2005 - The Rest of the Year

November 1
The Fourteenth Teaching: The Triad of Nature’s Qualities
What binds the eternal soul to the finite, physical body? Lucidity, passion, and dark inertia. Krishna explains what these qualities are and how they act to keep us bound to our particular selves. Also what happens when we feed one, or allow one to dominate in our lives.
Lucidity . . . is untainted and without decay. It binds us with attachment to joy and knowledge. Passion is emotional – it binds us with attachment to action. Dark inertia is born of ignorance – it binds us with negligence, indolence and sleep. Of course it is lucidity that we are to foster and encourage to dominate.
When the light of knowledge
Shines in all the body’s senses
Then one knows lucidity prevails.
Giving oneself over to lucidity means that when one dies, one will “enter the untainted worlds of those who know reality.” In other worlds, one moves up. If one lets passion dominate, greed and activity, involvement in actions, disquiet and longing arise. When one dies in passion, one is reborn into lovers of action – one basically stays at the same level.
But that word “action” is very problematic for me. Because when we look at the third quality, it is clear that Krishna isn’t saying actions are bad, and in fact we already know that because he’s told Arjuna earlier that he must act.
If dark inertia dominates, obscurity and inactivity, negligence and delusion arise. If one gives this quality full run, one will be “born into wombs of folly.” ‘Caught in vile ways, [men of inertia] sink low.” I think we need a different word, maybe. Or maybe we don’t, and I need to just think differently. It is not that we shouldn’t work, say toward achieving social justice; it is that we should not be spiritually attached to the outcome. That’s closer to be being compatible with my belief system, or what I take to be “right.” Still, there is a definite difference – in Judaism and its spiritual children we are encouraged to a passionate involvement with God and the world. Is it semantics? Or truly different goals? Right now I sense the latter.
Arjuna asks what someone would be like, who was dominated by the quality of lucidity, and Krishna’s answer gives us something to go by:
He does not dislike light or activity
Or delusion;
When they cease to exist
He does not desire them.
He remains disinterested,
Unmoved by qualities of nature;
He never wavers, knowing
That only qualities are in motion.
To me this suggests that the point, for Krishna, is not to go about stamping out all tendencies toward passion or inertia. Instead, one practices devotion, and by doing so fosters lucidity, which will come to crowd out passion and inertia eventually. And it is very clear that he considers passion to be better than doing nothing. One may not improve with a life of passion, but a life of doing nothing actually takes you down. Is this a dialectic? Thesis, antithesis and synthesis? Lucidity then not opposed to either one, but a synthesis of both? The movement beyond duality is always encouraged in Hinduism.
The notion that by doing one’s dharma, one’s disciplined practice, the desire for passion and inertia will simply pass away, provides me with hope. Even though my record so far on practicing meditation is abysmal. I put it off every day. Think of reasons why it isn’t a good time, etc. I wonder if it would help me to use an image of God to focus on. I’ll try to force myself tonight.

November 2
The Fifteenth Teaching – The True Spirit of Man. I am really having trouble concentrating this morning. I know it is a reflection of me, not the Gita, that this teaching feels it has little to offer that is new. In it Krishna discusses the tree of life, and that one escapes it by overcoming attachment. But mainly this teaching reiterates the point that Krishna, God, IS the higher spirit of man. That that fragment of God, the Atman, in each of us, is our true spirit. The discipline and the devotion will lead us ultimately to this realization, this stripping away of the delusion that we are mortal, separate, etc. Man has a double spirit, transient and eternal:
Since I transcend what is transient
And I am higher than the eternal,
I am known as the supreme spirit of man
In the world and sacred lore.

Whoever knows me without delusion
As the supreme spirit of man
Knows all there is, Arjuna –
He devotes his whole being to me.

That’s all I can get this morning. My mind, body and spirit are sluggish. My mind keeps returning to my classes and students.

November 3
Wow, we’re nearly through the Gita this first time.
The Sixteenth Teaching – The Divine and the Demonic in Man. Oh boy, this should speak to me. It is pretty short but very specific and descriptive and thus very useful. Krishna lists the divine qualities in men, and describes what those men are like. He also describes the demonic qualities in humans, and what people are like who glorify them – also what will happen to them in future lives.
The divine qualities we’ve seen mentioned before – in fact I guess I am a little surprised at how specific the Gita actually is. I don’t know why, but I guess I supposed it to be more vague. In fact, it reads a lot like Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, and many of the other lessons Jesus taught. So when we get back to practice, what people ought to do, we are back on common ground with the Western traditions.
Krishna uses the words “born with” I.e. one is born with either divine or demonic qualities. I think in the context of the whole religion, and the doctrine of karma, that should not be read as predetermination. We have caused ourselves to be born the way we are with our actions of the past. So what are we to avoid?
The three gates of hell
That destroy the self
Are desire, anger and greed;
One must relinquish all three.

