Nietzche & The Vedas: The Contradiction Trap

You all know of Friedrich Nietzche, of course, as the founder of the nihilistic basis of thought. The Vedas are ancient texts which were written some 4,000 years ago by Indian sages. Although it was passed down orally from generation to generation, Vyasadeva, the manifested literary incarnation of God (Hinduism), was insipired by their profound wisdom and pit them down in the form of Srimad Bhagavatam. Now, the Bhagavatam consists of many different chapters grouped as cantos, and each chapter deals a specific element of either the Supreme Being, the Universe, Nature, or man. A recurring phrase throughout the books is that of the ‘Absolute Truth’, a reference to pure Krishna consciousness, the ultimate realisation that stems from completely understanding the world.

My father had all the 18 volumes of the text, and when we shifted out residence from Chennai (India) to Uppsala (Sweden), we had to separate the set into those books which we could afford to carry (or wanted to finish reading) and those that could be left behind. I think only two or three books made it that way. One among them, the Twelfth Canto, caught my eye. It dealt with the annihilation of false egos and the glaring mistakes and faults of the Kali yuga which would lead to the downfall of mankind in the Great Flood. Here is a line from the canto (in Sanskrit):

na hi sathyasya naanaathvam|
avidhvaan yadhi manyathe||
naanaathvam chidhrayor yadhvaj|
jyothishor vaathayor iva||

It translates as:

“There is no material duality in the absolute truth. The duality perceived by an ignorant person is like the difference between the sky contained in an empty pot and the sky outside the pot, or the difference between the reflection of the sun in water and the sun itself in the sky, or the difference between the vital air within one living body and that within another body.“

The duality mentioned, if you will observe, is a relative duality. Vyasa says the duality is restricted to materialism, which is also false and illusory. When you perceive an object, the perception assumes meaning when you can observe the effect of the object in its environs. For example, you can know the saturating power of water only when you see and feel a damp cloth or sponge. You can understand the burning power of fire only you feel the heat or when you see ashes. Therefore, the duality in materialism simplifies to the duality of cause and effect. Yet again, the effect of a phenomenon deserves perception only when the cause is perceptible, and there can be no effect if there was no cause. But, as per our earlier argument, the cause itself is realised through but the effect it has come to give birth to. Does this mean the cause and effect of any event are relative to each other? Yes, it does.

Duality?

A: The fire is burning.

B: How do you know?

C: You can feel the heat.

A – cause; C – effect

____________________

A: The fire is burning.

B: How do you know?

C: Why? Don’t you feel the heat?

D: No.

E: Then, it is not fire but something else.

If you were to deductively continue along these lines, you will observe that materialism is proven to be false and illusory. The Vedas decry it, and uphold its defeat in the search for the truth. Everything that has a beginning will have an end, and everything with a beginning and an end will beguile cause and effect, and therefore must be shunned from the self. For example, the cycle of life and death culminates in the attainment of Moksha, or deliverance, and through the deliverance, man attains Heaven. Therefore, the cycle of life and death, in this case, becomes an illusion, and everything contained within dissolves into a tiny atom of the Absolute Truth.

Now, Friedrich Nietzche’s arguments are also along the same lines, although he also furtively discarded the concept of God Himself. Nietzche argues that objective morality does not exist in this world, thereby diffusing the values of objective morals with which to prefer one action over the other. Therefore, even if a God exists, humans have no obligation to worship them. The following is a famous quote by Nietzche.

“To the clean are all things clean’ — thus say the people. I, however, say unto you: To the swine all things become swinish! Therefore preach the visionaries and bowed-heads (whose hearts are also bowed down): ‘The world itself is a filthy monster.’ For these are all unclean spirits; especially those, however, who have no peace or rest, unless they see the world FROM THE BACKSIDE — the backworldsmen! TO THOSE do I say it to the face, although it sound unpleasantly: the world resembleth man, in that it hath a backside, — SO MUCH is true! There is in the world much filth: SO MUCH is true! But the world itself is not therefore a filthy monster!“

The relativism established in perception by Nietzche is unmistakable. “To the clean all things are clean; to the swine, all things become swinish!” – a statement that purports the perceptional reflectivism, a relativism on its own, that becomes clear when the Vedas are taken up as reference. Although the Vedas assume a Supreme Being in order to quantify the cause, they give the Supreme Being no end – fortifying the effectlessness of the cause. Therefore, the Supreme Being is no illusion and exists. However, this is an argument wherein the posteriori argument and the priori justification resemble the head and tail of Kekule’s snake!

Anyway, Nietzche’s nihilism seems to have been borrowed from the Vedas with a few aspects removed. Either which way, the absence of a moral absolute as put forth by both sources is the same: the Vedas argue for no such thing, but by condemning materialism the morals established thus also find themselves set aside. Our search for an absolute being is vain. We are trapped in our own contradictions: we live in a materialistic world, we define our own morals. The absolute we look for can not manifest in such an environment wherein the Creation, a part of the Absolute Truth, dwells, for the reaches of our argument only span something that does not exist. “To the clean all things are clean“. The only truth is the self when everything perceived by the self and everything understood by the self is a reflection of the self again. I am because I am. There is no disputing that. The fire is fire to me if I am me while the fire is: I have to be consciously aware of the self while I touch the fire, and if it is hot, then I describe the fire as ‘hot’ while taking for granted that I am me. Everything else is there because I am. I am the cause. I am the effect because I perceive it and make it seem real.

Except, of course, love failures!