Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
Speaker 1: There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Jerry's over there. So this
Speaker 1: is stuff you should know. Here we are now. Thatcher
Speaker 1: did lighten what mode? Yes, don't like that, said Josh.
Speaker 1: But I did include a Nirvana reference in there when
Speaker 1: I said here we are now. Oh, I did not
Speaker 1: catch that. I noticed very nice, very little. I slid
Speaker 1: that one in there. Yeah. Yeah, how you doing? Are
Speaker 1: you feeling centered? Uh? No, I'm all whacka do Your
Speaker 1: shockers are all over the place. My shackras are all
Speaker 1: over the place, so much so that I couldn't think
Speaker 1: of anything. So all I did was repeat you. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, man, I have to say. While we were
Speaker 1: researching this, I was like this some beautiful stuff. It's
Speaker 1: very appealing. Yeah, actually it was. It's neat stuff, like
Speaker 1: I I was. I became calm in researching this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good thing. I think. Um this, you can
Speaker 1: tie this in. We have a couple of related episodes,
Speaker 1: and we might as well as call this the uh Enlightenment. Sweet?
Speaker 1: How about that? I'd like that Karma from July and
Speaker 1: Reincarnation from July and Burning Man, the angriest people in yours.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah. And you know our our our buddy in
Speaker 1: New York, Rachel Grundy, as a Buddhist. Yeah yeah, and
Speaker 1: she's I talked to her about it so because I
Speaker 1: was like, you know, GRUNDI I've meditated some and it
Speaker 1: really appeals to me. And like a true Buddhist, She's like,
Speaker 1: it's great, man, here, I'll send you some stuff, no press,
Speaker 1: you know, let's see you some pamphlets. Yeah, that's basically
Speaker 1: what she did. She wasn't like, you know, you should
Speaker 1: look at this. You know, it's a little uh, let's
Speaker 1: overbearing than other religions I found. I got you, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Now, Rachel Grundy does the literary
Speaker 1: pub crawl right if she still do that, I don't
Speaker 1: know she still does that. She used to, But we
Speaker 1: can plug her band Coyote Love. How about that? There
Speaker 1: you go, And she just adopted the dogs of congratulations,
Speaker 1: congratulations to everybody. Um, that's the Buddhist way. That is
Speaker 1: so nirvana. I thought was the perfect way to cap
Speaker 1: off Karma and Reincarnation. Yeah, as the third part, and
Speaker 1: maybe we should do meditation. Maybe we should make it
Speaker 1: a four parter. Yeah, that could probably be interesting. I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's a lot of studies about the physiological effects
Speaker 1: of it and all that. Yeah, let's do it. Okay, alright, alright,
Speaker 1: that's an it's agreed upon. Then, and then the what
Speaker 1: do you call it? The what suite? Uh? The Enlightenment sweet?
Speaker 1: The Enlightenment sweet, not to be confused with the Transidentalists
Speaker 1: or the Enlightenment episode man, which just doesn't factor into
Speaker 1: this at all. No, Okay, So, Chuck, we're talking Nirvan Anna.
Speaker 1: You have like a conception of it. I have a
Speaker 1: conception of it. But in researching one of the things,
Speaker 1: and I also knew that Buddhists and Hindus share a
Speaker 1: lot of cosmology. I thought you're gonna say they hate
Speaker 1: each other. No, I don't get that impression. No, of
Speaker 1: course not, um, but they they are. Buddhism is a
Speaker 1: an offshoot of Hinduism. Yeah, it's a spinoff. It's the aftermatch.
Speaker 1: It is. It's the JOONI loves Chacci of religions. What else, maud?
