Beginning the Gita Again

April 15

9:30 now. More conversation about Blackwater, Iraq, our corrupt, murdering government. I am beginning to feel that my evenings should be spent with other anti-war protestors. I am so horrified and sickened by our government, so full of outrage and sorrow. We need to remember Ghandi and his victory over the British. Achieved with gentle, peaceful love – no violence. And Nelson Mandela. We (J and I) should be studying their tactics and learning to use them.

I know that we are supposed to "accept things as they are" but I do not believe my spirit, my soul, can be clean when my government is slaughtering innocent people in my name. Ghandi was heck of a lot further along the path than I will ever be in this lifetime, and he found it correct and proper to take action. Do one's duty. Krishna said to Arjuna, "Fight the war, but fight with love of your enemy in your heart." This reminds me, I begin my beloved Bhagavad Gita today! . . .

You know, since I've given myself permission to really be a practicing Hindu, I am more able to take comfort – great comfort – in its tenets. I like the idea of being with Indy [my cat- about whom I'd been discussing learning to be fully present, rather than treat as an annoyance when she stomped on my journal demanding attention]and J and others forever, life after life. I'm glad J and I included that in our wedding vows. It adds even more incentive to solve whatever difficulties arise between us, as if we don't, we'll just face them again next life. I'm about to go upstairs and get the Gita, but I don't want to disturb the kitty. So – yesterday, I did quick research on my mantra, and I got tons of hits for the Hare Krishnas, of course. So I went ahead and went to their main web page and read about them. I found out I knew less than I thought I did.

The difference between them and basic Hinduism is that they believe Krishna, not Bhraman, is the "one" God. Krishna is not, therefore, an Incarnation of Vishnu, but Vishnu is part of him. They also believe that, as a form of bhakti yoga, one can and should devote oneself to Krishna and to the chanting of his name. They use "my" mantra, which is the master, or mother mantra, and believe that by chanting it they will achieve Krishna Consciousness, not just for themselves but for the world. They believe mostly what other Hindus do about the Problem [the human condition]– the loss of contact with one's true Self, and the cycle of birth and re-birth. But they believe that the exit from samsara will come through the chanting of the mantra alone.

There are several scriptures that support all of their beliefs. In the Gita, for example, Krishna says he is the one god. But without knowing all the scriptures myself, I still feel they are likely taking those statements out of context. In the Gita, I felt Krishna's statement was a reference to the fact that really, there is only God. Don't get hung up on worshipping me in this form, because I am God, and god includes and is all forms. Something like that. But I am just a baby in this ancient tradition.

As Miller says in her intro to the Gita, Krishna's message here is intentionally multi-faceted, intentionally open to multiple translations. I love that God in this tradition consistently insists on multiplicity, ambiguity, complexity. Isn't any god worth worshipping this diverse, this complicated, and paradoxically, this simple, this pure, this complete and unified?

I'm uncertain how to approach the Gita this time. Each teaching has so much in it. Perhaps I should just do it by feel. Today it may be right to just read the intro, remind myself of the context within which the Gita sits.

First note, something I don't recall learning, or noticing before, is that "dharma," traditionally translated as "sacred duty" has the original Sanskrit meaning of "that which sustains." At the end of the discussion between Krishna and Arjuna, Arjuna "can continue to act in a world of pain without suffering despair." Isn't this what we are all seeking?

J said to me earlier that maybe I'm praying to the wrong god, or the wrong incarnation. That I maybe should devote myself to Kali and pray for the end of the whole mess. I kind of agreed, but said really, it doesn't matter. Since they are the same god. And here is Krishna –

I am time grown old,

Creating world destruction

Set in motion

To annihilate the worlds

This ultimately leads Arjuna "to the realization that his duty to fight is intimately linked to Krishna's divine activity." How can I resist a teaching that shows me how to take up a life of moral duty and action and "the transcendance of empirical experience in search of knowledge and liberation"? This is the dilemma of the Eastern religions, and the one that is difficult for me, personally. I pray that this time my eyes and heart will be open and I will learn to move beyond my stuckness at the seeming paradox.

April 16

[Long discussion detailing plans for beginning meditation the next day, where, when, etc.] We'll work it out. I am going to begin tomorrow. And maybe, hopefully, my whole life will begin to change, and my body to heal. I am now eager and ready for the Gita's first teaching.

First Teaching – Arjuna's Dejection

I am not, obviously, a great warrior, but I suppose we are all in Arjuna's position in some way. I feel that the neocons and the theocons are my true enemies. They are trying to kill the things I hold dear. They would kill me without a second thought if it served their purposes and I was in the wrong place, as they show by their indifference to the deaths and suffering of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions. I wish that I did feel the love for them that Arjuna feels for his enemy-kinsmen:

The greed that distorts their reason

Blinds them to the sins they commit

In ruining the family, blinds them

To the crime of betraying friends.

I do realize it is ignorance, fear and greed – enormous, insatatiable greed that drives the enemy and blinds them. And I can feel pity for them, as Arjuna does, and I regularly feel grief, though not really for the souls of the damned, like Cheney or Rove. And I should. Dick Cheney is my brother, as J and K are my sisters. That is a pretty big pill to swallow! Maybe big enough for one day.

I do feel great sorrow that our country is so torn, so divided. And if we move this out of the political arena into the "field of social duty"; what does this mean? Well, what are all the ways one does damage to the world just by living? Every time I eat meat, it is the death (and likely mistreatment) of an animal. Even milk and eggs now come only by the suffering of creatures. Perhaps plants, too. I drive my car every day, polluting and depleting the earth. Use electricity, and packaged items, throw away so much plastic, use and throw away so much paper – hundreds of trees a year. This hurts. For all these things I feel ashamed, and grieved. Yet what is the alternative? There is no alternative but death, because every action I take to perserve my own life, let alone my lifestyle, is the cause of suffering and death to so many beings I could never count them.

I lament the great sin

We commit when our greed

For kingship and pleasures

Drives us to kill our kinsmen.

Being filled now with the realization of the meaning of this passage – that all action leads to death and suffering – I too want to slump over in grief. I find myself in great need of Krishna's council. But that will have to wait until tomorrow.