July 5-15, 2007

July 5, 2007

I am beginning to feel the lack of a dose of Krishna's wisdom. It's been a few days since I opened the Gita. My meditation went much better yesterday, though I may have drowsed. I'd like to believe I actually had some moments in which I thought of nothing at all, but it seems much more likely I fell briefly asleep. Easwaran notes we will, if we fight drowsiness now, one day be wholly conscious when we descend deeply into ourselves. Now that I have the passage memorized and it comes easily to me, it is easier to get bored, and to wonder what is supposed to be happening. I mean, I get that my job is to keep my mind focused, with one-pointed attention, on the passage, on each word. And I've managed to do that for small stretches – sometimes long stretches.

The goal is not to analyze the words, or apply them to one's life – though I can't help, yet, those images/word-associations sometimes springing up. I let go of them as quickly as I can. OK, but, though the meaning is assumed to sink in thru repetition, the goal is not to actively think about meaning. So one begins wondering, what will happen? Or is anything supposed to happen? Easwaran and others talk about pyrotechnics, and deep emotions and insights – but we aren't supposed to focus on those – just stick to the words of the passage.

I do see the value simply in getting one's mind to do as one asks for 30 minutes. That ought to be goal enough. And I oughtn't to allow it to claim boredom with the passage we've only used for 2 weeks or 3. Probably I'm just being impatient. I've sat, what – 10-12 times? And haven't yet reached enlightenment? Silly girl. It is that, but it is also anxiety that I'm not doing something correctly. Need to just reassure myself by checking Easwaran, and then direct my energies to doing what I am supposed to be doing – training my mind to be one-pointed and my heart full of compassion.

7-am now. I've re-read what I needed to in Easwaran, and it helped. Just keep doing what I'm doing. I'm also going to begin work on memorizing (finding first) some new passages, too.

July 6

What an interesting day I had yesterday! To begin, in my meditation I tried something hinted at in Easwaran – to slow down the passage by letting each word fall, "like a pearl into water," and to follow it down. It's kind of hard to explain. But I did it, dropping each word in and letting it stay by itself until the ripples of it, or the resounding of it, wear off. E says in time we'll be able to follow it all the way to the bottom.

Well, it enriched my meditation more than I would have believed. For one thing, the time flew past, and for another, I went much deeper, much faster. That in itself is hard to describe – the senses withdraw; one becomes less aware of all the sounds smells, aches and pains – kind of like being lowered into a tank, or being sealed up. It gets easier to focus on the one thing. One's breathing becomes deep and slow.

Yesterday I was rewarded with something new; a buzzing energy in my body, centered on the lowest chakra. The hairs on my arms stood up! It was pretty amazing. Do you suppose that was the prana that Krishna was talking about? Wow. I guess what you are supposed to do is push that energy up your spine and into your heart chakra – or your head. I have to re-check. We'll see if I can ever even feel it again. I was at the end of my time, and Easwaran warns against following the side shows. I wanted to, but he is my only teacher and I have to trust him, so I shut it down.

But then I went to work and had an amazing day – did my first television interview – all sorts of wild things.

July 15

Today makes a week of uninterrupted first-thing-in-the-morning meditation. May be beginning to make some progress. Much less chatter today.

I finished Roy's God of Small Things. A beautiful, heart-breaking book. I think that between coming from the horror at the end of Disorderly Knights, and the way Roy lets you know her story is going to be horrifying, I shut myself down. I admired the skill with which she weaved her plot; I so appreciated the child's eye view she so clearly understands/remembers, and I loved the little twins a little bit. But I never surrendered myself to the story. It was so powerful that I feard it, and didn't give myself to it.

Now I'm reading another Indian writer, a book called Vishnu's Death. Anil is the author, I think. It at least has given me more of what I was looking for, more understanding of daily life in India, of a Hindu, of food and when one eats what. Was pleased that now I recognize many of the stories from the Mahabharata and more of the allusions make sense to me.

One thing I must face; there are virtually no happy stories coming out of India, and haven't been for 40-50 years. When I want to judge Christianity by its fruit, I can't close my eyes to the atrocities of caste, of Hindu-on-Muslim violence, or the everyday violence of grinding poverty. I can say to myself, and do, that anyone practicing bigotry, cruelty, etc. is not practicing "real" Hinduism. They may be following Vedic ritual but they are not following the Upanishads or the wisdom of Krishna, and that's true. They aren't. But wouldn't every Christian say those doing evil in Christ's name aren't practicing the "real" Christianity? Of course.

I can make a better argument because there are actually 2 different doctrines – the incarnation of Krishna splits off from the Vedas in the same way Jesus' life and teachings break away from Torah. Its just that in the West, the religion of Judaism couldn't contain the alternate, whereas Hinduism could, can, and continues to hold within it a hundred or a thousand different belief systems.

Nevertheless, one can't be honest and deny that most Indian lives for a very long time have been wretched. Even in a land where poverty is not seen as something awful, like it is here, and where lots of people are happier in their slums or ancient villages than we typically are in all our luxury. Even in a place like that, the poverty is deep, the inequality too unequal, the random cruelty of the government unspeakably hideous and wrong.