Foucault and Cixious (Sexual Ethics)

Foucault and Cixous
The Repressive Hypothesis is drawn from the middle ages and the rise of the bourgeoisie in society, it turns the act of sex into a secret bond shared only in marriage between a man and a woman. All other sexual discourse was considered despicable (evil) and indecent violations that were to be repressed in society.
Churches have been a part of Western society for centuries. Religion has gone to great effort to make sex part of the unspoken word. Most children know enough about religion growing up to know not only that Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus but, that she became pregnant by immaculate conception. Everyone knows too that nuns live in abstinence once they decide to live a life of worship. This all makes the very subject of sex seem rather taboo (although according to Foucault this would later become a part of regulation). I mean, we go to church to confess our sins and we know that lusting over sins of the flesh is a sin you must confess to God. Sleeping with someone when your not married especially if it's the opposite sex is a big one. Masturbation is another one. Even looking at a naked women (and later dirty magazines or watching dirty movies) is confessed. All of these things are met with acts of contrition, or a certain amount of prayers you must say asking to be forgiven. Still, you are not forgiven yet, you still must receive communion on Sunday before the Lord blesses you with forgiveness. Religion and societies continual need to understand why humans do the things they do are reasons why sex is repressed in society. Also, the need to punish people who go against the rules most of us agree to live by help to repress sex even more. We lock up people in jail for having consensual sex if one of the parties is under 18-years of age. Then there is the shame that the bourgeoisie may feel if someone in their own family is involved in any kind of scandle. They do everything they can to hide their families dirty laundry where no one can ruin their good name. Many homosexuals will not come out because of what their family (especially Fathers) would say or how they might react. So, instead of living their life happy and loving the people the choose to love, they instead live their life hiding in fear and shame full of guilt. This is sexual repression at it's peek.
All of these things helped to create a Western world that at first glance seems to be repressing sexuality, but in reality is regulating it as a way of controlling people. The church gave away this secret long ago when it began letting the bourgeoisie buy their way out of the sins they committed. All of a sudden, the fact that you were rich meant you could commit as many sins as you wanted. It became abundantly clear that the rules were not equal for everybody.
In the film, “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” the model of sex is anything but repressed. His friends at work make it there personal mission to get the man layed. The whole notion of a man being 40-years-old and not having sex yet is unheard of in this day and age. Although, I think for a woman it would be unheard of at a much younger age than that. A 21-year-old female virgin is almost extinct. Still, there are some brides who are virgins when they marry. Priscilla Presley claimed to be a virgin when she married Elvis. Although, she admits getting very close to losing that claim.
I think Foucault calls the “Repressive Hypothesis” an indispensable fable because it has been years of conditioning the minds of the people that play by the rules that only a loving marriage between a man and a wife is normal. People buy in very easy to the picture of the white picket fence and children playing in the back yard on their swing sets and trampolines. It becomes hard to fight against the constant conditioning that is taught to us as children from our teachers at school, parents at home, judges in courts, and Preachers at church. All of the power bases that surround us each day keep us controlled as a society.
The difference between Foucault and Cixous is that Cixous places much more emphasis on the power struggle that women face in a male dominated world. Cixous looks at the patriarchy of women and men much differently. Men seem to have an inherent right to rule women. Cixous sees the world more through the analysis of Freud, and believes that men are the reason that women are sexually repressed. She talks much more about the phallocentricities that women struggle with and how their silence adds to their own sexual repression. She hopes to get women to speak up about what they need and desire more than they do today in hopes that by demanding more from society in general will in turn make society take notice and give back more towards female happiness.
Foucault, on the other hand, uses Marxist views that focus more on class struggle and societies power structures as the overall regulation of sex in society. He talks about the criminal convictions and power of the prison population control as one of the many ways of regulating how people behave. The Armed forces have become very good at mind control and manipulation of our youth in order to create fighting machines. So, controlling the rest of society has probably become fairly easy, especially since the creation of the mind control unit called television. Foucault, however, is more positive about it all and does not think it's necessarily bad for society to face these power structures because he sees the way society reacts to the sexual repression as a good thing. He thinks that the more you try to repress sex, the more discourse is created and that it seeps in to society at large. He believes that the reasons for the regulation is an overall strategy of power structures to understand sexuality and that repression also leads to liberation.

