Bindu
1. Old-fashioned Thinking (Prajapati's
Way)
I often wait for the 'right circumstances'
before acting, as if external factors must align for me to move forward. This
comes from a belief that life is shaped from the outside rather than from
consciousness. Krishna's upgraded perspective in the Gita shows that real
progress happens when I act from inner clarity instead of dependency or
fear.
I was brought up in an old‑fashioned,
Prajapati‑style environment. In childhood, what you see and absorb becomes
deeply rooted, even without direct teaching. In school and college,
we couldn't openly show interest in boys because it was considered
improper and damaging to one's 'character,' which was seen as essential for a
suitable arranged marriage. Being in love simply wasn't part of the
vocabulary during those times. A good marriage depended on staying away from
boys and maintaining a certain reputation. We accepted it not because
anyone lectured us, but because that was the culture we observed.
Even during those times, many girls who
grew up in India and later came to the UK still ended up marrying someone
chosen by their parents back home. It has become a pattern—almost
a custom. Perhaps that is part of the reason I also married the
way I did. It wasn't that my husband personally insisted on marrying
someone from India; it was his parents who felt he must marry a girl from
Kerala, believing she would live an obedient, traditional, old‑fashioned
life.
Looking back, I can see how much of this
mindset was inherited rather than consciously chosen—exactly what the Gita
calls the old worldview. Krishna's teaching invites us to re‑examine these
ingrained patterns and move from external control to inner freedom.
2. Superstitious or Unquestioned
Beliefs
One belief many people talk about is the
idea of the evil eye. It isn't part of any one religion; I've seen people
from completely different cultures believe in it.
• Christians often say 'touch wood' after
mentioning something good—culturally, this is meant to prevent bad luck.
• Muslims say 'masha Allah,' expressing admiration while preventing envy
from causing harm.
• Hindus say 'bless you' or similar phrases, sometimes using gestures like
touching the forehead or applying a tilak for protection.
I also use these phrases mainly
to comfort the person I am speaking to. Even after reading this section of
the Gita, I suspect I will still say them because
I don't want others to feel uncomfortable. Change begins only when you
consciously start within yourself—but habits like these are so deep‑rooted that
stopping them is not easy.
When I reflect on it, these expressions are
less about religious teaching and more about emotional comfort. They make the
speaker feel safe, and they reassure the listener. These habits have been
passed down through generations, so deeply rooted that we use them
automatically without questioning why.
Superstitions like these are endless.
People hold on to them because they offer psychological relief, a sense of
control, or a feeling of protection. In many ways, they help us cope with
uncertainty.
But from a yogic or Gita perspective, these
beliefs arise from fear rather than clarity. The Gita encourages us not to
depend on external rituals or protective phrases, but to cultivate inner
awareness, understanding, and strength. It gently invites us to examine these
inherited patterns and ask whether they are truly necessary—or simply
comforting habits we cling to without thinking.
3. A Moment of Life Change
Change is a natural part of life.
Everything in this universe is moving—particles inside us and the world outside
us—and this is something I slowly began to understand through my interest in
manifestation. I realised that the seeds we plant in our mind are the
seeds that grow. Just like a lawn, if we don't take care of it, weeds
appear; over time, those weeds can take over and destroy the lawn completely.
In the same way, if I don't pay attention to my inner world, negative
thoughts can grow and overpower me.
A turning point came when
I realised that the elevation of thought is not a one‑day practice.
It must be continuous. We clean our body every day because it is visible and
obvious, but the mind requires even deeper cleaning. If the mind becomes
cluttered or dark, light cannot enter; and without light, there is no radiance
in our thoughts, actions, or life.
This realisation led me to the
Gita. I understood that spiritual growth is like maintaining a
garden—constant attention, awareness, and nourishment are needed. The Gita
helped me recognise that true transformation begins inside. When the
mind becomes clear, the light naturally spreads through both mind and
body, lifting me to a higher way of living.
4. Understanding Detachment
Earlier, I thought detachment meant
becoming distant from my duties to family or work. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed
by my dedication to both, and in those moments I want to run away
from everything. During such times, I even book holidays thinking that if I go
somewhere else, I can detach from all responsibilities and find peace.
