Stuff You Should Know - Selects: Nirvana: Not The Band

Episode Date: July 22, 2023

Hinduism and Buddhism are closely related in a number of ways, including their vision of what comes after we exit this mortal coil. Learn about the religions' interesting interpretation of the state of existence outside space-time, in this classic episode.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, this is Annie. And Samantha. And we are the hosts of Stuff Mom Never Told You, an intersectional feminist podcast tackling everything and anything. And now we have a book that digs into issues that impact so many of us and why they are so important to fight for. For example, what was the Pantsuit Revolution? What's the future of abortion?

This book answers all of those questions and more, giving historical context for why they matter to all of us now. Stefan Nipert told you the feminist past, present, and future comes out August 29. Preorder where books are sold, or get yours at stuffyshedreadbooks.com. The Rolling Stones were rock royalty, and to America they came to receive their crowns. My Heart Radio's new podcast, Stone's Turing Party, puts you at the epicenter, featuring never before heard archival interviews with the band members themselves. The only way to do it to it is to be as close as you can be.

Drugs, road burn, madness, stones become the world's greatest rock and roll band on the 1972 tour. My name's Jordan Runtug. Listen to Stone's Toring Party on the I Heart Radio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. Hi everybody, Charles W. Chuck Bryant here, Jen Exer. So this is a pic from our past about Nirvana, because what band is more Jen Ex than Nirvana. But wait a minute, it's not about the band. That's why it's called Nirvana, colon, not the band. It's about Nirvana, the experience. Again, from August 27th, 2015, check it out, and this reminds me that one day we should probably do one on Nirvana the Band because they were great.

Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there, so this is Stuff You Should Know. Here we are now. Satcher, isn't lightened. Buddha? Mhmm.

Mode? Yes. I like that. I like that Josh. But I did include a Nirvana reference in there. When I said here we are now. Oh, did not catch that. I noticed. Very nice, very subtle.

I slid that one in there. Yeah. Yeah. How you doing? Are you feeling centered? No, I'm all wacky-do. Your shockers are all over the place? My shockers are all over the place.

So much so that I couldn't think of anything so all I did was repeat you. Well, you know, man, I have to say, while we were researching this, I was like, this is some beautiful stuff. It's very appealing. Yeah, actually, it was, it's neat stuff. Yeah? Like, I was, I became neat stuff. Yeah. Like I, I was, I became

calm in researching this. In researching Nirvana. Yeah, that's a good thing. Yeah. I think this, you can tie this in. We have a couple of related episodes. And we might as well just call this the Enlightenment Suite. How about that? Sure. I like that. Karma from July 2011. Yep. And reincarnation from July 2010. Emberning man. The angriest people in your Yeah, for real. Yeah, and you know our our buddy in New York Rachel Grundi is a Buddhist. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and she's I've talked to her about it Some because I was like you know Grundi of meditated summon it really appeals to me and

Like a true Buddha. She's like It's great man here. I'll send you some stuff. No pressure You know, I'll send you some pamphlets. Yeah, that's basically what she did She wasn't like, you know, you should look at this. You know, it's a little less overbearing than other religions I found I got you, you know what I mean now Now Rachel Grundy does the literary pub crawl, right? Is she still do that? I don't know if she still does that. She used to, but we can plug her band, Kayaudi love.

How about that? There you go. And she just adopted a dog, so congratulations. Congratulations to everybody. That's the Buddhist way. That is. So Nirvana, I thought was the perfect way to cap off karma and reincarnation.

Yeah. As the third part and maybe we should do meditation, maybe we should make it a four-parter. Yeah, that could probably be interesting. I'm sure there's a lot of studies about the physiological effects of it and all that. Yeah, let's do it. Okay. All right, that's agreed upon then. Yes.

And then what you call it, the what sweet? The Enlightenment sweet. The Enlightenment sweet. Not to be confused with the transidentalists or the Enlightenment episode. Right. Man. Which it doesn't factor into this at all. No.

Okay, so Chuck, we're talking Nirvana. Yes. You have like a conception of it. I have a conception of it, but in researching, one of the things, and I also knew that Buddhists and Hindus share a lot of Cosmology. Oh, I thought you're gonna say they hate each other No, I don't get that impression. No, of course not But they they are Buddhism is a an offshoot of Hinduism. Yeah, it's a spin-off. It's the after-mash

It is of religions. It's the after-mash of religions. It's the, uh, Joni loves chaachi of religions. That's right. What else? Maud? Uh, what was that an offshoot of? Mary Tyler Moore. Mary Tyler Moore, right.