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Repressive Hypothesis (Sexual Ethics)

The Repressive Hypothesis is drawn from the middle ages and the rise of the bourgeoisie in society, it turns the act of sex into a secret bond shared only in marriage between a man and a woman. All other sexual discourse was considered despicable (evil) and indecent violations that were to be repressed in society.
Churches have been a part of Western society for centuries. Religion has gone to great effort to make sex part of the unspoken word. Most children know enough about religion growing up to know not only that Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus but, that she became pregnant by immaculate conception. Everyone knows too that nuns live in abstinence once they decide to live a life of worship. This all makes the very subject of sex seem rather taboo (although according to Foucault this would later become a part of regulation). I mean, we go to church to confess our sins and we know that lusting over sins of the flesh is a sin you must confess to God. Sleeping with someone when your not married especially if it's the opposite sex is a big one. Masturbation is another one. Even looking at a naked women (and later dirty magazines or watching dirty movies) is confessed. All of these things are met with acts of contrition, or a certain amount of prayers you must say asking to be forgiven. Still, you are not forgiven yet, you still must receive communion on Sunday before the Lord blesses you with forgiveness. Religion and societies continual need to understand why humans do the things they do. Also the need to punish people who go against the rules most of us agree to live by.
All of these things helped to create a Western world that at first glance seems to be repressing sexuality, but in reality is regulating it as a way of controling people. The church gave away this secret long ago when it began letting the bourgeoisie buy their way out of the sins they committed. All of a sudden, the fact that you were rich meant you could commit as many sins as you wanted. It became abundantly clear that the rules were not equal for everybody.
In the film, “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” the model of sex is anything but repressed. His friends at work make it there personal mission to get the man layed. The whole notion of a man being 40-years-old and not having sex yet is unheard of in this day and age. Although, I think for a woman it would be unheard of at a much younger age than that. A 21-year-old female virgin is almost extinct. Still, there are some brides who are virgins when they marry. Pricilla Presley claimed to be a virgin when she married Elvis. Although, she admits getting very close.
I think Foucault calls the “Repressive Hypothesis” an indispensible fable because it has been years of conditioning the minds of the people that play by the rules that is what is normal. It becomes hard to fight against the constant conditioning that is taught to us as children and while we grow up from our teachers and parents.

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Sexpression (Female Ethics)

In the essay, “One is Not Born a Woman”, Monique Wittig argues that women must fight their own oppression by refusing to accept the ideology that society has created for them. She quotes Simone de Beauvoir who said thirty years ago, “One is not born, but becomes a woman” to prove that the woman we have all tried to live up to are myths. We have been conditioned into feminine personalities because of our biological differences from men. Media and society as a whole manipulates our minds to believe that we should allow men to use our bodies for their own pleasure.
Wittig explains, as a lesbian herself, that it is as if women belong to men and even lesbians feel their being oppressed, as women are more or less off limits for them. She says women become defined by their physical and biological features. She admits that as long as giving birth is what defines woman then it will be hard not to recognize that women are part of a natural group that may continue to be out of her reach.
What lesbians have proved is that as women they can choose not to accept the group chosen for them and instead be niether man nor woman. They choose not to be inferior to men, or abused by them, used or enslaved by them. They do not accept that men should be allowed to violate them by refusing to be heterosexual.
Wittig believes that woman are a myth made up by the imaginations of heterosexual men that want nothing more than to be master of their own sexual slaves. She feels the only way to fight this oppression is to suppress men as a class. Her thoughts being that once the class of men disappears, so too will the class of women. She says, “for there are no slaves without masters”.
Sandra Bartky's assertions in her essay, “Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power”, are very critical of Foucault for not recognizing that womans lives are more institutionalized than mens. After all, their whole life is filled with steps on how to be beautiful, how to look younger, how to keep your skin looking young and every different weight watchers diet is on their shelves at home. If there is a remedy out there for looking good, women have tried them all. The rituals on keeping herself thin are a daily chore and night creams and face masks are mandatory before bedtime. She is so conditioned from societies high expectations for her that her life is filled with endless beauty chores.