But through Krishna's teaching,
I realised that this is not real detachment. Krishna
clarifies that detachment means acting with clarity, without anxiety about
results. It means staying engaged, but with a calm and balanced mind.
True detachment is not withdrawal or
escape—it is the ability to remain centred even while fulfilling
responsibilities. Detached action leads us toward the Supreme because it is
free from fear, pressure, and craving. It is a state where actions come from
steadiness, not stress. Instead of running away from life, detachment helps us
face life with inner peace.
5. Additional Reflection
The Gita teaches a powerful shift: from a
world controlled by gods → to a world guided by consciousness.
This gives me back my own freedom and responsibility. It helps me live
fully without fear or pressure, and makes my actions more peaceful and
meaningful. Krishna explains that the highest way to live is through unitive
action—acting with intelligence, calmness, and without attachment. This kind of
action is not about controlling others. Instead, it brings harmony and makes
life better for everyone. The wise person does not force their ideas on others,
show superiority, or try to "fix" people. These behaviours come from
insecurity, not from true wisdom. Unitive action respects different viewpoints
while staying grounded in clarity and kindness. It avoids fanaticism,
judgement, and moral arrogance.This does not mean we passively accept
harm. Discernment is still important. But the Gita invites us to align with the
natural intelligence and generosity already present in life. When we do this,
kindness arises naturally, action becomes creative, and responsibility becomes
joyful instead of heavy.
In this way, action changes from a burden
into a form of freedom.
Love Bindu x
Scott:
That’s right, Bindu, Prajapati is alive and well even in our time, despite
2,000 years of Krishna’s advice to move on to a more scientific orientation.
Fortunately, it’s “good enough,” most of the time.
For
most of history, marriages were arranged. The “love marriage” goes back only
about 100 years, and it isn’t more successful than the other kind. But keeping
the sexes separate during youth is an unfortunate way to compound our
ignorance. Love marriages have a better chance of success if the lovers are
well educated, and that isn’t always supported by the culture.
The
world seems to be sliding back into mystification of the Other, in all its
forms, after a short period of inviting its participation and integration.
We
can’t much affect the tides of humanity, but we can stand above them to some
degree, and that’s what Krishna is advocating. A lot of unnecessary suffering
comes from intentional ignorance, reinforced by pseudo-religious ideals,
energized by—let’s face it—hormonal derangement.
For
the second exercise, I was hoping to get beyond those simple-minded cultural
expressions to true distortions of the psyche. Even I use “knock on wood”
sometimes, as another way of saying “let’s hope so,” and it doesn’t involve any
superstition on my part. There are other cultural habits that distort life
significantly, and marriage stipulations are a very good example you raised.
When we question why we believe in something, we may find it is grounded in
habits that were enforced by purportedly divine decrees long, long ago, and are
still in play in the unquestioned parts of our lives. Your last sentence in
part 2 perfectly sums up what I was getting at.
You’re
right, Bindu, the Gita is an excellent cleansing agent for our thinking, and
spiritual life is a lot like maintaining a garden within. Before he ever became
my official Guru, Nitya wrote me, in 1971: “My lot is of a clumsy old gardener
who cuts and prunes the bushes and hunts out the vermin and the fungus that
come to destroy the delicate buds of his blossoming bushes.”
Beautiful
description of detachment, Bindu. Wanting to run away from everything reminded
me of a favorite passage from Nitya, in That Alone, page 145:
When I was a student, I felt
very miserable. The whole college situation seemed meaningless, so I wrote a
letter to my principal stating I was going away. He sent back a note asking me
to come and see him before I left. When I went to his office, he invited me to
lunch with his wife and him. He said “It’s a fine thing that you want to leave
on finding that this place is not meaningful to you anymore. That’s very good.
But tell me, when you go away, are you going to take your mind with you also,
or are you going to leave that here?”
“Surely I take my mind with
me wherever I go.”
“That means you’ll be taking
the same sorrow, sadness, suspicion, doubts, misery, everything with you. It
will be the same in the place where you go because you are taking all this with
you. If you can leave your mind here and run away from it, fine.”
This is so true. I get
letters almost every day from people who say that they want to get away, to run
away. Go away where? We think all the misery is because we are with certain
people and certain situations. When we move away it will again be a wonderful
world. If you can create a wonderful world in another place, you can create it
where you are now, too.
