Almost all religions emphasize the precious truth of God’s grace. In some inscrutable way, there comes a time when the grace of the Lord touches us. When this happens, as Meister Eckhart says, we thrash about like a fish caught by the fisherman’s hook. The hook has entered the flesh of the fish, and though it may thrash and jump about, trying to get free, the hook only enters deeper and deeper.
We do not want to be released out of the prison we have come to love. But even though the grace of the Lord may have touched us, we cannot expect him to do all of the work. In order to progress on the spiritual path, we must have the grace of our own mind as well. We must make the right choices. As my Granny would say, “Even if the Lord grants you grace, the temple priest may still stand in your way.”
Grace can come like the explosion of a bomb in our consciousness and often is followed by a period of turmoil and turbulence. Nothing seems to satisfy us. Money, material possessions, and prestige no longer satisfy us. The old palate-blandishments now taste insipid. We say that peach ice cream is not as good as it used to be; maybe the secret of making peach ice cream has been lost. So we try spumoni, but that proves to be even worse than peach.
Along with dissatisfaction comes utter restlessness. We cannot sit still; we cannot sleep in peace. This is the call from the Lord within to sit down and start meditating. Restlessness is power rising, which can be harnessed to turn us inwards to the practice of meditation.
2. Thus, O Arjuna, eminent sages received knowledge of yoga in a continuous tradition. But through time the practice of yoga was lost in the world.
The word used here is parampara, which means from one person to another, from one generation to another, very often in the family line. Even today, in the Indian musical tradition, there are ancient families who, instead of bequeathing land or wealth to their children, bequeath a love for music. A few miles away from my little village in India there was a family like this. A boy from that home was in my high school. While we had our lunch under a mango tree he would sing devotional songs, and we would all stop eating to listen to him. When we would ask him, “How did you learn to sing” he would say, “You don’t have to learn to sing. I was just born singing.” In this tradition, the parents grant the legacy of musical consciousness to the children, and the son and daughter glory in carrying on the tradition of the parents to greater heights.
In the mystical tradition, if even one person takes to meditation and tries to lead the spiritual life, he is establishing a parampara. After many years, someone in the family or an old friend, even someone who was sceptical in the beginning, may be inspired to meditate. Sometimes these paramparas may come to a temporary stop. The son becomes a potter, the daughter becomes a Shakespeare critic; the tradition goes down a blind alley and appears to stop there. But it is never lost for long, as we can see in the case of India, which has been blessed with an unbroken continuity of sages and saints. This spiritual tradition has sustained her civilization for more than five thousand years, even though her history is sorrowfully marred by invasion after invasion. Whenever India began to look away from her supreme goal, there has always arisen a great spiritual teacher, like Ramakrishna, Ramana Maharshi, or Mahatma Gandhi, to restore her sense of direction.
But today, if travelers go to India, it is difficult for them to see traces of this tradition. The cities are like cities everywhere – turbulent, often violent, driven by material pursuits. Some people who go to India in search of the spiritual life, idealizing the country, imagine that as soon as they board Air India and put the safety belt on, the pilot and air hostess will begin chanting the mantram. They expect, upon landing at the Madras airport, to see people seated in meditation in the lobby. Unprepared for the appalling poverty and superstition they find almost everywhere, they want to run back to the airport and get the first flight to the West. But on the way back they may find someone like Ramana Maharshi sitting quietly under a banyan tree, fully enlightened, aware that all life is one. Immediately, they tear up their round-trip ticket and decide to settle down in his ashram.
In the following verses, the Lord reassures us that even though humanity seems to lose its way now and then, a great spiritual figure will arise at the appropriate time to remind us that it is not in the accumulation of money, prestige, and power but in living for others that we discover and fulfill the supreme goal of life.
3. The secret of these teachings is profound. I have explained them to you today because you are my friend and devotee.
Arjuna likes to be called Krishna’s friend, as we saw recently in the excellent Kerala Kalamandalam performance of Kiratarjuniyam, “Arjuna and the Kirata.” In this Kathakali drama there is a scene where Arjuna is tested by Shiva, who is disguised as a rough forester. Shiva taunts him by asking the Indian equivalent of “Who do you think you are?”
Arjuna answers, “I come from a very ancient, noble family, the Pandavas.”
Shiva says, “Never heard of them.” That doesn’t upset Arjuna too much; he goes on talking about himself, his family, his kingdom. To everything Shiva says, “Never heard of it.” Finally, Shiva says, “Can’t you even tell me one little thing about yourself that might impress me?”
Arjuna, very proudly drawing himself up, says, “I have a friend. Guess who!”
“You tell me.”
“Krishna!”
Arjuna expects his opponent to be completely overwhelmed, but instead Shiva just laughs and tests Arjuna by saying, “That butter-stealing, flute-playing cowherd who calls himself a divine incarnation?” Then, all of his love for Sri Krishna aroused, Arjuna pounces on Shiva, who is delighted with Arjuna’s devotion.