It's the, uh, Jefferson's? Yeah. For Marj Archie Bunker. Yep. Or, uh, all the family? Absolutely. I could do this for at least 30 straight minutes. Yeah, we should do an episode on spin-offs.

Where we just say spin-off names, and just hold thumbs up or down, and but we don't say people just gets. Right, what are we doing right now? Yeah, it's the three's company. Spin-off of Hogan's heroes. That's good. Okay, we done?

Yeah, we're done. Okay, I did not realize that, I guess is what I'm saying. I knew that they were related, I didn't realize that it was like a direct offshoot, or basically- I don't think I knew either. The Buddha, whose name, whose original name, was Siddhartha Guautama. Did you know that? Actually, Siddhartha. Okay, so the H is silent?

Gautama. Nice. Yes, I the H is silent. Galtama. Nice. Yes, I actually looked at pronunciations or listened to them for this episode for what? I'm proud of you. Yeah, I'm also a little ashamed because you did that and I didn't. That was all for Grundy.

I was going with the original status quo which is just mangling words of foreign origin. Well, I'm trying to mix things up here 15 years in. And scientific words too, not just foreign ones. Right. So, you were talking about Siddhartha Kautama. Right. He was born as a Hindu, a Hindu family. Sure. And decided like, no, I'm not too hip on Hindu. I think there's other ways to go. And there's Buddhism. Oh yeah, that's the quick version. Yadda, yadda, yadda, there's Buddhism. Yeah, this was fifth century BC in Asia, of course.

And like you said, he would later become the Buddha, which is not to be confused with Buddha. A Buddha, exactly. Which you wanna be a Buddha? Go do it, Chuck, you can do it. You couldn't be the Buddha. A Buddha, exactly. Which, you wanna be a Buddha? Go do it, Chuck. You can do it. Well. You couldn't be the Buddha.

Right. Because that's Siddharthas. Right? Yeah. But you could be a Buddha. I could be a layman's version, I believe, right? Okay. Because like only monks generally achieve

the state of a Buddha. So in researching this, if you wanted to, you could be like, cyanara life, I'm going to become a Buddhist monk and conceivably achieve Nirvana in this lifetime. You could. Sure. Because you're a human being. You're incarnated as a human being into this moral coil. And if you wanted to, you could go do it. But in researching this, yes, apparently it's typically left to

the Buddhist monks because they're the ones who are like, who have the time, sign our life. Yeah, because you got to drop out sort of in a lot of ways. Not entirely. I mean, Buddhist monks like still filter amongst the masses and all that. Sure. But for the most part, they're focusing a lot more on achieving Nirvana than the average day-to-day person does, even like a day-to-day Buddhist or something. Yeah, it's not a part-time job. You're not like sitting around a Netflix. Like, should I watch Oranges a New Black or should I meditate for eight hours?

Right. You know? Can I do both? You can, by the way. That's called zoning out. So let's talk a little bit more about Siddhartha's journey. This is 5.63 BC in modern day Nepal or what would be modern day Nepal. Does the way back machine go there?

Yeah, you want to go? Let's go. All right. Sounds like a lovely time. Alright, here we are. It's cold. It's lovely. You know, it's funny. I didn't take it as cold. I thought we would be going back to like maybe spring. But yeah, it's really cold here right now.

Yeah, it's a good thing you're wearing the ox hide. Yeah. You know, lined with sherpa. So, see I said, I'll go over there and he is a rich dude and he is very sheltered dude and despite all these riches and This lifestyle he's very pampered. He's kind of I can see it in his eyes. He is dissatisfied He is dissatisfied. He was born into a ruling class very powerful like you said rich family Yeah, and he's part of the idol rich, but he's part of the thinking idol rich.

So he started to question his place in life, which is basically what you said, right? Yeah, he starts to mow this over and like, maybe there's more. It's a very long story and we could spend hours talking about this, but I'm sure people do. I've seen that, yeah, because like you can do a part time like i said right but i'm looking at him and basically i can tell that his disillusionment has his reach this apex and it is culminated uh... by him looking out the window one day

and he sees three things from his little palace window he sees a decrepit old man he sees a disease man and then He sees a decrepit old man, he sees a disease man, and then he sees a corpse. And he's done. So it's like the progression? I guess so. And he's like, you know what? I'm done with this life. Can't take it anymore, even though I have my arranged wife, my cousin, whom I married, was forced to marry. I have a beautiful son, who my love. I'm going to leave them.