Woman beat themselves up if they get too fat, or a pimple shows from her eating too much chocolate. If they notice their hair is out of place and their girlfriend did not tell them about it they assume it was intentional to stop them from looking better than they do. Everything is about competition and trying to be perfect in every way. They have to talk softly, be sexy, stay faithful, look youthful, act happy and be successful. Yes, at home and at work. It is increasingly clear that men have it made and women have to do all the hard work. Men just need soap and razors for a shower and a splash of aftershave and off they go. Their wardrobe can be kept in a hall closet and that's enough to keep them sought after. A woman needs at least 20 pairs of shoes to go with every color outfit she owns. It gets expensive and hard to keep up with the fashion magazines when they change their looks every season.
Bartky points out that “something is “internalized” when it get incorporated into the structure of the self”. Our society has done a good job of getting inside womens heads and turned them into human structures that resemble mannequins. Woman are even starting to look alike. The blond haired blue eyed female is going to be a woman of the past as societies genes become mixed with various nationalities. Brown eyes are dominant and so is dark hair. The Brazilian female is the woman of the future. However, there is always colored contacts, hair dye, fake nails and boob jobs for the Marilyn Monroe's of the world. Woman cannot resist the temptations of taking a trip for a “nip-tuk” here and there. It is just too hard to match up with the competition when the girls they are competing with keep getting younger and younger every year.
Maria Lugones' would probably tell Wittig that is is not necessary to destroy woman in order to understand them or be accepted by them. She would say that every woman is unique and that you may need to enter her world to learn what pleases her, or better than that, find out if this woman could ever please you. She would tell women to stop trying so hard to please everyone else. She would try to remind them that they are only as old as they feel. She would remind Bartky that woman radiate beauty on the outside when they feel it on the inside. As woman begin to see themselves as real human beings and not the superficial supermodel s they try to be, they also begin to love themselves more. A woman should dance because she is happy and likes the song that is playing, not because she needs to loose eight more pounds for a date she has Friday night with some guy she just met. She would say stop asking yourself if you are good enough for him, and make sure he is good enough for you.
It is hard to convince a woman not to worry so much about everything and extra hard to get her to stop acting like a robot. Woman have settled for too little from men for too long. It is important that you are sexually satisfied too, so stop acting in the bedroom and tell your man what you need from him. You will notice ladies that when women stop acting like slaves, the men stop treating them like them. Do whatever makes you happy and find a man who thinks your playful so you can both have fun being together.
I doubt I still have to tell you which of these woman has the best strategy. Lugones won me over hands down. She has learned that it is easy to get along with other females even if they are younger and prettier than you. That is a tall order to fill sometimes. She has found a way to avoid the oppression by ignoring it and living her life her way. She has enough compassion in her heart to place herself in other woman's shoes and work out reasons for why they feel or act the way they do even if the way they are acting is rude and obnoxious. She has learned how to understand the nature of woman by taking time to get to know their world. The more she learns about the nature of other women, the more she understands her own nature as a woman, as a mother, as a friend, or as a daughter. She is the natural and reasonable choice of the three theorists and the only one with a winning strategy that I could learn to love and live with.


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Exposed (Sexual Ethics)

In todays world, there is so much violence and blood on our televisions everyday that people are growing accustomed to it. Girls grow up watching commercials that constantly use objectification of womens bodies to sell their products. It's no surprise that the women they become believe that their main purpose is to satisfy a mans sexual pleasure. Some women may live their whole life and never have a satisfying sexual life. Most of the time that is because she has not met someone who cared more about her sexual needs than they did for their own. Unfortunately, this is also mostly men. Men cannot be blamed for buying into the lies , they too are brainwashed into thinking that sex is about male ejaculation. Only one form of sexual activity proves this is not true.
