June 4-7 , 2007

June 4, 2007

[More detailed discussion of history of relationship with Dad, Mom, their divorce, etc.]

It feels good to have let go of my need for him to be a certain way. I guess I am coming out the other side of grief. I had to let myself mourn the breaking of the family and the loss of the father figure I had in my mind. It is kind of strange, like a hole where there once was an aching tooth. Keep poking it with the tongue, but the pain just isn't there anymore. Wow. I guess all this stuff I'm doing is actually working.

I think it happened this way: once I saw what I was doing, that I was trying to force Dad into my image (or imago, as the object-relations folks would have it), and that I was angry at another human being when I don't know what their path will bring them . . . Once I was able to see that Dad's true Self is God, is like my true Self, IS my true Self, I just didn't feel angry or even hurt anymore. Strange, but true.

The world really is what we think it is; we can utterly change our relation to the world by thinking something different. Wow. I just keep being amazed, filled with wonder and with joy.

Quickly, let me write about the Gita's message today.

The faith each man has, Arjuna,
Follows his degree of lucidity;

A man consists of his faith,

And as his faith is, so is he. v.17:3

This is kind of what I was just saying. As my faith in the wisdom of Krishna deepens, my self changes. As I acknowledge in my heart the truth of the Gita, my views, attitudes, beliefs, emotions and values change. With little conscious attention or effort, my self has emptied of anger and become full of compassion. What an amazing, beautiful thing – more so because I can feel it is just the beginning, just a small taste of what will come if I become more disciplined. I have yet to follow Easwaran's suggestion of meditating 30 minutes a day on a text (for me St. Francis' prayer). I will do that. I'll get there, and I feel so excited about what further miracles might happen inside me.

June 7

I am in the 18^th and last Teaching: The Wondrous Dialogue Concludes. Always relevant, the Gita here is speaking of renunciation and relinquisment. Krishna brings up a debate:

Some wise men say all action

Is flawed and must be relinquished;

Others say action in sacrifice, charity,

And penance must not be relinquished. v.3

Krishna declares his decision, which must be taken as final. The very fact that he makes a decision says to me that God, brahman, does learn and change. Krishna decides that action is not to be totally relinquished, i.e. we are not to sit down in a monestary or under a tree and never get up again.

Action in sacrifice, charity,

And penance is to be performed,

Not relinquished – for wise men,

They are acts of sanctity. v. 5

But even these actions

Should be done by relinquishing to me

Attachment and the fruit of action –

This is my decisive idea. v. 6

We are to perform prescribed actions. So, rituals, prayers, all the traditional Hindu stuff. Do the labor prescribed by our stations in life, and our caste. Applied to me – I need to do the work of being a daughter, sister, wife, friend and the work of teaching, service and research. Maybe also some religious ritual. Do these things as best I can, but relinquish the fruits; do not become attached. If I get good evaluations, I need to offer them up in loving sacrifice. Don't allow pride and individuality to delude me into taking personal credit. Same with all my actions.

A man burdened by his body

Cannot completely relinquish actions,

But a relinquisher is defined

As one who can relinquish the fruits. v. 11
We have these bodies for a reason. We decided to be bodies in the first place. And because of nature's qualities, the gunas, we must act. But it isn't me that acts, it is nature. In v. 16, Krishna says that a person who sees himself as the agent of his own actions "cannot be said to see."

He goes on to explain things I don't really get, and don't feel ready to completely get, about agency, action and knowledge. It seems like it might be a useful expositon for my research, as well as my life, but I'm not in a mental space to completely decipher the meaning.

Know that through lucid knowledge

One sees in all creatures

A single, unchanging existence,

Undivided within its divisions v. 20

I think this is enough for one day . . . one lifetime. Keep remembering that all existence is one. That will greatly help my relationships at work if I just hold on to it.

June 8

[After reading the evaluations from my spring courses – one class took a big dive]

I really need to dive into the Gita! I am feeling so hurt, and like such a failure. Which is incorrect – I did not fail. I made some mistakes, I'm not perfect, but I didn't fail. And the students are commenting about a course, and how it went for them. They are evaluating the instruction; not me as a human being. And furthermore, it isn't my Self – its just whitethoughts, who is learning an awful lot this life about a lot of things. Stumbling is supposed to happen.