If we fail to relinquish them, we live lives of hypocrisy, insatiability, pride, self-aggrandizement, confusion, delusion, violence, arrogance, obstinacy, dishonesty. And at the end of life, we’ll be reborn into “demonic wombs” and a lower life next time. This feels self-evidently correct. All of the world’s wisdom traditions say essentially the same thing.
Desire is the really hard one to beat. Our capitalist system exists by creating desire, our notions of progress are so material. So I get trapped in the desire for things – clothes, shoes, etc. More dangerous for me is the desire for a different job, better students, more time, more sleep, reasons to be lazy. Many of these things are not wrong in themselves, but the power of my desire for them causes me to live in the future and neglect the present. I see the danger in wanting different circumstances so much that I fail to see the opportunities before me to practice all the divine qualities. This is something I must work on, and I can, by simply stopping myself. Every time I begin living in the future, I can remind myself to look around me right now and see what needs to be done. This doesn’t mean one can’t plan for the future – I can see how people might see this as fatalism; simply accept where you are and don’t think about the rest. But that doesn’t seem right. I think it just means don’t live there; don’t let visions or plans for the future obscure what is here, now.
My habit of thinking I’ll do better at communicating with and showing my love to my family at some future time when I have more money and more time is a good example. I don’t think it is good to give myself a guilt trip about not calling or writing more often, but I should live in the now and say hey, I have ten free minutes, why not write a card?
I always feel so tired, and some of that I may not be able to fix, but some of it might be relieved if I didn’t always feel the weight of things left undone. If I did more of those things, I might be able to let the rest go. Or it might give me the energy I need to do those other things. I’ll keep trying. Really it is a battle to not let it all overwhelm me. I look at my to-do list and it seems so long and impossible that I feel hopeless, give in to despair. Each one thing I do is good – focus on it while I’m doing it and don’t worry about the rest. Now it is time to get showered and ready for the day, and attempt to live it one moment at a time.

November 4
. . . Maybe we can go downtown, sit out on the patios one last time before winter comes. I feel so ambivalent . . . on the one hand, I’m eager for the semester to be over. On the other, I’m not sure I’m ready for the long months of cold. But see how silly that is? Why waste time and energy wondering such a thing? What difference could it possibly ever make? I can’t speed up time or stop winter. It is a good example of the habit of mind to avoid living in the present. So, I’m going to the Gita.
The Seventeenth Teaching: Three Aspects of Faith. Okay, this is another hard one. Not intellectually; I guess it makes sense and builds on the last teachings, but it is more difficult to see how to apply it to my life.
Krishna says that there are three forms of faith and sacrifice that grow out of the qualities of lucidity, passion and dark inertia. To me, the examples of dark inertia seem so far-fetched, so extreme, that it is hard to imagine any but the very few, most twisted human beings having to worry about. They are those who “practice horrific penances,” crave foods that are “stale, unsavory, putrid and spoiled,” perform sacrifices that are “full of self-mortification or sadism.”
[It is so funny that I missed this then - since I was busily practicing horrific penances full of self-mortification!]
I do recognize myself in the description of the passionate. The descriptions of behaviors – sacrifice and penance and food – are so culturally contextual that one has to stretch to feel the relevance. Of the passionate, Krishna says of food that we crave excitement – sour, bitter, salty, harsh, pungent, hot. Judging from the Indian cuisine I’ve had, I’d be in good company there with other passionate types. Sacrifice is performed by the passionate “focused on the fruit, and hypocrisy is at play.” Isn’t that just what I was saying about myself the other day? That even while trying to find God, and to live a good life, in accordance with the instructions of the wise, those who have found God, there is a part of me that does it for the reward, the fruit; that wants to be seen as spiritual and faithful.
Wavering and unstable
Performed with hypocrisy
To gain respect, honor and worship
That penance is called passionate.
That hits very close to home for me. I am working on it. Trying to be aware and then arrange things so as to minimize anyone’s knowledge of what I’m doing. Hard to prevent Jim from knowing I’m reading the Gita and writing about it. But if I can ever get myself meditating on a regular basis, I’ll keep it to myself.
One of the thoughts I had about passion and social justice and the difference between East and West is this: What if the Hindu point of view comes from having lived hundreds of lifetimes and remembering them? I mean, if I could remember working my hardest to improve conditions for all people, with perfect dedication, a hundred times, wouldn’t I also come to see such efforts as futile? They’ve had so much longer to view the world – even if it isn’t individual memory, there are 7000 years of institutional memory.
Maybe the Western traditions are just young, and make the mistakes of youth. You figure – Islam is a baby, only 1400 years old. Christianity only 2000. Judaism, being generous, about 4000. So Hindu practice and thought has been developing almost twice as long as that.
That fits with what Hinduism itself says – passion and action-for-fruit aren’t really wrong, just misguided. And we aren’t to take their word for it and rush through, but to live each stage fully until we re ready to relinquish it. Relinquish is the word used, not renounce. In the translator’s notes, to relinquish is always seen in the Gita as the higher way. To me that means: Learn for yourself. It won’t necessarily do me much good to try to convince myself that passion won’t get me anywhere. Maybe I have to learn by experience. I can, however, try to weed out hypocrisy and greed and anger – work towards a purer passion, at least.

November 6
[after writing about interest shown by various jobs I’d applied for . . .]
For now, I think its time to turn to the spirit side, so I don’t get too caught up living in the future.
The final, Eighteenth Teaching – The Wondrous Dialogue Concludes. Oh good! Arjuna begins by asking the question I’ve been asking myself – What is the real essence of renunciation and relinquishment? Krishna states the learned arguments and then his decision about them.
Creatures of nature cannot avoid action. Seeking to do so, even in pursuit of holiness, will lead one to dark inertia. Actions that are based in sacrifice, charity, and penance are to be performed. And later he reminds us that all of us have particular actions to perform based on our station in life. It is better to do our own job poorly than another person’s well.
So it is not action but the fruit of action that we must relinquish. The teaching, and the dialogue, conclude with Krishna’s promise that if we do all of what he as prescribed, if we even make a sincere attempt, we will come to Him. He reminds Arjuna that he has told him all of this for his good – he wants what is good for us because he cares for us; he loves us. So there is a notion of grace, that Lord Krishna will meet us part way, that if we put ourselves in his hands, take refuge in him alone, relinquish the fruit of all action to him, he will assist us and we will come to him.
It is a very beautiful dialogue, and in the end sounds much like what Jesus said. It makes me wonder, again, if Hindus really are right about everything; in this case that when times are rough, God incarnates to remind us of his message, of the pathway that we’ve forgotten is there. Again, see the quote below – same message.
[bottom of page says: “Then they said to Him, ‘What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?’ Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.’”]
For me, I’m not sure what to do next. I’d like to move on to something different and then come back to the Gita again. But what? Maybe Alan Watts? Its been nearly 20 years since I first/last read him. 15 at least.