Ultimately, what is? Only
the light from within you, which is illuminating your life. What is illuminated
becomes colored, darkened by the venom that comes from within your own previous
conditionings. You become entangled in your conditioned misconceptions. But if
we look back to the source of illumination, we become less affiliated with the
murkiness around us.
It’s up to us to make our world miserable or
beautiful.
A round of applause for your Additional
Reflection, Bindu. Words to remember!
Gopica
Luckily my households did not have much
superstitious beliefs except for the rituals that we follow during festivities
and new moon/full moon day.
I had seen those rituals done to maintain
the harmony at our home abiding the elders, few started fading away when they
had left us physically.
The Contract vs Consciousness Clash
In my final feedback session, the leader
shared: "Everything cannot be written in contracts."
My American corporate frame (10+ years of
crystal-clear roles) met a new reality:
Contract said: Training, counselling,
supervision = my role
Collaborators claimed: "That's our
domain"
Leader's vision: Fluid alignment beyond
paper
Karma Yoga Mirror (Verses 10-26)
Old Gopica: "Show me the
contract!"
New Gopica: "Serve the greater
purpose."
The U-turn confusion → Krishna's teaching:
"Work for the work's sake, not personal gain"
Unitive Attitude Born
Disappointment transformed into learning.
This community-focused workplace demands heart alignment over paperwork.
My role: Serve the greater good, not
protect my scope.
Verse 25 Resonance:
"As the ignorant act with attachment,
the wise should act without attachment, for world welfare."
Takeaway: Contracts define minimums.
Consciousness expands possibilities.
Karma Yoga = selfless service beyond
superstition and rigid frames.
Thanks & Warm Regards,
Gopica
Scott: I
love the recounting of your work problem, Gopica, and how it fits with the
Gita’s teaching. That’s exactly the point of sharing this wisdom: to make it
real in our everyday life.
You
are fortunate to have a wise leader, who invites you to a more expansive
outlook. Many managers are constrained to limited actions, and pass that mentality
along to their subordinates. In the mistaken idea of being helpful guidance,
individual initiative is being drained out of public life by an explosion of
rules.. Doctors and others are forced to follow strict guidelines instead of
including their own intuition, and much is lost. It’s good you have
encouragement to give your best in your job. We’ll love to hear more of how you
apply the teachings in future lessons, Gopica.
Bailey
Thanks,
Scott, for the quotation from Verse 95, That Alone. My
copy of that book did survive the Great Flood that ended our Loghouse years,
and I will reread the whole chapter. And thanks, Bindu, for your
very lucid recounting of/reflecting on your story. “Growth does not come
from avoiding life, but from engaging with it wholeheartedly, even when the
path feels uncertain.” Words that resonate with
me! Encouraging words! As for Scott’s comment that Eve made the
right choice – well, even Milton’s Paradise Lost can regard
the Fall as in some essential sense Fortunate. Satan in that poem is
indeed the most interesting character, whose rebelliousness tends to draw our
sympathies. But I would be wary, myself, of embracing the Serpent’s advice
as disinterested words of wisdom. Go for it, Eve! Go for
the power, see as God sees and then do what you
want! “You”? as opposed to “God”? or to “me” – after all
“our” interests aren’t exactly the same are they? “You”, “me” “I” – a cacophony
of conflicting, guna-nourished desires, resentments, urges, fears,
longings etc etc. Isn’t this Ego 101: welcome to duality,
folks! The idea of Satan as a master humorist is attractive,
too. The Trickster of Divinity Land! The poet Robert
Frost once rhymed: “Oh Lord forgive the little tricks that I have played on
Thee/and I’ll forgive the great big joke that you have put on
me.” Let us beware, though, of appropriating for oneself a
phrase, at a particular moment, by a poet, a phrase that suited his
mood at some particular moment (changeable, those moments), mood for which for
which he found a nifty rhyme. Bravo Robert Frost! Er, what was that
joke? Does it amount to some variant of the “poor
me”lament? I better like another of your brief
poems: “The way a crow/shook down on me/dust of snow/from a hemlock
tree/has given my heart a change of mood/and saved some part/of a day I had
rued.”
