Oppenheimer and the Gita (2014)

Friendly reminder that, like all known religions, Hinduism fails to fit evidence & loses substantially on Occam's razor. It was most likely a means to preserve social order as society scaled up beyond small tribes. As someone who has deeply studied many of the Hindu religious scriptures when I used to believed in them, I'd say that one should look elsewhere for meaning and guidance and not take books like the Bhagavad Gita seriously at all.

> trianglem: What I took away from the Bhagvat Gita is that it is a treatise on why you should accept, internalize and submit to the role or place that society has assigned you.

I've read the original paper linked in the article, and I agree with this interpretation. It seems the teaching of Gita is that one must follow the role the society has assigned to you, no matter what.

> The Sanskrit word [...] “duty”is dharma [...]“the privileges, duties and obligations of a man” [...] However, [...] dharma is “group-centered and group-oriented.”The individual conscience has a role, but it is circumscribed within the consensus formed by good and learned people through the ages. Condemned are“those who place their own reasoning above the authority of tradition.”

> Another way in which the Gita seems conservative to modern Americans [...] is in its refusal to assign the same dharma to every human being. Instead, everyone in the hierarchically ordered Hindu society has a particular role that is determined by one’s class, family, age, and training.

> The book repeatedly insists that one do one’s own duty but no one else’s. [...] one’s obligations as a member of a family or class take priority over one’s obligations as a member of the human race. [...] when “the particular duties of one’s caste and stage in life” conflict with “the universal duties obligatory for all human beings,” the particular duties prevail. [..] “War is evil in any form” [But] Everyone must follow his own particular dharma, even if it requires him to do evil.

> When questioned in later years about his judgment in working on the Manhattan Project, Oppenheimer would defend himself this way “I did my job which was the job I was supposed to do. I was not in a policymaking position at Los Alamos. I would have done anything that I was asked to do.” [...] Later Murray Kempton would criticize [...] “pinnacle of spiritual dispossession” was in fact the spiritual payload Oppenheimer had extracted from the Gita.

> [...] It was Pash’s duty to search persistently for spies, Oppenheimer’s to protect colleagues he knew were innocent, and perhaps a Russian’s to spy for his country—Oppenheimer could accept all this with equanimity because everybody was doing what he was supposed to, following his own particular dharma.

However, the paper says Gita also teaches that one is obligated to perform one's duties. but one cannot control the actual outcome, which is a matter of fate. Nevertheless, one can also choose not to do the correct things one is obligated to do, so it's compatible with free will.

> Hamlet’s delay and demise illustrate the danger of “thinking too precisely on the event”. Unlike Hamlet, however, the Gita does not merely illustrate this theme but instead goes on to stipulate an entire code of behavior based on the insight. It was a code that Oppenheimer would learn to follow, and he would learn it in part from the example of Arjuna. Arjuna’s mistake when he initially refuses to fight is to think that the hand letting loose the arrow is the one that kills. Krishna informs him, however, that actually it is the Lord’s doing, that it is all predetermined.

> Thus, the soldier is not ultimately responsible for his enemies’demise but is a mere instrument like an arrow—or a bomb. The actual killing is the work of some other power.

Also, it says one should detach one's action from its consequences whether things turned to be good or bad, only focuses on one's duties. Thus, Oppenheimer pushed to create the bomb despite it would be used to attack a city, meanwhile he said he was not crucial in the creation the atomic bomb.

> If there is no way for people to dictate the results of their actions, what should be their attitude toward those results? The Gita gave a simple answer: detachment. It was one’s duty to do the work, but one should renounce the “fruit”of the work. That is, one should not have a fixed, insistent desire for any particular result.

I know it would be unpopular, but... From this reading, "I'm just following the order" is the valid justification for the killings if I was a soldier for Nazi Germany, also, I'm obligated to follow all orders from the high command, even if the order is not the optimal one. Also, it's also perfectly valid if I was killed. Finally, it's equally valid if the leadership of Nazi Germany is defeated. The obligation of your role in your current life in the process of reincarnation for the higher spiritual goal matters (for Oppenheimer it's probably just serving his duties), the current life itself doesn't matter.

I'd say few people in the West would accept it, especially after World War 2.

Another example that shows universal values don't exist.

Check put Winthrop Sargent’s translation. It comes with a transcription and word-by-word gloss of the Sanskrit, so you don’t have to learn Devanagari.

As a counterpoint, I think there are some good points to the book, regardless of anything about its history, or how it was intended. I'm willing to learn from any source, so long as the advice is good. I understand that many people dislike pithy advice, but I find them good reminders to ground myself.

(I say this as an atheist, fwliw.)

I really like some of the teachings in Bhagavat Gita. It is a treasure trove of wisdom to be cherished. I need to point though that a group of extremists justified Muslim massacres because karma (Gujarat 2002). I'm curious how does one fight and argue effectively against such interpretations that cause turmoil and conflict due to a abhorrent nihilistic view of the text which seems valid on its face value but undermines peace and tranquility and most certainly doesn't deal justice to the innocents in its cross-hairs.