Sadomasochism (hereafter referred to as SM) is a sexual practice that involves a unique relationship between two people where one is the Submissive or Sub and one is the Dominant partner or Dom. Only this sexual practice snubs what is considered normal human behavior and becomes its own indicator of status in dominance hierarchies. The light forms of SM have made their mark on American culture by introducing steel-tipped high heel leather thigh-high boots with chains and spiked jewelry, but the extreme uses of SM push the boundaries of pleasure by breaking through the political power structure that society is so comfortable with. The variety of players who engage in SM range from voyeurs watching a dominatrix whip her man and walk him around on leashes to one night stands that come in for their nightly spankings and humiliation to get them off. Tattoos and piercings are commonplace and most call it a “good pain”. This is what SM is built on. Although pain is not always involved, it is the core of SM, it is a good pain that two people inflict or receive to heighten their sensual pleasure and accommodate sexual desires that fall among the fetish and phobias of unique and high quality lovemaking.
Most participants are surprised to learn they enjoy leather whips, spiked paddles, handcuffs, clamps, penis rods, crotchless swings, wax, ball-gags, and leather leashes. These items are considered vulgar by people who are only aware of the status quo sex life. Sex only becomes vulgar if the relationship you are in becomes stale and unsatisfying or if the sex someone is engaged in is with someone who has not consented to it, or is too young to give their consent and understand the full implications of their choices. People into SM push their own boundaries of sexuality and experience a unique relationship that brings them pleasure through different values of pain or sometimes the anticipation of it.
Couples that engage in SM are safety conscious. They understand that toys must be washed and kept clean and many precautions be taken to assure that the experience will be a pleasurable one that both partners will walk away from completely satisfied. Partners usually know everything about each other and are extremely close. This type of sex is not for everybody and Subs must be sure that the Dom partner they choose can be trusted and listen for safe words. The safe word is set-up so that if things are being pushed too far your partner will stop without question. This means Subs have to be willing to trust them with their life. Let's face it, it is easy for accidents to occur if a Dom is not paying attention and if things go too far someone could end up dead. This occurs more frequently when partners are still learning each others strengths and weaknesses, along with their own.
A partner that has engaged in the activity for years may suddenly find themselves without a partner and this usually brings them to what are called club “scenes”. The hunt for a new partner is not only risky because of unknown involvement with sexual toys that may not be sterilized and carry sexual diseases, but because you may allow yourself to trust the wrong person. Subs are especially vulnerable and could easily end up in a position that may be impossible to get out of. We are all aware that there are evil people out there, and they might consider these club “scenes” to be a place for easy prey. Most of the “scenes” have strict rules that everyone must follow if they are allowed entry to the club and they are enforced. There are boundaries that cannot be crossed or you risk being banned, sometimes indefinitely. Once you are granted admission, even you must obey a Doms rules if you are within their territory. This helps them keep a look out for people who are new to the “scenes” or just do not act right.
Even if you do get lucky and find a “safe” partner that understands your needs and the relationship flourishes into a sophisticated SM experience, it still includes some downsides that may be hard to avoid. Many of the role-playing games include spankings and whips or paddles and clamps where bruises and permanent scarring can be incurred at every level. Since the majority of participants in the Sub/Dom relationships are mostly married white men between the ages of 40-55 years-old committing adultery this may become very hard to conceal from their wives at home. Although, many of these men may not even be engaging in “sex”. There are also those who come to enjoy the humiliation and harsh treatment from their Doms. They allow themselves to be placed on leashes and speak only when spoken to. They avoid eye contact with anyone except their Dom and must have permission before doing anything. Subs have to be careful not to let their tolerance in their sexual life become part of their real life at home. That kind of relationship is not healthy for anybody involved. Doms also have to watch that their dominating personalities don't become problematic for their personal lives. It could cost them their jobs or even their friends.
At the higher levels of SM there are private rooms for the more advanced forms of role-play that may include the regular use of human cages or dungeons with leather ball-gags and full face masks. Again, the participants welcome the pain and it is always consensual. There would be a wall of various whips and tools of torture for more sinister involvement. Things like nut-stomping and burning of the skin with hot irons may seem mid-evil to people who do not understand the SM underground, but if ever the participant wants the session to end there is always a “safe-word” or some other way of communicating that they want the Dom to stop whatever they are doing. At that point, it immediately stops. For most participants the reasons they give for their involvement in SM is the heightened sense of sexual pleasure. It is proven to induce high amounts of endorphins and create a wave of pleasure for those involved. Various practices arouse or stimulate individuals for many different reasons and on various levels. Cock-stuffing or “sounding” is a practice that involves inserting a cold steel rod into the males urethra which is something most men would want to avoid at any cost. Oral stimulation for most people is enough to stimulate their sexual desire, but others may use spanking as an aphrodisiac to begin sexual intercourse. There is a high number of men who are Submissive and just enjoy the act of being controlled. There are even people who do not participate in the act of SM themselves and instead find it erotic to watch the “scenes” taking place through a wall of glass.
