Maya

 Wrapped in the senses, subtle and sweet,

Maya invites us to bow at her feet.

Yet the one who awakens from her display

Sees through the dream—and drifts away.

Garden of Dreams

 

When the mind refuses rest

until action answers thought,

that’s when you know—

you are ready.

Piece by piece,

a new look takes shape.

Not finished, not perfect—

but the beginning is powerful.

Morning Repot

​🌿 Morning Repot

When the sun emerges through cool winds, the mind whispers — stand, begin.

Plants call softly — replant, renew — while your hands tangle in the stubborn roots of the mother‑in‑law’s tongue.

You think you have a choice, but the decision has already taken root.

Separation happens quietly, soil loosened, old bonds shaken free.

And then the babies arrive on time, tiny lives clinging to promise, as the family grows in pieces, yet together.

Still, the mind whispers again and again — gather, cluster, nurture — until what was divided finds a new way to belong. 🌱

Gita 2026 Lesson 7 CHAPTER II: Samkhya Yoga v 54-72

 Gita 2026 Lesson 7

CHAPTER II: Samkhya Yoga v 54-72

It seems the impending end of civilization—the latest war of

Kuruksetra—is casting a dark shadow over class participation. I

understand! As poet Carl Sandberg said, “It’s a large morning to be

thoughtful of.” While the Gita is relevant even in hard times, you

may have to make new plans and pay more attention to the news.

Do what you have to do, but know we miss you. I’ll persevere until

I’m the only one left, but I do love working with multiple

perspectives. As I imagine Krishna saying in the Epilogue: “You

really are a miraculously complicated creation of mine, don’t you

know? I always intended humans to do more than scrabble for food

or run swords through each other.”

I’m doing decently after my heart ablation and radioactive

imaging, but I still notice fuzziness of mind and my typing is

ghastly. Those medicines really do linger, and degrade thinking. I

apologize for any blunders, and have tried to spot them with

proofreading.

Bindu

Dear Scott, 

Thank you so much for your thoughtful response and for sharing

your memories of Guru Nitya. Your insights always bring clarity

and reassurance, and I’m truly grateful for the way you illuminate

these teachings. I looked into the writings you mentioned — thank

you for pointing me to them.

Being a woman, the very first thing I explored was the few

recipes from Nitya’s kitchen… and I have to admit, I immediately

wanted to cook the wisdom pie! ��

Your explanation about goals and spiritual practice really

helped me. It softened something inside, and I appreciate how

gently you guide us away from selfpressure and toward simple,

honest living.

Thank you again for your kindness, wisdom, and steady

encouragement. It means a great deal. Thank you for everything.

The world of spirituality is filled with many faces—some

guiding with sincerity, others masking their intentions with the

appearance of holiness. Throughout history, and especially now in

an age shaped by social media and technology, it has become

increasingly easy for false gurus to craft images of purity and

authority. From a young age, I learned that not every person in a

position of guidance truly embodies wisdom or compassion. In my

childhood, teachers were considered gurus, deserving of

unquestioned respect. Yet I also witnessed how some misused that

respect, crossing boundaries and leaving young girls frightened,

silent, and unsure of whom to trust. As children, we carried not

only the burden of fear but also the worry that adults might not

believe us—or worse, blame us. These early experiences carved

sensitivity into my mind and taught me that external appearances

can never be the measure of true guidance.

My spiritual understanding deepened over time, especially

with the teachings of Krishna and the explanations of Nitya

Chaitanya Yati. Krishna’s guidance about desires reshaped my

relationship with emotions: he teaches that a wise person does not

fight desires but sees through them with clarity. Desires lose their

control when the mind discovers inner fulfillment. Then I learned

the concept of  verticalization  , a metaphor that opened an entirely

new dimension of understanding for me. Horizontal living, I

realized, is the path many of us walk unconsciously—moving from

job to money to status to attractions and disappointments, always

reacting to the world outside. It is a life governed by praise, blame,

success, and failure. In contrast, vertical living invites awareness

inward and upward. It asks us to ground ourselves in something

deeper, to develop the roots of consciousness that help us observe

rather than be carried away. This shift touched me deeply; it

became something I wanted to practice, not just admire from a

distance.

Nataraja Guru’s explanation of the obstacles to

contemplation—attachment, anxiety, and anger—resonated

strongly with me. For much of my life, anger was my natural

response when things did not go my way. It was not intentional; it

was simply the pattern I had learned to survive. But through

spiritual study, selfreflection, and guidance, something began to

shift. My reactions softened. Awareness stepped in where

emotional storms once took over. I began to understand that

detachment is not coldness; it is freedom. It is choosing clarity

over turbulence.

This inner shift became visible even in my professional life.

During a recent onetoone conversation with  manager, I found

myself unexpectedly calm, even guiding him to look at difficulties

with a broader perspective. Instead of absorbing stress, I reminded

him that not everything lies within our control and that

unnecessary worry only clouds the mind. That moment showed me

how much I had changed. The anger and heaviness I once carried

had given way to balance, and the teachings I had spent months

absorbing were quietly shaping the way I engage with the world.

My personal life, too, carries the imprint of my past. Growing

up, my parents worked hard, and as the youngest child with much

older siblings, I often lived in silence and solitude. Loneliness

became familiar, but instead of drowning in it, I built an inner

world to survive. I created imaginary drawers in my mind, each

holding emotions I could not express. Sometimes even today, I

open those drawers and see the younger version of myself—the

girl who felt alone, sensitive, and misunderstood. I hug her in my

imagination, offering the comfort she once needed. This practice,

though born from childhood necessity, has become a form of

healing. It reminds me that suffering does not disappear, but

awareness can transform it.

Life now feels like an ocean to me—vast, deep, and

everpresent. Emotions rise and fall like waves. Some arrive

suddenly, some pass quietly, but the ocean itself remains stable. I

have learned to return to that inner stillness more quickly than

before. The world hasn’t changed, but my relationship with it has. I

still feel deeply, still remember the pain of the past, but I no longer

drown in it. I observe, breathe, and return to balance.

In this journey, my mind has slowly become a student, humble and

curious. And the Absolute—the inner truth, the quiet awareness

beneath everything—has become my true guru. I no longer seek

guidance outside with the desperation I once had. Instead, I turn

inward, toward the clear space where wisdom arises naturally.

Spirituality, for me, is no longer an escape but a way of

understanding life more honestly. It is learning to live fully without

allowing desire, anger, or attachment to rule the mind.

This is the path I continue to walk: a journey from horizontal

living to vertical awareness, from emotional conditioning to

clarity, from fear to quiet inner strength.

Scott: Guru Nitya was also a fantastic real chef, whose food was

always delicious. He had the knack! It’s one of the best of all

siddhis.

Nitya also had a fine sense of humor, evident in those silly

recipes.

We should attribute the explanations of simple, honest living

to Narayana Guru, though I’m happy to be a bearer of his good

tidings, as processed by his successors, Nataraja Guru and Guru

Nitya. In my class preparation this morning, for Atmopadesa

Satakam verse 62, I’ve been reading lines like this from Guru

Nitya: “The Guru is here suggesting to us the most gentle pressure

in the search. At the same time it is not lukewarm. It is an urjita, an

out-and-out search, but that search is not directed to just one

isolated area. Life itself is the search. It goes on until we come to

what is called paramapadam, an absolute state.”

Yoga applies to respect for the teacher, too: the respect is

important, but it must be earned and honest. Caution and

skepticism have their places, even with gurus, but especially with

teachers of children. It should be made known that cruel people

insist on being obeyed and are not above invoking God to back

themselves up. It seems like there is a new wave of brutality

arising now, from self-styled keepers of the faith, in many different

faiths—a repeating tragedy of our species.

Instilling fear in children is a serious crime, in my estimation.

I’m happy to hear that you grew out of it into a healthy state of

clarity, Bindu. For many, the fear is not worked through, and it can

lead to offloading it on the next generation.

It’s wonderful to read of your deepening understanding. The

Gita teaches at many levels, but the best of all may be how it

inspires and amplifies a mature person’s awareness. For that

matter, it’s more of an instruction manual for teachers than for

students.

I love the way you are consoling and educating your younger

self. Therapy at its best. Isn’t it fascinating to recall how we took

things wrongly, and were hurt by things that weren’t meant to be

hurtful, when we were young? Only then can we truly let them go.

Gopica

This lesson opened a gateway for me, revealing what detachment

truly means. The five senses feed us distractions that entangle us,

pulling us from our purpose. Repeated readings are helping me

dive deeper.

Recently, I faced this in my family. My 83-year-old mother-in-law

suffered a preventable accident, requiring painful surgeries.

Thankfully, she's recovering faster than expected, not stuck in

trauma but coping well with medicines. I live far away in a city;

my husband rushed to her town. His elder brothers rely on us

financially, viewing us only as providers. They rarely inform or

connect with us except to ask for money. Her pension has been

misused by them, leading to shocking surprises. Now, with extra

costs beyond her insurance (which my husband pays), we're

stretched thin as it is taking a toll on our financial needs.

I urged my husband to share our financial reality and split excess

costs among the brothers. This required a tough conversation. I

noticed my own reactions: anxiety over expenses, anger at their

behavior, leading to instructions rather than dialogue. Hooks from

the situation threatened my grounding.

Lesson 7 arrived like a blessing, urging me to witness without

entering fear or anger. I saw distorted values in the family system

clearly, from a detached perspective. Key insights anchored me:

"It’s not difficult to be mindful; what’s difficult is to remember to

be mindful."

"We can still savor every bite of our food, it’s just that we don’t

gobble it as if we are starving or push it away without tasting it."

"When you are able to see the Absolute in all things, your attention

is drawn to a deeper level than sensory awareness."

"In order to be certain of our knowledge, we absolutely must

analyze the data flooding into the system from a detached

perspective. Only when all significant errors are deleted can our

reason be considered 'well founded.'"

"Be alive to what’s happening, and ponder it later. Learn to move

on from the feelings that catch hold of you in a static way, that

induce repetition compulsions."

"What being here now really means is that we should discard

regrets about the past and anxiety about the future, which can bog

down our consciousness with distracting and unpleasant sidetracks

that we can do nothing about."

These guided me to mindful discussions, inside and out. Like

Arjuna learning sthitaprajna-steady in joy and sorrow, I'm

attempting to practice equanimity amid the uncontrolled.

Thank you!

Scott: Gopica, I have always found that those who engage with the

Gita quickly find opportunities to apply its wisdom to their lives,

and it makes me very happy to hear. Sometimes it seems as if

Krishna himself is providing the problems to illustrate his

philosophy, but I know that’s anthropomorphic thinking, and I do

it just for fun. Almost always.  The point is, the Gita is deeply

relevant to real life issues, and you are already finding it valuable.

