Antonio T. de Nicolás

Antonio T. de Nicolas is an American scholar, poet and professor of philosophy. He is professor emeritus of philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Quotes

• The training for excellence is to practice the embodied technologies of decision-making, the right decisions, the wise decisions, when needed by the present dharma, context, one faces. This is the goal, the ethics of the whole program of the Avatar Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita: to train Arjuna, that fallen and disturbed warrior, to make decisions, the best ones, as needed by his present dharma (his present situation), a battle field. And this is the program of human acting, from the Rig Veda down, that Indic texts propose: an ethics of decision-making as opposed to an ethics of compliance to rules coming from the outside. There is no outside god able to make these pronouncements in Indic texts …
  • de Nicolas 1986). in Malhotra, R., & Infinity Foundation (Princeton, N.J.). (2018). Being different: An Indian challenge to western universalism.

• Our educational system is biased in favor of veridical decisions, decisions geared to agreements between subject and object, logical platitudes, "finding the truth" … But there are no mechanisms in education to teach any one decision based on multiple ambiguous situations, self-centered decisions, "what is best from among the possible", in the concrete situation facing the subject.' To achieve this, he says, 'new technologies need to be embodied by a subject and also by the guide, guru, spiritual director', so that a person is equipped to make the best choice among the ones available in a practical sense. Thus, the battlefield in the Gita is the human body itself.
  • de Nicolas 1986). in Malhotra, R., & Infinity Foundation (Princeton, N.J.). (2018). Being different: An Indian challenge to western universalism.

• It comes down to this. The West has trained its people to perform veridical agreements – this is true, this is false – but all these Western people lack the ability to make decisions in complex situations, where they have multiple choices and need the frontal lobes to view those situations.
  • de Nicolas 1986). in Malhotra, R., & Infinity Foundation (Princeton, N.J.). (2018). Being different: An Indian challenge to western universalism.

• The Savior image [is the mediator] between God and the sinful race of humans. We know this image also as the scapegoat, and the Substitute King: someone chosen for the occasion to be the victim of the moment for the salvation of the rest of the community. He gains immortal divinity, saves other humans, brings his Father into the scene, his followers name a Church after him, and these same followers establish a narrative, a theology, and ethics based on principles of behavior… The room left for individuals to improve their spiritual knowledge in this scheme of Savior/sinner is not great, we are, after all, sinners, born in sin, and our individual salvation is only a gift, provided we follow the rules of ethics, and not the result of any superior knowledge of God or deviation from this scheme. Judaism, Islam and Christianity are the followers and founders of the model. God and the rules of ethics come from the outside and their mission in life is to bring all humans to surrender to this model, either through conversion or force. The individual, in this model, is an individual only in name, for after all, individual perfection consists in total surrender to the model, in letting the model become embodied in the subjects in such a way that the model, rather than the individuals, acts through each complying individual … Wherever there is violence, the Savior model is at work.
  • in Malhotra, R., & Infinity Foundation (Princeton, N.J.). (2018). Being different: An Indian challenge to western universalism.

• The Avatar model, on the other hand, has a larger range of human development than the Savior's, from the Language of possibilities of the Asat (Chaos) where all geometries of possible human forms are waiting to be born as heroes, gods, humans etc., to the Language of Sacrifice and Images, where all forms are to be sacrificed … The gods are this side of creation and they are interior embodiments of a multiplicity of brains at work. Inner acts, rather than names, are at work. These acts are so efficient that they may create new 'gods,' new centers of action, to guide humans to make wise decisions. There are no a priori norms of ethics to accommodate to …
  • in Malhotra, R., & Infinity Foundation (Princeton, N.J.). (2018). Being different: An Indian challenge to western universalism.

• My conclusions come from the way they handled history in ancient times when those same scholars were called Akkhedians, stole writing from the Phoenicians and rewrote history for everyone else so that their dates would make them be the first to hold knowledge, the One (conceptual) God, and mostly revelation, the prophetic voice. Of course we know all this is wrong, but their attitude has not changed. I was told that it was impossible for a Hindu mythic text to be philosophical for it was not historical and therefore irrational. My answer is that to proclaim one single rationality as RATIONAL is sheer irrationality and conceptual imperialism.
  • quoted in Antonio de Nicolas, Krishnan Ramaswamy, and Aditi Banerjee (eds.) (2007), Invading the Sacred: An Analysis Of Hinduism Studies In America (Publisher: Rupa & Co., p. 112