People that watch notice that Doms actually care very much about the safety and comfort of their Subs. They grow very close to each other because the whole relationship is built on trust and effective communication with each other. It can be a very empowering experience that brings a couple closer together as they learn about each others boundaries and space, sexual triggers and behavior, what pleases or annoys them, and how far they can go before it is too far. There is a lot of affection shared between the two partners..
A Dom must know his own strength it or it could mean the difference between consensual sex and sexual assault. At that point, there are even legal ramifications which may emerge and become problematic for the Doms real life. The thought of that scares both participants. Every individual who is thinking about participating in this form of sexual exercise should think seriously about the repercussions that it may have on their personal lives. There are not very many people who would want to participate in this kind of activity every day. The goal is to keep the SM in your life only as sexual role play.
Most participants, especially women, find this is a very gratifying form of sex. A study done at the University of Northern Illinois proved that endorphin levels rise during these sessions and that spankings improve intimacy. The occasional SM encounter usually ends with both participants feeling completely satisfied. Even feminists have to agree that the goal for most heterosexual couples is just to make the man orgasm. Martha Nussbaum claims in her essay, Objectification, that sexual objectification, the reduction of a person to his or her flesh, and the loss of individuality and autonomy in sexual activity, can be a wonderful or good aspect of life and sexuality. I think many people who have experienced SM would have to agree.

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Awareness (Indian Ethics)

In todays world, there are many religions that acknowledge a higher power than ourselves, but often there are many others whose paths lead them to philosophies or belief systems that fulfill the same emptiness for them that religions do for people of faith. There are various belief systems that I will discuss in this paper from Vedanta to Sankhya Yoga and even Materialism. All of them are dated in the late A.D.'s or early B.C.'s and have been translated from Sanskrit texts of India. I call them belief systems because they do not all consist of a God and religions have always insisted that God is central in their teachings. In India, God is Brahman. Some religions say God is within us all, In India Brahman is within us all. I will be answering the following three questions according to the three belief systems above: “What is basic human nature? What is the highest good for human beings? And what is the path to the highest good?” After that I will focus on the lives of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore and do my best to interpret how they may have answered the same questions.
Vedanta is out of the Vedanta Sutras translated from Badarayana as a way to organize the Upanishads teachings as he tries to eliminate some inconsistencies and ambiguities that exist within the text. Brahman is the ultimate principal or reality that humans must connect with in order to vanquish the limitations of self-identity. The concept of God is close to Brahman in that Brahman is in everyone like God is in everyone. People who practice Vedanta respect all religions because they understand that there are many approaches to finding God and they believe that all paths that lead to God are valid because they all lead to the same spiritual awakening and self-realization.
Vedanta believes that basic human nature is divine and the aim of life is to realize that human nature is divine. They think of life as being a kind of shared consciousness that spans the universe. Human beings all have the ability to achieve higher forms of consciousness rather than only accepting the lowest form of it which man is born with, self consciousness, Vedanta's believes that the highest good for human beings is to achieve “cosmic consciousness”. The path to the highest good is by learning the knowledge of Brahman.
Vedanta is a collection of 555 sutras that are divided into four chapters containing four sections each. The first chapter is on “harmony”. It teaches that Brahman is the central reality for the Upanishads text. I am skipping the second chapter for a moment and I will return to it shortly. The third chapter discusses the ways and means of attaining the highest knowledge and the fourth chapter deals with the results of doing so...mainly what happens to the soul after death, as well as the character of the souls released. Now, as for the second chapter, certain metaphysics are discussed that have raised objections. Sankhya is one of the main objectors which is one of the six orthodox schools of Indian philosophy. Schools have always been necessary for teaching these sutras as they are packed with meaning and must be interpreted by experienced commentators in order to unravel the deep messages folded within them. Each sutra contains only two or three words, but commentators manage to interpret numerous meanings and messages from the scriptures and then they still must be translated into various languages.