The more you practice intelligent detachment—getting “distance”

on a situation—the easier it becomes to apply it the next time. It

sounds like the accident is mending. I’m sure your thoughtful

participation was helpful.

Bailey

         Unitive Reasoning

       (March 4) I am very encouraged to read Bindu’s very positive

reaction to my comments on her “abyss” experience in Morocco,

as well as Scott’s warm praise for my response to #6.  The focus of

#7, is it fair to say, is action –the impulses which drive one, to act

the fears or reluctances that inhibit or qualify acting, and living on

in the wake of the consequences of action.

     My decision to go to India, in the Fall of 1971, was impelled by

my failure to move ahead with researching and writing my doctoral

dissertation.  My choice was to set it aside, not to abandon it; nor

did it abandon me. During the weeks in Ooty that Spring, as I

attended Nataraja Guru’s early morning coffee classes, joined in

the chanting before the morning meal, and plunged into reading

about his life and the framework of Vedanta my mind never

stopped poking and prodding at the questions which had driven my

research in France the previous year, and after Guru’s Samadhi in

March 1973 my mind had become clear –clear enough—that I

could resume that journey, finish that job.  It was my mother who

took the initiative, when I was back in France that August, of

contacting my professors at the University of Pennsylvania to get

me reinstated, bringing me back to the States, and promising me a

monthly stipend of $300 to enable me to devote all my energies to

the research and writing back in Paris.  I was able to turn Cristine’s

parents’ comfortable bourgeois apartment (Boulevard Pereire,

Paris XVIIe) into my office since they were off in Mauritius where

her father had been appointed France’s Ambassador.  

     And I was vastly encouraged and aided by Patrick Périn, who

had originally welcomed me to his native Charleville-Mezieres in

the Ardennes in the Fall of 1970, and gotten me started on the

Merovingians. He was then teaching in a private school while he

did his thesis; now, Fall 1973, his doctorate in hand and thesis in

press, he had moved to Paris, named curator of archaeological

collections (the first such since before WWII) at Musée

Carnavalet, the museum of the history of Paris in the historic

Marais quarter. As it happened he was just then organizing for that

Fall an international colloquium on archaeology and post-

Roman/early medieval Gaul-becoming-Francia (AD 300-600) at

Carnavalet which became my portal for my re-engaging, as well as

becoming a fundamental reference for the re-ignition, in France, of

the field itself.  Patrick had also begun to teach a seminar on

Archaeology and the Merovingians at the Sorbonne (within a

graduate school called l’Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, created

in the 1860’s, which no longer exists).   I signed up, finished my

dissertation on funerary archaeology and the evolution of

Christianity in Gaul, re-engaged with my career as a field

archaeologist by excavating with Patrick alongside an old church

(Eglise St. Pierre) atop Montmartre, springboarding from there to

other excavations in Burgundy and Languedoc which were to keep

me busy into the 1990s. Patrick gave me a desk in the archaeology

department of Musée Carnavalet, encouraged me to begin giving

papers at scholarly meetings (in French), publishing (in

French—English too) and I was a founding member of

the Association francaise et internationale d’archéologie

mérovingienne) which he created and over which he presided until

his retirement of Director of France’s National Archaeology

Museum (located in a former royal chateau at Saint-Germain-en-

Laye, west of Paris) in 2012.  When my academic career in

America at last took off with a one-year appointment at Loyola

University of Chicago 1988-89 I got him invited there to give his

first American lecture in English (I translated it); in 1992 he

headlined a symposium of Merovingian archaeology I organized at

the International Medieval Studies Conference at Kalamazoo,

Michigan) and was keynote speaker in 2006 at the Late Antique

conference at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana.  In

the years I travelled to France almost every summer (1988-2019)

excavating, doing research, staying connected... I would see him,

often stayed with him and his growing family, we would eat well,

drink, talk Merovingian archaeology late into the night–glass in

hand.  In the early 2020’s Patrick began having mobility issues –

by last Spring he walked with difficulty, was no longer able to

drive.  So, late May, Christine and I took the train from Paris out to

the charming little house alongside the Fontainebleau Forest where

he and wife Charlotte have been living, and spent a most pleasant

afternoon (was an Ardennes specialty with sausage, cabbage and

potato served?)

      Patrick Périn died, age 83, on February 6.  How full is my

heart!  As I wrote to Charlotte, he was, and always will remain, for

me, the best of friends.

     Living, as we all of us are living, in a world of relativity – or

should one better use plural: worlds of relativities?—which “we”

are always constructing/deconstructing, what to say here and now

about such a friendship?  Assign it to a category such as

ephemeral? – however agreeable, however nourishing personally,

however useful, however satisfying professionally—arising,

flourishing, ending as Time’s cycles continue, like waves washing

up on the beach, leaving one’s feet pressed into the damp sand as

they recede?  The thought arises: never again to take the train in

the Gare de Lyon, to walk from the station at Bois-le-Roi, to pass

through the gate as the dog barks his welcome... aha! one catches

one’s “mind” (I prefer the French term le mental to “ego”, so

redolent of Freudian theory) conjuring up emotion:  let us feel

sad!  Sad is the proper tribute to real friendship!  Well, I do feel

sad.  I wasn’t/am not ready for Patrick to die!  OK—that’s the

reality, you say?  The American poet Edna St Vincent Millay says

“I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the cold

ground./ So it is, so it has been.../I know. But I do not approve.

And I am not resigned.”  A poem that captured my fancy in youth,

returns at moments like these.  My mind darts back to the

telephone call in March 2004 with the news that our dear friends

Leonard and Tanya had died in an auto accident en route to a

dinner party we had just attended.  To the letter from the parents of

my graduate school roommate Charlie Funnell which was I think

forwarded to me in Ooty: Charlie had successfully defended his

thesis on the Brooklyn Bridge, was engaged to be married, entered

the hospital for routine surgery in connection with his

asthma...died.   On the verge of beginning the life he had worked

for, Charlie with his quirky sense of humor, suddenly gone???– oh

no, no, no!  That can’t be the reality! Here goes an inner voice:

What are you doing, bky?  Entertaining yourself, n’est-ce

pas?Oops!  Am I straying from the proper seriousness of the

Vedantic Path?  

      (March 9)  Thinking, over the past few days, about the long

(but now so quickly fled!) story of Patrick and me, professional

and spiritual paths, life and death another perspective suggests

itself.  The pursuit of Truth.  It seems to me now that I was drawn

to Patrick, from the very first evening we spent together in

Charleville-Mezieres, by his enthusiasm for research as the pursuit

of truth in the context of history, his confidence that it is there to

be found, that it matters, that it deserves to be pursued with a

critical spirit.  Such confidence has not been taken for granted in

intellectual circles in France (or the USA, or the Western world) in

our lifetimes; indeed, challenging the very notion that “objective”

truth might possibly exist in history has been a powerful

intellectual current in our time.  There is no “there” there!  It is all

stories!  Your story, my story, our story, their story –

“deconstructing” the stories became the exciting, fashionable

intellectual game to play from the 1970s.  Instead of seeking to

establish the “facts” like our unsophisticated positivist

predecessors, we construct plausible “scenarios” –prepared to

admit, perhaps with a shrug, that these are bound to reflect our

subjective preferences – personal/ cultural/collective.  A

contemporary re-invention of the relativism the Sophists were

teaching in the Athens of Socrates’ day.  In ours, an ability to

marshal “data” in the light of “theory” became the requirement for

career advancement in various quarters where the interpretation of

history and archaeology were concerned.

      The short phrase that arises spontaneously to characterize my

relationship to Patrick Périn is: my Master in Matters

Merovingian.  Since “master” is a term often used in writing about

the spiritual path, often as a synonym for “guru”, it is important not

to misuse it here.  Gilles Farcet (the “spiritual” author Christine

and I are currently reading together), distinguishes between an

authentic “master/guru” in the Vedanta tradition (such as Ramana

Maharshi, or Swami Prajnapad or his own master Arnaud

Desjardins) who can be said to “know”, and an “instructor”, who

has come far enough along the path to be able to help others not so

far along to progress toward an understanding of the Teaching

which he/she has not yet fully grasped.  Crucially, both the

“instructor” and the “aspirant/seeker” must be honest and

scrupulous, motivated by a sincere desire to understand truth

within the framework of their human limitations.  At the time I

first met him in Charleville-Mezieres, Patrick was an advanced

graduate student who had also himself excavated Merovingian

burials; I had read a little about them.  Their chronology, which

involved a quasi-statistical analysis of how the patterns of “grave-

goods” – the set of objects buried with a subject—evolved over

time was at the heart of his study (since its publication in 1982 it is

accepted as the standard reference).  He suggested I pursue a study

of the “funerary practices” as a whole, and planned an approach for

me: visiting museum artefact collections, attending conferences,

working in the best libraries.  I forged ahead on this path, gaining

recognition (my 1977 article in France’s leading medieval

archaeological journal remains pertinent) even as his career as an

archaeologist, a museum curator, and an adjunct professor at the

Sorbonne complexified and his national and international stature

grew.  But I was never, as he sometimes pointed out, his

student.  After our early collaborations our research trajectories

differed, as I became engaged in more “medieval” projects.  Most

years, though, up to his retirement in 2012, I would visit to resume

our ongoing conversation, updating myself on Matters

Merovingian. Sometimes I did a paper in the field, perhaps at a

conference he organized – the last one, in 2011, was held at

National Archaeology Museum he, at the pinnacle of his career,

directed...  

     (March 12)  So why devote all this attention here to Patrick

Périn and my relationship with him?  Because he was –and

continues to be—not a Master in the sense of the Spiritual Path

(our conversations never touched on “spiritual” matters though he

was well aware of why I went to India and what I did there), but in

the sense of Instructor (as Gilles Farcet defines this term) on the

Truth Path.  Truth as it can be found in the relative realm of

historical affairs.  From our very first contact and throughout I felt

in Patrick, and was inspired by, not only his conviction that

historical research is a worthwhile and rewarding, even joyful,

endeavor, and his generosity in accompanying me along that

path.  Above all he was a man of action.  His passing now is a

shock for which I wasn’t prepared, but he will remain alive for me,

I think, as long as I remain alive.  I am so grateful.

Scott: The Gita is through and through about action, but the focus

of the second half of chapter II is reason’s contribution to

wisdom—a truly subtle matter. Dialectical reasoning will also be

taught all along the way.

How profound to lose a dear friend like Patrick, and how

important to bring your connection fully to mind, as a final, though

not last, grand gesture. Yes, we feel sorrow with our whole mind,

not merely our ego, unless we are petty indeed. (The abstraction of

our ‘heart’ is also within the mind.) So yes, let us feel sad at the

passing of a dear one!