I'm going to leave all my possessions, and I'm going to go on a quest, a vision quest, if you will, to understand the true nature of life. And here I go. Right. And back we are to the present day, sir. You can hang your oxide and that Sherpa on the coat rack.

Wait, there's more to the story. How do we have to go back? Yeah, we got to go back. I got to go on short pants. Put your pants back on. All right. So Chuck, here we are back again. And Siddhartha is, he's gone from a very rich, powerful family.

He's decided to go on this vision quest. He thinks, well, I mean, if I was very dissatisfied, and I think it's kind of wrong to be as grossly rich as I was, the family I was born into, I'll just go the exact opposite route, and I'll become a hermit, a completely poverty-stricken hermit who has not even a pot to pee in. Not even that, right? And he figures out that as he's starving to death, that it's not leading to any kind

of enlightenment, he's actually growing increasingly uncomfortable. It's getting harder and harder for him to pay attention to enlightenment because, say, he's hungry and hungerier. Sure. And he realizes, wait a minute, maybe this isn't the right way to go. Maybe polar extremes are a little too extreme. Yeah, what if I die without achieving my goal? That would just have been a wasted life.

Yeah, I would have been poverty-stricken and great, but that doesn't lead to enlightenment clearly. So here comes a stranger who's offering me a meal. I'm going to take it. I'm going to be poverty-stricken no longer, and maybe I don't need to be rich, but I also don't need to be poverty-stricken. I need to take this middle road to enlightenment. So I'm going to kill that stranger, take all the food.

No, with a pigeon hammer. Oh wait, that's not the middle road. That's far from the middle road. That's kind of extreme as well. I kid. So he takes a meal from a stranger, he figures out, I think, finally, that like, oh, okay, this is the way to do it, goes and sits under a tree and achieve Nirvana. He achieved omniscience.

Yeah, there were three stages of that. He saw his past lives, all of them. He saw the past lives of all others, and he's like, I'm really starting to catch on to things here. Things are revealing themselves. And finally, he identified the four noble truths, which we'll talk about in a bit. But those were the three stages under the tree. And in the end of it, he said, you know, and I gained a perfect understanding of the laws governing the cycle of birth and death. Like it's it's Nirvana. Boom. It's Nirvana. And Nirvana, we should probably say once he achieved Nirvana, he didn't say it's Nirvana.

No, he couldn't say much actually. One of the things that I came across in research time and time again is that he very famously couldn't put it into words, a description of what he experienced in this new state of enlightenment that he was vibing in. It's like Catulu. Kind of, it was the nameable, you know?

Yeah, but everybody trusted him anyway. They said, this guy knows where it's at. We're gonna start following his teachings. Yeah, in Sanskrit, Nirvana means to extinguish though. In this case, they're talking about extinguishing, suffering and hatred and ignorance. No good. So we'll talk about the Buddha's path to enlightenment

and his teachings that came out of this achievement of Nirvana right after this. ["The End of the World"] From I Heart Podcasts. What, Nehela's going on in here. Everyone has their limits. I had never confronted a situation like this. I just thought it was just a really terrible moral thing.

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That's pretty funny. But an ad in the middle of a Buddhism lesson. Well, we take all comers here, my friend. Yeah. So, if you achieve Nirvana, what you're doing is you are breaking that cycle. If you listen to our reincarnation podcasts, the Sam Sara is that cycle of reincarnation that you can be caught in or stuck in, I guess. And this is where karma, and again, we have the great episode on karma. Karma comes into play because what you're doing is you're rewarded

on your past actions in your current life and earlier lives. Right. Does that make sense? No, it makes sense, yeah, sure. So, and I love that this article says it's important to note that the law of karma isn't due to God's judgment. Yeah.

Over a person's behavior. And it's closer to Newton's law of motion. That makes more sense. Right. For every action there's an equal and opposite reaction. Yeah. So when like you, you know, step on a snail, you're just like, man, didn't mean to do that. It's going to come back and bite me later on in another life. And you build up this karma or whatever.