Wikipedia says the major text of this Vedic school is the extant of Samkhya Karika, written by Ishvara Krishna. This philosophy led to the rise of “Tantra Sudhana” which eventually formed the “Hare Krishna movement”. For Ishvara Krishna the evolution of the world takes place from the interaction between Parusha and Pakriti.
Sankhya calls this interaction primordial matter and believes that effects of the first substantial cause created the world. The processes consist of three Gunas that become disturbed from equilibrium creating evolution. Sankhya also believes that there are multiple spirits that create the variety of experiences
Yoga is a form of meditation which is important for all belief systems in India. Yoga believes that basic human nature is Brahman. However, Man also has the ability to create his own destiny. The paths that each of us choose will always be based on our own free will and, because of that, we all suffer the consequences of our actions that find their way back to us through the transcendent forces of cause and effect. Karma is rooted in mans afflictions with ignorance, egoism, attraction, aversion and clinging to life. These afflictions fill our lives with various levels of karma that effect us in this life and the next. One of the main beliefs of Yoga is in reincarnation. Those that study Sankhya Yoga believe that humans have a choice to generate either good or bad karma, and that the choices they make will not only effect their life now, but will also effect them in their future incarnations. According to Yoga, if we do good things and live our lives following the eight-fold path then we generate good karma for ourselves. The goal is to try and eliminate all negative influences by having right views, right intention, right speech, right action, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration and hardest of all finding the right livelihood.
For them, the path to the highest good is found by motivating yourself to always live your life with high ethical values. Karma, they feel, can liberate them from the suffering on earth or it can keep them trapped to this world with chains of unbreakable bondage if they let selfishness or greed alter their path. This belief accepts that humans are embodied out of a mental awareness that is part of an eternal cycle of consciousness that experiences rebirth or reincarnation forever unless the being is liberated from the physical events that keep it from acknowledging Satwa. The highest good for Sankhya Yoga is to find Moksha, and to find that you must find a way to liberate Parusha or the seer (pure consciousness) from the perception that it shares the fate of Pakriti or the seen (nature), which remains bound to physical events and objects on earth and inevitably tied to Dukkha (suffering). The consequence of this liberation leads the being to finding Nirvana while still on earth and ending the cycle of rebirth at last.
The only way we can eliminate these negative influences and free ourselves from karma that brings us only more suffering and pain is through constant meditation. The key to learning this meditation is broken into four sections: Concentration, to gain control over ones mind. Practice discerning the difference between the seer and the seen. Empowerment comes from being able to master the mind and dwell in the state of “pure seeing”. Only then can one achieve what is refereed to as a state of isolation and find absorption in the “cloud of virtue”.
Sankhya Yoga is unique in its decision to recognize the Vedic authority of Hindu philosophy in their belief system. This places them among the “astika” schools of Hindu philosophy. However, astika schools are also considered “theist” or orthodox, meaning that they accept God and schools that do not are called “nastika” or heterodox of which Buddhism practices. Samkhya is one of the rare “atheistic astika schools” and also one of the oldest philosophical systems in India.
Materialism or Carvaka is classified as nastika or heterodox and like Buddhism, is atheist, and does not believe in God. The beliefs came from the Lokayata sutras that were all lost except for some fragmentary texts and other philosophies refuting them. Although it is not considered as one of the schools of philosophy, it did cause a materialistic movement in Hinduism. An Indian Philosopher names Jayarsi Bhatta belonged to the school of Indian Materialism or Carvaka. Carvaka challenged all the belief systems by asking the question, “How do you know that such entities exist?” This question, above all others, they know cannot be answered with anything else but faith. Carvaka could be considered the scientific community as they were always looking for proof when acquiring knowledge.
In their era there were three ways to acquire knowledge: Perception (external or using the five senses through physical objects and internal which gives us knowledge through our own mental states), inference and testimony. Much of the knowledge they gained through logic and analysis.