I recall being asked (in a Gita class at the Unitarian church,

long ago) by a young man whose mother had just died, and he

wanted to know if it was okay for him to feel sad about it. I assured

him that nothing in spiritual life precluded authentic feelings, and

if he was not sad it would compound the tragedy.

Why do religions and spiritual paths tell us we won’t feel

pain or sadness, if only we know God? It appeals on an ill-

considered level, I guess.

Thank you for the St Vincent Millay poem, which I do not

know.

Bailey, we are now in “the mortality zone.” It’s only natural

to be getting inklings of what that implies….

Of general appeal in your response, Bailey, is the old-

fashioned attraction to truth as something that can—must—be

uncovered. From my perspective, deconstruction is just another

way to dig through false constructs to unearth the kernel of high

value buried at the site. Humans tend to overexaggerate their

ideologies, like “deconstruction,” but we don’t have to. If one has

nothing left after deconstructing a theory, perhaps their idea of

truth is too limited. Does it exclude the shining void, the Absolute

principle, consciousness itself? Is it fair to consciously rule out

consciousness? I’d say not. It’s not fair.

Is it fair to always require data, as you imply? Up to a point,

sure. But many of the best things in life are not measurable or

perceptible. Let’s not leave them out. Subjectivity doesn’t help

with finding hidden artifacts, but it’s essential to our feelings.

This is a very large topic, Bailey, and I hope you’ll keep

kicking it around. Maybe our fellow travelers (if any) will

contribute thoughts of their own.

I appreciate Farcet’s distinguishing what I’d call layers of the

guru principle: fully-realized guru, instructor, and eager aspirant,

(why not add open-minded stumbling bumbler?), all of whom,

after the first category, as you so well express it, “must be honest

and scrupulous, motivated by a sincere desire to understand truth

within the framework of their human limitations.” Check out

Nitya’s parallel quote I clipped in for Bindu, where life itself is the

search.

I fear your preferred museums do not include dioramas of

Christians riding dinosaurs—why is that? You could probably get

to the Creation Museum in a matter of hours….

For someone who has made the excavation of funerary

practices a central theme of his career, isn’t it strange and awesome

to watch our friends leaving the planet, and meditate on—and yes,

lament—their temporariness? How even in a single lifetime,

human interests have changed so dramatically that we may feel

already forgotten, vestiges of the past.

We have a Fearless Leader who is desperately working to

affix his name to every building, as if what will be remembered of

him because of it has meaning. It’s a pathetic motivation, for sure:

a substitute for love in his life. As Robert Frost wrote, in Birches:

Earth’s the right place for love / I don’t know where it’s likely to

go better. I see lots of names on buildings, but they don’t bring the

person they represent back to life.

People we know live on in our hearts. The ones we only hear

about are something less. My great grandparents mean nothing to

me, beyond a name in a ledger. I surely mean nothing to them. Yet

meaning is what buoys me up in my life.

Beautiful how you conclude with Patrick’s meaning for you,

how profound he was, and remains.

In our class last Tuesday, I was lamenting that Nitya was no

longer with us, and I dearly wanted him around for this terrible

moment in history. (When Trump was “elected” by Elon Musk, I

briefly regressed to infancy and the feeling of “I want my

Mommy.” My relentlessly optimistic, take care of everything

mother.) Andy spoke valiantly that what he loved most was that

Nitya was still with us; he had never gone away. Our classmates

who only know him through his writings and our classes, must

have felt it less, but for those who knew him personally, it is a

major feature of our lives. He is still a powerful presence. Your

concluding words about Patrick, Bailey, echo our convictions, and

I’ll reprint them so you don’t have to check back:

Above all he was a man of action.  His passing now is a shock

for which I wasn’t prepared, but he will remain alive for me, I

think, as long as I remain alive.  I am so grateful.

Annex: Academia relies on ideas that are supposed to be grounded

in previous, widely-accepted or proven facts. This means original

academic thinking takes place in a very narrow range, and that’s

perfectly reasonable. What Nataraja Guru calls speculation is

original thinking with a wider purview.

Digging up an ancient site provides original material, which

is then fleshed out with speculation about its function. You must

have specialized in this, no?

My Heracles exegesis was also well-informed speculation

based on a few shards. It is not academically acceptable, since

there is almost no existing interpretation for me to base it on,

beyond a strictly literal one which has degenerated over the

centuries, going from Heracles being the most heroic and powerful

demigod to a mere thug. My interpretation being not only heroic

but spiritually oriented, it does not make sense in an academic

context. I did find a couple of borderline sources, but most of it

comes directly from my own contemplative penetration into the

symbolism of the action, guided by Dr. Mees’s mythic

9interpretations in his Revelation in the Wilderness.

Likewise, in the Gita, I have a lot of background, but to

assemble my commentary I did original thinking for every verse:

sitting with the accumulated material while wondering just what it

was intended to convey. I think you agree: the result is worthwhile,

but there are few facts. Interestingly though, while working on a

verse, very often supporting ideas would surface in articles that

came my way.

Non-fiction deals with specific facts and truths; fiction

presents generalized truths. The Gita is fiction that moves us, in

myriad ways.

My lengthy introduction to the Labors of Herakles ends with

Herakles as Buffoon, which in turn ends with:

Bestselling author of all time, Agatha Christie, in The Labors of

Hercules (NY: Dell, 1968, p. 9), ridicules the romantic

attraction to the classics that prevailed in the West not too long

ago. At the behest of a priggish academic type enamored of the

age-old romances, ace detective Hercule Poirot—himself

named after Hercules—is perusing the Greek myths and thinks:

Take this Hercules—this hero! Hero indeed? What was he

but a large muscular creature of low intelligence and criminal

tendencies!... This ancient Hercules probably suffered from

grand mal. No, Poirot shook his head, if that was the Greeks’

idea of a hero, then measured by modern standards it

certainly would not do. The whole classical pattern shocked

him. These gods and goddesses—they seemed to have as

many different aliases as a modern criminal. Indeed they

seemed to be definitely criminal types. Drink, debauchery,

incest, rape, loot, homicide and chicanery—enough to keep a

juge d’Instruction constantly busy. No decent family life. No

order, no method. Even in their crimes, no order or method!

“Hercules indeed!” said Hercule Poirot, rising to his feet,

disillusioned.

To a materialist, virtually all the wisdom of the ancients is

nothing more than tedious superstition and unscientific

speculation. But, as I have rediscovered in scrutinizing

Heracles, myths are like the Absolute itself: hiding in plain

sight, waiting patiently to be noticed for the treasures they safeguard. Feel free to take a look.

Gita 2026 Lesson 6 Chapter II, Samkhya Yoga, verses 39-53

 Gita 2026 Lesson 6

Chapter II, Samkhya Yoga, verses 39-53

Guru Nitya makes this point about unitive reasoning, in That

Alone:

What is the faculty with which you contemplate, or, as the

phenomenologists say, reflect? By the way, I agree with this

term because you are most often thinking with your known

tools of reasoning. You have to first suspend the mechanism of

reasoning with ordinary logic. Then you allow the given—what

is not conscious in deep sleep as well as what is conscious in

the wakeful—both to prevail and be juxtaposed. You are

therefore reflecting rather than manipulating.

The problem is one of getting over relativity. From the most

unknown to the most known, there are shades of ignorance or

shades of knowledge. Relative to something else you know this

well or less well. To give this up and adopt an absolutist

attitude is our main challenge.

Bindu

Thank you, Bailey, for your beautiful and searching reflection. I

am deeply touched that my experience in Morocco resonated with

you — and even more moved by how you described your own

“abyss” in the airport. What a powerful parallel. I can picture you

walking those long corridors, holding to the mantram while the

world hurried past, and that image will stay with me.

The mantram you mention — “I am not the body, I am not even

the mind” — is most closely associated with Ramana Maharshi,

who taught that our true identity is not the body or the mind, but

pure awareness — the Self. Each morning in meditation, I return

to Nirvana Shatakam by Adi Shankaracharya. Its verses remind me

of what we truly are, beyond all change and circumstance.

Your understanding of philosophy is much deeper than mine

academically. I cannot speak to it intellectually, only from

experience. For me, the Absolute is not something I can define —

only something I sometimes feel in moments of stillness,

surrender, or grace. I sense it quietly when the mind becomes calm.

I am still learning, still walking, still being taught by life itself. It is

beautiful how different journeys can lead to the same inner truth.

When I read these verses in the Bhagavad Gita, I saw myself in

what Krishna describes. Many people follow religion for rewards

— heaven, protection, pleasure, or power. Prayer can become a

kind of exchange: we give devotion hoping to get something in

return. From childhood, we are taught to pray for what we want

and warned that if we do wrong, God will punish us. While this

may guide behaviour, it can also create fear and anxiety.

Religion can slowly turn into a system: do everything correctly and

you will be rewarded; fail and you will suffer. Instead of peace, it

brings tension. I grew up in a somewhat superstitious environment

where people worried about “evil eyes” or bad luck, even while

surrounded by blessings.

I have a friend with two wonderful children who are doctors, yet

she constantly worries that something bad will happen. She cannot

enjoy what she has because fear is always present. She even

worries that other people’s jealousy might ruin her blessings, and

she often focuses on sad things as if carrying negative thoughts is

normal. I feel sad for her because she forgets the blessings she

already has.

Once I told her that if she fears both positive and negative energies

so much, maybe she should mentally neither take nor give. That

way, she would not feel caught in an imagined exchange of forces.

Only what she creates within herself would remain. Looking back,

I see that I was also trying to free myself from fear-based thinking.

I think I have partly freed myself from this reward-and-punishment

way of thinking, but not completely. I am more aware now when

fear or desire motivates me. Sometimes I still catch myself wanting

reassurance or certain outcomes. It feels like a gradual process —

learning to act without bargaining.

One line that has stayed with me is from Narayana Guru: “Ours is

to know and let know, not to argue and win.” I feel this teaching

connects deeply with what we are studying — to see the truth

without forcing it on ourselves or others. The world of concepts

and arguments can only go so far. Logical reasoning has its place,

but beyond that there is something that cannot be debated — it can

only be lived. I am not fully free from old patterns, but I am more

conscious of them. Maybe that awareness itself is the beginning of

unitive reason — acting without attachment, trusting without fear,

and slowly letting go.

Goal-orientation is definitely present in my spiritual life.

Sometimes I meditate because I want peace. Sometimes I study

because I want understanding. When I focus too much on the

result, I become impatient or disappointed if I don’t get what I

expected.

