May 9-12

I'm getting a bit impatient with these old ones, again, but I am torn about posting new things based on scripture I'm reading, and don't have a lot of time all of the time anyway, so I'm just going to speed up the release schedule. At least for now.

May 9, 2007

Let me get in a little of the 9^th Teaching. I'd left off right before verse four. In it he says that "all creatures exist in me, but I do not exist in them." This is after he's already told us that our innermost selves, Atman, is him, so he is in us.

Behold the power of my discipline;

These creatures are not really in me;

My self quickens creatures,

Sustaining them without being in them.

Then in v. 6 he says again that creatures are in him. I guess what he must be getting at is that the way this is – is beyond our ability to conceptualize. Maybe the laws of our universe, or the nature of our brains, prevent us from being able, truly, to get it. To even make a concept about it. And therefore, there's no point getting hung up on who exists in whom.

What we should look at is what he's trying to teach us about detachment, about action without desire. Because he begins with "behold my discipline" I can create whole worlds, full of creatures who are each a soul, each part of me. Creatures who are cute and noble and tragic and evil – I can create them and care for them and watch them without attachment! Without getting involved, without saving individuals from hardship or death or (listen, girl!) from their own terrible, stupid decisions. That is a feat! I think that is the larger point he's making but maybe I'm missing something.

May 12

Still in the Ninth Teaching, the Sublime Mystery. I believe I had written that Krishna was showing us the art of detachment. But then he continues to discuss his true nature – as something beyond nature. He talks about those who are deluded, but also about those who, seeking Truth, end up worshipping Krishna through the means available to them in their cultures. At least, that's how I read it.

Sacrificing through knowledge,

Others worship my universal presence

In its unity

And in its many different aspects. v. 15

Krishna is saying that people who are devout, in whatever "religion" they practice, are indeed being heard by Truth, or the Absolute Reality, Universal Being.

However, he is also saying that those who get stuck on the image, the particular aspect, will have a limited reward. Remember the video [one of a series created for public television I believe - or BBC? - with David Carradine as narrator], a Hindu guru explains that the gods are fingers pointing the way to liberation, to Nirguna Brahman, but some people get hung up looking at the finger, instead of looking where it is pointing.

And that's okay. Krishna says if that is what you want, take it, be happy with it, enjoy it. But know that its joys are limited. You'll find yourself again searching. "When they have long enjoyed the world of heaven and their merit is exhausted, they enter the natural world." v.21

Applied to narrow-minded Christians (or Muslims or members of any faith), he's saying if their reward, the thing they long for is a heaven with literal streets of gold, angels with halos and pearly gates, then that is what they will have. But even that will one day pall, be unsatisfying, and they'll find themselves wanting more.

We get what we want. Over and over, until we finally learn to want the things that will satisfy us. Oh – a good food analogy: you can (and I do) crave brownies and cake and French fries. And you can have those things. All you want. But if you are maturing, then eventually you'll become aware how unsatisfyig those foods are, how they are not actually nourishing your body, how they weren't intended to keep your system running. So eventually they will make you unwell. As you become wiser, you realize you need food with nutrients, and you begin to crave healthy foods. And when you eat them, they are deeply satisfying, as your cells quickly respond and grab what they need from the food and use the nutrients to repair and build a healthy, well-functioning body.