Speaker 1: What was that? An offshoot of Mary Tyler more, Mary
Speaker 1: Tyler Moore? Right, it's the Jefferson's Yeah from march Archie
Speaker 1: Bunker or absolutely, I could do this for at least
Speaker 1: thirty straight minutes. Yeah, we should do an episode on
Speaker 1: the spinoffs where we just say spinoff names and just
Speaker 1: hold thumbs up or down, and but we don't say
Speaker 1: people just guess what are we doing right now? It's
Speaker 1: the Threes company spinoff of Hogans here us. That's good. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're done, Yeah, we're done. Okay. I did not realize that,
Speaker 1: I guess, is what I'm saying. I knew that they
Speaker 1: were related, I didn't realize that it was like a
Speaker 1: direct offshoot where basically the Buddha whose name whose original
Speaker 1: name was Siddartha gaua Tama. Did you know that actually Saddarta? Okay,
Speaker 1: so the h is silent gau tama. Nice. Yes, I
Speaker 1: actually looked at pronunciations or listened to them for this
Speaker 1: episode for once. I'm proud of you. I'm also a
Speaker 1: little ashamed because you did that and I didn't. That
Speaker 1: was all for Grundy. I was going. I was going
Speaker 1: with the with the original status quo. It's just mangling
Speaker 1: words of foreign origin. Well, I'm trying to mix things
Speaker 1: up here, fifteen years in and scientific words to not
Speaker 1: just foreign ones. So, uh, you were talking about Saddharta
Speaker 1: gal Tama, right, he was born into as a Hindu
Speaker 1: a Hindu family and decided like, yeah, I'm not too
Speaker 1: hip on Hindoo. I think there's other ways to go.
Speaker 1: And there's Buddhism. Uh yeah, that's the quick version. YadA YadA, YadA.
Speaker 1: There's Buddhism. Yeah, this is fifth century b C. In
Speaker 1: the age of course. And uh, like you said, he
Speaker 1: would later become the Buddha, which is not to be
Speaker 1: confused with Buddha. A Buddha exactly which you want to
Speaker 1: be a Buddha, Go do it, Chuck, you can do it.
Speaker 1: You couldn't be the Buddha because that's Saddharta's right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you could be a Buddha. I could be a
Speaker 1: layman's version, I believe, right, Okay, because like only monks
Speaker 1: generally achieve the state of a Buddha. So in researching this,
Speaker 1: if you wanted to, you could be like Sion or
Speaker 1: a life I'm going to become a Buddhist monk and
Speaker 1: conceivably achieve nirvana in this lifetime. You could be because
Speaker 1: you're a human being. You're incarnated as a human being
Speaker 1: into this moral coil, and if you wanted to, you
Speaker 1: could go do it. But in researching this, yes, apparently
Speaker 1: it's typically left to the Buddhist monks because they're the
Speaker 1: ones who are like, who at the time sign our life? Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you gotta drop out in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: not entirely. I mean, Buddhist monks like still filter amongst
Speaker 1: the masses and all that. But um, for the most part,
Speaker 1: they're focusing a lot more on achieving nirvana than the
Speaker 1: average day to day person does, even like a day
Speaker 1: to day Buddhist or something. Yeah, it's not. It's not
Speaker 1: a part time job. You're not like, uh, sitting around
Speaker 1: on Netflix, like should I watch Oranges in New Black?
Speaker 1: Or should I meditate for eight hours? You know? Can
Speaker 1: I do both? You can? By the way, that's called
Speaker 1: zoning out. So, uh, let's talk a little bit more
Speaker 1: about Siddharta's journey. Um, this is a five sixty three
Speaker 1: BC and modern day Nepal or what would be modern
Speaker 1: day Nepal. Does the way back machine go there? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You want to go? All right? It sounds like a
Speaker 1: lovely time. All right, here we are it's cold. It's lovely.
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny. I didn't take it as cold.
Speaker 1: I thought we would be going back to like maybe spring,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it's really cold here right now. It's a
Speaker 1: good thing. You're wearing the ox hide, you know, lined
Speaker 1: with serpa. Uh so, see said Arta over there. And
Speaker 1: he is a rich dude, and he is very sheltered dude.