• “The Savior image [is] the go between God and the sinful race of humans. We know this image also as the scapegoat, and the Substitute King: someone chosen for the occasion to be the victim of the moment for the salvation of the rest of the community. He gains immortal divinity, saves other humans, brings his Father into the scene, his followers name a Church after him and these same followers establish a narrative, a theology, and ethics based on principles of behavior… The room left for individuals to improve their spiritual knowledge in this scheme of Savior/sinner, is not great, we are after all sinners, born in sin, and our individual salvation is only a gift, provided we follow the rules of ethics, and not the result of any superior knowledge of God or deviation from this scheme. Judaism, Islam and Christianity are the followers and founders of the model. God and the rules of ethics come from the outside and their mission in life is to bring all humans to surrender to this model, either through conversion or force. The individual, in this model, is an individual only in name, for after all, individual perfection consists in total surrender to the model, in letting the model become embodied in the subjects in such a way that the model, rather than the individuals, acts through each complying individual… Wherever there is violence the Savior model is at work.”
  • as quoted from Rajiv Malhotra (2003), Problematizing God's Interventions in History

• “The Avatar model, on the other hand, is earlier than the Savior's. It dates from the times of the oral Rig Veda (5,000 to 2,500 B.C.) It has a larger range of human development than the Savior's, from the Language of possibilities of the Asat (Chaos) where all geometries of possible human forms are waiting to be born as heroes, gods, humans etc., to the Language of Sacrifice and Images, where all forms are to be sacrificed… The gods are this side of creation and they are interior embodiments of a multiplicity of brains at work. Inner acts, rather than names are at work. These acts are so efficient that they may create new “gods”, new centers of action, to guide humans to make wise decisions. There are no a priori norms of ethics to accommodate to…”
  • as quoted from Rajiv Malhotra (2003), Problematizing God's Interventions in History

• “Hopefully, the West will realize that both Plato and Pythagoras are footnotes to the earlier cultures of India, such as the Katha Upanishad, Rig Veda etc. Indic texts had already marked the individual training and ethics of social life. Nothing short of excellence will do. The training for excellence is to practice the embodied technologies of decision-making, the right decisions, the wise decisions, when needed by the present dharma, context, one faces. This is the goal, the ethics of the whole program of the Avatar Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita: to train Arjuna, that fallen and disturbed warrior, to make decisions, the best ones, as needed by his present dharma (his present situation), a battle field. And this is the program of human acting, from the Rig Veda down, that Indic texts propose: an ethics of decision-making as opposed to an ethics of compliance to rules coming from the outside. There is no outside god able to make these pronouncements in Indic texts; here all the gods are this side of creation, as the Rig Veda proclaims.”
  • as quoted from Rajiv Malhotra (2003), Problematizing God's Interventions in History

• “Decision-making is a must-ethics in a world that is so ambiguous. Our educational system is biased in favor of veridical decisions, decisions geared to agreements between subject and object, logical platitudes, “finding the truth”… But there are no mechanisms in education to teach anyone decision based on multiple ambiguous situations, self-centered decisions, “what is best from among the possible,” in the concrete situation facing the subject. For these kinds of decisions new technologies need to be embodied by a subject and also by the guide, guru, spiritual director that supervises the spiritual development of the subject. This is the lesson of Indic texts. Arjuna in the Gita collapses in the first chapter unable to make the decision to fight in a very ambiguous -- to him -- situation. Family, friends, are on both sides of the battlefield. Krishna takes him on a journey of communities and acts (yogas) he was familiar with for ten chapters until his whole organism opens and is able to see (chapter eleven) the geometries on which the passage and dissolution of nama-rupa, names and forms, takes place. This is the embodiment of the Avatara in its full manifestation. A man has been able to embody in one life-time the technologies of the present culture to the point of having it constantly present so that when called upon he may make the best decision, from among the possible, for the benefit of all. It is after the realization that the Gita, in chapter twelve, spells out the meaning of the “battle field” as the human body, and of the technologies of decision-making, as the opening of memory, that opens the heart, and opens finally the frontal lobes so that in the end the subject, Arjuna, by habit from the desires of his heart whatever he wants: yatha icchasi tatha kuru (now that you know do as you wish).”
  • as quoted from Rajiv Malhotra (2003), Problematizing God's Interventions in History

• “It comes down to this. The West has trained its people to perform veridical agreements -- this is true, this is false -- but all these Western people lack the ability to make decisions in complex situations, where they have multiple choices and need the frontal lobes to view those situations. The only people who did this in the West were interlopers from other cultures -- Ignatius, John, Teresa, etc. They founded Orders to be able to practice these skills without the Inquisitions ears around the corner, but in public they talked theology. Moreover, these skills are borrowed from Indic texts and practices, and it is time they came together as "ONE" tradition. You are doing a very good job pointing to the problem and the differences. The opposition you encounter is that of experts (so-called) unable to make complex decisions in need or frontal lobes, but are trained in "veridical" decisions for which you need nothing biological except agreement to a priori rules.”
  • as quoted from Rajiv Malhotra (2003), Problematizing God's Interventions in History