It has gotten cold again, and snowing again, and very, very busy again. I keep hoping to be able to write a post about what is going on here right now today, but it keeps not happening. On the other hand, I re-read these old journal entries and find I am rediscovering many of the same things all over again, so it doesn't really matter : ) Development really is a spiral path. I might as well have written some of this today as I was reading the Svetasvatara Upanishad, which was written in the early days of the tradition that produced the Bhagavad Gita, maybe 200-400 years earlier.
May 24, 2007
I'm ready to begin the Thirteenth Teaching – Knowing the Field
I'm sure this is more beautiful, less awkward, in Sanskrit. "The field denotes this body" v. 1
The field contains the great elements,
Individuality, understanding,
Unmanifest nature, the eleven senses,
And the five sense realms. v. 5
Are the great elements individuality and understanding? Or something else? I think the latter. Individuality (ahamkara) is the ego, literally the "I-maker". I get that. Understanding (buddhi) is the "collective rational powers, including intuitive intelligence and capacity to make reasoned judgments." It is distinct from mind. In the chariot analogy, the senses are the horses, the mind the reins, understanding the charioteer, and the self the owner of the chariot. So the field, this thing we are to come to know, is all of the above and unmanifest nature, which seems intriguingly out of place in this list. Krishna adds:
Longing, hatred, happiness, suffering,
Bodily form, consciousness, resolve,
This is the field with its changes
Defined in summary. v. 6
So the field is also preference – what I like and dislike and emotional response to having my preferences and attachments fulfilled or not. My body, my thoughts and my will. These are all the parts of the field that I must come to know through disciplined practice. "Knowledge," reminds Krishna, "means humility, sincerity, non-violence, patience, honesty, reverence for one's teacher, purity, stability, self-restraint; dispassion toward sense objects and absence of individuality, seeing defects in birth, death, old age, sickness, and suffering; detachment, uninvolvement with sons, wife and home, constant equanimity in fulfillment or frustration; unwavering devotion to me with singular discipline; retreating to a place of solitude, avoiding worldly affairs; persistence in knowing the self, seeing what knowledge of reality means – all of this is knowledge". v. 7-11.
A pretty tall order. It seems to get harder as it goes along. I am pretty sincere; I am as non-violent as I can be though I do eat meat and I know my lifestyle – using plastic and driving to work – is pretty violent to the earth. I'm working on patience and humility. I can usually be patient with animals, children and students, tho the latter are sometimes a struggle. I am generally less patient with those from whom I expect more; my Dad, my husband, my colleagues. I am consciously working on being more patient with each. I can generally be pretty good with strangers, though I have to be ever vigilant that I don't lash out – in my mind – at other drivers, people in lines, etc.
I am generally honest, but will keep watching myself to see where I am tempted to be dishonest and why. I don't really have a teacher, but I'm kind of using Easwaran, since I get hs "thought of the day' in my e-mail and a monthly newsletter. I wish he were still alive.
Am I pure? Am I stable? I have no idea. How do we even define purity in our culture? Surely not in the same way any Hindu would, and especially one writing c. 150 CE. I'm stable in some ways and not in others. Surely I have a lot of room for improvement in the area of stabilizing my moods. And self-restraint . . . what's that? I have almost none. I eat and drink what I want, when I want. Smoke when I want. Don't exercise, or go for walks. I am not as out of control as I was 2 years ago, but still exert very little pressure on myself. I need to really work on this. Give myself plenty of little tasks thru the day in which I must resist an urge, exercise some self resistance. That will include working on dispassion toward sense objects.
I guess it all works together. Getting better at all the things listed above will help me develop the stuff on the bottom half of the list. I have a long journey ahead of me. I think we Americans begin in a hole, at a spiritual deficit. Because even if we were sometimes poor, we had far fewer opportunities to work on our self-restraint. Of course there are always opportunities for that, a thousand times a day. So I will really try to be more aware of those times and take advantage of them by not letting my will run rampant.
May 25
We are in the 13th teaching. After describing what knowledge is, Krishna explains what is to be known. "For knowing it, one attains immortality; it is called the supreme infinite spirit, beginningless, neither being nor non-being." v.12. The Sanskrit here is Brahman, the Absolute.
Outside and within all creatures,
Inanimate but still animate,
Too subtle to be known,
It is far distant, yet near.