Speaker 1: And despite all these riches and uh, this lifestyle, he's
Speaker 1: very pampered. He's kind of I can see it in
Speaker 1: his eyes. He is dissatisfied. He is dissatisfied. He was
Speaker 1: born into a ruling class, very powerful, like you said,
Speaker 1: rich family, and he's part of the idol rich, but
Speaker 1: he's part of the thinking idol rich. So he started
Speaker 1: to question his place in life, which is basically what
Speaker 1: you said. Right. Yeah, he starts to to mold this
Speaker 1: over and like maybe there's more. Uh, it's a very
Speaker 1: long story, and we could spend hours talking about this,
Speaker 1: but I've seen a yeah, because like you can't do
Speaker 1: it part time, like I said, um, but I'm looking
Speaker 1: at him and basically I can tell that his disillusionment
Speaker 1: has has reached its apex, and it is culminated by
Speaker 1: him looking out in the window one day and he
Speaker 1: sees three things from his little palace window. He sees
Speaker 1: a decrepit old man, he sees a disease man, and
Speaker 1: then he sees a corpse. And he's done, I guess so.
Speaker 1: And he's like, you know what, I'm I'm done with
Speaker 1: this life. Can't take it anymore. Even though I have
Speaker 1: my arranged wife, my cousin whom I married, I was
Speaker 1: forced to marry. I have a beautiful son whom I love.
Speaker 1: I'm going to leave them. I'm gonna leave all my possessions,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to go on a quest, a vision quest,
Speaker 1: if you will, to understand the true nature of life.
Speaker 1: And here I go right and back we are to
Speaker 1: the present day. So you can hang your ox hide
Speaker 1: And that Sherpa on the coat wreck. Well, well there's
Speaker 1: more to this story. How do we have to go back? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we gotta go back. I gotta go on, short pants,
Speaker 1: put your put your pants back on. Uh so chuck.
Speaker 1: Here we are back again, And um said Arta is
Speaker 1: he's gone from a very rich, powerful family. He's decided
Speaker 1: to go on this vision quest. He thinks, well, I mean,
Speaker 1: if I was very dissatisfied, and I think it's kind
Speaker 1: of wrong to be as grossly rich as I was
Speaker 1: the family I was born into. I'll just go the
Speaker 1: exact opposite route, and I'll become a hermit, a completely
Speaker 1: poverty stricken hermit who has not even a pot to
Speaker 1: pee in. Yeah, not even that, right. And he figures
Speaker 1: out that as he's um starving to death, that it's
Speaker 1: not leading to any kind of enlightenment. He's actually growing
Speaker 1: increasingly uncomfortable. It's getting harder and harder for him to
Speaker 1: pay attention to enlightenment because you say he's hungry and
Speaker 1: hungrier um, And he realizes, wait a minute, maybe this
Speaker 1: isn't the right way to go. Maybe polar extremes are
Speaker 1: a little too extreme. Yeah, what if I die without
Speaker 1: achieving my goal? That would just have been a waste
Speaker 1: of life. Yeah, I would have been poverty stricken and great,
Speaker 1: But that doesn't lead to enlightenment clearly. So here comes
Speaker 1: a stranger who's offering me a meal. I'm gonna take it.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna be poverty stricken no longer. And
Speaker 1: maybe I don't need to be rich, but I also
Speaker 1: don't need to be poverty stricken. I need to take
Speaker 1: this middle road to enlightenment. So I'm gonna kill that stranger,
Speaker 1: take all the food with a pigeonhammer. Oh wait, that's
Speaker 1: not the middle road. That's far from the middle road.
Speaker 1: That's kind of extreme as well. So he takes a
Speaker 1: meal from a stranger. He figures out I think finally
Speaker 1: that like, okay, this is the way to do it,
Speaker 1: goes and sits under a tree. Um and achieved nirvana.
Speaker 1: He achieved omniscience. Yeah, there were three stages of that.
Speaker 1: He saw his past lives, all of them. He saw
Speaker 1: the past lives of all others, and he's like, I'm
Speaker 1: really starting to catch onto things here. Things are revealing themselves.
Speaker 1: And finally he identified the fore noble truths, which we'll
Speaker 1: talk about in a bit, but those were the three
Speaker 1: stages under the tree. And in the end of it,
Speaker 1: he said, you know, and I gained a perfect understanding
Speaker 1: of the laws governing the cycle of birth and death.