But when you reach Nirvana, you stop accruing bag karma. That's right, you transcend it. Yeah. And when you transcend it, then all of a sudden you can spend the rest of your life working off that karmic debt that you have already accrued. Yeah.

Because that doesn't just go away. It's like paying down a credit card. Exactly. So, but it's like when you achieve Nirvana, the credit cards cut up. So you're not adding to your account any longer. Yeah. But you still have some money that you owe

and you're paying that off in this life or conceivably other lives following. But at some point your golden ticket ticket has been granted you have achieved Nirvana, that's right and when that happens you are you have escaped that samsara and you have achieved potty Nirvana and that is The final stage that you find in the afterlife right and in the case of Sardartha He was 80 years old when he passed and he died in a state of meditation basically saying to his people around him, it's all good, man.

This is like, this is the goal. It was like a great way to pass, you know? Yeah. Like we should all pass that way. Sure. He's telling everybody it's all good. Yeah. Pretty much. Like, Wooderson style. So he's going, all right, all right. That's his last words if I'm not

mistaken. So when when one achieves Nirvana and you escape the cycle of samsara, you eventually when you die and you work off your karmic debt and you're no longer reincarnated, you become, you basically travel to another dimension, another realm. Yeah. It's just something different that basically exists outside of space time as modern Buddhists would say. And you are kind of one with the universe. You just become a selfless part of the universe. That sounds beautiful to me.

Sure, that's nice. So potta nirvana day, or just nirvana day is celebrated on February 15th in East Asia. Celebration's very evidently, I looked it up. Apparently some people just meditate, some people are just reflective. A lot of times in monasteries, food is prepared and shared, but that is February 15th. Okay. Nirvana day. Yeah. So Chuck, if you become a Buddhist monk and you achieve Nirvana, and let's say you're not a Buddhist monk.

Okay. And you know, let's say you are. Okay. So you're a Buddhist monk. And I keep putting on these clothes and taking them off. You achieve Nirvana. You become a Buddha, right? Again, not the Buddha, but a Buddha.

Which means an enlightened one, right? Yes. And if you say, I have got some time and money, and I'm gonna hire you, a Buddha, to lead me to Nirvana, you're almost like a junior Buddha. There's a different word form, they're called, our Hots.

Yeah, our hit. That's what I found. Our hit? Yeah, okay. That's right, that's when you have a Buddha guide to guide you and you are not, you're enlightened, you're just not omniscient. Yeah, not bad though. Yeah, big difference though. Not omniscient and omniscient, there's a pretty big difference between those two

things, you know. So, when the Buddha came back from his, well, once he achieved his enlightened state, he started trying to tell people, like, you can be like this too, and here's how you do it. He said that it's very simple. There are just four noble truths. It's all you need to know, until you realize that the fourth noble truth mentions an eightfold path. And then suddenly, it's exponentially more involved. But it's still fairly simple stuff. Yeah, he taught this for the last 45 years of his life.

Number one is that life is suffering. And I think that was, he was clued into that from his window that day. Yeah. It was the suffering that really made him go like, man. Right. This is life, that old guy, that dead body. If this is life, who needs enemies? Oh, good point. Number two, suffering is caused by ignorance of the true nature

of the universe. So ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is no good. No, and basically the true nature of the universe is that we are made unhappy by wanting, by craving things, and that we can free ourselves from those things by overcoming them. That's right, that's number three. You can end that suffering. And then number four is if you attach yourselves and follow the four, I'm sorry, the noble eightfold path,

not the four. Then you're all set, you can overcome all that junk. It's like to remember these four things, and then these extra eight things. So the Eightfold Path and Noble Eightfold Path are the ideals that guide you along the way, and they're broken down into three divisions. There's Samas. The divisions are Samas. Oh no, the individual paths are called Samas.

Oh, gotcha. Well, the first two are under the division of wisdom, right views and right intention. And if Samas are frequently translated into right here in the West and English, and it doesn't, this article I read by this one guy said, that doesn't mean that the opposite of that is wrong. Right. It's more like right in this sense means complete, perfect, whole. Yeah, yeah.

So the opposite of that would be incomplete, imperfect, not whole. That makes sense. Rather than wrong. Right. Yeah, I. Right. Yeah. I get it. Yeah. The second division is ethical conduct. And under there, you have complete or right speech,

right action and right livelihood. Right. So working for Goldman Sachs or clubbing baby seals, you're going to have trouble achieving Nirvana at this in those positions. I would say so. Probably not. You're have trouble achieving Nirvana at this in those positions. I would say so. Probably not, you're probably not seeking Nirvana either.