November 18
I’ve been kind of short on profundity lately. I had intended to share what Mom told me when I spoke to her Wednesday. I was feeling very much at the end of my rope, and she said that she was praying that I would find a way to lean on God, to let him carry a part of this burden. I told her that I don’t know how to do that. She said it wasn’t so much a matter of learning a strategy, or a skill, but that it kind of happens naturally from pursuing a relation-ship with Him. I told her that I’d been finding myself praying a lot, out of pure desperation, and that belief no longer seemed to matter. Someone, probably many people, have said that pain and desperation make believers out of all of us. For me, it isn’t so much that it has made me believe, so much as it has made belief irrelevant. I need there to be a God who cares, who can act as a source of strength and comfort. As I said yesterday, my inner reserves are gone, but there are still so many things I have to get done. I have to be able to draw on something, and so I suppose I am leaning on God, whether or not He exists.

November 24
I have general feelings of disgust for my fellow Americans. We are screwed up in so many ways. My gripe of the moment is the greed. Yesterday the stores were mobbed already, and people were already mean. I smiled at a couple of people and got such dirty looks that I made it an experiment. I smiled at everyone who passed me, and NOT ONE single person smiled back. The store advertising was repetitive, as usual, and this year the theme is “buy one as a gift, and one for yourself.” People have always probably bought things for themselves while shopping for others. I know I have. But we don’t have to cater to and expand that behavior.
Then this morning, the paper is at least triple its normal size, full of ads. We’ve made it a ritual to spend what used to be a day of thanks thinking about all the things we want for Christmas. It’s pretty disgusting. What’s really sad is that at base we are no worse than any other people, but we have allowed ourselves to be mesmerized, mostly by the TV. We let it tells us what to think, what to think about, and mostly it tells us to think about all the things we don’t have. How we are entitled to them. The constitution-granted right to pursue happiness has become, in people’s minds, the right to have a lot of consumer goods. How can we not be disgusted by our own behavior? As with a spoiled child, I really believe that we as a people need to be told “No!” firmly and repeatedly, for our own good. A couple of spankings would also be in order. Hurricane Katrina was one such spanking, but it didn’t affect enough people hard enough. Maybe the avian flu really will be the dreaded epidemic. They are predicting that if it manages human-to-human transmission it will kill 50 million people worldwide. Maybe 6-7 million here in the U.S. I realize I often sound a little gleeful when thinking about these potentially catastrophic events, but it is based on a deeply rooted conviction that real hardship is the only thing that can save us, as a nation. So maybe in the long run Bush will be good for us, by being so bad. I really don’t think we’ll snap out of it any other way.

December 31
We saw “The Chronicles of Narnia” yesterday. It was done really well. It is too bad that I can no longer accept the majority of Christian dogma, because it would have been even more powerful. Mom and her friend were really moved by Aslan’s sacrifice, and I was too, but not to the extent I would once have been. It did remind me, though, of why the story of Jesus does affect people the way it does; how beautiful to believe God would sacrifice himself out of love for you personally. More on that another time.

2005 - October. First Time Through the Gita

My journal entries begin to be turned over almost entirely to matters of the spirit - making up for lost time, I guess. I had read the Bhagavad Gita as a college student, but this is the first time I really grappled with it. I'll let the entries speak for themselves . . .

October 18
Just finished Greg Iles’ In the Footsteps of God. It is about the creation of a super-computer that allows the human mind to be truly separated from the body. Advanced MRI scanners are able to create “neuromodels” of individuals that can then be downloaded into this quantum computer. A way to create true artificial intelligence without having to understand how the brain really works.
The interesting parts are 1) what would the human mind be like if it was able to divorce itself from all of the animal instincts that allowed it to survive? No fight or flight response, no biological urge to reproduce one’s own and crowd out that which is “other,” and 2) He proposes an explanation of God and the creation. He posits an aware being, utterly alone and with no sensory input. The being asks itself, “What am I” “Where did I come from?” “What am I for?” etc. All the questions one imagines consciousness would ask, but no one or thing to give it any answers. As a result of its own need to know what it is (not exactly sure the mechanism here), a singularity occurs that initiates the Big Bang. God watches as the universe expands, but sees nothing that helps it understand what it is. But eventually, on Earth at least, life develops, and at some point, in the form of man, develops consciousness of itself. This is like a beacon to God. It realizes there is now something like it in the Universe. By the way, God is not really in the Universe. But now he watches man for clues to his own nature. It gets frustrating, though, because after a certain point, humans stop evolving. Not physically – that continues, of course. But human consciousness stops growing. God perceives that it is because humans have bodies – all the animal things that allowed it to survive and reproduce physically now make it impossible for consciousness to grow.
That’s largely because there are all these urges impinging on man. He has the capacity to idealize peace, but can’t achieve it due to his biological aggression and acquisitiveness. So God finds a way to insert himself into the world, to incarnate in the form of Jesus (and presumably Buddha and others) and preaches to people to ignore, or go against their human/animal nature. To resist evil, to turn the other cheek, to give away one’s belongings, etc. Only in that way will people ever be able to evolve to the next level of consciousness, become more God-like, and thus help God figure out what he is.
Presumably consciousness would be able to divorce itself from the body, and then from matter entirely. At that point, I suppose it might pass out of the universe entirely, and if the only purpose of the universe was to incubate consciousness, then I suppose the universe would end. Fits with quite a lot of facts, but has the arrogance of presuming we are the only conscious life in the universe, and that it exists only for us.

I began to read the Bhagavad Gita, one teaching per day, as my morning devotional.

