--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, enlightened_dawn11 <no_re...@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "BillyG." <wgm4u@> wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, enlightened_dawn11 > > <no_reply@> wrote: > > I like the passage in MMY's Gita where he says you have control > over > > action alone, 'never' over the fruits. > > > > "You have control over action alone (Arjuna), never over its > fruits. > > Live not for the fruits of action, 'nor' attach yourself to > inaction." > > Gita vs47 ChII > > > thanks-- i hadn't seen that connection before in the passage above, > but that is definitely the process i went through for a couple of > decades. in other words undertaking action to be true to my > devotion, but instead of deciding on what the outcome would be, just > doing the action because i felt i had to, to be true to my self and > my relationship with the divine, and leaving my hope and faith to > take care of the outcome. > > interesting that the end of the passage above says "nor attach > yourself to inaction". in other words, don't -try- to live in the > silence of the Absolute, but instead act as the Lord commands you. > > thanks for a new look at an old friend.
Goethe said something like 'do the next task that is in front of you' which may be a pragmatic application of the golden rule. I have never quite understood why such pre-medieval pre-scientific pre-rational claims below are taken seriously and even applauded. "You have control over action alone (Arjuna), never over its fruits" If you drop a bowling ball over your foot, do you really have no clue as to what the fruit of that action will be? Or if you shoot the bowling ball out of a cannon, Newtonian physics is pretty good in predicting the fruit, location and time needed to hit the ground. The premise of science and its application in technology is that we do know, at least something, about cause and effect -- that is the fruit of actions that we have control over. Obviously we don't know all fruits of all actions. In the vast scheme of things the unknowns far out stretch the known -- and the unknown lump grows faster than the known. However, the last 400 years have increased, enormously, our knowledge of the fruits of all sorts of actions. I get why pre-medieval societies used myths and imaginations and good stories to explain the unknown. But to deny cause and effect and our manifest knowledge and application of it today seems the height of folly. If the above quote is a fruit of liberation, I think I may choose the other door (or pill).
