Love of God and Love of Neighbour in Indian Philosophy

Love of God and Love of neighbour are the two aspects of the Greatest Commandments given by Jesus Christ. These commandments are not meant only for his followers but for all human beings as these two aspects love belong to all human beings. In this article, I have tried to look at these two commandments in view of two instances in the life of the Hindu deity, Kṛṣṇa in Indian Philosophy.

Daya Krishna (1924-2007), a contemporary Indian philosopher, in his article Did Gopīs Really Love Kṛṣṇa?enumerates two interesting aspects of love. He mentions two episodes from the life of the Hindu God Kṛṣṇa. The first one is from the epic Śrīmad Bhāgavata where Daya Krishna takes the episode of Krishna with the gopīs (the young women in Vṛndāvana where he spent his youthful days). The gopīs deeply fell in love with Kṛṣṇa. These gopīs are shown as ‘living’ eternally in the memory of those days they had passed with Kṛṣṇa even in his absence. However, Daya Krishna shows that, the same gopīs never made the slightest effort to seek him out and meet him once more or even try to find where he is or how he is. The message of the gopī episode in Śrīmad Bhāgavata is that the ideal of love is the loving state of consciousness which can only be cultivated through a constant remembrance and dwelling in the memory of those moments when a person spent with the loved one. It is clearly said in ŚrīmadBhāgavata: “When her lover is far away, a woman thinks of him more than when he is present before her.” (10.47.35) On the contrary, this gives the impression that in the realm of feelings the imagined world is more real than the real world. The gopīs preferred to live with the mere feeling of love than the so-called real love (in action). In other words, they loved the feeling of loving Kṛṣṇa than loving Kṛṣṇa as a person.

The second episode is from the Bhagavat Gita. The whole Gita is the dialogue between Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna like the conversation between two friends. In this particular episode, Kṛṣṇa shows his viśvarūpa(the real form of Kṛṣṇa that contains the whole of the universe) to Arjuna. There Arjuna begs to be forgiven if he had said anything for fun or in jest or play, not knowing the real nature of Kṛṣṇa. But what is more disturbing for the Arjuna in this situation is that this ‘real’ reality, which is not possible to be seen through mortal eyes, is so frightening that Arjuna implores him to assume his previous form so that he can have normal feelings toward him as he had been with Kṛṣṇa just before the revelation. (XI. 44-46). Thus Arjuna preferred to the ordinary familiar form of Kṛṣṇa than the almighty form which is supposed to be the real form of Kṛṣna since the real form perturbed Arjuna. I would like to compare these two narrations with the Greatest Commandments given by Jesus Christ. Jesus reduces all the Jewish rules and regulations with two commandments namely: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” and “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” (Mt. 22: 37-39)

The first episode of Kṛṣṇa with the gopīs can be associated with the second Golden Commandment namely the ‘love for neighbour’. This command urges to love one’s neighbour as one’s ownself. There is no doubt that gopīs loved Kṛṣṇa. The problem with these women that Daya Krishna speaks of is that they only loved the feeling of loving Kṛṣṇa than the person of Kṛṣṇa himself. And so they stopped looking for him when he was absent from Vṛndāvana. On the contrary, the commandment given by Jesus calls for love in action i.e. to love the other as one’s ownself. In fact, Kṛṣṇa in his sermon to Arjuna emphasizes on the love in action with the duty conscience than in meditation. This aspect of love does not stop itself in the world of imagination but in the world of reality. Thus it is the real love for the other.

The second episode of Kṛṣṇa’s encounter with Arjuna can be associated with the first greatest commandment – the love of God. This commandment of love requires one to love God unconditionally; accepting God as the ultimate meaning of life. In other words, looking at everything from God’s perspective and doing His will at all time. On the contrary, in the Gita episode, we find when Kṛṣṇa manifests his godly cosmic form Arjuna could no longer accept his nature and begs him to come back to the normal form. This phenomenon takes place often in the present era. Human beings wish to restrict the form of God according to our own experience, taste, convenience, etc. than to accept the real manifestation of God. Only the wise have understood the real nature of God and they confess that they are ignorant this nature. The only valid means of knowing God, according to them, is the well-known neti-neti method in Indian philosophy i.e. we know only what God is not. Thus loving God without any restriction is equal to accepting God’s manifestation without any restriction. This is similar to giving oneself to God’s will by carrying out his commandments with no expectations which Gita calls as niṣkāma-karma i.e. action without the desire for its fruit.