There have also been times when I did not expect anything, and

those were often the best experiences. For example, when I helped

someone without thinking about what I would gain, I felt natural

and present. When I did something simply because it felt right,

without worrying about success or failure, I felt peaceful. Not

having expectations helps me stay calm and steady. I think this is

what Krishna means by acting without attachment. When I just do

what needs to be done and let go of the outcome, I feel more

steady inside.

Overall, whatever negativities I encounter around me, I try to find

something positive in them with the help of the Absolute. I am not

arguing, just accepting what I know.

Love Bindu x

Scott: Guru Nitya, who spent time with Ramana Maharshi, early

on would lead us through chakra meditations grounded in the

Gayatri mantra, where at each chakra we chanted, along with the

Sanskrit, “I am not this body.” The result was amazingly intense,

mainly due to his radiant intensity, but it uncovered new ground

for us youngsters. Those session remain vivid, after over 50 years

now. I hadn’t thought of it relating to the Maharshi before, but it

makes sense.

I have collected all Nitya’s English writing about his

astounding time with Ramana Maharshi, and can send you the doc.

or you can access it on Nitya’s website: http://aranya.me/read.html

, under Longer Works.

Defining the Absolute is a contradiction, is it not? All

attempts to pin it down are certain to fall short, to be too little too

late. So there is no need to feel apologetic about not defining it,

even in a world where definitions are demanded willy-nilly. We’ll

be working to let go of such compulsions, so that our own journey

leads us to inner truth more than outer conformity.

The Gita will help you reinforce your independent thinking

and acting, Bindu, by helping you give up the need for contractual

demands. The universe is already in dynamic tension—we don’t

need to help it out, by bringing our ego into the game. At least,

where we’re going with this study. I’m happy you already

understand this, though it always benefits from practice. Fun

practice.

Speaking of mantras, Narayana Guru’s original “Ours is to

know and let know, not to argue and win,” is eternally germane.

Our egos have been taught to be winners, and so unwittingly

downgrade our companions, every time we defend ourselves. Ergo,

we should stop defending ourselves psychologically. Thank you

for reminding us of this key element of the philosophy here.

Bindu, you are very well prepared. Let’s see how much the

Gita’s wisdom supports and enlivens your path through this close

examination.

Goal-orientation is perfectly normal in horizontal activities.

Krishna’s ban is about imagining what our spiritual

accomplishments will be in the future, where we make a fool’s

paradise and try to squeeze ourselves into it. I haven’t explained

this well enough yet, I know. Goals are fine, but not in false

pretenses about what our spiritual practices will do for us. We’ll

find out as we go, and our guesses are impediments. We should be

already motivated enough to not need to goad ourselves with

visions of paradise. We are already in paradise, so let’s not push it

away so we can try to attain it. You already know all this, I’m only

agreeing with you.

Vivek

Exercise: The section starts off with a tremendous blast against the

convoluted reasoning of true believers in religion. It’s only logical

that Krishna begins by identifying ordinary, consensual reality and

moves toward his more enlightened position. What kinds of

scriptural or doctrinal bondage have you encountered, and what

led you to become dissatisfied with it? To what extent have you

extricated yourself from its clutches?

I did not grow up in a religious household and was not

‘indoctrinated’ in Gods and the belief systems around them.

Rituals were also light...a puja once a year on Diwali, or the

ceremonies at a death in the family was the extent of it. I read the

Mahabharat and the Ramayana but more as literature than scripture

If anything, my task may be to develop more faith (shraddha).

There is a core of clear reasoning in Vedanta that resonates with

my intellectual side, and I can make good progress with. However,

I am also told reason can only take you so far. The final leap to

realization is intuitive and can only be made by a mind that is

ready. What is not entirely clear to me is the nature and extent of

shraddha or bhakti you need to have a ready mind

Bear with me as I explore the references to faith I have

encountered in the discussions of a ‘ready mind’. I lay these out to

invite input and guidance

The first reference to a ready mind is a mind equipped with the

four qualifications (sadhana chatushtaya), where one of the four

(shutt sampatti) specifically refers to shraddha in the word of the

guru and the scriptures (meaning Upanishads, not the ritualistic

karma kandas). If this is the faith we need to begin any area of

study...like we would need faith in the textbook and the Professor

even for a course in physics...then I get that...that I can do

A second reference is to a mind that has been purified (chitta

shuddhi) by karma yoga, doing one’s duty without desire and

attachment to outcomes. How is one to do that? The discussions I

have encountered here, like in Shankaracharya’s Gita Bhashya

point to performing action as a prayer (isvar arpan) and receiving

results as a gift (isvar prasad). This is a stronger definition of faith

than in shraddha. It requires one to believe in God

A third reference is to a mind that is still (chitta ekagrata). The

recommended paths are Raj yoga or Bhakti, definitely a strong

dose of faith for the path of Bhakti

Finally, we are also asked to believe in the non-human (alaukik)

origin of the Vedas, including the Upanishads. That too takes faith

So, Scott, the question for me is not ‘how do I remove my religious

indoctrination’. It is:

 What exactly is the nature of the faith we need for Gyan (self

knowledge) to take effect, for realization?

 How do we develop it? ...I know how to reason and grow my

understanding; I don’t know how to grow my faith!

Suggestions?

Another exercise: We can take this straight from the book (Path to

the Guru), on page 259: “With a little reflection, many examples

should come to mind of how we lose the flow by being drawn away

into anticipating a specific result of our action. This is a very good

exercise for contemplation.” Examine how goal-orientation may

be present in your spiritual attitude and find examples where not

having expectations served you especially well.

In a mundane or secular context, any work where we are fortunate

enough to get focused on the process and lose ourselves in doing it,

is one where we experience flow. It is more likely to lead to

excellence...be it developing and analyzing options, writing a

document etc.

Focusing unduly on the outcome we want or letting time pressure

create anxiety kills the flow in these same tasks. It makes the work

less pleasurable and likely reduces quality

In meditation, anticipating the nature and result of a meditation

interferes with the actual experience. When we do it without

expectations, simply go with the process, it seems to work better.

In spiritual study, the things that have become routine habits have

worked well. For example, weekend classes I participate in. Or a

daily habit of reading a text or listening to its lecture and writing

my notes on it. There is no fuss about these, no overthinking of

‘why’ as these activities have stabilized. When it is simply a

routine you think less of the outcome and perform the action

My daily practice, including meditation and ‘witnessing thoughts’

is not yet routinized enough, skilled enough, that I am in the flow.

That introduces thoughts of what and why. Stabilizing on a couple

of daily routines so they become natural habits, the process flows

easily, may make them better. Perhaps that is part of what Krishna

means when he says, ‘yoga is skill in action’!

Scott: First off, Vivek, you already have plenty of sraddha, but you

will become more familiar with it towards the end of the study.

You can always peek at chapter XVII if you’d like to get a head

start.

Yes, you’re right—not all things called scripture or authentic

are true. Nor are all those called gurus. It’s essential to believe in

what you’re studying, and also to only accept what makes good

sense to you. Caution is legitimate, even mandatory. A favorite

quote from Love and Blessings I never get tired of, and you’ve

likely read, is when Nitya finally accepted Nataraja Guru as his

guru:

Nataraja Guru had no inside or outside. His anger, humor,

and compassion all manifested spontaneously. He was never

apologetic or regretful. He certainly didn’t believe in the

conventional Christian philosophy of “do good, be good,” nor

in entertaining people with pleasantries and well-mannered

behavior. On the other hand, he welcomed encounters that

opened up areas of vital interest in a philosophical point or

problem, as in the case of Socrates and his group of young

followers like Plato.

The next day when he was sitting musing, I asked him,

“Guruji, what is our relationship?” He said, “In the context of

wisdom teaching I am your guru, and you are my disciple. In

social situations you are you, and I am I, two free individuals

who are not obliged to each other. When I teach, you should

listen and give full attention. Don’t accept until you understand.

If you don’t immediately understand, you should have the

patience to wait. There is no question of obedience, because my

own maxims are ‘Obey not’ and ‘Command not.’ Instead,

understand and accept.” That was the lifelong contract I

maintained during the twenty-one years of our personal

relationship and another twenty-six years of my relating to him

as the guiding spirit of my life. (150)

Here, we’re treating the Gita as our Guru, or Krishna if you prefer.

I’m only an intermediary.

Your questions are excellent, Vivek, but I would suggest you

keep them as questions, and over the course of your life you can

provide your own answers. Any deity looking on would much

prefer your original thinking to dutiful kowtowing. Duty is social

conditioning slipped into their mouths for emphasis, and while it

has some validity, when you are interested in ultimate truth, you

have to spot the motivations for it being there. The Gurukula

version I go by is as open as possible, and you are free to point out

unconscious limitations I or others put on it. They are not

intentional.

That said, there is a profound sense of belonging and

comprehension that is being drawn out of every serious student by

the Gita, employing the narrative fiction of an all-knowing

Krishna.

Have you read Nitya’s second appendix in Love and

Blessings, where he addresses the principle of of the Guru? In

essence, “The Guru is none other than this Self which resides in

the heart of all.” The Gita is in total accord: X.20 reads “I am the

soul seated in the heart of all beings; and I am the beginning and

the middle and even the end of beings.” It’s repeated more broadly

in chapter XV. Krishna carefully distinguishes himself from the

gods, in a number of places; he is widely understood to represent

Brahman, the Absolute, even though the urge to deify him is very

strong. I haven’t found it necessary. I suppose I’m a “true believer”

but not in any anthropomorphic sense. You are free to worship any

personification you like, but I will always keep in mind the

undefinable principle behind it.

Your conclusions, Vivek, are well thought out, and make me

wonder why I am teaching to you at all. I’ll just add that the flow

of routine is a double-edged sword. It’s good to get you back to

paying attention on a regular basis, but those thoughts of what and

why are essential parts of meditation too. Stilling the mind is good,

but it’s also valuable to satisfy its curiosity. When your mind is

satisfied in that active way, you will naturally sink into a more

quiet state.

Rest assured, everything in this study will support your

excellence in meditation as well as your skill in action.

R

It feels like I am already in the thick of a battle, fighting different

emotional pulls, juggling responsibilities, and getting carried away

in the process.

The panoramic view from a middle ground seems elusive;

momentary clarity in the midst of this flux is numbed by the

punishing schedule of everyday tasks. Glimpses of the night sky

with its countless stars offer a fleeting sense of balance. The

seemingly simple effort involved in just looking up at the

sky—which is always above us—somehow feels daunting.

I began reading the commentary on verses 39–53 very late, but the

suggested exercise resonated with me. I started thinking about how

goal-oriented, result-based thinking and action have played out in

my life. I hope to catch up and share my reflections in the

upcoming weeks.