Speaker 1: Like it's it's nirvana. Boom, it's nirvana, and nirvana we
Speaker 1: should probably say um. Once he achieved nirvana, he didn't
Speaker 1: say it's nirvana. No, he couldn't say much. Actually, one
Speaker 1: of the things that came across in research time and
Speaker 1: time again is that he very famously couldn't put it
Speaker 1: into words a description of what he experienced in this
Speaker 1: new state of enlightenment that he was vibing in. It's
Speaker 1: like Catulu kind of. It was the unnameable, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but everybody trusted him anyway. They said, this guy knows
Speaker 1: where it's at. We're going to start following his teachings. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In the In Sanskrit, nirvana means to extinguish, though in
Speaker 1: this case they're talking about extinguishing suffering and hatred and ignorance.
Speaker 1: No good. So we'll talk about the buddhas um Uh
Speaker 1: path to enlightenment and his teachings that came out of
Speaker 1: this achievement of nirvana right after this and we're back.
Speaker 1: That's pretty funny put an ad in the middle of
Speaker 1: a Buddhism lesson. Well, we take all comers here with
Speaker 1: my friend. So if you achieve nirvana, what you're doing
Speaker 1: is you are breaking that cycle. Um. If you listen
Speaker 1: to our reincarnation podcast, the sam Sara is that cycle
Speaker 1: of reincarnation that you can be uh caught in or
Speaker 1: stuck in. I guess and this is where karma and
Speaker 1: again we have a great episode on karma. Uh, karma
Speaker 1: comes into play because what you're doing is you're rewarded
Speaker 1: on your past actions um, in your current life and
Speaker 1: earlier lives. Right, does that makes sense? No? It makes sense? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Sure so? Uh And I love that this article says
Speaker 1: it's important to note that the law of karma isn't
Speaker 1: due to God's judgment over a person's behavior. Uh. And
Speaker 1: it's closer to Newton's law of motion. That makes more sense. Right,
Speaker 1: For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So when like you, you know, step on a snail,
Speaker 1: you're just like, man, didn't mean to do that. It's
Speaker 1: gonna come back and bite me later on in another life.
Speaker 1: And you build up this karma or whatever. But when
Speaker 1: you uh reach nirvana, you stop accruing bad karma, that's right,
Speaker 1: You transcend it. Yeah. And when you transcend it, then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you can spend the rest of
Speaker 1: your life working off that karmic debt that you have
Speaker 1: already accrued. Because that doesn't just go away paying down
Speaker 1: a credit card exactly. So. But it's like when you
Speaker 1: achieved nirvana, the credit cards cut up, so you're not
Speaker 1: adding to your your account any longer. But you still
Speaker 1: have some money that you owe and you're paying that
Speaker 1: off in this life or conceivably other lives following. But
Speaker 1: at some point your your golden ticket has been granted.
Speaker 1: You have achieved nirvana. That's right. And when that happens,
Speaker 1: you are are you have escaped that some Sara, and
Speaker 1: you have achieved party nirvana. And that is uh the
Speaker 1: final stage that you find in the afterlife. Um. And
Speaker 1: in the case of Suddharta, he was eight years old
Speaker 1: when he passed, and he in a state of meditation,
Speaker 1: basically saying to his people around him, it's all good man,
Speaker 1: this is like, this is the goal. It was like
Speaker 1: a great way to pass, you know, yeah, like we
Speaker 1: should all pass that way. Sure, tell him everybody it's
Speaker 1: all good. Yeah, pretty much like Waterson style. So he's
Speaker 1: going alright, alright, those for his last words, if I'm
Speaker 1: not mistaken. UM. So, when when one achieves nirvana, UM,
Speaker 1: and you escape the cycle ofst I'm sara. You Eventually,
Speaker 1: when you die and you work off your karmic debt
Speaker 1: and you're no longer reincarnated, you become you basically travel
Speaker 1: to another to mention another realm. It's just something different
Speaker 1: that basically exists outside of space time, as modern Buddhists
Speaker 1: would say. Um, and you are kind of one with
Speaker 1: the universe. You just become a a selfless part of
Speaker 1: the universe. That sounds beautiful to me. So pot of
Speaker 1: Nirvana Day or just Nirvana Day is celebrated on February
Speaker 1: fift in East Asia. Uh, celebrations very evidently. I looked
Speaker 1: it up. Apparently some people just meditate, some people are
Speaker 1: just reflective. A lot of times in monasteries of food
Speaker 1: is prepared and shared. But that is a February fifty
Speaker 1: Nirvana Day. So chuck. If you become a U, a
Speaker 1: Buddhist monk, and you achieve nirvana. Um. And let's say
Speaker 1: you're not a Buddhist monk, and you know, let's say
Speaker 1: you are. Okay, so you're a Buddhist mon I keep
Speaker 1: putting on these clothes and taking them off. You achieve nirvana. Um.
