Seriouspost.
In reflection on the Amṛtabindu Upaniṣad this morning. I've been reading the Easwaran translations lately, and it's been a while since I've gone through the non-Śaṅkarācārya Upaniṣads. Verses 4-6 strike me as both at once perfectly succinct (to the point of alacrity), and ambiguous:
4. When the mind is detached from the senses
One reaches the summit of consciousness.
5. Mastery of the mind leads to wisdom.
Practice meditation. Stop all vain talk.
6. The highest state is beyond reach of thought,
For it lies beyond all duality.
Quite straightforward, yet open-ended. With regard to this topic I'm paying special attention to verse 5 -- "stop all vain talk." What is "vanity?" Easwaran uses "vanity" again in another of his translations. From the Tejobindūpaniṣad:
Brahman cannot be realized by those,
who are subject to greed, fear, and anger.
Brahman cannot be realized by those,
who are subject to the pride of name and fame,
Or to the vanity of scholarship.
Brahman cannot be realized by those,
who are enmeshed in life's duality.
But to all those who pierce this duality,
Brahman gives himself through his infinite grace.
Bhagavad-gītā 16.1-4 helps to qualify further (Thompson translation):
The Blessed One spoke:
1. Fearlessness, purity of character; steadfastness in the yoga of knowledge; gift-giving; self-control, and sacrifice; study of the Vedas and austerity and honesty;
2. nonviolence and truth and no anger; renunciation and peacefulness and no slander; compassion for all beings and no greed; gentleness and modesty and no fickleness;
3. radiance, patience, resolve, purity; no deception and no exaggerated pride -- Arjuna, these are the qualities of a man who has been born into a divine destiny.
4. But, Arjuna, the qualities of a man born into a demonic destiny are: hypocrisy, arrogance, exaggerated pride, anger, harsh speech, and ignorance.
I think it's fair to say that "vain" in the Amṛtabindu Upaniṣad is used with that kind of understanding in mind. The Bhagavad-gītā had been around for probably two hundred years by the time of writing; so at the least, this is historically plausible. Either way, they all seem to point to the same set of qualities. The Vanity -- for the sake of this post, action that is useless toward achieving enlightenment, with a dose of self-aggrandizement.
For many raised in (pseudo-)Christian environments, I would imagine humor and playtime are not highly associated with church services and religion more generally, for reasons of vanity. I've talked a little about my experiences with music and the church here, and to be honest,
Footloose still comes to mind when I think about the impact of the growing underbelly of modern American Christianity on celebration and social fun. Of course, this is obviously not a phenomenon limited to Christianity. Every society and every religion has both fundamentalists and -- frankly -- reasonable, normal people.
I don't think that resistance to the direct use of humor or other extremely relaxed tone in, say, religious services signifies one as backward or even all that conservative, but I do think it oppressive to police spaces where religious people in good-faith find value from such expression. Humor and even sarcasm can be divine reflections of supreme order.
Opinion: Scripture has about as much to teach you as you're willing to converse with it. If you approach it like it's a textbook, you'll probably get about as much from it as cramming for a test in high school. It's important to approach that responsibility with respect -- it is a privilege. But it is a privilege that god has granted us for the taking, all the same, when approached with healthy jest rather than poor-faith scorn.
Let it also be stated that we have Jewish people, both secular and religious, to thank for an incredible amount of the best comedy ever performed on this Earth.
https://nikhiletc.wordpress.com/2017/12/18/hasya-and-hinduism/ <-- detailed read for anyone more interested in humor in Hinduism specifically. Cites Doniger at one point, which might be a sticking point for some people, but a lot of the information presented is high-quality.