October 19
Its funny how a theme, once you think of it, will keep appearing over and over in your life. Synchronicity? Or me creating my own universe? Or both? Consider what I wrote yesterday about man needing to separate himself from nature. Then here is part of what the Gita had for me today:
Actions are all affected by the qualities of nature;
But deluded by individuality the self thinks – “I am alone.”
When he can discriminate the actions of natures qualities
And think, “The qualities depend on other qualities,” he is detached.
Those deluded by the qualities of nature are attached to their actions;
A man who knows this should not upset these dull men of partial knowledge.

Then in the car I’ve been listening to the tapes Chip loaned me – "Great Ideas in Philosophy." Yesterday was about the Stoics and the bridge they formed between Hellenistic thought and the Christians. I didn’t get as much from it as I maybe could have, but what impresses me now that I think about it is the very materialistic bent to all Western philosophies. Of course, there are great differences between Hellenistic and Hebraic thought, but both have an assumption that we (and whatever gods there are) are rooted in the material world. From Homer through Aristotle, Moses thru Philo of Alexandria, there is a great attempt to understand the nature of human beings, and an assumption, for different reasons, that nature itself has purpose, design, and order. Our nature is thus the way it is for a reason – for the Greeks, because nature doesn’t do things for no reason. For the Jews, because God doesn’t. But how different that all is from Hinduism and Buddhism. The parts of us shaped by the material world, the qualities of nature are the very things from which we must free ourselves. They mask our true selves. I begin to have a fuller appreciation for why Barrett [William Barrett, in Irrational Man] traces the roots of existential philosophy to the Hellenistic and Hebraic worlds. For them, existence precedes essence in this form. But do I agree with that anymore? On some level, I can’t not. I’m too aware, too steeped in the realities of political economy. I believe that our lives are indeed shaped by the material conditions in which we find ourselves. Okay, but that’s our lives. Does it follow that our very essence is determined by those things? Or is there something essential to what we are that precedes and may even predispose us to be born into particular existences?

October 20
It is difficult not to rush ahead in my reading of the Gita. It was always that way with the Bible, too. Of course, in the Bible there are these huge chunks of very boring text. In the Gita’s case, today’s lesson was mainly over my head, I guess. It was the lesson on knowledge, but I think I need a better translation. I get that Krishna is explaining how knowledge – of the nature of reality, of the universe, of God himself, of oneself, allows one to be a person of disciplined action. To act in the world without becoming attached to the fruit of the action. He also talks about sacrifice – that sacrifice of material goods is fine, but that sacrifice of knowledge (bad translation), is better. In other words, self-discipline, control over desire, over thoughts, is better sacrifice. Offering up the senses, breathing, etc. And all of these sacrifices have their source in action. It is an act to offer up these things. Thus how can action be wrong? It is only when we are attached to the fruits of action that we err.
Just as flaming fire reduced
Wood to ashes, Arjuna,
So the fire of knowledge
Reduces all actions to ashes

And later,
Arjuna, actions do not bind
A man in possession of himself,
Who renounces action through discipline
And severs doubt with knowledge.

I suppose I understand this well enough. As well as I can right now, which is to say mainly intellectually. This is a hard, very hard thing to do. In our culture we are taught from a very young age to do what we can to call attention to ourselves, at least when we’ve done something well. We are told to make sure we get credit for what we’ve done, competition ensures that others won’t usually call attention to your accomplishments.
We are so hung up on fairness, too, that it causes us to keep track of who has done what, and how much reward did they get for it, etc. Jim and I are locked into this, me as much as him. Western religions seem to foster it, as well, as we are told we will be rewarded for our good works, despite Luther’s cry of “faith only.”
How do we break it? At least at the domestic level? First, I suppose, one does the labor that needs to be done without calling attention to it. I already do try to do this. But then I mess it up by giving in to the temptation to cite all I’ve done when Jim accuses me of never doing anything. I tell myself that I have to keep track of what I’ve done to defend myself in those situations, which is most certainly a way of remaining attached to the fruit of my action. Why? What would happen if I not only didn’t bring up all I’ve done but I didn’t even really remember? My fear is that I would then become a doormat and eventually a kind of slave. I know that’s extreme but it is the logical extension. Just because I might choose to stop playing the game of one-up-manship and attempts at domination doesn’t mean Jim (or anyone) would, and since our culture says to use every advantage you have, why wouldn’t others see my silence, or lack of self defense, as an opportunity to exploit?
I think the idea must be that one makes oneself invulnerable to such exploitation inside, by knowing who one is. One doesn’t act to gain the fruit of escape from accusation anymore than one acts for the fruit of praise. Following this logic, what should the behavior be? Be attuned to what needs to be done and do as much of it as one can. Put the doing of these things before consideration of one’s pleasure or comfort. Not to show off or rack up points, but because they need doing. If I did that, it shouldn’t matter to me much what Jim or anyone else thought about whether or not it was enough. If accused of being lazy or not doing enough, I should be able then to know in myself that I did all I could. Defense would then not be necessary.

October 21
Today was the fifth teaching of Krishna – Renunciation of Action. While understanding this intellectually, I despair of ever knowing it with my soul, or ever being able to truly do it. How is it possible not to want things? Not to want, for example, to have motivated, hard-working students? Not to be attached to electing officials who can make sound policy and work for a more just world?
I can readily appreciate the need to not do things in order to receive praise – that fits inside the philosophy and law of Christianity. Don’t let the right hand know what the left is doing. I clearly see how much better it would be to do things for Jim out of pure love – not counting the cost and not keeping score. But there are other goals more worthy, aren’t there? I’m reading Krishna’s council, and it seems mostly worthy of emulation, but how?

