That one I love who is incapable of ill will, who is friendly and compassionate. Living beyond the reach of I and mine and of pleasure and pain, patient, contented, self-controlled, firm in faith, with all their hearts and all their mind given to me – with such as these I am in love. ~ Krishna to Arjuna, The Bhagavad Gita, (12:13-14)
For a few weeks I’ve been craving the time and space to sit and re-read The Bhagavad Gita. I feel forced, as do so many I speak to, into a battle against forces of demonic greed that I would have preferred to circumvent entirely. My old, dog-eared Penguin Classics copy was cracking its old binding, and had barely survived an attack by a teething puppy a few years ago. I decided it was time to get a more artfully translated version and turned to the edition introduced and translated by Indian born scholar, interpreter and author Eknath Easwaran. I’ve always been interested in his practice of Passage Meditation, from what little I have known about it – as it seems closest to my own idiosyncratic practices of mantra and silent recitation of texts that have offered me a new way to look at the world and at myself. (In fact, I bought a whole stack of Easwaran’s work from Thriftbooks: five used books in good or acceptable condition for twenty-three bucks with a free book thrown in – so if you follow this series, you are likely to encounter him again soon) I didn’t expect to find his 67-page introduction to the Gita so rich and illuminating. I knew the four basic yogic paths: Jnana, Bhakti, Karma, and Raja - the path of knowledge and study, the path of love and devotion, the path of service, and the path of meditative stillness. I know that since cancer transformed my life, I have consciously tried to cultivate more devotional practice, to compensate for all the ways that I nearly obliterated myself as I became lost and lopsided after decades of service. But as I sit with these paths now, and Easwaran’s amplifications, I don’t think we choose these roads. They unfurl before us. They exist as opportunities, sometimes as internal mandates, as callings and moral compulsions, as responses to the blessings and tragedies that befall us, and that we create for ourselves and others. Service develops our self-knowledge, and then culminates in the way of love, stillness and unity. Life cannot threaten such a person; all it holds is the opportunity to love, to serve and to give.
These yogic paths wind together and support and enhance each other, a kind of spiritual cross-training. This is what unites theses paths of knowledge, devotion, service and stillness, they all generate each other. Each path is more illuminating because of its relationship and proximity to the others. Just start where your temperament leads you and go, they all head toward the same place, and share some basic requirements: All these paths require renunciation, but not dramatic masochism or asceticism. We don’t find the Divine by addition, but by subtraction – as Meister Eckhart would suggest. And this is just simple subtraction, the reduction, and maybe for some the eventual eradication of ruthless selfishness. These are not paths of self-annihilation. You are welcome to enjoy all pleasures that serve both yourself and others. We must learn to release the selfish and destructive desires, or they will destroy us all. Beware of the temptations to fulfill yourself in any way that is costly to others. This is not the same as eliminating desire outright. I mean, personally, I think a nice surprise or a reward now and then would be nice, and I wouldn’t turn one down, but I’d ideally want it to be something I can share with others. And lord know that there are plenty of actions I persist in that mean something to me intrinsically, whether I am rewarded by the wider world, by God, or more often, not at all. This, frankly, should not be so hard. Its very basic: Pleasures that are able to be shared are sacred and magnify our joy Pleasures that harm others should be undesirable, and they will turn to sand in your own mouth. We should be able to engage in work without selfish desire and perform those labors in workplaces run by people that do not exploit us or others for their own selfish desires. Work should be a practice of integrity. Individual and corporate decisions should consider what is best for all, not indulge mere self-interest. Here Meister Eckhart’s words sunder warumbe - without a why - ring through: To do what we know is right and necessary without a why, without considering how it will reward us. To instinctively rescue a drowning baby from an icy inland sea without calculating how it may benefit you personally first before you leap into the frigid water. Do what you are called to do. The outcome is, on the level of spirit, none of your business if you have fulfilled your task with all the respect, attention and skill that it deserves. This attitude frees us completely. Whatever comes – success or failure, praise or blame, victory or defeat, we can give our best with a clear unruffled mind. Nothing can shake our courage or break our will: no setback can depress us or make us feel ‘burned out’
The thirst for individualized indulgences sneaks up on us. Don’t feed greed in yourself or others. Watch out for compulsive cravings that demand to be satisfied at any cost. Notice where this lives in you, in your cultures, nations and communities. (Here are some manifestations to consider: hoarding and wealth disparity, individualism, consumerism, corporatism, extraction, exploitation, segregation) Selfish craving makes us feel separate from the rest of life
The greedy, heartless road leads nowhere good. That is just how it is. Its not punishment. Its just where that road ends up if you take it: Attachment to selfish desires is pleasant at first, bitter as poison at the end.
We should work hard, and keep working to extinguish destructive forms of desire. Here is the good news: Action without selfish motives purifies the mind.
Once you get started it gets easier and more joyful, and you get clearer about how to avoid destructive desires. There is plenty to enjoy without selfish motives. We can dissolve selfishness by giving joyfully, immersing ourselves in offering what we can for love’s sake. We can slowly learn to live in lovingkindness in itself, the deepest pleasure of all. If you refrain from cruelty and greed, work and act for love’s sake, you are enough. You are good enough. You have located your inherent goodness. You have returned to your starting point. Begin with love. Include love in all your actions and decisions whenever you can remember. Practice remembering. “Love, then do as you like”: and nothing will come out of you but goodness. ~ Easwaran elaborating on Augustine
As we incrementally empty ourselves of selfish and harmful desires, we slowly open up our ability to receive, rely on, and share love freely. The full blossoming of personality comes from relying on and serving the call of love. Easwaran quotes G.B. Shaw to further make his point: This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one… being a force of Nature instead of a feverish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
(It is sometimes far too easy to become a little clod of ailments whining for worldly rewards. I mean, can’t the whole world devote itself to making me happy just a little bit, or once in a while?) We are what is in our heart. We don’t have to be saints. We can move toward more inclusive joy a step at a time. No effort however small, is wasted. Do your best. Just renounce exploitative desires when you recognize them operating within you. They harm you as much as others. As they approach me, so I receive them. All paths, Arjuna, lead to me., says Krishna
For Easwaran, the war we must keep fighting, alongside Arjuna, is the battle against selfish desire and rampant greed, within ourselves, and all around us. But in ourselves first.
|