Scott: Ram, I’m glad you are catching on to the relevance of this

amazing scripture. We look forward to hearing more about your

reflections in the upcoming weeks. Coincidentally, I included some

words about reflection from my Guru, above these responses, in

case you want to reflect more on your reflections.

Gopica

My relections and experiences:

During my younger days, I strongly believed that faithfully

following certain rituals would automatically yield the desired

results. I followed them blindly, as I had been taught that this was

the right path. However, when outcomes did not unfold as

expected, I was told it was my fate. Something predetermined that

I had to endure, the result of karma that could not be escaped.

For many years, I accepted this belief unquestioningly. Gradually,

this outlook turned into self-pity. I began to see myself as someone

destined to suffer circumstances beyond my control.

Through my later learning in psychology, I began to shift. I started

giving myself permission; permission to feel, to question, and

eventually to love myself. Slowly, self-pity transformed into self-

compassion.

Verses 39–53 deeply resonated with this transition. They

emphasize acting without attachment to results, focusing on the

action itself rather than being bound by whether the goal is

achieved or not. This insight helped me recognize that my

suffering was not merely due to outcomes, but due to my

attachment to them.

When I reflected on the times I felt intense regret or even

questioned my worth, I realized most of those moments occurred

during my school and college years. I had tied my identity to

objectives — grades, recognition, validation. When those

expectations were unmet, I concluded that I was not worthy.

Yet, life gradually expanded my awareness. New learning brought

new people, new resources, and new experiences. Each experience

reshaped my understanding of myself.

I now recognize a shift from what I call a “creature mindset” one

driven by fear, conditioning, and survival to a more conscious

“human desire mindset.” In this space, desires arise, goals are

formed, they rise and fall, but they do not define my existence.

The verses offer me a powerful metaphor of rebirth, not in a literal

sense alone, but as repeated rebirths of desires, identities, and

intentions within a single lifetime. Desires emerge, dissolve, and

re-emerge in new forms.

However, I also see the subtle trap: the vicious cycle of ego

attachment. The practice, therefore, is to remain in the observer

mode i.e. to stay aware within the field of experience without

becoming entangled in it. To act, to desire, to strive; yet not to be

consumed by success or failure.

This is still a realization unfolding within me. It is not complete. It

requires practice , the discipline of awareness and the humility to

transcend the ego again and again.

Scott: Gopica, your response is an excellent epitome of how the

well-meaning instruction we get early in life actually fails us.

Hems us in. Your grasp of the intention here is bound to be a

liberating influence. Let’s see what new insights it brings.

Bringing the ego into dynamic balance is a particularly

sensitive aspect of yoga, and an ever-active engagement. Belief

systems tend to go to extremes of all or nothing, yet occupying the

middle ground is essential to us for healthy interaction. Guru Nitya

taught us to treat the ego as a place-marker, meaning we didn’t

need to crow about ourselves or combat other people’s egos. It

only indicates our place in the flow. The Gita is an excellent tool

for normalizing our egos, where we are all in this together.

Bailey

Scott suggests two approaches to reflection: 1) “scriptural and

doctrinal bondage” – has one extricated oneself from their toils? 2)

the mischievous effects of goal-orientation on one’s the pursuit of

the “spiritual path.”  

 

     The first approach converges with my current rereading

of Arnaud Desjardins (AD henceforth) En Relisant les

Evangiles (1990).  A young and enterprising producer for French

television,  AD set off for India in the mid-1950s to explore

Eastern spirituality, both from a professional standpoint (Ashrams,

his first documentary, introduced Ramana Maharshi, Ramdas, Ma

Anandamayi among others to the French public; followed by a film

about Tibetan masters made possible by the support of the young

and then-relatively little-known Dalai Lama) and for the pursuit of

his own spiritual path, which had started in 1948 with the teachings

of Gurdjieff in Paris.  He made many trips East in the late ‘50s and

‘60s, meeting Sufi masters in Afghanistan and Zen masters in

Japan as well as Hindu and Buddhist scholars, teachers and gurus

in India.  AD was driven –sometimes he uses the word

tormented—by religious doubts arising from his own background

as a scion of one of the leading Protestant families of France.  The

notion of scriptural and doctrinal bondage applies very precisely to

the young AD as he struggled against self-assured dogmatic

certitudes in his church.  Doubts assailed him. Christ preached

loving your neighbors, but Christians seemed always to be fighting

among themselves about who had the right interpretation of

scriptures –and as for non-Christians? They were all wrong!  AD’s

own journey toward discovering the universal existential spiritual

dimensions missing amidst all this sound, fury and intolerant

commandments began in a Cistercian monastery (he did not then

know that across the Atlantic a young Cistercian monk, Thomas

Merton. still very little known, was struggling with

similar  questions, and was also beginning to explore Eastern

traditions). So the Roman Catholics, the traditional hostile “other”

church within French Christianity, had something vital to offer this

tormented Protestant!  But the best of these fellow spiritual seekers

were also themselves struggling against the doctrinal bondages

(and boundary guardians) of their own church.  Lamenting the lack

of true Christian saints in our own time (you have to reach back

centuries to find a Francis of Assisi), some of them, too, were

looking Eastwards.   At the same time our young TV professional

was increasingly aware that for most people In the secularist

circles in which he moved Christianity of any kind had lost all

appeal, all serious interest –it was “old hat” at best, unscientific,

left-over superstition, likely to be the source of many individual

psychological sufferings deriving from its hypocrisies, as well as

from childhood traumas due at least partly to its rigid, my-way-or-

the-highway teachings.

     One day in 1959 AD, well along in his filming project in India,

acting on an impulse, travelled hundreds of miles to a small,

unfamous ashram in Bengal of which he had heard.  “What do you

want?”, asked Swami Prajnanpad, a master in the Vedanta tradition

who was also, like Nataraja Guru, deeply educated in Western

science.  Their  guru-disciple relationship over the next fifteen

years, nourished by AD’s frequent sojourns in the ashram even as

his professional TV career continued to flourish, would culminate

in Swami Prajnanpad visiting France near the end of his life and

blessing AD’s project of establishing a spiritual center there  to

continue his Vedantic line of teaching.  AD retired from the TV

world and devoted the rest of his life to this teaching (he died in

2011) and to encouraging dialogue with other authentic spiritual

traditions. Today that center is located at Hauteville, near Valence

– and there is an offshoot in rural Quebec.

     En Relisant les Evangiles is addressed particularly to those

brought up in a Christian tradition, like himself (and like me), who

fell away from it, or turned sharply away from it, repudiated it on

the grounds of “scriptural and doctrinal bondage” and other

sins.  The writing of it evolved, AD tells us, from countless

exchanges with many men and women who came to him seeking

spiritual guidance, help with the suffering in their lives.  Not

resolute materialists –such would not bother to come—these

troubled seekers of truth had heard that Eastern traditions offer an

undogmatic path to salvation (or at any rate, away from

suffering).  At the time of the book cited above, AD had already

published a dozen others carefully expounding in French the

Vedantic teachings of Swami Prajnanpad.  This master had always

carefully distinguished his teachings from religion (like Nataraja

Guru, who I heard say “Don’t mix me up with religion.”)  But, AD

discovered as he advanced along the spiritual path that for him had

begun in childhood with French Protestantism, these teachings are

perfectly compatible with authentic religion, properly

understood (a qualifier I often heard from Nataraja

Guru).  Rereading the Gospels (that’s the literal translation of the

French title of his book) in the light of Swami Prajnanpad’s

teaching AD found that the adults who had taught him religion as a

child –and after—were (and still are) fundamentally misreading the

Jesus of Nazareth who can be glimpsed in and behind the lines

preserved in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and

John.  That Jesus is to be properly seen as a Master offering –like

Gautama Buddha or Sankaracharya- a Way of self-

transformation, not a set of Rules one had better follow (Or

Else!), not a set of beliefs to embrace and affirm (Or Else!). One

example from a passage just read:  those famous Ten

Commandments, those Thou Shalt Not Commit this ‘n that

(murder, adultery etc.).  AD goes back to the original linguistic

formulation: these are not imperatives set in present time (i.e.

“commandments”) as they appear in English or French

translations: these refer, grammatically,  to a future time/space

when the transformed being will be freed from the bondage of

cause-and-effect, action-reaction, all the endless tricks of

Ego.  They are not, in fact, “commandments” to be obeyed (in

reality most often to be ignored ignored or broken):  they sketch

the truly liberated person. The Jesus of the Gospels, as AD reads

him in this book, uses stories and parables to lead those who

choose to follow him, who take up his burden, who embrace the

hard work that goes with becoming aware of how Ego holds us all

in bondage, to point us along the way that each must follow for

him/her/self.  Toward the goal of liberation in this life, not beyond

it.

     There is a strong tendency identifiable in Christianity from the

earliest times, AD notes, to insist on the unique rightness of

MY/OUR Christianity.  Yes, Buddhist compassion is wonderful,

the Hindus have such great myths, those Zen koans, man they

make you think, but in the end Jesus came to save us sinners and

without that what do you got?  You gotta hold onto it!  Once he

had a long conversation with a very liberal, very well-educated

Catholic, AD tells, which ended with the guy proclaiming: “I have

MY Christianity and no one is going to take it from me!”  Right.

Think about that one! My Christianity. Ego will cling—shall we

call that a law of (human) nature? (Do horses, do elephants, do

spiders cling to an ego-equivalent? Forget I asked!)

      Like the young Arnaud Desjardins I came to India conflicted

about the Christianity I had grown up with.  I had not, like many

contemporaries, rejected it, but I did not practice or affirm a

Christian identity.  The role of Christians, and organized churches,

in so many historical horrors deeply troubled me (it still does).  But

perhaps there was a real baby in that dirty bathwater?  Travelling

from Ooty to Madras Christine and I stopped to visit Shantivanam,

where the English Benedictine Fr. Bede Griffiths was continuing

the work begun by two French priests in creating a Christian

ashram, with a liturgy incorporating Upanishadic traditions. Fr.

Bede himself radiated the joy of a saintly man.  (Later I read the

story of his own spiritual journey as an unreligious boy in England

who found his way to joy in the monastic life). Returning to

Varkala we stayed two days at Kurushamala, a Cistercian

monastery in Kerala, which Fr Bede had helped to found,

dedicated to the same principles of exploring the connections

between  Christian teachings and practices as lived in community

in rapport with Upanishadic understanding.  By the time of our

returnto France in 1974 these experiences, along with the teachings

of Nataraja Guru, had prepared me to rediscover my own Christian

traditions.  This happened one Sunday in the early 1980s, when

Kitch, who would become my second wife (Christine and I had

separated and divorcedat this point) persuaded me to accompany

her to the American Cathedral in Paris.  I felt right at home in the

liturgy that had accompanied my teenage years when I attended a

school in Honolulu run under the auspices of the Episcopal

church.   I have found nourishment in the Episcopal church ever

since— the scriptures we read in our services, including the

parables of Jesus of Nazarath that AD discusses in his book, are

not for me constraining, commanded beliefs, but challenges to aid

spiritual reflection.  Have I attained a “neutral attitude”, as verse

52 suggests?  That would be saying too much!  Maybe I can say

I’m working on it.  “Contrary Injunctions” (verse 53) don’t

disillusion – hopefully they stimulate reflection.

