Namaste HDF!
I may still be a newbie to Hinduism in general, but one thing I'm not a newbie to and can be considered to be well-versed in are literary concepts, some of which cross over into the philosophical realm. I figured I'd bring up one of those concepts and see what a Hindu perspective might be on it, as I think this might be something I can at least learn from, even if I'm not the most qualified to discuss the Hindu perspective on it.
This concept I'm bringing up is that of the thoughtcrime, as introduced by author George Orwell in his eerily prophetic dystopian novel 1984. If you're wondering what exactly thoughtcrime is, Wikipedia has what amounts to a Cliffs Notes version right here. I'll let you read that before I proceed.
Read it? Good. I will continue.
You might be wondering what Hinduism has to do with thoughtcrime - well, it is in my humble opinion that Hinduism was the first (and quite possibly the only, from what I know) faith to say that thoughts alone should not be considered crimes. The way Hinduism argues this point long before Orwell coined the term thoughtcrime in the first place is what makes it such a beautiful faith. Hinduism argues that there should be no thoughts considered crimes in two ways:
- Emphasizing that it is action combined with thought, rather than action or thought alone, that accrues karma, for good or ill.
- Providing a means of dealing with thoughts considered impure/evil without having to resort to treating the mere thoughts as crimes.
Examples of both of these concepts can be found in the Bhagavad Gita. For instance, Krishna says to Arjuna at multiple points in the Bhagavad Gita that it is impossible to not perform action in this world, so the key is detachment - performing action without expectation of result, acting without desire. This is profound because it implies that thought alone does not incur himsa (harm) - it's the action behind it. The actions you perform as a result of your thoughts are what matter, because those thoughts are what spurred the action. You may not be able to control the actions of others, but you can control how you respond.
As for the second point, well, the Bhagavad Gita has a whole chapter dedicated to rehabilitating thoughts rather than treating them as so much anathema or crimethink (to use another 1984 book term). Is this not the point of meditation? Meditation is not the practice of stopping thoughtcrime so much as the practice of temporarily stopping thought overload, simplifying thoughts rather than aggressively categorizing them.
Maybe I'm not doing a good job of explaining my points here. My overall point is that Hinduism taught me that my mind is not the enemy.
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