Speaker 1: You become a Buddha right, not again, not the Buddha,
Speaker 1: but a Buddha like your which means an enlightened one. Right. Um.
Speaker 1: And if you say I have got some time and money,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to hire you a Buddha to lead
Speaker 1: me to nirvana. You're almost like a junior Buddha. Um,
Speaker 1: there's a different word form. They're called our hots. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: our hit that's what I found. Yeah, okay, that's right.
Speaker 1: That's when you have a Buddha guide to guide you. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you are not You're enlightened. You're just not omniscient. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not bad though, Yeah, big difference though not omniscient and omniscient.
Speaker 1: There's a pretty big difference between those two things, you know. So, um,
Speaker 1: when uh, the Buddha came back from his um and like,
Speaker 1: well what what? Once he achieved his enlightened state, he
Speaker 1: started trying to tell people like, you can be like
Speaker 1: this too, and here's how you do it. He said
Speaker 1: that there are it's very simple. There are just four
Speaker 1: noble truths. It's all you need to know until you
Speaker 1: realize that the fourth noble truth mentions an eight full
Speaker 1: path and suddenly like it's exponentially more involved, but it's
Speaker 1: still fairly simple stuff. Yeah. He taught this for the
Speaker 1: last forty five years of his life. Number one is
Speaker 1: that life is suffering, and I think that was he
Speaker 1: was clued into that from his window that day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was the suffering that really made him go, like, man,
Speaker 1: this is life, that old guy, that dead body. If
Speaker 1: this is life, who needs enemies? Oh? Good point. Uh.
Speaker 1: Number two, suffering is caused by ignorance of the true
Speaker 1: nature of the universe. So ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance
Speaker 1: is no good no. And basically the true nature of
Speaker 1: the universe is that, um, we are made unhappy by wanting,
Speaker 1: by craving things, and that we can free ourselves from
Speaker 1: those things by overcoming them. That's right. That's number three.
Speaker 1: You can end that suffering. Uh. And then number four
Speaker 1: is if you attach yourselves and follow the four I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: the Noble eightfold Path, not the four, then you're all set.
Speaker 1: You can overcome all that junk. It's like, just remember
Speaker 1: these four things and then these extra eight things. So
Speaker 1: the eight full Path and Noble eight full Path are
Speaker 1: the ideals um that guide you along the way, and
Speaker 1: they're broken down into three divisions. There's samas. The divisions
Speaker 1: are samas. Oh no, the the the individual paths are
Speaker 1: called samas. Well. The first two are under the division
Speaker 1: of wisdom, right views, and right intention, and it's free
Speaker 1: samas are are frequently translated into right here in the
Speaker 1: Western English. Um, and it doesn't this article I read
Speaker 1: by this one guy said, like, that doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: the opposite of that is wrong. It's more right. It's
Speaker 1: more like um, right in this sense means complete perfect hole. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the opposite of that would be incomplete and perfect,
Speaker 1: not whole. That makes sense rather than wrong, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I get it. Yeah. The second division is ethical conduct,
Speaker 1: and under there you have uh complete or right speech,
Speaker 1: right action, and right livelihood. Right, So, working for Goldman
Speaker 1: Sachs or clubbing baby Seals, you're gonna have trouble achieving
Speaker 1: Nirvana at this in those positions, I would say so
Speaker 1: probably not. You're probably not seeking nirvana either, right, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: uh so you're fine. What about podcasters? Podcasts are totally
Speaker 1: in there. We're somewhere between clubbing baby Seals and Golden Sacks.
