mr. Stein chose to be so blatant in his manipulation (and yes, I have taken Michael Moore to task for as much). The unfortunate aspect is that Stein seemingly wasted an opportunity to actually have the polemics identified and discussed. None of the interviewees from either side elucidated a single fact that supported their premise. Given the manipulation addressed above, I suspect that this had more to do with the nature of the questions and the editing decisions of the producer.
The primary problem with this debate is the limitation of the Judeo-Christian concept of creation, which, although allegorical in nature, has been treated as if it were factual by a larger number of Americans than I am wont to admit. Unfortunately, due to more reasons than space and time allow, American society remains cruelly ignorant of most other explanations, including the Vedic and scientific explanations. This has led proponents of ID to distance themselves from biblical revelations, which has led to, frankly, other conjectures that are as unlikely and unsustainable (aliens..indeed). Again, full-disclosure: I am not a fundamentalist. I do not accept as fact anything that I have not been able to verify using both empirical and metaphysical methods of acquiring and analyzing data. I, however, am open to the possibility of anything that has not been roundly disproved. This, again, is another anomaly, given that scientific method posits: one cannot prove that something isn’t. I cannot verify that Lord Brahma exists, nor can I verify otherwise. Therefore, it behooves me to be open to either perspective so long as the matter remains unsettled.
It seems clear that both sides of the debate carry a vested interest in obfuscating an understanding of absolute truth, even as both claim to raise the standard in support of such an understanding. It would be too easy to write off both columns as flat caricatures, as Stein has done when both neo-religious proponents and academics have used methods of persuasion that curiously result in both being elevated to positions of prestige and power far above the masses to whom they administer said understanding. Most of the atrocities that have occurred over the first 1900 years AD have been perpetrated as a result of, or, sanctioned by religion. Most modern-day atrocities have been the result of, or sanctioned by scientific inquiry. A review of the history of religion and its bastard off-spring, academe, suggests that this makes perfect sense. Academe is a direct secular product of religion, and as the old folks say, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Regarding my own inquiry into the matter, I can say that I have been open to and I have considered every opinion, fact, revelation, conjecture, speculation, and lie that I could find on the subject. Unfortunately, my own debates on the matter often included boisterous exchanges wherein I used my knowledge of methods of persuasion to dominate whatever viewpoint I espoused. These included speaking with an air of absolute certainty even when wrong, (a method that I learned in ISKCON, and perfected at UCLA), and using other methods to discredit the opposing perspective. But, I have never found one fact that validates what I feel.
After forty-five years of said consideration, I came to the same conclusion that I did at the age of four. “Something caused all of this, and it wasn’t me.” It would be nice to say that after years of alternating between rigorous inquiry, prayer, meditation, austerity, research, reading, celibacy, yoga, and outright begging, that the absolute truth of the matter has been revealed to (or at least understood by) me. It hasn’t. I don’t know, nor is it likely that I will. But then, I seek to clarify, not to obfuscate; I can admit that I don’t know perhaps because I am neither a religionist, nor an academic and I think it a good chance that neither is our intelligent designer.