Right, you know? Yeah. So you're fine. What about podcasters? Podcasters are totally in there. We're somewhere between clubbing baby seals and gulping sex. And then finally, concentration is the last division

and that is right effort, right mindedness and right contemplation. Yeah, and the right mindedness is the last division, and that is right effort, right-mindedness, and right contemplation. Yeah, and the right-mindedness is, you know, being mindful, being aware, right effort is like, you're directing your effort toward these good things. Yeah. You're not being slack in your path to enlightenment. Yeah.

And then the last one, right-contemplation, is kind of difficult to understand. It's very least difficult to explain, I found, in researching, but it's basically focusing your entire self on this, on that eightfold path and the four noble truths. Yeah, like you're really directing all of your thought and energy into that.

Yeah, and that's what I got from Grundy when I talked to her last time we were up there at the Bellhouse. She was It was just very soothing. She's just like man. It's just it's just practice. You're like It's a cycle. You just continually trying to do the right thing And that's like the simplest breakdown But you know if something bad happens and you don't you start over and you try harder Gotcha, which is like that sounds like a really great life principles. Yeah, you start over and you try harder. Gotcha. Which is like, it sounds like a really great life principles.

Yep. So, that's Buddhist thought as far as achieving Nirvana goes. And Hinduism is actually very closely related, but there are some major distinctions, and we will talk all about that right after this. It was just a really terrible moral thing. A line they won't cross. I was stunned and I just said, no. We're killing people. You may never have to face that decision. When you find yourself at that line... Thoughts racing, hearts racing.

And somebody needs to just for once give everybody the whole truth. Like, this is evil. And the only person who can sound the alarm is you. I wasn't just going to sit silently by. From I Heart Podcasts, these are the whistleblowers. If you are disloyal. Then things are going to happen this week out. Disgrace to our country.

You will pay. He should be prosecuted. When power corrupts, conscience is the last line of defense. I'm Miles Taylor. Listen to the whistleblowers on the I Heart Radio app, Apple corrupts, conscience is the last line of defense. I'm Miles Taylor. Listen to the whistleblowers on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My name's LeVern Cox. I'm an actress, producer, fashionista, and host of the LeVern Cox show. You may remember my work winning first season?

I've been pretty busy, but there's always time to touch incredible guests about important things. People like me have been screaming for years, we gotta watch the Supreme Court what they're doing is wrong, what they're doing is evil, they will take things away,

and I can only hope that dobs is that like Pearl Harbor moment. Girl, you and I both know what it took to just get through the day in New York City and get home in one piece. And so the fact that we're here and what you've achieved and what I've achieved, you know, that's momentous.

It's not just sitting around complaining about some bills. The only reason that you might think, as Chase said, that we're always measurable, is because people are constantly attacking us and we're constantly noticing it. Listen to the LeBern cox show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Be sure to subscribe and share.

Hey everybody, we know there are a ton of podcasts out there. Well, we have one we would love for you to check out. It is called the Penpals Podcast with Daniel van Kirk and R Rory Skovl. We are both stand-up comedians, we're actors, we're writers, but now most of all, we are your pen pals. Every single episode we get two letters that we read from our listeners, our new pen pals. It can be about anything going on in their life and sometimes we're also joined by guests like Wolfarel. I'm going to bring you up in front of the group and I'm going gonna punch you as hard as I can to stomach. Rose Byrne.

This is West Hollywood. We keep clean. Judd Aphatow. Maybe I'll use like beats by Dre, is that considered Andy Maniwak? Conor Nobrian. I'm just showing you that my mind is quick, if not that funny, and Mandy Moore.

We're all crossing the line together. Listen to the Pimp House podcast on Wolfarel's Big Money Players Network on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Sincerely, your new Pimp House Daniel Van Kirk and Rory Skowler. Okay, chuckers, we're back. That's right. The Buddhists typically talk about Nirvana as Nirvana, and Hinduism is usually referred

to as Moksha, but they're basically talking about the same thing. It's the highest plane of existence wherein you stop being reincarnated, you have worked off your karmic debt, and you reunite with the cosmos, with the universe. And in Hindu cosmology, they're talking about Krishna, which is the Godhead, which is the source of all things. And Krishna is very frequently, or Krishna incarnates in three major deities, in all deities, and all Hindu deities are extensions of Krishna, but the big three are Brahma, who is the creator, Vishnu, who is the sustainer, and Shiva, who's the destroyer. And when you die, when you achieve Moksha, you go and get absorbed into Krishna again.

