Who Am I?

Continuing our look into the Bhagavad Gita’s description of the 4 paths of yoga.

Now that we’ve seen something of raja yoga, the royal path of meditation, let’s look at jnana yoga, the path of wisdom. “Oh good, wisdom,” you think, “I’ve got some wisdom, that’s easier than finding time to meditate.” NAH! Sorry, wrong answer. While raja yoga focuses more on advanced meditative stages and techniques than the others, ALL the paths are understood to involve meditation as a necessary part of the practice of being a connected, grounded, spiritual human being. So be ready to plant your behind right back on that floor/cushion/chair, no matter what path calls to you.

Jnana yoga, though, uses the conscious mind to move toward the divine, rather than overcoming or moving through it as we seek to do in meditation.

With your mind intent on me, Arjuna, discipline yourself with the practice of yoga…Listen, and I will dispel all your doubts; you will come to know me fully and be united with me. I will give you both jnana [wisdom] and vijnana [knowledge and understanding].  

Chapter 7.1-2

The most basic question that jnanis ask is “Who am I?” Sounds simple, right? But just try to hold onto an answer for

very long and you realize that it’s like building a sandcastle with the tide rolling in. Maybe you start with relationships, something like, “I’m a mother/father.” Okay, what if you didn’t have children? There would still be something you intended to call “I”, right? So that is not “I”, at least not all of it. Moving merrily along to what you do, you might try, “I’m an architect/accountant/aerospace engineer.” What if you could no longer design, add, or build anything? Would there still be an “I”?

So these nouns, titles really, aren’t working; maybe we can try adjectives. “I am creative and passionate;” “I am careful and steady;” “I am loving and kind.” Great, this seems to be getting closer to the you-ness of who you are. But then, the same old question comes slinking in: are you still you when you are not these things? Even the most creative and passionate person has times when she’s kind of boring; even a very steady person might get a wild hair; and even someone who is loving and kind can be mean and hurtful on occasion. But that person is still “I”, right? So who is the “I”?

Alright, nouns are out, adjectives don’t work, and you’re getting the sinking suspicion that going for verbs and what you do is gonna get you exactly nowhere. Maybe the answer isn’t grammatical at all. Who am I, if I strip away everything that I do, every title that I can give myself, every characteristic that I can think of – who am I then?

Now we’re talkin’ some jnana yoga serious-level kickass thinking. The kind that’s going to twist your brain, not your body, into pretzel poses, that’s going to lead you deeper and deeper into questions of spiritual knowledge until the mind breaks through its own barriers and moves into true spiritual wisdom. And then goes beyond that wisdom into oneness with the divine.

 

Unwavering in devotion, the man or woman of wisdom surpasses all the others. To them I am the dearest beloved, and they are very dear to me. All those who follow the spiritual path are blessed. But the wise who are always established in union, for whom there is no higher goal than me, may be regarded as my very Self.

Chapter 7, 17-18

 

Quotations taken from The Bhagavad Gita, trans. Eknath Easwaran

Image found at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sand_castle,_Cannon_Beach.jpg

Trying to Contain the Wind

 

Last time we learned from Krishna that raja yoga’s use of meditation would lead us to “abiding joy beyond the senses” (6.21).

Sounds great. Let’s get right on it.

I’m sitting here, my back is straight, I’m meditating. Peace flows within me…OM…Did I remember to put wood filler on the buy list to fix that crack in the stairs? It’s right by the air filter. Oh yeah, it’s time for new filters. Wait, meditating, right. Peace flows within me…stillness…OM…OM…And I should get weed killer for the driveway, too…Okay…Peace flows within me…OM…

Sound familiar? If you think it’s just untrained Westerners who don’t learn meditation with (the equivalent of) their ABC’s, or just modern craziness that makes the mind flit about like a bee in a flower patch, think again. Arjuna had the same problem:

O Krishna, the stillness of divine union which you describe is beyond my comprehension. How can the mind, which is so restless, attain lasting peace? Krishna, the mind is restless, turbulent, powerful, violent; trying to control it is like trying to contain the wind.

Chapter 6.33-34

And now Krishna gives the super-secret reveal, the thing we’ve been waiting for, the thing that will tell us how to make the craziness inside our minds stop so that we can be good meditators now and forever more:

It is true that the mind is restless and difficult to control. But it can be conquered, Arjuna, through regular practice and detachment. Those who lack self-control will find it difficult to progress in meditation…

Right. Got that part. Here comes the good stuff!

…but those who are self-controlled, striving earnestly through the right means, will attain the goal.

Chapter 6.35-36

Yep, that’s what he said: just sit down and do it, and keep on doing it even if you don’t think you’re getting very far.

And keep remembering WHY you do it: it isn’t just to clear your head, or relieve stress. You might lower your blood pressure, find calmness in the storms of life, learn to be a better friend/spouse/parent as you learn to respond rather than reacting, and find out more about yourself. Meditation as the main element of raja yoga can help with all of these things, but here’s the thing to remember: none of these is the goal - union with the divine is.

Abiding joy comes to those who still the mind. Freeing themselves from the taint of self-will, with their consciousness unified, they become one with Brahman.

Chapter 6.28

And once that union is accomplished, the Atman, the Self, the divine part of you and me and every being that is always at one with Brahman, the Source of All, recognizes that it is not alone.

They see the Self in every creature and all creation in the Self...Seeing all life as my manifestation, they are never separated from me. They worship me in the hearts of all, and all their actions proceed from me. Wherever they may live, they abide in me.