 

     I do confess to an antipathy to fundamentalism, whether

Christian, Islamic, Jewish or other. The ideological bondage which

much concerns me today, however, comes from the anti-religious

side, whose proponents proclaim their faith in “scientific

materialism” or just “Science”.   “Physics”  without

“metaphysics”, as discussed in my response to the previous

lesson.  Another time for that one.

 

     As for the mischievous effects of goal-orientation on one’s the

pursuit of the “spiritual path”: that’s too much to tackle

here.  “Acting without concern for benefits...”  (verses 44-47),

“Transcending birth bondage, renouncing benefit interest (verse

51)—better give all that more thought.

Scott: It’s so fun for me, Bailey, to be a student in your lecture

series. I skipped almost all of college, so now in my dotage I can

feel the thrill of a terrific teacher at work as I sit receptively in my

seat. It’s much more my true nature than to be a public speaker.

Thank you for the privilege.

Speaking of Ramana Maharshi, here’s Nitya’s compiled

writing on him: http://aranya.me/read.html , under Longer Works.

Quite extraordinary.

Though you’ve likely moved on already, the Oliver Sacks

quote I added to the new lesson 6 should appeal to you.

I love that the reading of the “Commandments” in the

original formulation is a description of a wise person, rather than

rules to follow. We can see how the mental orientation of the

unenlightened interpreters through history has denigrated the intent

so thoroughly. I have been applying that to all religions, and am

seeing it already with Narayana Guru’s revaluations. They are

rapidly being converted to ordinary Hinduism, and the most

important—the universal—aspects left out. It’s easier to treat it as

more of the same, when it isn’t at all. I think of the Buddha, none

of whose words reliably were recorded—it’s all after the fact,

ranging from brilliant to ho hum, sure, but he isn’t really there. It's

all aftermath. The point being, we can draw inspiration from the

ideas, but we have to revivify them in ourselves. It isn’t enough to

say I’m a Buddhist, or I’m a Christian, or I’m something else. I’m

a non-believer, for Christ’s sake. Just being alive is all the

definition we need.

That’s right: fundamentalist atheists proclaim (to

paraphrase): “I don’t believe in metaphysics!” Yet belief itself is

metaphysical. It’s a self-defeating proposition. They might as well

say they don’t believe in ideation.

I think I’m still dull-minded from the anesthesia, so please

forgive me. Fortunately, you have written about this very well,Bailey. I’m all ears, and a few neurons.

Lesson 5 – Chapter 2, Samkhya Yoga: Verses 17-38

 Lesson 5 – Chapter 2, Samkhya Yoga: Verses 17-38

I feel as if I’m taking the class and you are all my teachers. I

don’t have to offer corrections, I can sit back, relax and enjoy the

ride. It’s a fantastic new role for me.

Bailey wrote a major appreciation of Bindu’s last

response—don’t miss it. Speaking of staring into the abyss, I added

my very different near-plunge, still vivid to me 33 years later, at

the very bottom of the document.

I am working on a gender-neutral translation of the Gita, and

changing a few of Nataraja Guru’s word selections in the process.

It reads well. You can find it on the Gita page of the website.

Prior to sending this Lesson back to you, I found this, in the

Preface to Gregory Bateson’s 1971 Steps to an Ecology of Mind:

For a man to change his basic, perception-determining

beliefs—what Bateson calls his epistemological premises—he

must first become aware that reality is not necessarily as he

believes it to be. This is not an easy or comfortable thing to

learn, and most men in history have probably been able to

avoid thinking about it.

And I am not convinced that the unexamined life is never

worth leading. But sometimes the dissonance between reality

and false beliefs reaches a point when it becomes impossible to

avoid the awareness that the world no longer makes sense.

Only then is it possible for the mind to consider radically

different ideas and perceptions.

The universe works in mysterious ways!

Bindu

Life feels very full at the moment—almost like running a

marathon, with the ultimate destination being a return to the

Absolute. For me, each week feels like a MondaytoFriday

marathon, balancing work and home responsibilities while

adapting to constant changes and new projects. After my holiday, I

came down with the flu and had to miss the recent office gathering.

I felt it was better not to risk passing it on to others. I am also

trying to make space for these classes, as they genuinely help clear

my thoughts, and I feel noticeably calmer than before.

In today’s world, money gives us endless choices, and so

much of what happens is influenced by financial power. At times,

even spirituality feels commercialised, with God being

presented—or even “sold”—through money. In this modern,

AIdriven age, many people shape the idea of the Absolute to fit

their comfort or beliefs.

With this in mind, I wanted to share my reflections

on Bhagavad Gita, Chapter II (verses 17–38).

The Absolute can feel difficult to grasp in our present-day

context. We live in a world that trusts what can be seen, measured,

and directly experienced. Most of the time, I think in relative

terms—defining myself by my body, my roles, my work, my

relationships, and my successes and failures. From that

perspective, loss feels final, death feels frightening, and suffering

becomes deeply personal.

These verses gently encourage us to look deeper. They do not

reject everyday life; instead, they remind us that there is something

within us that never changes. The Absolute is described as

everpresent and untouched by birth, death, or destruction. When I

reflect on this, I sense it as a quiet awareness within me—the part

that watches thoughts, emotions, and events without being altered

by them.

For me, the Absolute feels like an imaginary

friend—someone I can share everything with, even my anger.

Sometimes I shout, sometimes I laugh, knowing that whatever I

express is received without judgment. In this way, the Absolute

becomes my stress reliever, my Guru, and my soulmate. When I

share heavy emotions with God, I feel lighter and more at peace.

Relative thinking is essential for daily life—for working, caring for

others, and making decisions. But when we rely only on relative

thinking, it can lead to fear, grief, and confusion. Absolute thinking

brings balance. It does not eliminate pain, but it helps me see it

from a wider perspective so that it does not overwhelm my entire

life.

In verse 31, dharma is presented not as a rigid rule but as

something deeply connected to one’s nature. Sri Aurobindo

describes dharma as the law of one’s being, which resonates

strongly with me. What is right is not identical for everyone—it

depends on who we are, what we can do, and the situation we face.

Nitya explains dharma as action that does not create inner

conflict—when our inner truth aligns with our outward actions.

This shows that dharma is less about strict morality and more

about acting with honesty and clarity, free from fear and ego.

In Arjuna’s case, refusing to fight may look peaceful, but it

represents avoidance—turning away from his responsibility and

true nature. Krishna is not promoting violence; he is teaching that

when we act according to our dharma, without attachment to

outcomes, we are freed from guilt, fear, and confusion.

I relate this to an experience at work. During a salary

challenge, four of us were performing the same role but were

placed on different grades. Two colleagues received higher pay

because of their grade, despite identical responsibilities. When I

raised the issue, I was offered a higher grade—equal to my

manager’s—based on performance. I declined the offer because it

did not feel right. It would have been unfair to a colleague who

remained on the lower grade, and it could have created discomfort

for my manager. I chose not to pursue the challenge further, and I

have no regrets. I believe that what is truly meant for me cannot be

taken away—especially my values and integrity. Acting according

to my dharma brought peace of mind, even as I explore new

opportunities. I am not running away from what affects me; I am

taking action in a way that feels aligned with who I am.

For me, dharma means staying true to myself, even when it is

uncomfortable. It means not abandoning what I know is right out

of fear, loss, or uncertainty. This chapter encourages me to move

from asking, “What will happen if I act?” to asking, “Am I acting

in accordance with what I know within?”

The classic Vedantic truth, “I am not the body. I am not even the

mind,” feels deeply connected to this understanding of the

Absolute.

Scott: A full life is a great blessing, Bindu, so you are most

fortunate. We just have to be careful not to get too caught up in the

demands our employers are happy to make on us. Bailey has

written about how far it is being taken—we may become a race of

machine/human hybrids. Personally, it doesn’t appeal to me. I’m

content to remain behind as an “all-meat” person, to quote Oz

author L. Frank Baum.

I particularly appreciate this sentence: “Krishna is not

promoting violence; he is teaching that when we act according to

our dharma, without attachment to outcomes, we are freed from

guilt, fear, and confusion.” Your summation of dharma also hits

the mark. You are well prepared for the Gita’s leap, which starts in

the next lesson.

Vivek

Scott, these are two excellent questions to help us absorb the text

and crystallize its personal implications. Great way to start moving

from information to transformation!

Exercise 1

Words like ‘the Absolute’ are very problematic for modern-day

humans, and this section distinguishes absolute and relative

thinking. Reflect on what their differences mean to you, and what

role they have in your life, if any.

The Gita, and Vedanta’s conception of the absolute is transcendent

as well as immanent

This leads to a remarkable implication...that the absolute is not

separate from the relative. It is in and through the relative, it

pervades the relative. And that absolute is you

The first line of verse 16 said Asat (the relative) never exists, and

the Sat (the absolute) never ceases to exist. The second line said

that knowing this, the wise see Brahman everywhere, implying one

can rise above the pairs of opposites of the relative world to see the

absolute behind them

Verse 17 makes this more explicit by saying that the

indestructible...i.e. the absolute pervades ‘all this’, i.e. the relative

world we experience (yena sarvam idaṁ tatam)

This links the ‘relative’ intimately to the ‘absolute’. There is no

change without an unchanging context. There is no relative without

an absolute. There is no pole without its opposite and there is no

opposing pair of polarities without an underlying unity in the

absolute

What does this mean to us in daily life...if we can be sensitive to

it? Three things:

First, listen...with respect. However convinced we are of our

position, it is one position. There are others. Consider them. After

all, we may be the Duryodhana of this drama, not Arjuna!

Listening needs an open mind and humility. Those are big words

and we don’t always rise to them, but causality works both ways.

Listening is a simple act. We can always do that and when we do,

it encourages open mindedness and humility as well

Related, grant the other guy his humanity. Don’t assume he is evil

and operating with intent to harm. He may well be, but it is far

more likely he is misinformed, emotional, deluded, or simply inept

at the task... incompetence explains far more than enemy action!

