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vishista-ADVAITA VEDANTA

THE PRINCIPLE OF DHARMAYUDHA AND AHIMSA IN VISHISTA-ADVAITA

Dharmayudha is a normal human way of preserving personal and societal culture. All societies practice it. It is warfare, and part of what makes us all animals in the web of life. Different religions and philosophies call it by different names. Christians call it’s practitioners crusaders, Islamics call those who practice warfare Mujaheedeens, Hindus call it dharmayudhis.

Essentially, In the Vishista-advaita Vedanata, humanity consists of three guna-consciousness attributes that people draw their inspiration for their actions or karma. How do they see the issue of ahimsa, is the question.

The authors view today is that sattic gunas with their vegetarian and vegan lifestyles practice the purest form of ahimsa, that is to say they do not kill and nor do they swear and torture people physically or verbally.  Tamasic guna people practice killing animals and other human beings as well as committing physical assault on others and have predatory conduct generally including verbal abusive use of language. Rajasic guna people are in the middle, they do not kill normally but do not rule it out if their life is threatened, are semi non-vegetarians rather than vegetarians and vegans but would take vaccinations to protect their bodies from bacterial and insectivorous parasites that transmit diseases. They however practice full freedom of expression in that swear words to take out their anger on evil-perpetrators and shouting at them are within the scope of their dharmayudha.

Which of these three are superior, It all depends

The following is an accouint.

Amit Srivastava wrote:

Until you change your thinking, you will always recycle your experiences.

7 comments

Shane Mohan

Always right

Reply1 d

Shantanu Panigrahi

 

You can only change your thinking if experience teaches you bitter lessons to make you change your ways. Talk is not going to make anyone change his or her ways. For example how do sattvic Hindus know with certainty that we should be physically non violent, including avoiding vocal violence. What do we get out of ahimsa in our vocal expressions to killing a human being in dharmyudha, killing a tiger who is about to eat you, or a bacteria an insect or a virus that could transmit diseases that would make you unwell. If one has the philosophy that there is a Creator 9God so that we should live in harmony with the other living beings in Nature one can easily fall prey to a human or another wild predator. So in our Hindu way of living we need to experience that ahimsa is superior and fight a dharmayudha to protect ourselves by being non-violent. No one will be able to find if there is a Personal God who will protect those practicing ahimsa. In fact one has to test ahimsa for oneself to be able to change our way of thinking to then have some kind of religion that is bhakti-based to the point of accepting that there is a God so that we should live in harmony in Nature because the so called param dharma rakshati rakshita, especially when one engages in dharmayudha to preserve that dharma. We have to investigate to be certain but we can otherwise have faith and devotion for a learned guru and live to his or her teachings.

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