In this teaching Arjuna specifically asks, is renunciation of action better, or discipline of action? Maybe this is my answer, ‘cause Krishna clearly says discipline of action is better. By doing that one will learn renunciation of action. “Applying one correctly, a man finds the fruit of both.”
His specific instructions are that while one goes through the actions of the day, one’s mind should think, “I do nothing at all,” and “It is the senses that engage in sense objects.” I guess practice is the way one becomes disciplined. So I’ll try that – it means not blaming myself or taking credit, either one.
“Relinquishing the fruit of action, the disciplined man attains perfect peace; the undisciplined man is in bondage, attached to the fruit of his desire.” This is the really hard part:
He should not rejoice in what he loves
Nor recoil from what disgusts him;
Secure in understanding, undeluded, knowing
The Infinite Spirit, he abided in it


That feels impossible. But note that it doesn’t say one shouldn’t feel love or disgust – it simply says one shouldn’t act based on those feelings. That seems a little more approachable. Further on:
Delights from external objects
Are wombs of suffering:
In their beginning is their end,
And no wise man delights in them.


To practice this, I guess one consciously reminds oneself, every time one feels delight at an external object, that it is temporary, that it will not produce delight forever. So experience the delight but don’t cling to it. Don’t expect it to continue to be a source of joy. Then one won’t be frustrated when the feeling passes. “The man of discipline has joy, delight, and light within.”
There is nothing wrong with being wowed by a sunrise or the colors of a tree turning in the fall – in fact part of the joy of those moments is one’s inherent understanding that they are fleeting. One doesn’t wish the sky would always be pink and orange, or that the tree should never burst with green life.
The trick is learning to approach every moment like that, every situation, every emotion. And don’t take credit for the good moments any more than one takes credit for a sunrise. Don’t wallow in guilt anymore than you would blame your self for the leaves falling from the tree. Okay. I’ll try.

October 22
Last night we went out to celebrate Jim’s delivery of the dissertation by eating Mexican and drinking margaritas. It was fun, and the tequila tasted good. But I could really feel it. I mean, I was able to attend to the changes it provoked in me, so that as I finished the second one I realized I really didn’t need any more.
Its almost like a revelation, or revolution; a total transformation. I have almost never before experienced drinking in that way, of checking in with myself and deciding I don’t need any more to drink. I’ve tried to do that in the past because I knew I should. But it was rare that, after talking to myself, I didn’t decide that another couple drinks would be just the ticket! It is very strange and different.


The Sixth Teaching of Krishna is “The Man of Discipline.” Here he gives more explicit instruction on how to become disciplined, more promises of the life one would then attain, and the karmic consequences. Like Arjuna, my first response is – this is not possible. I know myself and this is too hard.
Indeed, Krishna seems to say that to truly achieve discipline, one must remove himself from the world – build a hut somewhere. That really isn’t possible for me. Not only am I attached to people (and cats) with whom I am interdependent but my culture makes no allowance for such behavior. Authorities would come along and institutionalize me. But I could begin to move in that direction by creating the time and space in my house, or maybe at a meditation center to begin to really practice.
The person of discipline, Krishna tells us, is the person who has self-control. Control over the posture, the breathing, the senses, the mind. “For a man without self-mastery, the self is like an enemy at war.” Isn’t that so true? Isn’t this my experience? St. Paul also said it – we seem always to be at war – what we want to do so often conflicts with what we know is right to do.
How does one become disciplined? How do I gain that self-mastery? Through practice. And I need to do more than talk about it, more than try to channel my thoughts in the right direction. Hindus and Buddhists have had thousands of years to work on this, and they figured out that there are no shortcuts. One has to put in the effort. One starts small and works one’s way up. This habit of reading and thinking and writing in the morning is a good start. But I need also to begin to work on controlling the mind, body and senses all together through seated meditation. Practice, practice, practice. The early mornings are about the only time I have for that. Or maybe 4 pm on the weekdays. Why not begin that? 4-4:15 every week day. It will be hard – starting a new habit always is. But I want to give it an honest effort. I really liked the feeling I got last night from knowing what was good for me and acting on it. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to expand that? To gain more and more knowledge, more ease at controlling myself, and more of the peace and the joy that brings?
Right now I have almost no self-discipline. I’m starting near zero. We all have to start somewhere, right? Krishna and millions and billions of Hindus and Buddha and millions and billions of Buddhists say this works. Somehow, mediation, learning control over the simple (yeah – right!) things such as breathing and posture will lead one to greater self-control in all things. The Buddha said, “Don’t take my word for it; give it an honest try and see what happens.” So I’ll try it.
Right now I find it very difficult not to be influenced by others' agitation, anger, frustration, negativity, etc. But I can’t continue to blame that on them. “He does not waver, like a lamp sheltered from the wind.” “Impartial, the man of discipline is disciplined.” I have to get control over myself, that I do not waver or bend in the presence of other people’s action, words, or emotions. Only I can do that. As I said, I’m not very good at that yet.


Arjuna says to Krishna how hard it sounds, and what happens to those that try, but fail? Krishna says:
Arjuna, he does not suffer doom
In this world or the next;
Any man who acts with honor
Cannot go the wrong way, my friend.

Fallen in discipline, he reaches
Worlds made by his virtue, wherein he dwells
For endless years, until he is reborn
In a house of noble and upright men.
And further:
There he regains a depth
Of understanding from his former life
And strives further
To perfection, Arjuna.

So there is hope even for people like me. And really, I am not so worried about the after life as I am trying to live this life well. Even in Christianity, self-control is one of the fruits of the spirit. Perhaps it is one of those things in which God or the Universe meets you half way, doubling your effort, so to speak.

October 24
[have just described a neighbor’s fight that we witnessed and my angst about not helping a woman I didn’t like]
I barely have any time for devotion this morning but let’s try. Boy, I sure blew that chance to apply St. Francis’ prayer. How could I have been so blind?
The Seventh Teaching of the Gita is on Knowledge and Judgment. Oh boy. In this teaching Krishna describes himself, gives Arjuna the knowledge of who/what he really is. In the second verse he says:
I will teach you the totality
Of knowledge and judgment
This known, nothing else
In the world need be known.