So I'm going to re-read the 18^th Teaching. What will I do after that? I may start again at the beginning, but I do have another text . . . we'll see.

An agent called pure

Has no attachment or individualism,

Is resolute and energetic,

Unchanged in failure or success v.26

An agent said to be passionate

Is anxious to gain the fruit of action,

Greedy, essentially violent, impure,

Subject to excitement and grief. v. 27

An agent defined by dark inertia

Is undisciplined, vulgar, stubborn,

Fraudulent, dishonest, lazy,

Depressed, and slow to act. v. 28

In all of Krishna's descriptions in this teaching and the previous, I see myself mostly in the passionate category. Like here, I am excited when my evaluations are good, full of grief when they are bad. I am greedy, anxious for the fruit. I put in so much work, and tried to offer it up, yet here I am, still attached to the work and greedy for results. There are sometimes hints of dark inertia. I feel as if I am still fighting the tempation to be lazy and depressed. I know I'm stubborn and terribly undisciplined about some things.

So I am sitting in passion, but closer to dark inertia than to lucidity. I see the goal. I can be resolute and energetic. I need to use what energy I have to become immune to failure and success. Let go of the fruit of action. Whether the class was a success or not depended on a lot things and people. When things go well, who is that for? Not for me. I offer that up in sacrifice. Need to let go of the failure, as well.

I teach because it is my dharma to teach. I try to improve because I hope my students will come to understand more things. Not because it will bring glory or prestige, but because that is what I am here to do.

Each one achieves success

By focusing on her own action;

Hear how one finds success

By focusing on her own action v.45

Arjuna, a (wo)man should not relinquish

Action she is born to, even if it is flawed;

All undertakings are marred by a flaw,

As fire is obscured by smoke. v.48

Justifications for the caste system, but I can see utility in these verses. Keep doing what I am supposed to do. Don't worry too much about the flaws inherent in any system. Just do the work and let the chips fall where they may.

If I am in your thought, by my grace

You will trancend all dangers v.58

Different subject, but I love the verse:

You must not speak of this

To one who is without penance and devotion,

Or who does not wish to hear,

Or who finds fault with me. v.67

An anti-conversion stance. I love it.

Discipline - NOT Punish (April 29-30,2007)

I am gradually coming back to life. Man, that was a tough recovery, and I'm getting to be pretty knowledgeable about various recuperation periods from surgeries. But I trust that will be the last one! Forever! I have learned some things, and had some really intense insights that are going to profoundly change the way I live my life due to this last round. I hope to write it all out for y'all soon. Right now I'm trying to dig myself out of the hole missing two weeks of work created. Thanks for all your kind wishes - I sure used them!

April 29, 2007

[Spent a good 2 pages writing of my plans for exercising, eating healthfully, losing weight, and of course, meditating]

Sixth Teaching – The Man of Discipline

Know that discipline, Arjuna,

Is what men call renunciation;

No man is disciplined

Without renouncing willful intent

There you go. You cannot be disciplined without giving things up. One has to be willing to sacrifice what one's senses say they must have. And as discussed before, one can make this easier by consciously sacrificing willful desires to someone. Much easier to give things up out of love. And the other tool is to realize that the self who craves ice-cream and brownies is not the Self. A kind of confusingly worded stanza gets at this:

He should elevate himself by the self,

Not degrade himself;

For the self is its own friend

And its own worst foe.

In Easwaran's book on meditation he talks about how good the mind and senses are at distracting us, and how talented they are at manufacturing desire for sense objects . . . like ice cream. But once one achieves discipline - control - the mind and senses become one's loyal servants. And crave brown rice, for example, instead of baked potatos with butter and sour cream. To get to that place, one must be firm with them, tell them no and don't give in. And here is Krishna on the subject:

The self is the friend of a man

Who masters himself thru the self.

But for a man without self-mastery,

The self is like an enemy at war.

"Thru the self." It is no good keeping one's self on a diet by, say, locking the refrigerator, or having one's stomach stapled. Those external means may help you lose weight, but they haven't changed who you are. As soon as the lock is removed, or one finds another means of satisfying one's gluttony, one is right back in the same situation. So with every other "vice."