Yeah, and the big difference that I think we found between Buddha, Nirvana, and Hindu, Nirvana, and Hindu Nirvana, or Buddhist Nirvana is that with Hindu, you're working your way up through this caste system. Eventually, you start out by, you have to be born through every type of organism that exists on the planet. You actually make it through Hindu cosmology, 8,400,000 different species of animals before you even get to humanity. And then once you become a human, you can go through countless lives in different casts over and over again. But those casts are hierarchical. And you, like you said, are working your way up.

Yeah, that's called the Varna. And you get that good karma. You perform by performing duties in that cast and then basically once you have It's almost like a graduation and the next life if you've done well to the next cast up Yeah, and there's actually a lot of debate right now because Gandhi was famously thrown out of his cast the Vaisaya I believe it's the merchant class and He was thrown out of it because he championed

for the rights of the lowest class, the sudra, who basically were responsible for handling picking up dead animals and taking care of the rest of the communities' waste. And basically, we're just generally mistreated by the higher casts. And so there's this question now in modern Hinduism, does the cast system still fit? Is it still appropriate? But the thing is, if it's not a reflection of,

say, God's punishment, but something as physical as the second law of thermodynamics or motion, sorry, that it's just a reaction to some other action you took in a past life, who are humans to say that the caste system is no longer appropriate. It's just part of the universe. But then, if it turns out it's a human construct, well then it gets kind of ticklish, right? Because it undermines this Hindu cosmology. So it's a weird place that modern Hinduism is in right now. It's talking about whether or not to do away with the caste system.

Interesting. What do you think? I think that's up to Hinduism. Good answer. Thanks. So I would imagine then Gandhi then in his next life was definitely in that next caste up, huh? I would guess if he didn't just achieve Mochow right then and there.

Yeah. Here's a pretty good guy. You're Gandhi. You can skip a few levels. Exactly. You can skip a few grades. Yeah, and that's the thing. The highest class is the Brahman class in Hinduism, and they're the priestly class. They're like the Hindu or the Buddhist monks who go off and try to achieve Nirvana. their station in life is to achieve Moksha. They've worked off their, their, um, the karmic debt to a tremendous degree and like their focus in life is to get rid of the rest of their karmic life so they are not born again, right? Right. The, the one below that is a Kashatriya. And that's the ruling warrior class. That's the one

that Siddhartha was born into apparently. Gotcha. When he was like, this is wrong. Yeah. We, like anybody should be able to achieve enlightenment. Yeah, and that was one of the main reasons that Buddhism was born, right? Was that he didn't, he rejected that caste system. The main reason, yes. Yeah.

And so, but within this, like if you're a Kesha tria, like you're working on your karmic debt because as far as you're concerned, if you can work off enough of it, you will be born the next life into the Brahmin class, and then you can work really hard and get out of that and end up achieving enlightenment. So there is like a hierarchical progression. And as you were saying,

one of the main things that you're tasked with as a Hindu is Dharma, which is responsibility to your cast. Acting like a member of your cast rather than acting out like Gandhi. I love it. You got anything else? Yeah, there's actually four tenants, just like the eight. What was it?

The eight noble, the noble eightful path? Right. There's four in Hinduism. One of them is Dharma, responsibility to basically your caste, society's rules, but more importantly, Krishna's rules, and also having a responsibility and duty to your own calling in life, and just living like that. Artha is pursuing wealth because in Hinduism, there's this idea that's like, kind of like in Buddhism where you don't need to be super rich, but you also shouldn't be poor either.

And one of the things is, just like with Buddhism and Hinduism, you're trying to escape earthly desires and wants. One way to do that is to have the money to not have to worry about where your food's gonna come from. Freeze you up for a lot of time to contemplate and get toward enlightenment, right? That's Arthur. Karma is more fulfilling desires,

frequently like sexual desires, that kind of stuff. But there's all sorts of like taboo and constraint and all that kind of stuff. It's not like a free-for-all and Hinduism as far as sex goes, right? Right. And then lastly, there's mocksha. Once you have moved past your earthly desires, you become free from delusion and realize that there is

no earthly self. There's just your connection to Krishna, and then you can be come in line. Which is also called Mocha, correct? Yes. Nice. Pretty interesting stuff, huh? Yeah. So that's Nirvana.