Now Lord Krishna reassures Arjuna of his love and says, “It is true that the spiritual tradition seems to come to a stop now and then, but I am going to whisper in your ears and give you personal instruction as to how you can discover Me in your consciousness. I am doing this especially for you because you love Me so much.” This is the same emphasis on love that we find in the words of Jesus: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.” When we love those around us with all our heart by putting their welfare first, even though it is not easy for us, we are loving the Lord.
ARJUNA
4. You were born much after Vivasvat; he was born long ago. Why do you say that you taught this yoga in the beginning?
“Krishna,” says Arjuna, “you and I are about the same age, but you are telling me that you have guided the meditation of spiritual aspirants in ancient times. I find this difficult to grasp. Perhaps my imagination is limited, but it looks to me as if you were not there. Why are you telling me of events that took place thousands of years before you were born in Mathura?” This is not asked critically, but Arjuna is historically oriented, just as you and I are, and would like to have a rational explanation.
SRI KRISHNA
5. You and I have passed through many births, Arjuna. You have forgotten, Parantapa, but I remember them all.
Now I imagine the Lord of Love as smiling, prahasann iva and looking at Arjuna with great love; we should picture Sri Krishna now not as a forbidding spiritual figure, beetle-browed, with pursed lips, but as a playful, loving, and rather mischievous cowherd from Vrindavana. He tells Arjuna, “This is going to be a bit of a shock to you, but this is not the first time you have been on earth. You have been here many times before.”
It is not necessary to believe in reincarnation in order to lead the spiritual life. Whether we believe in one life or in many, we can all meditate, restrain our senses, and put others first. There is even a little danger in blindly accepting reincarnation. It may breed resignation and apathy if interpreted wrongly. The urgency of a task can be forgotten when we know we are going to come this way again. There is a story about a Hindu aspirant who was learning the headstand. He tried a few times but lost his balance and fell down. Then he gave up, saying, “I can always learn to do it the next time I come this way.”<
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Reincarnation is something like going back to school again. The other day, one of our friends, a professor on the Berkeley campus, was taken by his wife to get “back-to-school” clothes, and I told him that all of us have back-to-school clothes already – this body of ours. Until we are able to put our parents, partner, children, friends, and enemies first, we will have to come back to school. After a long semester, one hundred years, we are asked for our progress report, and we say, “We have dropped out. We haven’t taken the finals. We still love ourselves.” Whoever is in charge, whether it is Jesus the Christ, the Buddha, or Sri Krishna, will say very compassionately, “You had better register for the next semester.” In the Tibetan tradition, Bardo is the name given to the place where we wait between terms. The semester break may sometimes last a few hundred years while we wait for the right context. Someone who has dropped out this semester may come back a thousand years later and run into old classmates who ask, “What have you been doing the last nine hundred years?” “Oh, just waiting in Bardo,” comes the reply. “Just couldn’t get readmitted.”
The purpose of life is to finish our schooling by eliminating all that is selfish and separate in us. And when the degrees are awarded at commencement, our real parent, seated right in front, sometimes looking like Sri Krishna, sometimes like the Compassionate Buddha or Jesus the Christ, will proudly say that we have really graduated at last.
While Sri Krishna explains to Arjuna that he has been here many times, Arjuna thinks to himself, “My memory is a blank. I just don’t remember anything at all.” He is too polite to say, “I never have been here before. Why do you try to put all of these ideas into my head?”
The Lord says, “You have just forgotten. I too have been this way before, but I remember because I have maintained the continuity of my existence which is the Atman.”
As long as we believe we are the body, we cannot escape a disruption of consciousness at the time of death. But if we can rise above physical consciousness and discover for ourselves that we are not the perishable body but the imperishable Self, there can be no break in our awareness of the infinite continuity of existence. As Jalalu’l-Din Rumi has said:
I was a mineral, and arose a plant.
I died as a plant, and became a beast.
I died as a beast, and evolved into a man.
Why should I fear that I will lose by dying?
Once again I shall die as man to join
The holy company of angels. But I must
Soar above them too. “Everything must die
Save His Face.” When I have died as an angel,
I shall be that which is beyond the mind’s grasp.
Let me die to myself, for the ego’s death
Declares, “To Him we return.”
This is the unanimous testimony of the great mystics of what the practice of meditation can lead to in the supreme climax called samadhi.
6. My true being is unborn and changeless. I am the Lord who dwells in every creature. Through the power of my own Maya, I manifest myself in a finite form.
7. Whenever dharma declines, O Bharata, and the purpose of life is forgotten, I manifest myself.
The Lord of Love, even though immortal and infinite, comes as a divine incarnation in times of great crisis to rescue mankind from disaster. The Lord, who is enthroned in all hearts, comes to life in a blessed individual in every country, every age, to bring humanity back to the spiritual path.
Dharma, the central law of our being, is to live for others, to love others more than we love ourselves. The proof of this law is that the more we dwell upon ourselves, the more insecure we become. It is only when we forget ourselves in the welfare of those around us that we can live in abiding joy and unshaken security. Jesus puts this into immortal words when he says, “Bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you.” By doing so we will help not only them, but ourselves also.