Krishna loves the person of knowledge, those he claims for himself. It is knowledge of him, of the true nature of God to which he refers. Dedicating oneself to this, pursuit of this understanding is all one needs. He discusses his saguna and nirguna aspects, and emphasizes that all the universe has its source in him – abide in him are sustained by him, and will find their dissolution in him. It is a very beautiful passage. Then –

All this universe deluded
By the qualities inherent in nature,
Fails to know that I am
Beyond them and unchanging.

(And the Bible verse on the bottom of that page is: Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. . . Psalm 150:6)

At the end of many births,
The man of knowledge finds refuge in me;
He is the rare great spirit who sees
“Krishna is all that is.”

I grant unwavering faith
To any devoted man who wants
To worship any form
With faith.


About the worship of gods, he has this to say, that might help the students to understand:

Disciplined by that faith
He seeks the deity’s favor;
This secured, he gains desires
That I myself grant.

But finite is the reward
That comes to men of little wit
Men who sacrifice to gods reach gods;
Those devoted to me reach me.

At the end, after discussing again how nature and its creatures are deluded, he says:
Men who know me as its inner being,
Inner divinity, and inner sacrifice
Have disciplined their reason:
They know me at the time of death.

Arjuna will then ask what these things mean, which will be tomorrow’s teaching.

October 25
Yesterday while waiting of the computer store to open I went to the bookstore and wrote down titles of books I’d like to read/have. One was by Ram Dass, the very popular guru of the 1960s. I’ve never read him, so I don’t know if he taught a watered down version of Hinduism or not. But it didn’t look like that flipping through it. Anyway, it is about using the Gita in daily life. Instructions on how to begin meditating, what one’s journal should focus on in different teachings, etc. It would be very nice to not have to re-invent the wheel. Maybe in a few weeks I’ll buy it for myself. I will have been through the Gita on my own by then.
I began my attempt to meditate yesterday. It was illuminating in terms of how very, very little self control I have. I only lasted five minutes. I was thinking that would be okay, this first week. But in fact I think I was starting to calm down enough that I might have begun to learn some things – but I gave up.
Partly it was that I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to be doing. Empty the mind or merely watch what it does. I was distracted a lot by my body – my ankle and back hurt, things kept itching. Sounds inside and out drew my attention. I decided to focus on my breathing, and to use the clock’s ticking to help regulate it, instead of it being a distraction. That worked fairly well.
I also noted that my thoughts several times went to wanting credit for trying, wanting someone to know so they could see how holy I am! Hah! So I believe it is very important for me not to tell anyone what I’m doing. Am I seeking the appearance of searching for God and a peaceful, loving life? Or do I want the real thing? It made me ashamed. Until that passes my meditation and my writing here needs to be secret.
Jim knows I’m reading the Gita; I could hardly keep that from him. But he most likely thinks I’m approaching it intellectually, for class. That’s good, and its not not true. But I am trying to get more out of it for myself. I feel the temptation at times to pull a “holier than thou” thing on Jim, and I want to work hard to resist that. It will likely require learning to keep my mouth shut. And that’s not enough. I also need to guard against doing it in my head. Won’t work if I’m outwardly humble and inside believing myself to be spiritually superior or a martyr of any kind. That’ll be the hard part.

The Eighth Teaching is on the Infinite Spirit. In it, Krishna again explains the nature of god, of himself – infinite, supreme, eternal, unmanifest and manifested in creation. Largely he focuses on Arjuna’s last question: How are men of self-control to know you at the time of death?
Krishna gives explicit instructions about how the disciplined person uses that discipline at the time of death to focus and concentrate on god. Doing so, he or she will find him. Krishna also talks about what will happen then – how some will truly find him and have no more need of further incarnations. Others, less-disciplined, will be reborn. [bottom of the page Bible quote is: “I sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. Psalm 34:4]

Whatever being he remembers
When he abandons the body at death,
He enters, Arjuna,
Always existing in that being.

Therefore, at all times remember me
And fight;
Mind and understanding fixed on me,
Free from doubt, you will come to me.

Seems another very good reason to stop being attached to this body, this personality, this life. If you are, you’ll just recreate it again next life. So, it makes sense that whatever it is you haven’t conquered will be the things you carry to the next life to continue working on. But you can skip all that and go straight to god if you are disciplined.
It is kind of fun to have these Bible verses at the bottom of each page, and to read them in light of Hindu wisdom. Doesn’t this one say much the same thing? “And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.” Galations 5:24-26.

In the novel, The Years of Rice and Salt [by Kim Stanley Robinson], the characters meet up in the bardo after each life, and it is clear how easy it would be to forget one’s discipline, to get lost and to keep searching for that person one just was for however long. As the Gita and the Buddha keep reminding us, the only way to achieve the discipline required to not only find God but create a better life next time, is through practice. So, as hard as it is, I’m going to keep trying.

October 26
I demonstrated the extent of my discipline yesterday by coming home from EKU, thinking “I should meditate” and then choosing to play online instead. Will try harder today.
The Ninth Teaching – the Sublime Mystery. Here again Krishna describes his own nature and promises that those who devote themselves to him will find him. I guess I’m largely approaching this one intellectually. What really strikes me is the language he uses. How similar it is to that Jesus used. And also how Krishna claims all men of faith – no matter their faith. The roots of tolerance.
I am the way, sustainer, Lord,
Witness, shelter, refuge, friend,
Source, dissolution, stability
Treasure, and unchanging seed.
And -
When devoted men sacrifice
To other deities with faith,
They sacrifice to me, Arjuna,
However aberrant the rites.
. . .
Votaries of the gods go to the gods,
Ancestor-worshippers go to the ancestors,
Those who propitiate ghosts go to them,
And my worshippers go to me.
. . .
Whatever you do – what you take,
What you offer, what you give,
What penances you perform –
Do as an offering to me, Arjuna!
It is interesting, isn’t it? Also the idea again that we create our own realities, even after death. If you believe in hell, you could end up there. It certainly does provide motivation to become disciplined! To create reality in this life and the next as pleasing, and joyful, and for me, with opportunities to keep learning, keep growing. The last verse reminds me of Jesus saying, “Ask, and you shall receive, seek and you shall find . . .”:
Keep me in your mind and devotion,
Sacrifice to me, bow to me,
Discipline yourself toward me
And you will reach me!