Not the band. Not the band. Man, I hope we pointed that out at the beginning of this or else everybody's really confused right now. Oh, we'll probably call it something like Nirvana, not the band. There you go. If you want to know more about Nirvana, not the band, you can type that word into the search bar at HouseofWorst.com. Since I said search bar, it's time for Listener Mail. And if you want to know more about Nirvana the van, watch the great documentary, Montage

of Heck. It's not called Nirvana the Van. Nope, Montage of Heck. Very well done, isn't? Oh, it's great. It's pressing. All right, I'm going to call this our biggest fan in Uganda. Hey guys, my name is Joshua Quizenberry. I'm a huge possibly the biggest fan of your show, and I listen every chance I get. My wife's son and I live in Kampala, Uganda, where we run an NGO for children with severe special needs. We've been abandoned, orphaned, or abused.

The Nazi sabotage episode to spoke about, the brilliant but poorly executed plan Germans to infiltrate the US and call it chaos. I wondered if you guys knew that wasn't an original idea by Hitler, but in fact, during World War I, Kai Saville-Hum number two had an entire sabotage ring running out of New York City. It was responsible for numerous acts of terror, including blowing up, attempting to blow railroads, bridges, canals from the East Coast all the way to San Francisco and Canada. Did not know that.

This is during the neutral period, our neutral period of 1914. One of the largest and most devastating was blowing up a munitions depot on New Jersey's Black Tom Island. Apparently the blast was heard all the way in Philly and through Shrapnel that actually damaged the arm and torch of Lady Liberty herself. What? Bring me Kaiser Wilhelm.

He's dead. Huh. Good. I'm a, I just want to kick his body. What was that? I just figured that was you. Kaiser Wilhelm. Is that what I sound like to you?

Yeah, no. Like I'm drunken about to throw up. Some of the other plots that were thankfully discovered were attaching rudder bombs on chips. Another interesting one was trying to buy US passports from dockworkers to smuggle more spies in. It was found out and ushered in putting photos on passports. I think I understand.

I think so too. So they couldn't be stolen and used anymore. Anyway, you thought you guys would find it fascinating that the Germans, they were a little better at sabotage, and would have made a better film in World War I. Wow. And that is Josh, who's a very good. He's a lot Josh.

Thanks for the work you're doing out there. Nice. Yeah. If you want to get in touch with us to let us know more about something we walked right past in a previous episode, we'd love to hear more stuff. You can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can episode, we loved it here more stuff. You can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on facebook.com slash stuff you should know.

You can send us an email and stuffpodcast.house.forks.com and as always, hang out with us at our home on the web, stuff you should know.com. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the I Heart Radio app. Apple podcasts are where every listen to your favorite shows. Hey, this is Annie. And Samantha, we're the host of Stuff Mom Never Told You, a podcast about intersectional feminism and all the ways it impacts and is

important to all of us, from social justice, health, fashion, entertainment, and everything in between. And now we're coming out with a book that takes an even deeper look at some of the topics important to us. We dig into the people leading movements like civil rights and the Jane Collective and so, so much more. Available August 29th, free order your copy of Stuff Mom Never Told You, the feminist past, present, and future now where books are sold.

Or get yours at stuffyshedreadbooks.com. The Rolling Stones were rock royalty. And to America, they came to receive their crowns. My Heart Radio's new podcast, Stone's Turing Party, puts you at the epicenter. Featuring never before heard archival interviews with the band members themselves. The only way to do it to it is to be as far as you can be. Drugs, road burn, madness, stones become the world's greatest rock and roll band on the 1972 tour.

My name is Jordan Runtog. Listen to the Stone's touring party on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your favorite shows. I'm Dylan Marin and I have 30 seconds to convince you to listen to my new podcast about Jar Jar Binks. Yep, Jar Jar Binks. So Jar Jar was actually played by an actor named Ahmed Best, and he became the subject of one of the internet's very first hate campaigns. We made a podcast all about the early internet Star Wars cultural backlash Jar Jar and what happens when internet hate gets too real.

Whew, okay. Listen to the redemption of Jar Jar Binks on the iHeart radio app on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.