Bhagavad Gita 2.9-18
2.9 When Arjuna the great warrior had thus unburdened his heart, 'I will not fight, Krishna,' he said, and then fell silent.
2.10 Krishna smiled and spoke to Arjuna - there between the two armies the voice of God spoke these words:
2.11 Thy tears are for those beyond tears; and are thy words words of wisdom? The wise grieve not for those who live; and they grieve not for those who die - for life and death shall pass away.
2.12 Because we all have been for all time: I, and thou, and those kings of men. And we all shall be for all time, we all for ever and ever.
2.13 As the spirit of our mortal body wanders on in childhood, and youth, and old age, the Spirit wanders on to a new body: of this the sage has no doubts.
2.14 From the world of the senses, Arjuna, comes heat and cold, and pleasure and pain. They come and they go: they are transient. Arise above them, strong soul.
2.15 The person whom these cannot move, whose soul is one, beyond pleasure and pain, is worthy of life in Eternity.
2.16 The unreal never is: the Real never is not. This truth indeed has been seen by those who can see the true.
2.17 Interwoven in his creation, the Spirit is beyond destruction. No one can bring to an end the Spirit which is is everlasting.
2.18 For beyond time he dwells in these bodies, though these bodies have an end in their time: but he remains immeasurable, immortal. Therefore, great warrior, carry on thy fight.
Mascaro.
isn't the bhagavad gita beautiful? I have only ever read Mascaro's translation and do not read sanskrit so don't know if it sounds the same in an other language or translation. But it is truly beautiful. In response to your slokas (is that the right word...i can't remember)Have you ever met anyone whom you would say has achieved the ability to function in our world, feeling and experiencing life, but being beyond it's influences? (2.15 The person whom these cannot move, whose soul is one, beyond pleasure and pain, is worthy of life in Eternity.) or is this too literal an interpretation? Or is this referring to something outside of this life experience that can watch the senses and their influences but be unaffected? Do we want to be unaffected by our senses? Isn't part of living about experiencing life and all its wonder? Isn't it a wonderful gift we have been given to be able to experience and then share these? If i am beyond pleasure or pain am i truly living, truly conscious? Many simple organisms do not feel pleasure or pain. Humans have a conscience, are conscious of ourselves. Questions, questions to throw out there.....
ReplyDeleteHi Karon,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment, I was starting to get a little lonely, wondering if anyone was even reading!
The Gita is beautiful, and I do like Mascaro's translation very much. Until very recently it was my favourite, although lately I have been really enjoying Poornamurti's copy of 'Walking With the Gita'.
Have I ever 'met anyone whom I would say has achieved' etc.?
Yes. Yes I have. Several people, though only one quite closely. I saw the Dalai Lama some years ago, and he really oozed complete dispassion combined with compete compassion. I get very much the same feeling from Sogyal Rinpoche many years ago. I got much closer to him than to the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama gave a lecture in Manchester to many hundreds of people, whereas Sogyal Rinpoche gave some meditation sessions with about 20 people.
But of course, I have to final come to Paramahamsa Niranjanananda Saraswati (Niranjan).
I believe you can take these verses of the Gita as literally as you like. Some of them are figurative and allegorical, but I believe those verses that give direct instruction, such as these, can be taken as literally as you like.
Swami Niranjan, I firmly believe, operates at the level we are talking about.
I think you hot on something when you ask " Or is this referring to something outside of this life experience that can watch the senses and their influences but be unaffected?"
I think this is exactly it. I think that if one were to become numb to pleasure and pain, then one would indeed be less conscious, and I agree that experience - all experience - is a gift that we should accept in fulness.
But in going beyond, we don't have to become less conscious, but rather more conscious. When we experience pain, we become so immersed in our suffering that we forget ourselves, and we loose awareness of all else that is happening around us. We identify with our pain, in quite a literal sense - whether the pain is physical, emotional, or whatever. We become our pain.
When we sit in meditation, it's easy to have wonderful sense of spaciousness, peace and calm. We can practice antar-mouna and expand our awareness beyond our normal limits quite easily. We can even gain the sense of being the observer with simple meditative techniques.
But when we move into normal life, we loose the awareness of expansion and freedom - and awareness of being the observer - to a large extent, and we turn our focus inwards again. When we are in pain, this inward-turning intensifies even more, and we become focussed on nothing but our pain.
Exactly the same happens with pleasure, but because it is, well, pleasant, we tend not to worry as much!
What we are striving for (well, me anyway - you can strive for anything you like ;-) is to be able to maintain this sense of being the observer in day-to-day life. Then, when pleasure or pain comes to us, we see it, we observe it, but we realise and understand that the pleasure or the pain is not us. It is not even happening TO us. It is just there as part of what is, and we are here, observing it happening.
In this sense, from our perspective of the observer, we are not less conscious, but more so. When we are embroiled in our pain or pleasure, we see and experience nothing else. As the observer, we see the fulness of the experience without loosing our sense of perspective, and without loosing our awareness of everything else.
It also frees us from the bonds of karma and from our samskaras, because even though these things play themselves out, we see them as events unfolding before us, and not as events battering and buffeting us through life.
These thoughts lead me on to some thoughts about modern yoga practice in the West...I feel a new post coming on!
Thanks for your comment Phil. I see what you mean about being immersed in our pain (or pleasure. I have noticed (due to meditation) that when i am in pain i become hard, i mean i feel hardness like an armour i suppose. I become smaller. I too aim to be a participant in life but without getting so involved and influenced by the slightest change or upset. What i find interesting about that (personally) is that i have become aware that at times i fool myself into thinking i am doing it...but when checked, i realise i am at a very surface level. In reference to your thoughts about modern yoga, i have a new book for our bookshop, Modern Postural Yoga by Mark Singleton. I don't know if you saw in Spectrum but it has caused a bit of a storm.
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