To continue a thought from yesterday – I look at my life and see that I have always been a seeker after God. When I was 3 I had a mystical experience, inviting Jesus into my heart, and it was very real. I felt the presence of God. Ever since I have tried to understand what God wants of me, and have sought to do it, with limited success.
But at some point, I also fell in love with idea of looking like someone who sought after God, who worked at having a close relationship with God. It doesn’t mean that those were no longer true – they still are and mostly always have been. But I am not pleased with this interest that has developed in appearance. I think it is something I need to watch and guard against. Need to “keep my light under a bushel” for awhile to counteract it. I want my desire to be pure – to seek Truth, to seek God for the sake of that alone. No one on earth needs to know anything about it. So that is another specific area in which I need to discipline myself.
[at the bottom of this page, appears the verse I quoted above! Matthew 7:7] How funny!

October 27
The Tenth Teaching – Fragments of Divine Power. This is a very beautiful passage in which Krishna again attempts to describe his nature. He uses metaphor and simile and still only barely touches on the extent of his own power, his reach. He is everything, everywhere, all that is has its source in Him. He uses both material, human, natural and ethereal examples. And then concludes:
What use is so much knowledge
To you, Arjuna?
I stand sustaining this entire world
With a fragment of my being.
All of the most powerful, beautiful, enduring, brilliant, wonderful things we can conceive are but tiny fragments of what God is. There is not too much one can say about this passage; like all reminders of the greatness of God, the only appropriate response is devotion. This teaching will be helpful, useful, as a guide when meditating, when trying to turn the whole heart and mind toward God in love and worship.
On second reading, what strikes me is the non-duality of Krishna. He does not claim to be the source of only good things, but of all things. Suffering as well as joy, disgrace as well as glory. The procreative god of love and the king of snakes. “The pious son of demons, of measures, I am time.” The sea-monster, the Ganges, the science, the dispute, the “creator facing everywhere at once,” and “I am death, the destroyer of all.” The feminine powers, “I am the silence of mysteries, what men of knowledge know.” Also, “I am the great ritual chant, the meter of sacred song.”
Whatever is powerful, lucid
Splendid or invulnerable
Has its root in a fragment
Of my brilliance
As I said, it is a beautiful reminder of the all-encompassing nature of god – the reason and guide for bhakti devotion.
Now I think I need to return, filled with this wonder at God’s nature, back to the mundane requirements of the day, as I do need to think about what we are doing in class and what I want my students to be thinking about.

October 28
Wow. The Eleventh Teaching – The Vision of Krishna’s Totality. Arjuna asks, since Krishna has been willing so far to instruct him, and explain his nature, will he be kind enough to show himself to Arjuna? Knowing human eyes could not perceive his totality, nor bear what they saw, Krishna gives Arjuna “divine eyes” and then reveals himself in all his “immutability.”
As in most attempts of those few humans who claim to have seen God as He Is, it is impossible really to describe what he sees. Images of light –
If the light of a thousand suns
Were to rise in the sky at once,
It would be like the light
Of that great spirit
Also of many body parts – countless arms, bellies, mouths and eyes – all the forms of all the gods and monsters and creatures, many ravening mouths with large fangs. It is a fearsome image. Awesome, terrible and terrifying. Also endless. Arjuna says several times he can see no beginning, middle, or end. And Arjuna is rightly frightened out of his wits. Even with divine eyes, it is too much. He ends up begging Krishna to appear again in his familiar form. He is struck with the realization – like befriending someone you think is just a regular guy and finding out he’s the King of England, only magnified a billion times – of how presumptuous he’s been, how inadequate his offers of friendship and loyalty have been. Some of his attempts to make sense of what he is seeing:
I think you are man’s timeless spirit
You alone fill the space between heaven
And earth and all the directions
Seeing you . . . my inner self quakes and
I find no resolve or tranquility.

He sees, I guess because he needs to see, God devouring men by the hundreds of thousands. Crushing their heads with his teeth, swallowing thousands at a time.
Worlds in the frenzy of destruction enter your mouths
You lick at the worlds
Around you,
Devouring them
With flaming mouths
Who are you in this terrible aspect?

Krishna uses this, then, to make the point he’s been making all along – that Arjuna’s duty is to go into battle. His first words:
I am time grown old
Creating world destruction
Set in motion
To annihilate the worlds;
Even without you,
All these warriors
Arrayed in hostile ranks
Will cease to exist.

Arjuna then offers up his praise, born out of the terror, the awe of his new knowledge. Many beautiful and helpful stanzas. The one I like best:
Boundless Lord of all Gods
Shelter of all that is
You are eternity
Being, nonbeing, and beyond.

You are the original god,
The primordial spirit of man,
The deepest treasure of all that is,
Knower and what is to be known,
The supreme abode;
You pervade the universe,
Lord of Boundless Form.

I guess its after this that Arjuna begs for forgiveness for not grasping before the true nature of God’s majesty, and pleads to see Krishna in his human form. Krishna tells him he’s been granted an extremely rare view. Gods beg for it but rarely get it. He reassures Arjuna and returns to a more comfortable visage. Then the final point:
Not through sacred lore,
Penances, charity or sacrificial rites
Can I be seen in this form
That you see me.

