Disclaimer: An academic essay, such as this one, is always at least one step removed from the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita. Even the Gita itself cannot touch the implications of its words, which are practice and experience of a higher consciousness eventually dissolving into unqualifiable non-duality. “Only the ignorant speak in figurative language. It is they who extol the letter of the scriptures, saying, ‘There is nothing deeper than this’” (Gita 17). Henceforth, please excuse my blabbering about spiritual realities of which my knowledge derives largely from written sources. Somehow, these accounts engender an awesome, guiding faith in me. I have no definitive rationale for my belief.
Let me begin by saying how much I enjoyed reading the Bhagavad Gita. The writing is beautiful and the characters and teachings even more so. The commentary enriches the reading, especially the profound quotations from Sri Aurobindo, and the foreword nails aspects of our global village that might be improved by renewed attention to the teachings of the Gita. Andrew Harvey’s foreword is insightful and felicitous because it does not read like an academic exposition. Religious studies, critically analyzing spiritual works can become incredibly stultifying. Harvey’s call to battle cuts to the core of the Gita’s teachings and he maintains that their value lies in application and practice beyond mere pedantry. Relax your critical mind, loosen your hold on what you know, because one of the things that will “open to you the doors of the Gita’s splendor is to forget all the academic and religious arguments about which of the different ‘yogas’ or ‘ways of divine union’ it celebrates” (Gita foreword X). The Gita is not a biased argument for jnana, bhakti, or kharmic yoga because they all lead to God.
And what does that mean? Clearly it does not mean the grey-bearded old gentleman in the sky. Atman, the inmost Self, is identical with Brahman, unqualifiable God essence. This claim is not arbitrary; it is not narcissistic. It is not an invidious attempt to supplant a mythic god with an egoic god some people happen to prefer. This conception of God can be directly experienced. Finding Atman to be Brahman may begin with belief, intellectual or academic, but it does not end there. “For the sage who seeks the heights of spiritual meditation, practice is the only method” (Gita 49).
(Look through a telescope; meditate.) This experience demands practice, and through practice many dedicated practitioners have verified that this perception of the world is indeed feasible. In this way, the Gita’s God can be put under a type of scientific scrutiny (though it will never be ‘proved,’ or even affirmed by many) that a mythic God cannot. If you want to observe Saturn, get a telescope. If you want to understand Hamlet, learn to read. If you want to know whether this experience of godhead exists, take up the practice. Meditate. Once you pick up the injunction – the practice – then you can collect data. You can record information about Saturn’s craters, interpret the meaning of Hamlet, and experience a higher consciousness. 
The third step is to then verify your data, interpretations, experiences. Talk with a community of the adequate, those who have performed the injunction and recorded the data. No one who has not looked through a telescope can talk about Saturn’s topography. Just so, no one who has not persisted in meditation has any reason to believe that Brahman can be directly experienced. Why should they? But we must allow that this experience is indeed viable until we have confirmed individually that it is not. This is why the Gita is so beautiful. It is elegant in its description, yet its beauty hangs on the bare branches of practice. It is adamant, even fiery, fortified by equanimity and the knowledge that any human being regardless of caste or creed can remember his Original Face. “All beings are in reality forms of the divine, but most are unconscious of their true identity, while the Avatar is infinitely conscious” (Gita commentary 32). As Andrew said Goethe said, “Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is” (Andrew Hill). These paragraphs feel a bit like diatribe, but writing these beliefs, composing them in my own mind and expelling them concretely, pushes these concepts toward reality. “Writing is at bottom manipulating and modifying inner speech,” which is otherwise “re-cycled” and “perpetuates our limited and false notion of reality” (Moffett 181, 183). Practice rearranges inner speech, which alters and is not separate from our ways of inhabiting this world.
No comments:
Post a Comment