These few paragraphs give us another way of looking at the greatest commandment of Jesus Christ in view of two narratives from Indian philosophy. The love of God is to prefer God’s will than one’s own in life and the love of neighbour is to love the other person than to love the feeling of loving the other.

Summary of the article - Introducing Levinas to Undergraduate Philosophers by Anthony F. Beavers

One of the important questions that philosophy addressed down the centuries is about the moral ‘ought’ which asks the question why one needs to be good. Emmanuel Levinas found the answer in the level of the individual i.e. in the level of person to person contact. For him the question of moral ‘ought’ becomes before reason and it is necessary to have at least two people when we talk about ethics. He establishes the source of contact in the interpersonal realm as the ethical.

Although it may sound superfluous it has a deep meaning in philosophy as it responds to the rationalistic tradition of philosophy especially of Descartes. The latter thinks of the other as the object of the creation of the mind and denies the existence of the extra-mental reality. Levinas calls this act as the violence of ‘totalization’. It reduces the individuality, difference and autonomy of the Other. This act is unethical for Levinas.

The above mentioned violence is due to the exclusive importance to the rationality while edging sensibility out. Sensibility is a lived experience rather than being understood with concepts. Moreover, it is enjoyed by the subject after being nourished by the objects of sensibility (e.g. bread to eat). This also shows the distinction between the subject and the object of enjoyment. Consequently, in enjoyment, the, self comes up as the subject of its need. Thus Levinas appreciates the subjectivity on the level of sensibility than rationality. In addition, the subject can find the Other easily and more clearly through sensibility than in the realm of consciousness. Here the subject finds that the Other cannot be made part of the subject like any other things as the Other resists consumption.

Levinas acknowledges the power of transcendence of the Other beyond the categories of the thought of the subject. It is accepted by the epiphany of Face that talks to the subject, “I am not yours to be enjoyed: I am absolutely Other.” This is a surprise to the subject since the arrival of the Face depicts the vulnerability of the subject. The solitude of the subject is invaded by the Other.  The surprise makes the subject being caught off guard. It indicates more about the presence of the Other than the perception of the Other. The presence of the Other is beyond the control of the subject as it is demanded of the subject.

There are two important steps involved in this act namely proximity and substitution. Proximity is the immediate contact of the Other with the subject. It is a responsibility laid upon the subject with the new characteristic given to the subject. The new subjectivity shows that social subject is to be for-the-Other. Thus subjectivity is subjection to the Other i.e. the subject is subjected to the Other who intrudes its solitude and interrupts the egoistic enjoyment. It is a command given to the subject to live ethically with the Other. In other words, it makes the subject to stand in the place of the Other.

The standing in the place of the Other leads to the second step of substitution.  It is the state, according to Levinas, where the subject is held hostage by the Other. Substitution is the sign of being an Other-directed human person. This also makes clear that the subject belongs to itself and subject is not ‘another’ but itself (I am not another but me).

Substitution is to acknowledge oneself in the place of the Other not with the conceptual recognition but in the sense of finding oneself in the Other as a hostage for the Other. This process gives more meaning that the above mentioned subjection by the Other becomes subjection for the Other as St. Paul says, “I have become all things to all people that I might by all means save some” (I Corinthians 9:22).  The mere desire to respond is already  responsiveness to the command of the Other.

Although the approach toward the Other as Levinas proposed gives more meaning for interpersonal relationship it was not well appreciated by some ethicists. A person responds to the Other because the person feels a personal need to do so in order to satisfy his/her need and this action has no true moral worth.

Levinas answers that the Other has a transcendence and the subject is already substituted for the Other. The subject is made to stand for the other, before freedom and reason in ethics. Consequently, there is an ethical responsibility with the Face-to-Face relationship. Thus responsibility is essential, primary and fundamental mode of subjectivity in ethical terms and precedes ontological and existential base. The mere node of subjective is knotted in ethics is the responsibility towards the Other. Responsibility is the link between the subject and the Other. This moral ‘ought’ is the acceptance of Other person as person which Levinas wants to emphasize in the history of philosophy. There is no true sociality away from ethics and vice versa. Furthermore, the meaning of Otherness is found in the responsibility given to me and not in the interpretation given by the subject.  Finally, any relation of the subject with the Other person gives the responsibility to the former. This is the source of the moral ‘ought’ in the philosophy of Levinas.