Neither prevents us from treating even opponents with respect and

compassion

After all, if everything is pervaded by the absolute and that

absolute is you, there is every reason to act with respect and

compassion and no reason not to. The absolute is not a faraway

thing somewhere out there. It is right here, in you, in the other

position, in the other guy. Listening is a small act that can remind

us of a big reality

Second, listening and respect are not naivete or passivity. We do

live in the relative as well. Act, fight in the relative when needed.

But do so with a keen sense of your role and your duty in it. We

saw what Dhritrashtra’s failure to do so led to when he prioritized

his son’s ambition over his duty to his wards, his nephews. He

spoke just in the first verse, but his attitude (mamakaha-mine)

explained so much of the destruction that followed

Third, act with dispassion. That is hard but comes more easily if

we can keep in mind the notion of the absolute that transcends the

polarities of sides and of outcomes that characterize the relative.

Kipling expressed a similar thought, ‘If you can meet with triumph

and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same...you’ll be

a man my son’  

Why these three points...how do they fit together?

They help us see the relative and the absolute together, and to act

in the relative focused on the absolute

‘Listen with respect’ connects the immanent and the transcendent.

It is a means for us to lift our eyes and recognize the world we

experience not as all there is but as the immanent form of the

transcendent. ‘Act on duty’ helps us do what we need to in this

relative world we do experience. ‘Dispassion’ focuses us on the

transcendent. We move closer to the transcendent the more we

recognize the unity behind the polarities that create passion

Together, they help us look at the Jagat as the Saguna, a reflection

of the Nirguna, and to act with dharma and vairagya. That creates

chitta shuddhi to facilitate gyana

All this is easier said than done. We may not reach the goal, but we

will be better for trying. After all (1.01) 365 = 37

If you are wondering what that equation is, it is a hokey

motivational thought couched with faux mathematical precision 

i.e. if you are one percent better every day, you are 37 times better

by the end of the year! Useful despite the hokiness

Exercise 2

Verse 31 introduces dharma, and includes Sri Aurobindo’s and

Nitya’s definitions, which are superb. What does dharma mean to

you, and how does what they say match up with your own ideas?

Verse 31 speaks further to the second point above on doing your

duty. It calls out sva dharma, your own specific duty. I take away

two points, one pragmatic, one inspirational

First, do your duty in the role you have. We have different roles at

any time, and roles that change over time. Our duty may be

obvious at most times but that is not always the case. If it takes

some thought, do that...it is well worth it

Equally, there is no point wringing our hands over what is not our

job, over the state of the world at large. You don’t like the stock

market being whipsawed daily by geopolitics, then adapt your

portfolio for resilience...that is your duty to your family right now,

before you seek to cure the ills of the world or expend energy

lamenting them. You don’t like the ecological status of the world,

then recycle in your own home...that is your duty. If you choose to

be an ecological activist devoted to that goal, that is great as well,

but that is a different choice of role than being a householder in a

job

If this sounds hardheaded, think of it as a lens to clarify where to

focus the limited energy we have. To paraphrase Epictetus, your

chief task today is to distinguish between what you control and

what you do not. Act on the former, accept the latter

The second, more inspirational point is, when duty calls you to act

or fight, then make a stand...act. The verse says there is nothing

better than a righteous war for a warrior. This is not an exhortation

to violence and war. Arjun’s sva dharma was that of a warrior.

Ours is so only metaphorically. For us, this is inspiration to stand

up and be counted...against our own sva dharma

Scott: That’s right, Vivek, it’s super important that Arjuna has

recognized his kinship with the enemy, right at the first. There’s a

lifetime of work even with just that. Accepting them does not mean

we approve, only that we acknowledge.

My math skills are very rusty, so thanks for explaining your

equation. Was 37 picked randomly, as is it the actual result? I’m

too busy to carry it out myself….

As to duty, we’ll be converting it to ‘sacrifice’ by the third

chapter and not using the term much, as it is overloaded with

misunderstanding and partiality. Again, Arjuna is caught between

his authentic dharma and his societal dharma, and will spend the

full eighteen chapters sorting out who he truly is, in the midst of

the chaos.

I’m definitely with you, Vivek, that we should surrender

being miserable about all the malfeasance loose in the world.

Living a realized life is our best contribution—not trying to repair

others, at least until we’re done with Krishna’s full course of study,

and are granted our virtual diploma. I’m sure Epictetus would be

happy to be included in this study. Bailey is also bringing in the

ancient Greeks, who would have loved to wrestle with the Gita,

and possibly did.

It’s clear you’re well prepared for soaring up the Gitta’s arch.

Vivek. Away we go!

Gopica

Reading Bhagavad Gita verses 18-34, along with your

commentary, helped me recognize my own mental baggage-the

unconscious patterns I've been clinging to.

The metaphor beyond spiritual aspirant dress codes offers a fresh

perspective; yield to and embrace the here-and-now with neutral

attitude. The beautiful insight that "our path always stretches out

from our feet" emphasizes staying grounded.

The true awakening came from: "This isn't mystical faith in some

divine program. Each of us unconsciously selects a tiny segment of

the total vibrational world to engage." This completely reframes

karma as conscious choice.

Each verse provided key takeaways, making me reflect on how

often I've chosen withdrawal or bystander attitudes during events

around me perhaps clinging to conditioned "witness karma"

mentality.

Verse 92 from That Alone, the Core of Wisdom brought deeper

clarity; fulfilling my roles and responsibilities at each life stage

becomes my dharma, which shapes my karma. This brought real

freedom.

My understanding of dharma has evolved from childhood moral

stories teaching "good deeds = dharma," toward absolute

responsibility. 

To me, the Absolute is objective Truth, while reality remains

subjective perception.

Thank you!

Scott: Very nice, Gopica. I’m happy you’re engaged with what’s

developing. There is a contradiction in your third paragraph,

however. Our brain is selecting what we perceive in advance of our

conscious awareness, so it’s an unconscious process, and our

action, our karma, is for the most part not left to conscious

deliberation. You are perfectly correct that there is a conscious

aspect in our decision-making, but up till now it has been focused

on a very narrow bandwidth of obligation and duty. We don’t

realize how much shrinking of data is taking place. We need to

open ourself up with contemplation of the Guru’s mind-stretching

instruction, which begins with the next lesson and will unfold in a

carefully thought-out procedure. It begins with rejection of the

ordinary, which has us quite trapped, and the resulting

claustrophobia is what energizes our desire to break free and

uncover more of our true self.

I’m not sure what verse 92 of That Alone suggested to you,

Gopica. This is a place where if you share more of what you’ve

understood, it will be educational for the rest of us, also.

Congratulations on taking that terrific course!

Nandita

These verses offer the foundation of how to deal with the various

emotional challenges which life throws at us. I often face

emotional pressure due to role conflict, emotional overload and

work stressors. There is a distinction between transient external

realities and the indestructible nature of the true Self. The enables

us to understand that by anchoring ourselves in stable values and

professional principles, we are less likely to be swayed by the

constant changes around us. 

By realising that we cannot control all consequences but can act

ethically and in a balanced way. Therefore, we focus on acting in

best practice rather than guaranteeing outcome.

Acceptance of impermanence reduces cognitive resistance and

allows clearer thinking in crisis, reduce rumination and emotional

exhaustion. 

Role based duty or dharma should be the anchoring point whereby

we fulfil our responsibilities without worrying about the outcome.

Decision yet reflective action based on moral and ethical

principles, without any expectations reduces attachments and

enables the mind to be balanced and allows for emotional

regulation and psychological flexibility. Equanimity — the ability

to remain balanced amid success and failure, gain and loss, praise

and criticism. .

Overall, these verses present a timeless model for grounding

oneself in enduring principles, accept uncertainty, clarify role-

based duty, act with full commitment, and release attachment to

outcomes. 

Scott: The Gita’s program boils down to us learning self-respect

for the vast beings we are, so that we aren’t intimidated by

domineering people in our environment. Identity with the Absolute

is legitimate, but we have to earn it, because we start the search

convinced of our inadequacies—which does have value, it’s just

not the whole story. We are inadequate, like the Kaurava army, yet

also adequate, like the Pandava’s army.

Your suggestions, Nandita, fit the bill very well, so you are

properly prepared for the adventure ahead.

I would add that role-based duty or dharma often feeds into

having anxiety about outcomes. We will first regain our identity

with our full Self, and then it will naturally apply to the actions we

choose or are constrained to do. Discarding expectations is one

technique for getting distance on the roles we play, to spend

quality time with our undirected essence.

The next lesson begins with a firm rejection of popular

beliefs, so we no longer depend on them for guidance.

Bailey

     Wow! I want to thank Bindu for her vivid and eloquent

reflections on “experience as Guru” in Morocco.  Sometimes the

Tao grabs you and shakes you up – in her case as she literally

contemplated an abyss.  Something comparable happened to me

not long ago (July 2023) when I ingested a substance I thought was

basically just candy in an airport and found myself starting another

kind of trip.  Like Bindu on that treacherous mountain path I

became frightened, my mind beset with possible disasters; like

Bindu I found a Mantram –or perhaps it found me: I am not this

body; I am not these thoughts (this mind) which accompanied me

as the trip took me higher in the midst of crowds hurrying down

long corridors to catch their flights.  “The unknown often carries

hidden dangers, and only presence of mind allows us to navigate

them safely.”  Again, wow! “Experience becomes the greatest

teacher...transforms us...becomes a manifestation of the

Absolute.”  More dangerous, transforming experiences lay ahead,

and now (Monday Jan 26) I find myself in a new home, in a new

community, looking out over a 15” blanket of fresh snow into the

sunlit woods.  Amazing, this life!  Bindu’s subsequent emphasis on

choosing to walk, a human rather than an heroic choice, also

echoes my experience in the airport.  I knew I had to choose to

keep walking, or fall into the abyss, and at the same time I knew

CHOICE WAS ALWAYS THERE.  This awareness remained

with me throughout the ordeal of the next three days, when I was

taken into a hospital for tests and observation before finally being

allowed to board a plane and go home.  Ever since then the

deepening sense of transformation from that experience has

remained with me.  Bindu, thanks, and I love the poem.

 

     What does Absolute mean to me and why is the word called by

Scott “very problematic for modern-day humans” and “contrasted

with relative thinking”?   Every time I taught the Ancient Greeks I

would tell my students about the first professional teachers, the

first free-lance intellectuals, known as Sophists, arriving in newly

“democratic” Athens ca 450 BC and inviting their students to

consider that different peoples from different political communities

(they used the term polis) had different beliefs and customs, so it

stands to reason (Reason!) that such are relative, not absolute.