In any conflict, it is absurd to retaliate. It only adds to the chaos and makes conflict more violent. Never in the history of human relations has any problem been solved except through greater love, endurance, and forgiveness on the part of some person. Between parents and children, husband and wife, friend and friend, the central law of the relationship is putting the other person first.
Even in international relations, in order to establish peace on earth and goodwill among men, Gandhi has shown that nonviolence is the only way. At the beginning of the twentieth century, if anything looked eternal, it was the British Empire. When I was in high school, one of our geography teacher’s favorite tests was to have us color the Empire with our red crayon, and a good part of the world was red. Most of us took the Empire for granted and thought all we could do was accept it and learn to live with it. But Gandhi, as ordinary as you and I, received the touch of grace.
Gandhi’s school life was quite normal. He played truant and postponed projects just like you and me; and when he went to London to fulfill his family’s desire that he become a little pillar of the Empire, his early days there were just as ordinary. One of the most delightful pictures that we have of Gandhiji, the future ascetic, is in his striped suit, frock coat, and top hat. He carried a silver-headed cane and wore those indescribable relics of fashion, spats. He was growing up just like any other young fellow, wanting to be the mirror of fashion. He even tried to learn to play the violin and to dance the foxtrot. But already the light was being lit inside, entirely without his knowledge. The perennial spring of grace was beginning to open up inside, and when it finally reached the surface, it produced such power that one whole nation was able to free itself from foreign domination without firing a single shot. This measures the power locked up inside the consciousness of man; because this divine explosion took place in the deepest consciousness of one little man in faraway India, those days of imperialism and colonialism are ended.
In the early days of mystical transformation, people may not take it very seriously. They are likely to think, “He is always playacting. This is just another role that he has assumed. He is a born actor, but he will get tired of this mystic’s role soon.” Gandhiji said that in the early days he was supposed to be either an imposter, a madman, or a fool. And in Sri Ramana Maharshi’s village, I can imagine them saying, “At seventeen what can you expect? This is just another of his games. He thinks he is illumined, that he has attained nirvikalpa samadhi, but one of these days he will snap out of it and go back to his old crowd again.” It is during this period, when we have to face criticism and scepticism, that we learn to remain patient and unperturbed, sure that the source of all security is within.
It takes a few years for ordinary people like us to come to accept that the greatest blessing has fallen upon us without our deserving it. We can never get over the amazement of it. We are so frail, so petty, so full of weaknesses, yet in spite of all this, He whose love and power know no bounds has in his infinite mercy chosen us. For a long time, we think there must have been some mistake. Only after years of observing the daily growth in security, the increasing capacity to think of others, do we come to accept that, for no reason we can give, the mystic’s mantle has fallen upon us. Afterwards, this wonderment continues all the time. There was a mystic in India who used to sit on the bank of the river, look at his reflection in the flowing waters from morning to evening, and say, “How wonderful! How miraculous!” Once he was asked by the people passing by, “Whom are you describing, Blessed One?” The simple mystic became very shy and very embarrassed, but replied, “Myself.” Even in our dreams, we may come to hear the voice of Sri Krishna or Jesus the Christ saying, “My beloved.” And when we have reluctantly, humbly accepted this, there is no earthly circumstance that can ever affect our security. Once this mystical transformation has begun to take place, even though we may be small people, each one of us can make a significant contribution to world peace. If we can establish peace in our hearts, return love for hatred, and live for the welfare of our family and community, we have changed the world picture. I
n this way, many small candles can light up the night of selfishness that threatens us.
8. I am born in every age to protect the good, to destroy evil, and to re-establish dharma.
In age after age, when violence increases, there comes a time when Mother Earth says, “I cannot bear any more; I am filled with grief seeing the way my children are raising their hands against each other.” To this cry, the Lord responds by coming to inspire and protect those who turn to him, who live in harmony with the law of unity, and who contribute to the joy of others. He comes to protect such people from the heavy odds ranged against them, to defeat violence, and to eliminate selfishness.
These words may be interpreted on several levels. First is the divine incarnation, called avatara in Sanskrit, of which Sri Krishna, the Compassionate Buddha, and Jesus the Christ are supreme examples. These mighty spiritual figures come, in answer to Mother Earth’s plea, to rescue the world from the morass of selfishness and violence in which it gets caught now and then.
There is another level also on which this incarnation can take place, as in the case of Mahatma Gandhi, who was completely transformed by the grace of the Lord. Gandhi, whose stature became like the Himalayas, changed the direction of human evolution by showing us through his life that nonviolence is the only way, that love is no longer a luxury, but a dire necessity. Hate and perish or love and prosper is the choice placed before us in the great crisis of human civilization facing the modern world. So even though spiritual giants like Mahatma Gandhi are not in the same category as Jesus or the Buddha, who were never involved in life, they do achieve great victories for the human spirit over selfishness.
On the third level, the ordinary level which I call the blessed anonymous level, every one of us has this choice: shall I prepare for the divine incarnation to take place in my consciousness by abolishing every vestige of selfishness and separateness in my heart, and thus contribute to the progress of humanity, or shall I, by foolishly running after my own profit and pleasure, handicap humanity to the extent that it is in my power?
The End of Sorrow Page 22