Speaker 1: And then finally, concentration is the last division, and that
Speaker 1: is right effort, right mindedness, and right contemplation. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: the right mindedness is you know, being mindful, being aware.
Speaker 1: Right effort is like you're directing your effort towards these
Speaker 1: good things. You're not being slack in your path to enlightenment.
Speaker 1: And then the last one, right contemplation, is um kind
Speaker 1: of difficult to understand. It's very least, it's difficult to explain.
Speaker 1: I found in rees reaching Um, but it's basically focusing
Speaker 1: your entire self on this, on the Eightfold Path and
Speaker 1: the four Noble Truths, and yeah, like you're you're really
Speaker 1: directing all of your thoughts and energy into that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's what I got from Grundy when I talked
Speaker 1: to her last time we were up there at the
Speaker 1: Bell House. She was it's just very soothing. She's just like, man,
Speaker 1: it's just it's just practice. You're like, it's a cycle.
Speaker 1: You're just continually trying to do the right thing. And
Speaker 1: that's like the simplest breakdown. But you know, if something
Speaker 1: bad happens and you don't, you start over and you
Speaker 1: try harder, which is like that sounds like really great
Speaker 1: life principles, you know. So that's Buddhist thought. As far
Speaker 1: as achieving nirvana, goes Um and Hinduism is actually very
Speaker 1: closely related, but there are some major distinctions and we
Speaker 1: will talk all about that right after this. Okay, Chuckers,
Speaker 1: we're back Um. The Buddhists typically talk about nirvana as
Speaker 1: nirvana in Hinduism is usually referred to as moksha, but
Speaker 1: they're basically talking about the same thing. It's this the
Speaker 1: highest plane of existence wherein you stop being reincarnated um,
Speaker 1: you have worked off your karmic debt and you reunite
Speaker 1: with the cosmos, with the universe. And in Hindu cosmology
Speaker 1: they're talking about Krishna, which is the godhead, which is
Speaker 1: the source of all things, and Krishna is very frequently
Speaker 1: Krishna incarnates in three um major deities in all deities
Speaker 1: and all Hindu all Hindu deities are extensions of Krishna.
Speaker 1: But the big three are Brahma who's the creator, Vishnu
Speaker 1: he's who's the sustainer, and um Shiva, who's the destroyer.
Speaker 1: And when you die, when you achieve moksha, you go
Speaker 1: and get absorbed into Krishna again. Yeah. And the big
Speaker 1: difference that UM I think we found with between uh
Speaker 1: Buddha nirvana and Hindu nirvana or Buddhist nirvana, is that
Speaker 1: with Hindu you're working your way up through this cast system.
Speaker 1: Eventually you start out by you have to be born
Speaker 1: through every type of organism that exists on the planet.
Speaker 1: You actually make it through under Hindu cosmology, eight million,
Speaker 1: four hundred thousand different species of animals before you even
Speaker 1: get to humanity. And then once you become a human,
Speaker 1: you can go through countless lives in different casts over
Speaker 1: and over again. But those casts are hierarchical, and you,
Speaker 1: like you start, are working your way up. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: called the varna, and you get that good karma you
Speaker 1: perform by performing duties in that cast, and then basically
Speaker 1: once you have it's almost like a graduation in the
Speaker 1: next life if you've done well to the next cast up. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And there's actually there's a lot of debate right now
Speaker 1: because um Gandhi was famously thrown out of his cast
Speaker 1: the by Shaya. I believe it's the merchant class, and
Speaker 1: um he was thrown out of it because he championed
Speaker 1: for the rights of the lowest class, the sudra um,
Speaker 1: who basically we're responsible for um handling, picking up dead
Speaker 1: animals and taking care of the rest of the community's waste.
