Simone Weil's Conversation With The: Bhagavad Gita
Simone Weil's Conversation With The: Bhagavad Gita
Simone Weil's Conversation With The: Bhagavad Gita
According to Simone Weil and the Bhagavad Gua, there exists a law-
they call it the 'aberration of opposites'-which states that any error is
indissolubly linked with another which is its opposite extreme.
Therefore, in fleeing from one error one necessarily falls into an
opposed and equally false one-unless one transcends both.
The studies of We il's work which have appeared since her death in
1943 have too often exemplified the working of this law of the
'aberration of opposites', falling with regularity into one of two
opposed errors. The first is, as she herself puts it, that of 'parcelling' her
work into 'little pieces', 1 pieces selected and interpreted according to
interests alien to their own, which attain a false significance
independent of the 'dense mass' from which they are drawn. The
second error is the opposite one of over-generalizing about Weil's
work in the attempt to present it as a more comprehensive and
complete system than it actually is.
This article aims to transcend these opposed errors by treating
Weil's work as significantly 'conversational'. It does so in faithfulness
to her own characterization of herself as a practitioner of 'dialectic' or
'the Platonic method', a method which, she says, 'consists, when [one]
encounters an idea, an affirmation in one's mind, not in asking
whether it is true or false, but what it rneans'i'' In this search for
meaning both Weil and Plato make use ofconversational forms which
are far more than mere stylistic devices. For it is the seeking rather
than the sought, the discussion rather than the conclusion which forms
the stuff of their philosophy. While Plato's conversations take place
between living persons, Weil's usually take place between herself and
the recorded thought of another person or people. Hers are still
conversational in an important sense, for both parties are active in the
encounter, both interact with one another, and both are changed in
the process.
This article will deal specifically with just one of Weil's
conversations, that which she held with a sacred and anonymous BeE
Indian text, the Bhagavad Gua. This particular conversation is chosen
because of the importance it assumed for Wei I in her own eyes, because
of its unique value for the interpretation of the Gila, and because of its
significance as an example of interfaith dialogue which, lacking the
self-consciousness implied in that formula, succeeds where such
dialogue too often fails. Moreover, if the claim that Weil's work is
dialectical is true, the study in some depth of just one of her
conversations should serve to illuminate her work as a whole. For it
follows from the nature of dialectic that one can learn more about
Notes
I Ecrits de Londres (Paris 1957), p. 250.
2 Quoted by S. Petrernent in Simone Weil: A Life (Oxford 1977), p. 404.
3 The Need for Roots (London 1952), p. 63·
4 See 'Reflections Sur la Guerre' in Ecrits Historiques et Politiques (Gallimard 196o),
pp. 229-39·
5 See 'Non-Intervention Generalisee', ibid., p. 364.
6 Petrernent, op. cit., p. 364.
7 Ecrits Historiques et Politiques, p. 234.
8 The Notebooks ofSimone Weil, vol. I (London 1956), p. 48.
9 ibid., p. 56.
10 ibid., p. 97.
I I Lectures on Philosophy, tr. H. Price (Cambridge 1978), p. 88.
12 ibid., p. 89.
13 See Weil's letter to D. Garnett, reprinted in Durham UniversityJournal (Dec. 1976),
p.60.
14 Notebooks, vol. I, p. 25.
15 ibid., p. 53·
16 ibid., pp. 29-30.
17 ibid., p. 25.
18 ibid., p. 19.
19 ibid., p. 294·
20 Waiting on God (London 1951), p. 22.
2I ibid., p. 25.