Chapter 6.29-31

So the one established in the yoga of meditation comes to recognize his or her oneness with every living being. No more loneliness. No more sense of separation from other human beings, or from the divine. Instead, knowledge of the complete enveloping, now and always, in the arms of divine, human, mortal, immortal, eternal, unending Love, and knowledge of enveloping others in it as well.



Quotations taken from The Bhagavad Gita, trans. Eknath Easwaran

Image found at: http://teachmag.com/archives/4681

The Flame of a Lamp in a Windless Place

In previous posts I wrote about Arjuna’s despair (here) and what Krishna had to say about it (here). As powerful as all that is, it’s just the beginning of the Bhagavad Gita. Let’s take a look over the next several blog posts at one of the main themes that emerges from this song of the Lord: the paths of yoga.

For most of us, the word “yoga” might bring to mind a vision of people in spandex and pretzeling bodies. To say that this is a limited vision is a massive understatement. In the traditional understanding, there are 4 paths of yoga. One of those paths is raja yoga, which is often broken down into 8 limbs; one of those limbs is asana, or the physical postures at which most of us haphazardly throw the entire term “yoga”. So, let’s do the math:

       asansa (postures)     _*_    4 paths   =   a wee little bit

         8 limbs of raja           *       of yoga

Raja yoga is all about meditation as the highest path to the divine, and asana is meant to work out the kinks and quirks in the body so that it can dutifully sit quietly while the mind lets go and does its thing. Strength, flexibility and bodily ease are all well and good, but these were never meant to be the ends of any of the traditional forms of yoga, which are all about the spiritual goal of union with the divine.  

Whew, now that we’ve got THAT cleared up, let’s see what the Gita has to say about raja yoga.

Well, it gives practical guidance.

Select a clean spot, neither too high nor too low, and seat yourself firmly on a cloth…Then, once seated, strive to still your thoughts. Make your mind one-pointed in meditation, and your heart will be purified. Hold your body, head, and neck firmly in a straight line, and keep your eyes from wandering….

Chapter 6.11-14

We are used to seeing the image of the meditator sitting quite upright. This is to allow the free flow of energy along the area of the spinal column and helps the meditator keep from drifting…drifting….drifting away….And the practical advice isn't done there:

[T]hose who eat too much or eat too little, who sleep too much or sleep too little, will not succeed in meditation. Bu those who are temperate in eating and sleeping, work and recreation, will come to the end of sorrow through meditation. 

                                                            Chapter 6.16-17

Moderation is the key here, not asceticism. As the Buddha had discovered in his own quest, wearing the body out just makes it harder to let the body go, mentally; give it what it requires, care for it and treat it respectfully but without acceding to its cravings, and it will remain quiet as you work in, and then through, and finally outside of your mind to the place of full communion with the divine.

And that’s what it’s all about, after all:

When meditation is mastered, the mind is unwavering like the flame of a lamp in a windless place.…Having attained that abiding joy beyond the senses, revealed in the stilled mind, he never swerves from the eternal truth. He desires nothing, and cannot be shaken by the heaviest burden of sorrow.

Chapter 6.19, 21-22

Laying down our sorrows – honestly, isn’t that what we all long to do?

More on raja yoga next time.

Quotations from The Bhagavad Gita, trans Eknath Easwaran

Image found at http://www.elephantjournal.com/2012/03/truth-creativity-vision-chakras-5-and-6-julian-walker/meditator-2/

“Breathe into these bones and make them live.”

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I read these words from Ezekiel 37:9 today, and the first thing that came to my mind was the dancing skeletons of Halloween: grinning skulls, limbs akimbo, ghoulish humor a-flying. Not exactly what the prophet had in mind when he recorded this image some 2600 years ago, I think, but it did make me grin.

Still, I stayed with the words. As part of my spiritual practice, each day I pray with a reading from a sacred text, and these words called to me so strongly out of something I was reading that I decided to meditate upon them and see what opened up. This was not study; I was not trying to understand the meaning of Ezekiel’s text, but rather seeking to know what the divine was sending to me with these words.

What came before my mind's eye were the images of the scene just following the bombing in Boston: the chaos, people falling down, many hurt, some with lost limbs. As the phrase repeated like a mantra in my head and this image unfolded before my interior vision, I did not fully understand why these two were coming together, so I continued to sit, and repeat, and wait with an open heart.

Then my inner visual switched to a house near my own home, farther down the street, where I had recently seen a lot of cars parked in the yard over the course of multiple days, and many people wandering in and out all dressed nicely. Funeral clothes, I had realized; someone in that house had died. As I prayed Ezekiel’s prayer, I began to make the connection that I was being shown: it was not for the dead that I was praying, but for those left after the death. Not the person who died in my neighborhood, but those whose lives were forever changed by that death; not those who lost their lives in Boston, and not even just those who lost limbs, but those who lost something even more intrinsic: a certain kind of hope, a faith in themselves or the world or goodness.

I was praying for all who grieve, whether they grieve the loss of a loved one, a lost innocence, a happier worldview, the pain of others or their own brokenness. I was praying for the bones of kindness, charity and compassion which can become brittle and lifeless when we lose our vision of the beauty in the world and in each other.

And so I continue Ezekiel’s prayer tonight. Make these bones live, I pray, the bones of the ones left on the earth. The ones who can grieve themselves out of real life, or fear themselves out of it. The ones whose bones may clink as they continue walking but in whom the breath of full and conscious living is missing. Breathe into those who so very deeply need it; and with this inspiring, this in-breathing, bring to joyous life the bones of those whose grief has trapped them in a diminished field of existence. Breathe into these bones, and make them live.