Speaker 1: And basically we're just generally mistreated by the higher casts.
Speaker 1: And so there's this question now in modern Hinduism like,
Speaker 1: does the cast system still fit? Is it's still appropriate?
Speaker 1: But the thing is is if it's not a reflect
Speaker 1: shouldn't of say God's punishment? But something is physical, is
Speaker 1: like the second law of thermodynamics or motion. Sorry, um,
Speaker 1: that it's just a reaction to some other action you've
Speaker 1: took in the past life. Who are humans to say
Speaker 1: that the cast system is no longer appropriate. It's just
Speaker 1: part of the universe. But then if it turns out
Speaker 1: to human construct, well then it gets kind of ticklish,
Speaker 1: right because it undermines this Hindu cosmology. So it's a
Speaker 1: weird place that modern Hinduism is in right now talking
Speaker 1: about whether or not to do away with the cast system. Interesting,
Speaker 1: what do you think I think that's up to Hindu?
Speaker 1: Good answer? Thanks? Uh So, I would imagine that Gandhi
Speaker 1: then in his next life was definitely in that next
Speaker 1: cast up. Huh. I would guess if he didn't just
Speaker 1: achieve moksha right then and there, here's a pretty good guy,
Speaker 1: you're Gandhi. Well, just you can skip a few levels. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's the thing. Like, Um, the the highest classes,
Speaker 1: the Brahmin class and Hinduism, and they're the priestly class.
Speaker 1: They're like the Hindu or the Buddhist monks who go
Speaker 1: off and try to achieve nirvana. Their station in life
Speaker 1: is to achieve moksha. They've worked off their their um,
Speaker 1: the karmic debt to a tremendous degree, and like their
Speaker 1: focus in life is to get rid of the rest
Speaker 1: of their karmic life. So they are not born again,
Speaker 1: right right the one below that is Casha tria, and
Speaker 1: that's the ruling warrior class. That's the one that Saddharta
Speaker 1: was born into. Apparently when he was like this is wrong. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we like anybody should be able to achieve enlightenment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that was one of the main reasons that Buddhism
Speaker 1: was born, right, was that he didn't he rejected that
Speaker 1: cat system. The main reason, yes, um and so but
Speaker 1: within this, like if you're a Kesha tria, like you're
Speaker 1: you're working on your karmic debt because as far as
Speaker 1: you're concerned, if you can work off enough of it,
Speaker 1: you will be born the next life into the Brahmin
Speaker 1: class and then you can work really hard and get
Speaker 1: out of that and end up achieving enlightenment. So there
Speaker 1: is like a hierarchical progression, And as you were saying,
Speaker 1: one of the main things that you're tasked with as
Speaker 1: a Hindu is dharma, which is responsibility to your cast,
Speaker 1: right like acting like a member of your cast rather
Speaker 1: than you know, acting out like Gandhi, I love it.
Speaker 1: Do you got anything else? Yeah, there's actually four tenants,
Speaker 1: just like the the eight what was it, the eight Noble,
Speaker 1: the Noble eight full path right, um, the the there's
Speaker 1: like four in Hinduism. One of them is dharma, responsibility
Speaker 1: to basically your cast, society's rules, but more importantly like
Speaker 1: Christiana's rules, and also like um being having a responsibility
Speaker 1: and duty to your own calling in life and just
Speaker 1: like living like that, um Arthur is pursuing wealth because
Speaker 1: in Hinduism there's this idea it's like kind of like
Speaker 1: in Buddhism where you don't need to be super rich,
Speaker 1: but you all, I shouldn't be poor either. And one
Speaker 1: of the things is, just like with Buddhism and Hinduism,
Speaker 1: you're trying to escape earthly desires and wants. One way
Speaker 1: to do that is to have the money to not
Speaker 1: have to worry about where your food is going to
Speaker 1: come from. Frees you up for a lot of time
Speaker 1: to contemplate and get towards enlightenment. Right. That's Arthur Comma
Speaker 1: is more fulfilling desires frequently, like sexual desires, that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. But there's all sorts of like taboo and
Speaker 1: constraint and all that kind of stuff. It's not like
Speaker 1: a free for all in Hinduism as far as sex goes, right.
