My Evening at the Vedic Study Center
On the night of November 22, I attended a Baghavad Ghita study session at The Jewel of the Treasure Valley Hare Krshna Temple and Vedic Cultural Center. It was a great experience. I called ahead of time to inform them that I was coming, and they instructed me to bring my copy of the Baghavad Ghita with me to The Temple, to leave my shoes at the door, to arrive at 6:30 PM, and to expect to stay until 9:00 PM. When I arrived I was greeted by a man my age name Sri Arjuna, and told to pass through their shrine room into the main hall where the opening chants and study take place. I sat on the floor on a small rug. Sri Arjuna then led the group of about 20 people in a chant: “Hare Krshna Hare Krshna/Krshna Krshna Hare Hare/Hare Rama Hare Rama/Rama Rama Hare Hare” (Arjuna) .
After the chanting session was over, I was taken with a group of fellow auditors from Boise High School, into the shrine room to be instructed by a female who represented The Temple. She presented the beautiful artwork within the shrine, and used it eloquently to provide an outline of the key beliefs, especially the cosmology, of the Vedic theology. After a presentation of about 30 minutes, she instructed us to sit on rugs on the marble floor for a question and answer session. She generously addressed all of our questions. Next she provided paperback copies of the Baghavad Ghita to all who did not bring their own to borrow. We read from Chapter 2, Text 1 to Chapter 2, Text 15.
The opening chant was interesting. Sri Arjuna played on a large drum, and various worshippers in attendance rang tiny bells in rhythm with Sri Arjuna. There was a somewhat regular melody and rhythm to the chanting that took some time to get into. At least that was the case for me, and it seemed to be the case for my fellow auditors. Once I got into the rhythm and the melody, Sri Arjuna improvised liberally with them, and we were lost again. The basic pattern of crescendo, and the focus on varying syllabic emphases as the rounds progressed, created an excited and emotional atmosphere. The pattern reminded me of performances of “Padre Nostro,” like this one by George Dyer. There was a good atmosphere of communitas and a sense of sacredness as the chanting concluded.
As we left this study room, and entered the shrine room, I was immediately and forever impressed by the artwork. An immense mural is painted on the ceiling. The subjects, our teacher informed us, were the different spheres of existence created by Krshna. Central is a large image of Krshna attended by two women in a paradisiacal setting. We were informed that this represented the strictly spiritual realm, which is Krshna’s natural dwelling place, and the eschatological hope of all Hare Krshna’s. Surrounding this largest image are smaller spheres in which Krshna is depicted as having more than one set of arms. Our teacher instructed us that these represent Krshna in various physical universes. In material form, Krshna has multiple sets of arms, the better to do manual labor with. On the far east side of the ceiling is a somewhat larger sphere in which is depicted the material universe in which human mortals reside. The mural is beautiful. I am sure the shrine is also, but it was behind a curtain because, we were informed, the shrine was closed for the night.
There were so many enlightening and provocative things taught, but I would like to focus on what was taught about reincarnation. Our teacher began that discussion by explaining that the word Krshna means, “The all attractor.” One of the elements of his attraction, she pointed out, was his inaccessibility. People demand what is scarce, therefore Krshna’s presence is scarce. It is attainable, the teacher said, “when our desires are wholly spiritual.” Until our desires are spiritual, our physical form changes through different evolutions in the material world. Therefore, one whose desires are for eating flesh is likely to be reincarnated as a carnivore, like a tiger. This is a step away from Krshna and the spiritual world. Reincarnation, according to our teacher, is based on a hierarchy of being, which begins with the elements and minerals and progresses through all physical forms to the presence of Krshna. It is here that Vedic philosophy relies upon the caste system, established according to Henry Sayre, “sometime around 1500 BCE,” when the “Aryans . . . invaded the Indus River valley and conquered its inhabitants, making them slaves” (Sayre 109) . Since pre-Hindu depictions of Hindu gods seem to occur in the Indus Civilization’s iconography, it seems to me that these people utilized the concept of castes to explain their slavish state: they were not near enough to the spirit world, and therefore they were embodied in a caste low on the spiritual ladder. Many Christian theologians have seen the human condition in similar ways, even when they reject reincarnation. A hierarchy of being was used to justify the African slave-trade, as well as coverture laws in Europe.
I found it strange and interesting to learn that, also like the majority of Christians, the Hare Krshnas reject biological evolution. When I asked why, the male who lead the Baghavad Ghita study in the other room, gifted me a book called Rethinking Darwin by Leif A. Jensen. Prominent intelligent design advocates William Dembski and Michael Behe also contributed to this book. Jensen provides a pretty accurate description of what modern evolutionary theory claims about the mechanism of genetic drift, as well as dissent with modification, but associates an acceptance of evolutionary theory with the realm of religious faith. He states, “[Intelligent Design] is no more a religion than Darwinism – or perhaps only just as much” (5) . I am excited to investigate the Baghavad Gita to discover why the Vedic tradition would have a problem with evolution, but it seems to be, based on Jensen’s discussion, that evolutionary theory asserts, “that everything in life can be explained materially” (5) . Jensen seems to conclude that if everything in life can be explained materially, that spiritual explanations do not matter.
In this mode, certain aspects of Plato’s philosophy seem to accord with the Vedic tradition. Indeed Neo-Platonism, according to Sayre, began with the works of Plotinus, “a Greek scholar of Platonic thought who had studied Indian philosophy (both Hinduism and Buddhism) and who believed in the existence of an ineffable and transcendent One” (Sayre 215) . Thus not everything can be explained materially, since the material world is but a manifestation of a universal oneness. The discovery of that larger world seems to be a focus in both Hinduism and Plato. The Hindu story of, “a tiger, orphaned as a cub, is raised by goats. It learns, as a matter of course, to eat grass and make goat sounds. But one day it meets another tiger, who takes it to a pool to look at itself. There, in its reflection in the water, it discovers its true nature” (Sayre 110) . That parable of the tiger is similar to Plato’s parable of the cave, in which persons dwelling in a cave, and thinking fiery shadows on their cave wall are reality, are introduced to the outside world to discover the true nature of reality. While such a rejection of natural philosophy contradicts my own worldview, it was enlightening and fun to study elegant arguments against methodological materialism.
Works Cited
Arjuna, Sri. Hare Krshna Chant Tanner Mitchell Barker. Boise, 22 November 2013. Sound Recording.
Dyer, George. "Padre Nostro." A New Song. By Steve Amerson and Lowell Alexander. Salt Lake City: Shadow Mountain, 2004. Compact Disc.
Jensen, Leif A. Rethinking Darwin a Vedic Study of Darwinism and Intelligent Design. Frankfurt: The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 2010. Print.
Prabhupada, His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, ed. Bhagavad Gita As It Is. Trans. His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Second Revised and Enlarged with the original Sanskrit text, roman transliteration, English equivalents, translation and elaborate purports. The Bhaktivedanta, 1983. Print.
Sayre, Henry M. Discovering the Humanities. Second. New York: Pearson Education, Inc, 2013. Print.
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