Carvaka taught that basic human nature is to die. The movement grew larger while gradual skepticism continued to draw people in and ask questions of their own. The materialistic views of Jayarasi were made famous in his published work, “Tattvopaplavasimha”. Amazingly, his conclusions from this work is that we cannot know anything about reality.
The highest good for human beings is to use common sense and question everything until its ultimate conclusion satisfies you with knowledge obtained by asking questions. The path to the highest good is to enjoy life while your in this world because there is nothing beyond. For Carvaka, all other philosophies are untenable as they go beyond common sense and base their beliefs on things that cannot be proven and call it faith.
Now I will move on to the life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi whose ambition was “to wipe every tear from every eye”. Gandhi collected ideas from an assortment of Indian philosophies, mostly Hinduism. He became popular for the brave stand he would take fighting for what he thought was right. They say his greatest achievement was the creation of a new instrument of social action, sarayagraha, also known as civil disobedience.
For Gandhi, basic human nature is to challenge injustice. Unfortunately, he also knew that when people are victimized, it is also their nature to fight back with violence. This was not an option for he knew that violence only feeds upon itself and never ends with satisfaction for any of the parties involved. He came up with another option which he called, satyagraha. This would bring an end to injustice by changing the heart of the wrongdoer with love which would awaken his sense of justice and make him do the right thing by not hurting people anymore. This kind of communication made it mandatory that the victims be willing to endure self-suffering while still remaining open to communication and arbitration.
The highest good for human beings is truth. God is truth and truth is God. Gandhi also realized that not all people accepted God in their lives, but everybody was willing to accept love. For him, the path to the highest good was by acting without attachments to the fruits of action, a belief taken right out of the Bhagavad-Gita. He believed in egolessness as the highest personal value.
His teachings have something to offer for nations involved in conflict, for oppressed minorities and their governments, social groups and individuals because what he proved was that it was possible to resolve issues that would otherwise seem impossible to solve without war or violence by planning direct action and accepting all adversity until the issue was resolved. He also proved that it is not necessary to attack an opponent that disagrees with you with physical violence. In a Gandhian fight, you can only claim you have won if your opponent can say the same. This is the brilliance of Gandhi and of human nature.
His message resonates throughout the world today because each of us believe that he may be right about human beings all coming from the same soul. That's why we can feel sadness for a human being we have never met or happiness when we see a couple smiling at the birth of their baby. We all feel connected to each other and share at the very least, our existence to be in this world together.
Rabindranath Tagore was one of the greatest literary talents of all time. He has written thousands of poems, along with plays, short stories and even songs that have all been successful and welcomed by the industry. The work that Tagore exhibited was a perfect example of his philosophy of creativity, harmony, love and joy. He was drawn to the arts since he was a boy and he made an impression on each and every one of the categories considered to fall in to the art world. He even began to paint before he died and as usual it too was a success. With all of his accomplishments you would assume he was a genius, and in his own way he was. However, he was a self taught man that had a difficult time learning from others. Even the best tutors found him a difficult pupil. This did not stop him from proving that whatever he put his mind to would be remembered by others forever.
Tagore believed that basic human nature was to express themselves with the personality that the Supreme one blessed them with. He felt that humanity itself had all felt the same stream of life running through their veins. He lived a long and distinguished life of creativity and service as well as being a voice of love and international harmony.
The path to the highest good is to accept and breathe in all the beauty of nature and open your heart to the love that surrounds us all everyday. For Tagore, self-realization and love are the highest good. Anyone who has read the poetry of Tagore will remember it. He has an impressionable personality that is obvious in his works. Only a rare few men can say they will be remembered for something they wrote or painted. Tagore can say that everything he wrote or painted will be remembered. How can anyone not believe in God when he has so many ways of sending his messages of love to us. How dark this world would become without the love of God to brighten our lives with natural beauty. The very wonders of life itself can be felt by holding a new born baby in your arms and feeling only pure and complete happiness in their eyes. That's not a coincidence, that is proof of God in the creation of life itself. How wonderful that we are allowed to actually create life ourselves. What a sweet gift.



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