Speaker 1: And then lastly there's moksha. Once you have moved past
Speaker 1: your earthly desires, you become free from delusion and realize
Speaker 1: that there there is There is no earthly self. There's
Speaker 1: just your connection to Krishna, and then you can be
Speaker 1: come in lighted, which is also called correct. Yes, pretty
Speaker 1: interesting stuff. Huh yeah, So that's Nirvana not the band,
Speaker 1: not the band, man. I hope we pointed that out
Speaker 1: at the beginning of this or else everybody's really confused
Speaker 1: right now. Oh well, probably call it something like Nirvana
Speaker 1: not the band. There you go. If you want to
Speaker 1: know more about Nirvana not the band, you can type
Speaker 1: that word into the search bar at Houston works dot com.
Speaker 1: Since I said the search bar, it's time for a
Speaker 1: listener mail. And if you want to know more about
Speaker 1: Nirvana the band, watch the great documentary montage of Heck,
Speaker 1: it's not called Nirvana the band Nope montage of Heck
Speaker 1: very well done, is it? Oh? It's great pressing. Um
Speaker 1: all right, I'm gonna call this our biggest fan in Uganda.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, my name is Joshua Quisinberry. UM A huge
Speaker 1: possibly the biggest fan of your show. Uh. And I
Speaker 1: listened to every chance I get my wife's son and
Speaker 1: I live in from Paula, Uganda, where we run an
Speaker 1: NGO for children with severe special needs who have been abandoned.
Speaker 1: Orphan or used on the Nazi sabotage episode to spoke
Speaker 1: about the brilliant but poorly executed plan of the Germans
Speaker 1: to infiltrate the US and called chaos. I wondered if
Speaker 1: you guys knew that wasn't an original idea by Hitler,
Speaker 1: but in fact, during World War One, Kaisville Helm number
Speaker 1: two had an entire sabotage ring running out of New
Speaker 1: York City that was responsible for numerous acts of terror,
Speaker 1: including blowing up attempting to blow up railroads, bridges, canals
Speaker 1: from the East Coast all the way to San Francisco
Speaker 1: and Canada. Did not know that this is during the
Speaker 1: neutral period, our neutral period of nineteen fourteen, one of
Speaker 1: the largest and most devastating was blowing up a munitions
Speaker 1: depot on New Jersey's Black Tom Island. Apparently the blast
Speaker 1: was heard all the way in Philly and through shrapnel
Speaker 1: that actually damaged the arm and torch of Lady Liberty herself.
Speaker 1: What bring me, Kaiser Wilhelm uh uhid some of it?
Speaker 1: I do just want to kick his body? What was that?
Speaker 1: And I was figured that was you guys, will Is
Speaker 1: that what I sound like to you? Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: like I'm drunking about a throw up. Some of the
Speaker 1: other plots that were thankfully discovered, we're attaching and rudder
Speaker 1: bombs on chips. Another interesting one was trying to buy
Speaker 1: US passports from doc workers uh to smuggle more spies,
Speaker 1: and it was found out and ushered in putting photos
Speaker 1: on passports. I think I understand. I think so too,
Speaker 1: so they couldn't be stolen and used anymore. Anyway. I
Speaker 1: thought you guys would find it fascinating that the Germans
Speaker 1: they were a little better at sabotage and would have
Speaker 1: made a better film in World War One. Wow, And
Speaker 1: that is Josh losing Mary. It's a lot, Josh. Thanks
Speaker 1: for the work you're doing out there and nice. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with us to
Speaker 1: let us know more about something we walked right past
Speaker 1: in a previous episode, we love to hear more stuff.
Speaker 1: You can tweet to us at s Y s K Podcast.
Speaker 1: You can join us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff
Speaker 1: you Should Know If you can send us an email.
Speaker 1: Stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com, and as always,
Speaker 1: hang out a visitor home on the web Stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know dot com. For more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics, visit how stuff Works dot com