Thursday, September 04, 2008

The Demonaic Soul, or the Postmodern Left

Apparently the Bhagavadgita is against everything the postmodern Left stands for, their entire world view:

BG 16.7: Those who are demoniac do not know what is to be done and what is not to be done. Neither cleanliness nor proper behavior nor truth is found in them.

BG 16.8: They say that this world is unreal, with no foundation, no God in control. They say it is produced of sex desire and has no cause other than lust.

BG 16.9: Following such conclusions, the demoniac, who are lost to themselves and who have no intelligence, engage in unbeneficial, horrible works meant to destroy the world.

BG 16.10: Taking shelter of insatiable lust and absorbed in the conceit of pride and false prestige, the demoniac, thus illusioned, are always sworn to unclean work, attracted by the impermanent.

BG 16.11-12: They believe that to gratify the senses is the prime necessity of human civilization. Thus until the end of life their anxiety is immeasurable. Bound by a network of hundreds of thousands of desires and absorbed in lust and anger, they secure money by illegal means for sense gratification.

BG 16.13-15: The demoniac person thinks: "So much wealth do I have today, and I will gain more according to my schemes. So much is mine now, and it will increase in the future, more and more. He is my enemy, and I have killed him, and my other enemies will also be killed. I am the lord of everything. I am the enjoyer. I am perfect, powerful and happy. I am the richest man, surrounded by aristocratic relatives. There is none so powerful and happy as I am. I shall perform sacrifices, I shall give some charity, and thus I shall rejoice." In this way, such persons are deluded by ignorance.

BG 16.16: Thus perplexed by various anxieties and bound by a network of illusions, they become too strongly attached to sense enjoyment and fall down into hell.

BG 16.17: Self-complacent and always impudent, deluded by wealth and false prestige, they sometimes proudly perform sacrifices in name only, without following any rules or regulations.

BG 16.18: Bewildered by false ego, strength, pride, lust and anger, the demons become envious of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is situated in their own bodies and in the bodies of others, and blaspheme against the real religion.

BG 16.19: Those who are envious and mischievous, who are the lowest among men, I perpetually cast into the ocean of material existence, into various demoniac species of life.

BG 16.21: There are three gates leading to this hell — lust, anger and covetousness. Every sane man should give these up, for they lead to the degradation of the soul.

I mean, this is a description of the Left's ideology laid out beautifully. The postmodern Left and the demonaic are one and the same -- as Milan Kundera also points out in "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting." It's amazing sometimes how often works of wisdom agree.

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