excerpts from the preface (1)

i have not been one to read prefaces. of course, i am embarrassed to recall now my laziness and ignorant dismissal of the value of reading the preface to every book. i mean, if it weren't meant to be read, why would it be there in the first place. i wonder if i gave it that ounce of thought.

i finished reading the preface of eknath easwaran's translation today, and loved it. it is a gentle and beautiful abstraction of the gita, and states succinctly what i found in my 1252 page read but could not summarize. i shall now proceed towards the next stage of my lectio divina and share the excerpts with you here.

Aldous Huxley's Perennial Philosophy: (1) there is an infinite changeless reality beneath the world of change; (2) this same reality lies at the core of every human personality; (3) the purpose of life is to discover this reality experientially: that is, to realize God while here on earth.

To those who take this dramatic setting as part of the spiritual instruction and get entangled in the question of the Gita justifying war, Mahatma Gandhi had a practical answer: simply base your life on the Gita sincerely and systematically and see if you find killing or even hurting others compatible with its teachings. The very heart of the Gita's message is to see the Lord in every creature and act accordingly, and the scripture is full of verses to spell out what this means.

It was Vyasa's genius to take the whole great Mahabharata epic and see it as a metaphor for the perennial war between the forces of light and the forces of darkness in every human heart. Arjuna and Krishna are then no longer merely characters in a literary masterpiece. Arjuna becomes Everyman, asking the Lord himself, Sri Krishna, the perennial questions about life and death - not as a philosopher but as the quintessential man of action. Thus read, the Gita is not an external dialogue but an internal one: between the ordinary human personality, full of questions about the meaning of life, and our deepest Self, which is divine.

... Krishna is not some external being, human or superhuman, but the spark of divinity that lies at the core of the human personality (10:20).

Like physical phenomena, the mind is a field of forces, no more the seat of intelligence than radiation or gravity is. Just as the world dissolves into a sea of energy, the mind dissolves into a river of impressions and thoughts, a flow of fragmentary data that do not hold together.

The image of God is found essentially and personally in all mankind. Each possesses it entire and undivided, and all together not more than one alone. In this way we are all one, intimately united in our eternal image, which is the image of God and the source in us of all our life. - Ruysbroeck

Life cannot offer any higher realization. The supreme goal of human existence has been attained. The man or woman who realizes God has everything and lacks nothing (6:22). Life cannot threaten such a person; all it holds is the opportunity to love, to serve, and to give.

The word dharma means many things, but its underlying sense is "that which supports," from the root dhri, "to support, hold up, or bear." Generally, dharma implies support from within: the essence of a thing, its virtue, that which makes it what it is.

An old story illumines this meaning with the highest ideal of Hinduism. A sage, seated beside the Ganges, notices a scorpion that has fallen into the water. He reaches down and rescues it, only to be stung. Some time later he looks down and sees the scorpion thrashing about in the water again. Once more he reaches down to rescue it, and once more he is stung. A bystander, observing all this, exclaims, "Holy One, why do you keep doing that? Don't you see that the wretched creature will only sting you in return?" "Of course," the sage replied. "It is the dharma of the scorpion to sting. But it is the dharma of a human being to save."

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee. - John Donne

... it is much more illuminating to consider karma an educative force whose purpose is to teach the individual to act in harmony with dharma - not to pursue selfish interests at the expense of others but to contribute to life and consider the welfare of the whole. In this sense life is like a school: one can learn, one can graduate, one can skip a grade or stay behind. As long as a debt of karma remains, however, a person has to keep coming back for further education.

Every state of matter and mind is a combination of these three. They can be illustrated by comparison with the three states of matter in classical physics: solid, liquid, and gas. Tamas is frozen energy, the resistance of inertia. A block of ice has a good deal of energy in the chemical bonds that hold it together, but the energy is locked in, bound up, rigid. When the ice melts, some of that energy is released as the water flows; similarly, rajas - activity - is like a swollen river, full of uncontrolled power. And sattva, harmony, can be compared to steam when its power is harnessed. These are very imprecise parallels, but they convey an important point about the gunas: all three are states of energy, and each can be converted into the others.

Because personality is a process, the human personality is constantly remaking itself. Left on its own, the mind goes on repeating the same old habitual patterns. But by training the mind, the Gita says, anyone can learn to step in and change old ways of thinking. (6:5)

Evolution, according to the Gita, is a painfully slow return to our native state. First tamas must be transformed into rajas - apathy and insensitiveness into energetic, enthusiastic activity. But the energy of rajas is self-centered and dispersed; it must be harnessed to a higher ideal by the will. Then it becomes sattva, when all this passionate energy is channeled into selfless action. This state is marked by happiness, a calm mind, abundant vitality, and the concentration of genius. But even this is not the end. The goal of evolution is to return to unity; that is, to still the mind. Then the soul rests in pure, unitary consciousness, which is a state of permanent joy. (6:20)

Like any handbook, the Gita makes most sense when it is practiced.

When the Gita promises "freedom through renunciation," the impression most of us get is that we are being asked to give up everything we want out of life; in this drab state, having lost whatever we value, we will be free from sorrow. Who wants that kind of freedom?

But this is not at all what the Gita means. It does not even enjoin material renunciation, although it certainly encourages simplicity. As always, its emphasis is on the mind. It teaches that we can become free by giving up not material things but selfish attachments to material things - and, more important, to people. It asks us to renounce not the enjoyment of life but the clinging to selfish enjoyment at whatever cost to others. It pleads, in a word, for the renunciation of selfishness in thought, word, and action - a theme that is common to all mystics, Western and Eastern alike. Work hard in the world without any selfish attachment, the Gita counsels, and you will purify your consciousness of self-will. In this way any man or woman can gradually attain freedom from the bondage of selfish conditioning.

This is a mental discipline, not just a physical one, and I want to repeat that, to understand the Gita, it is important to look beneath the surface of its injunctions and see the mental state involved. Philanthropic activity can benefit others and still carry a large measure of ego involvement. Such work is good, but it is not yoga. It may benefit others, but it will not necessarily benefit the doer. Everything depends on the state of mind. Action without selfish motive purifies the mind; the doer is less likely to be ego-driven later. The same action done with a selfish motive entangles a person further, precisely by strengthening that motive so it is more likely to prompt selfish action again.

By detachment I mean that you must not worry whether the desired result follows from your action or not, so long as your motive is pure, your means correct. Really, it means that things will come right in the end if you take care of the means and leave the rest to Him. But renunciation of fruit in no way means indifference to the result. In regard to every action one must know the result that is expected to follow, the means thereto, and the capacity for it. He who, being thus equipped, is without desire for the result and is yet wholly engrossed in the due fulfillment of the task before him, is said to have renounced the fruits of his action. - Gandhi

This attitude frees a person completely. Whatever comes - success or failure, praise or blame, victory or defeat - he can give his best with a clear, unruffled mind. Nothing can shake his courage of break his will; no setback can depress her or make her feel burned out. As the Gita says, "Yoga is skill in action" (2:50).

Whoever has God in mind, simply and solely God, in all things, such a man carries God with him into all his works and into all places, and God alone does all his works. He seeks nothing but God; nothing seems good to him but God. He becomes one with God in every thought. Just as no multiplicity can dissipate God, so nothing can dissipate this man or make him multiple. - Meister Eckhart