Undivided, it seems divided
Among creatures;
Understood as their sustainer,
It devours and creates them. v.16
These two verses speak the most to me right now. Brahman, God, the Universe and more, is outside us – is the image Krishna showed Arjuna in that terrifying vision. But that same glorious, all powerful being, infinite and immortal, is also inside us. Doesn't need to be invited in, just recognized as there. It is us – all of us, including my silly kitten Indiana who is laying on this page, and all the critters on the planets in that infinity that is brahman – we are brahman, we make it up. Brahman is across the Universe in a distant galaxy, and brahman is here, next to me in Indy, inside me as well. Which implies brahman knows everything simultaneously – not like a feed, from me to It, but because I am It. So cool. So trippy. This is part of what you see on acid trips, but without the darkness around the edges.
We are all one, undivided. It is an illusion that we are divided into J and I, Iraqi/American, Black and White, Human/Animal/Insect/Grass, and if that isn't trippy enough: earthling/creature from outer space! Supernova and comets, all of that is US, one big brahman, infinite spirit.
And maybe that dark edge is really there – not as an evil (though it makes sense that is how we would perceive it) but because brahman as Vishnu (and Krishna) sustains us, but as Shiva destroys, devours us, only to be created anew by Brahma. Important to understand that all that destruction is us, too.
In v. 17 it says, "Knowledge attained by knowledge, fixed in the heart of everyone." And in v.30, "When he perceives the unity existing in separate creatures and how they expand from unity, he attains the infinite spirit." These speak to me of the idea of brahman as a growing consciousness, one that is learning through its experiences of division. It is an idea I feel comfortable with, that makes sense to me. We expand as a unit from our collective learning. And so, these verses, 19-21, where Krishna explains how nature and man's spirit (atman) are called "causes" because through our agency we produce effects, we produce these experiences, support that conclusion. Our forgetfulness of who we really are and our attachment to our own creation "causes births in the wombs of good and evil." But that isn't a bad thing, it is our purpose. If we all remembered the Truth, we wouldn't be able to keep learning. No wonder this is secret knowledge, hard to obtain.
Witness, consenter, sustainer,
Enjoyer – the great lord
Is called the highest self,
Man's true spirit in this body. v.22
Oh, this really helps! We are our own witnesses. And this the most: a part of me, my highest part, consented to this life I'm living. Consented to the rough adolescence, the molestation, the struggle with drugs, the violence of Roger, and this, the PHN. I consented to this and sustain it because it is teaching me/Us something. We are the enjoyers of what we witness, and collectively we must have realized there was a lot to learn from pain. Krishna reminds us again and again that it isn't some Other, inflicting suffering on us. It is us. And once we really know this, experientially as well as intellectually, we will no longer be born again, no matter, Krishna says, what our current place in life is. This makes sense. Once you've found the hider, the game of hide and seek is over. But us, we, will not be over. We will have just moved off the field to the bleachers.
He really sees
Who sees the highest lord
Standing equal among all creatures,
Undecaying amidst destruction. v.27
When I look at a group of inner city teens, or Mexican peasants, or even George Bush and his neocons, I am looking at God. Though there is destruction, privation, desperation, hate, and evil all around them, in their highest parts, they are God, undecaying. A part of their spirit lives on.
Seeing the lord standing
The same everywhere,
The self cannot injure itself
And goes on the highest way. v.28
But of course. How can I be cruel to God? To myself? This feels like the real goal, the promise for daily life, the thing I want most. To see God everywhere, in everything and everyone, without trying.
Beginningless, without qualities,
The supreme self is unchanging;
Even abiding in a body, Arjuna,
It does not act, nor is it defiled. v. 31
Our true selves are not going to hell or heaven, though there seems room in this philosophy for those who are attached to it; their egos might indeed create and then experience the delights of heaven or the tortures of hell. Sure, why not? But their True self is me. Is J. Is Indy and Isi. No one is really going to hell except as an experience that we will all learn from.
They reach the highest state
Who with the eye of knowledge know
The boundary between the knower and his field,
And the freedom creatures have from nature. v. 34
To conclude the teaching – we are not our bodies or this world. We are completely free of nature. How wonderful if I could truly KNOW this, not as an intellectual puzzle, but with whole heart and mind and being. How can I come to know this that way? Only through meditation. That's it. Disciplined devotion. I did sit on the couch and try again last night. I must keep at it!
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