{"id":1005,"date":"2006-08-26T20:23:39","date_gmt":"2006-08-26T19:23:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=1005"},"modified":"2007-02-02T15:44:47","modified_gmt":"2007-02-02T14:44:47","slug":"further-considerations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=1005","title":{"rendered":"Further Considerations…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"By Praghosa dasa<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the 1st canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam the personification of Dharma speaks powerfully when Maharaja Pariksit came to his aid after he had been mutilated by the the personality of Kali.<\/p>\n

When asked by Maharaja Pariksit – who had mutilated him? He responded in a way that is generally not the case for the population at large. Although he knew exactly who the perpetrator was, indeed the perpetrator (the personality of Kali) was still in the vicinity, he answered as follows:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is very difficult to ascertain the particular miscreant who has caused our sufferings, because we are bewildered by all the different opinions of theoretical philosophers\u201d<\/p>\n

He then goes on to list many different theories as to the cause of our sufferings, such as: <\/p>\n

We ourselves being responsible for our happiness and distress (karma). Superhuman forces being responsible for our suffering.
\nNature being the ultimate cause of our distress etc. etc.<\/p>\n

For most of us the easiest thing to do would have been to point over to Kali, cowering in the wings, and say \u201cPariksit Maharaja there is your man!\u201d<\/p>\n

Whatever about the philosophical reasons for our suffering, the ability and restraint of Dharma to not simply point out who the culprit was is most impressive. Often times people will point the finger of blame at someone even when they are either not sure if they are guilty or even sometimes when they actually know they are not guilty. So what to speak of not pointing the finger of blame when you know exactly who is responsible.<\/p>\n

While reading this passage of the Bhagavatam it struck me that the propensity to defend is just as strong, if not stronger, than the propensity to eat, sleep and mate. For whatever reason I had subconsciously concluded that eating and sleeping were top of the list (things that could more or less only be ‘overcome’ by death) and then the attraction for sex life (mating) was naturally more difficult to overcome than the need to defend oneself. Studying this passage tended to change my perspective, as I could never imagine myself responding in such a way after being so brutally attacked by someone.<\/p>\n

So this tendency to defend is very deep rooted and regularly manifests itself, particularly when the circumstantial evidence is that we are being wronged or when we are cent per cent certain that we are in the right.<\/p>\n

Seeing all the different contributions on Dandavats also reminds me of this phenomena for two reasons. The first is when a debate is taking place and opposing positions are taken. It often becomes very difficult for the protagonists to separate themselves from their comments and the tendency to defend their position is difficult to resist.<\/p>\n

In such circumstances the debate can sometimes become a little intense and maybe less than ideal, which of course was certainly the case as far as the actions of Kali were concerned. I hasten to add that I am not comparing the actions of Kali to the contributors to Dandavats! Still for some readers they may prefer not to witness the results of the locking of horns of various debaters. But just as Kali was given a place to operate by Maharaja Pariksit so also Dandavats is providing a place for the most intense of debates to continue via the structure of the site vis a vis the comment option. And those who prefer to not be involved can do so by viewing the front page as well as other areas of the website.<\/p>\n

Hopefully this arrangement allows for the majority of readers and contributors to be somewhat satisfied.<\/p>\n

Your servant, <\/p>\n

Praghosa dasa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"HareBy Praghosa dasa<\/strong><\/p>\n

While reading this passage of the Bhagavatam it struck me that the propensity to defend is just as strong, if not stronger, than the propensity to eat, sleep and mate. For whatever reason I had subconsciously concluded that eating and sleeping were top of the list (things that could more or less only be ‘overcome’ by death) and then the attraction for sex life (mating) was naturally more difficult to overcome than the need to defend oneself. Studying this passage tended to change my perspective, as I could never imagine myself responding in such a way after being so brutally attacked by someone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-praghosa-dasa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1005\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}