By devotion alone
Can I, as I really am,
Be known and seen
And entered into, Arjuna

Acting only for me, intent on me
Free from attachment,
Hostile to no creature, Arjuna,
A man of devotion comes to me.

How different, really, is this injunction, from the instructions given to us by the god of the Jews? The experience of seeing God and the response to that experience are virtually identical. Knowing what God is, how could one respond with anything but utter, entire, worship and devotion?

October 29
[after describing another night in which I turned down a third drink and went to bed]
This is so exciting to me. Obviously I still have very little self-discipline, so I’m not going crazy with pride, or anything. But it feels like such a large step in the right direction. I want to use it as an example to myself of what IS possible, even for me! If I could get control over what has for so long seemed beyond my attempts to control, then there is hope that one day I’ll be able to control myself in all ways. Or lots more ways, at least. So, it isn’t pride I’m taking in it, but joy and hope for the future.
I need to learn to recall and focus on the rewards of discipline, let them help to motivate me to do the right thing. Isn’t it wonderful to wake up on Saturday morning with no hangover? To know even if I decide to nap, it will be a restful, restorative sleep? To have no guilt or shame over my behavior the night before? It is wonderful, amazing and good. Let self-control and the fruits it brings be one of the treasures I store up. I have a sense of well-being. I am really enjoying this morning, despite the physical pain I’m in [I guess it hasn't come up yet - but I was (and still am) suffering from severe pain caused by spinal chord damage from shingles].

The Twelfth Teaching is on Devotion. There are some very practical, helpful suggestions here. Krishna talks about how Jnana yoga is good, but much more difficult than bhakti, or devotion.
It is more arduous when the reason
Clings to my unmanifest nature;
For men constrained by bodies
The unmanifest way is hard to attain.
He also says, again, that the way to him, the easiest way, is through devotion. But, and this is the helpful part, he says, if you can’t concentrate firmly on him, then seek to reach him through discipline in practice – at least go through the motions. So even if I’m unable to bring my mind under control, I should still mark off the time to meditate and then really do it. Sitting still and making an attempt is still good. “Even if you fail in practice, dedicate yourself to action, performing actions for my sake, you will achieve success.”

So karma yoga is kind of third, or fourth on the list. Do other actions that are good even if you are unable to discipline yourself to meditate. And then, “if you are powerless to do even that, be self-controlled and reject the fruit of action.” That kind of seems to be saying, if you can’t do these better things, at the very least, when you manage to do something right, don’t take credit for it. So my comments earlier today about the joys of not getting drunk were on the right path but didn’t go far enough. It was right to resist the impulse to be proud of the accomplishment. But there is something more I need to do there and I can’t quite figure it out. In the devotional vein, I guess it is a matter of giving thanks to God for working through me to accomplish that feat. We are directed to view ourselves in the third person, to see things simply as cause and effect.
I don’t know. I can’t see clearly how I ought to feel or think. Surely it can’t be wrong to take inspiration from something that has gone right. It seems more that I just can’t get puffed up about it. But right now that is the limit of my understanding. I ask the Universe, the Lord of the Universe, to help me see what my perspective ought to be, and then to help me move in that direction.
There are more descriptions in this teaching of the devoted man, which do suggest what I should be striving for: disinterested, relinquishing all involvements, relinquishing fortune and misfortune, neutral to blame and praise. Okay. So I’ll try – these fruits are the gifts of Reality, not created by my own doing.
The element in Hinduism of being indifferent rather than passionately committed to social justice is a stumbling block for me. It may simply be that I do not have a deep enough understanding. I don’t think Hinduism or Buddhism are really saying that one shouldn’t care about the rest of the world; more that they focus on showing the individual one's own part. But there is a real tension between those two ways of looking at the world, and I think I’ll soon need to begin reading those who have trod this path before me, looking for ways to bridge the gulf.

October 31
The Thirteenth Teaching – Knowing the Field.
Okay, I think the “field” is our human body; all the things we have as a result of being biological creatures, maybe implying also the things we have as a result of evolution, as I discussed a few weeks ago. Our senses, the qualities of birth, death, illness, old age, suffering, the emotional qualities of longing, hatred, resolve, etc. Krishna, summarizing the Vedas, the Upanisads and other philosophical writing puts it thus:
The field contains the great elements,
Individuality, understanding,
Unmanifest nature, the eleven senses,
And the five sense realms.
The teaching seems to be that it is by knowledge and mastery of the field that we attain the goal. The field – it’s a good word for it. This is the field, the arena, in which our soul is placed, from which it seeks to know its true nature. This is the task of jnana yoga – one must be able to identify all the aspects of the field in order to understand how one’s Self is differentiated from it. Those things that can be attributed to nature, biology, evolution, etc., these are not the enduring Self.
He really sees who sees
That all actions are performed
By nature alone and that the Self
Is not an actor.

When he perceives the unity
Existing in separate creatures
And how they expand from unity,
He attains the infinite spirit.

Beginningless, without qualities,
The supreme self is unchanging:
Even abiding in a body, Arjuna,
It does not act, nor is it defiled.

Just as one sun illumines
This entire world
So the master of the field
Illumines the entire field.

They reach the highest state
Who with the eye of knowledge know
The boundary between the knower and its field
And the freedom creatures have from nature.

This teaching makes sense – maybe only after having read Smith a bunch of times and explaining it to students. But it is a hard thing to really know. I can accept on one level, even feel it to be true in my bones, that we are all one thing – each a part of a larger organism, and in that way no more important or special than any other animal or plant or mountain, etc. But to accept that I have no individuality, this I can’t yet do. I don’t want to accept it. My entire culture is built on the importance of the individual – it feels as deep and true as my bones.