And I do find myself at war; one part wants pie, another part wants to look like a model. One part wants to just lie on the couch, another wants to go spend money we don't have. My body is literally a battle zone in which nerves want to fire all the time, the immune system wants to – well, does – attack the virus and anything else that gets in its way. How do I stop the craziness and bring peace and control to my mind and body? The following stanzas show the way:

First, he says seclusion, isolation (10) I can't do that. But I could find moments of it. Then find a good place to sit – firm, pure, not too high or low, with a covering (11).

He should focus his mind and restrain

The activity of his thoughts and senses (12)

And

He should keep his body, head,

And neck aligned, immobile, steady. (13)

He also suggests staring at the tip of one's nose, but I prefer other strategies that the scriptures also support.

But that third thing, in stanza 12, that is hardly easy! In fact right now it seems downright impossible. Easwaran and Ram Dass and everyone else say it improves with practice and only with practice.

Then Krishna says to sit in discipline. With thoughts fixed on Krishna, intent (14).

Disciplining himself,

His mind controlled,

A man of discipline finds peace,

The pure calm that exists in me. (15)

Going overboard on anything, even piety and extreme asctecism, is not discipline (16). I know I'm often guilty of that, so I'll have to watch it. Meditating all day is not necessary or helpful at this point. Half an hour a day is enough. Again, the rewards are great.

When a man disciplines his diet

And diversions, his physical actions,

His sleeping and waking,

Discipline destroys sorrow.

One becomes truly free when one can make choices instead of being driven by tastes and preferences, cravings and desires. Easwaran says one can have total control over sleeping and waking, even over dreams. That's where I'm going to leave it for the day. Only let me remember this, that all of the great sorrow I feel can be dispelled by the simple expedient of sitting down for half an hour every day.

April 30

I guess it's time to think about discipline again. Krishna continues to offer a picture of what a disciplined person is like, and the rewards of such discipline.

Absolute joy beyond the senses

Can only be grasped by understanding [jnana]

When one knows it, he abides there

And never wanders from the reality. v.21

Why would one leave? Joy beyond the senses means better than sex, better than pie and ice-cream, better than a sunset, better than teaching, than gazing into a lover's eyes – once one's had that, why would one ever trade it in for the petty fun of one-upmanship, or a cigarette, etc.?

He gives explicit instructions that would be really useful, I'm sure, if I was meditating daily and knew where the pitfalls or difficulties further along the path lie.

Arming herself with discipline,

Seeing everything with an equal eye,

She sees the self in all creatures,

And all creatures in the self. v. 29

I'm going to make the language female-oriented from now on. It's important to me. Phyllis and I talked about how, though they may be small traumas, the words of exclusion, belittling, un or undervalue, they do add up, making little dents and bruises on the soul. About the verse – all things are One. Since we are selfish creatures, use the self to understand the reality. When I see a person or a dog or whomever, I should be saying "There I go" and also seeing them in myself. This is the start of real liberation. If I could truly enjoy another's success as mine, and see my success as truly theirs, I'd be in good shape.

And from there (or simultaneously) I should turn from self and see God. I love this passage. And isn't it like what Jesus would say?

She who sees me everywhere

And sees everything in me

Will not be lost to me,

And I will not be lost to her. v.30

Throughout the Gita, Krishna is often so tender, it is no wonder he attracts so many devotees, including me.

I exist in all creatures.

So the disciplined man devoted to me

Grasps the oneness of life;

Wherever she is, she is in me

When she sees identity in everything,

Whether joy or suffering,

Through analogy with the self,

She is deemed a person of pure discipline.

At bottom, this is the same as Jesus' command to love others as you love yourself. Of course, it goes further; others ARE oneself! And like with Christianity, it is easy to love kittens and people who think like we do; much harder to love our enemies. But both Jesus and Krishna say it is necessary. Not because you will be rewarded by God, in Krishna's case, but because it is True. It is just accepting reality. Dick Cheney is me. I am Karl Rove. George Bush is me. Whoa. That is tough! How do I come to love them as I love Indy? As I love J? As I love Mom?

Maybe we don't expect perfection all at once? Especially from someone who is not meditating faithfully yet? This is the goal though. "when she sees identity in everything." Not "in the things she likes the looks of." Okay. Practice closer to home. With each student that walks into my office. Each faculty member who speaks to me. My doctors and their staffs. Okay. And the members of my family.