What is accepted as good (right) behavior in Syracuse is frowned

upon, or mocked, or forbidden in Athens.  So, logically, (logos was

an exciting new word, a new intellectual tool) what is held to be

Truth (what is right) is relative to the values accepted in Syracuse

and in Athens. And these are both Greek places.  The world is

teeming with so many different cultures—all those barbarians who

can’t even speak Greek...Wait a minute!  There’s something

slippery about this logic, isn’t there? (Indeed, “sophistic” is what

slippery logic is called ever since.) Yeah, but a skillful blend of

boldly-asserted-if-tricky-logic and smooth, well-crafted, persuasive

(emotionally appealing) speech (there was a new Greek word for

this, too: rhetoric) can make you the winner in political or

intellectual argument, or in a lawsuit, or an election.  What is

Truth?  It’s all relative! (Confronting whether it was true or not

that a certain Jesus of Nazarath, denounced to him as a dangerous

anti-Roman agitator, was guilty or not, the governor Pontius Pilate

just shrugged.)  One of the most famous and successful of the

Sophists used to boast: I can teach you to make the worse appear

the better cause – i.e. to win! Winning is what counts, isn’t it?

“Truth” can be tailored to what fits my goals, my agenda.  Truth is

what it suits me (my party, my crowd) today; tomorrow is another

day.  Change is always happening.  Get used to it or get out!

       Anything sound familiar?  Relativism and sophistry did not

work out well, it can be argued, in Athens nor did things end well

for democracy as practiced there. 

 

       It was not an intellectual, it was an Athenian working-class

fellow, a stone mason, who strongly rejected the Sophist relativist

worldview. Truth, Socrates taught, is universal, has the status of

absolute value. Reason and Logic are, properly used and

understood, tools which can lead us along the path toward Truth.

He taught through dialogue with students – in this somewhat

resembling the Upanishadic sages and even the Buddha—but using

a critical methodology more akin to Samkhya. Since we mostly

know his dialogues as they were written down and no doubt

polished by his disciple Plato, who was an intellectual, perhaps the

Ur-Intellectual of Western Civilization, good luck disentangling

the ideas of the two, but it is not important for our purposes here to

do so.  They agreed that True Reality is not to be found in the ever-

changing material world, which is known through the senses.  True

Reality exists in an “ideal” realm, an Absolute realm, the realm of

Ideas, which is eternal, unchanging and beyond the physical

world.  Hence “metaphysical” (meta is Greek for beyond). 

 

      So why has the concept “absolute” become “problematic”?  It

is held to be incompatible with the basic assumptions of Scientific

Materialism, which has been gaining ground among intellectuals

since the later 19 th  century, when Darwin’s theory of evolution

became the dominant intellectual paradigm and Nietzsche’s

metaphorical cry “God is dead”  (albeit put in the mouth of a

Madman) struck a deep intello-emotional chord.  For the

20 th  century philosopher Martin Heidigger that cry signifies the

demise of metaphysics as a structuring feature of Western

thought.  It has also become the rallying cry of vociferous atheists,

who follow the citation of Nietzche’s phrase with “Good

Riddance!”  Generally modern atheists caricature belief in God as

mere superstition (in the tradition of 18 th  century philosophers like

Voltaire) and argue that Science alone, with its measurement-and-

experiment-based methodologies, can lead to Truth in the context

of our universe, the only one we can know (at least for now).

Science, they insist, is on the path to achieving a total, integrated

Theory of Everything which has no more place for archaic

concepts like “soul” or “spirit” (or atman, or brahman) than for a

Creator God or Divine Providence.  Science alone! And for a

particularly vociferous school of atheists Science has to do only

with Matter.  There is nothing behind or beyond.  

 

     Perhaps this position can be caricatured with a slogan: Nothing

Beyond!  It amounts to a kind of fundamentalism. The Israeli

historian Yuval Noah Hariri offers this quick sketch of what he

argues is becoming the dominant intellectual ideology in key

scientific communities.  The last chapter of his provocatively titled

recent book Homo Deus (2016) calls it “The Data Religion”:

"Datism declares that the universe consists of data flows, and the

value of any phenomenon or entity is determined by its

contribution to data processing. This may strike you as some

eccentric fringe notion, but in fact it has already conquered most

of the scientific establishment.  Datism was born from the

explosive confluence of two scientific tidal waves. In the 150 years

since Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species the life

sciences have come to see organisms as biochemical algorithms.

Simultaneously, in the eight decades since Alan Turing formulated

the idea of a Turing Machine, computer scientists have learned to

engineer increasingly sophisticated electronic algorithms.  Datism

puts the two together, pointing out that exactly the same

mathematical laws apply to both biochemical and electronic

algorithms.  Datism thereby collapses the barrier between animals

and machines and expects electronic algorithms to eventually

decipher and outperform biochemical algorithms.” (p 372)   Well,

“I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!” (the sarcastic sneer uttered by Darwin-

deniers in the 1860s) needs to be updated to an insult more like:

Your grandmother was a faulty feedback-loop!

     Commenting on verse 26, Scott offers this useful summary of

what the position I have dubbed Nothing Beyond seems to

imply: “the belief that everything is just a temporary accident

occurring in a meaningless void “.  No wonder Arjuna is tempted

to throw down his bow in despair!  Good thing Krishna is on

hand.  Sure, we’re all born and we’re gonna all die.  Life is still

wonderful (except when it’s not). Even a resolute materialist can

agree.  But, to go to further, to balanced Truth beyond the limits of

mere materialism, whatever dies is going to be born again, as it

were recycled (verse 27—what Scott dubs in his comments the

holistic position).  Birth and death, around and around,

action/reaction: that’s Nature.  Nature binds (and bounds) us all

within the Laws (anthropomorphic metaphor, that!) which are the

proper domain of scientific study. Which domain is also,

necessarily, the domain of relativity.  Where does the Absolute

reside?  Beyond Nature. (oops, egad, Dr. Heidigger, is

Metaphysics back?)  Where we are not suited, by our untaught

human nature, to understand all that cause-and-effect complexity.

(Verse 29).  Here is the territory of Mystery.  This we can’t

understand but we can experience. Some call it the Tao (Nataraja

Guru sometimes did). People experience life differently.  That’s

duality. Don’t regret it, Arjuna (and the rest of us). Live it as your

own nature bids you (verse 30).  How you choose to live it, thus to

act, that’s karma (verses 31-38).

 

     Dharma?  Arnaud Desjardins notes, in a text I read the other

day, that the dharma of a bird is to fly, the dharma of the newborn

babe we have all been is to demand and to receive.  Baby knows

only “me”, my need, my desire.  As we grow from there?  To

understand, to accept, to embrace the reality that the universe is not

all about us (but ego insists it is), that as we come to understand

our capacities-as-well-as-our-limits we are called upon to act in

accordance.  Does that make sense?

Scott: While we’re integrating mind and body into an undivided

entity, a chant like “I am not this body,” serves to counteract a pre-

existing belief in something solid and separate. So it isn’t “wrong,”

it’s a technique. Nitya used to lead us through a chakra meditation

that included those words, and its effects were astonishing, to say

the least.

“Absolute” is frowned on because it is taken as referring to

an absolute limit—my beliefs and not yours. Nazi absolutism, the

exact opposite of what we’re talking about. The term is not

associated with what we’re after: an all-inclusive ideology,

incomprehensible to partisan awareness. I enjoy your account of

olden times, Bailey, and how the Absolute hides in plain sight.

Always.

The Bonobo and the Atheist, by Frans de Waal, has my

favorite rant about Fundamentalist Atheists, and is a really fun

book. Loved Sapiens, but found Homo Deus nauseating. I’m not

going to sign up for the computer upload, but my writings on the

website may be read by AI (in one-quadrillionth of a second) and

have a slight impact on uploaded machine beings.

This is a topic we could talk long into the night over, Bailey.

Some day. I do wonder if it’s an ego fantasy to be replicated a

zillion times, with each replicant having its own individuality.

Elongated Musk is already doing it the old-fashioned way, by

initiating babies, and I expect he’ll be first in line for fathering his

own universe….

Very important point you make: science limits itself to the

relative. As it should. Yet it should also leave doors open for non-

relativity, and in rare cases it has. We won’t be accessing it by

relative algorithms, but more intuitively. It’s why Krishna is about

to downplay goal-orientation, where you start out with a limit,

which curses your exploration from the start. Relativity is like

wealth: you can’t take it with you.

Your last paragraph, Bailey, demonstrates the negativity of

absolutism: it’s all about me. We are being led at the present time

by adult infants, or infant adults, who’ve never gotten over it, and

it’s mighty ugly. Somehow we must learn to reconcile our isolation

as individuals with a vast or infinite universe where community

and cooperation expand our potential exponentially.

Here's my very real abyss story; though, like Bindu, I’m terrified

of heights, this is another way to gaze into nothingness.

A Peek at Sannyasa

After a lovely stay in the Ooty Gurukula in 1993, my family

was traveling with Nitya by train to Madras, where our flight home

was slated in a few days. Emily was 11 and Harmony 5. Jyothi,

Nitya’s assistant, was with us. At Mettupalayam you change from

the toy train to a real one, and the first stop is Coimbatore, where

Nitya asked me to get him a magazine at the shop across the

platform. I took out a ten rupee note and headed over to it. While I

was standing in line, the train started to go, rapidly picking up

speed. I raced over and jumped into a car, hearing behind me a

distant “No! No!” I turned and stood in the doorway, and saw a

young man rushing toward me, waving and shouting “No, no!

Trivandrum train!” I leapt off just at the last moment, and watched

the train accelerate into the dusk. He explained that the train

divided in half at that station, and the Madras half was still sitting

there. By getting on the moving train, I was heading down into

Kerala with no money, no ID, not even a ticket, and no idea where

Nitya was headed with my dear family. I realized if I had stayed on

the train, I would have become a de facto renunciate.

Maybe the shock was intensified by my close relationship

with Nitya, but my mind was blown. I had been very close to

losing all contact with my loved ones, and the implications kept me

reeling. I walked in a daze back to the compartment in the

stationary half of the train, and told them my story, which no one

else was much impressed by. Then I went back and got in line to

buy the magazine. As I stood there, the other train pulled out in the

other direction, and there was no way I could catch it. I almost

fainted.

India is full of kind souls who help out in a pinch, and

another one of them noticed my flushed face and stupefied look,

and said, “No worry—the train is only moving to another

platform.” After a few minutes I saw it come in at a distant part of

the immense station. I bought the magazine and headed toward it,

taking resolve to always keep my passport and wallet with me in

the future.

Twenty-eight years later, (now 33) part of me still looks into

that gaping black hole of real sannyasa, and recoils in shock. I

loved my life as it was, and did not want to let it go. The Unknown

was truly terrifying, and very near at hand.