Scott’s
prompt: discuss a moment when you took a resolve to change the course of your
life in an important way. I am thinking about this in regard to verse 19’s
challenge to “engage in actions that are necessary”. In my last
response I recalled how our sojourn in India and contact with Nataraja Guru
clarified for me that finishing my thesis was my necessary action, and how,
after our return to France that was accomplished (with help from family and
friends). What then? I recounted how I found myself in another moment of
paralysis: standing on a Paris street corner on a cold November day (1979, as I
now remember) unable to decide which way to go. The necessary action
that day turned out to be accepting that my conscious brain was defeated and to
allow underlying consciousness (reference here to Scott’s comments on EO Wilson
and verse 15) to lead me back to the comfort of the dancing fire in my
hearth. Then what? A larger course of action to resolve
upon? Ah. In fact that resolution had
already been taken, back in August. In the course of a weekend together in our
little Burgundy cottage Christine, back from India where she had become
involved with a Gurukula friend (Jean Letschert) and I (who had become involved
during that summer’s excavations with an American student, Kitch) decided that
our paths had to separate, at least for a time. We discovered we
could do this without anger, without rancor, without foreclosing the
future. We agreed that in some deeper sense whatever our marriage
meant it would continue to mean, whatever else we did. So, I would join Kitch
for the Christmas holidays in her native North Carolina and then bring her back
to Paris with me. Christine would move out of our apartment –as it
happened she moved in with Kathleen, the same friend we will be rejoining in
Paris in a few weeks. Looking back from here, how naïve, how reckless it all
seems! The other, larger practical questions: how to survive, what future to
plan, how to prepare for... we would deal with all that on an as-best-we-can,
one-thing-at-a-time basis. I could make some money teaching English
as I continued to build my career as an archaeologist, to look for grants, for
jobs in France or the USA. Yes, we were living
precariously. But it felt right – or perhaps what I mean to say is
that it felt like the necessary way to go. Where you are going you
don’t always know. Nonetheless, you have to put your trust
somewhere. Wasn’t that how we came to decide to go to India?
There
are three subsequent moments when I came to a resolution and acted upon it that
I shall discuss here. Of course there was the divorce (1982) and
remarriage (1983) decisions, yes, but neither was really my resolution: it was
clear what Kitch wanted and I went along. (Christine went along too, though she
would not herself have requested divorce; we used the same lawyer, an
archaeological chum of mine, and after the judgment walked to a favorite café
on the Ile St. Louis to share an ice cream treat. My first moment of
deliberate resolve occurred when Kitch and I were staying with archaeological
chums near Aix-en-Provence late summer 1984. They had rather
energetic two-year-old twin boys. Kitch took advantage of a moment we were by
ourselves to propose: let’s have a baby! I knew in that instant that
it was necessary for me to choose (I can still see the look in her eyes, a look
that was also a promise; the thought of fatherhood had always scared me): I
said OK, yes. I did have a temporary teaching job in a French
university at that point; maybe it could be made permanent? My
archaeological credentials were getting stronger. The chances of a teaching job
in America were starting to look a little better. Our life were still
precarious, but not hand-to-mouth. All of this, and much more was
back there somewhere in consciousness when the conscious brain and my voice
said Yes, I agree to having a baby. I knew it was now or never, and that
Kitch was sure of her desire and reliable to live up to it: that I could count
on her as a mother, take a chance on myself as a father.
The
second moment: late summer 1987, a restaurant in the mountain town of Grenoble,
where my oldest French friends, Michel and Geraldine, were then living.
I had met them in back 1969, before
they were married, just before I myself met Christine. They had been witnesses
at our 1974 Flavigny wedding; when I told them Christine and I were separating
Michel strenuously sought to dissuade me (“sell French fries on the beach and
stay together!”); but they embraced Kitch and their house was among the first
to welcome baby Emma (born Feb 28, 1986). That day we had driven
back into France from Italy, where we had been visiting artist friends near the
Carrara marble quarries, accompanied by my mother. I was driving, en
route to taking her to Paris for her return flight. Michel fixed my
eye. Now, what is your plan? No one knew better than they all the angles of my
situation in France, knew our history too, and our personalities. My
teaching gig at Lille had ended not long after Emma’s birth; I had been
unemployed the past year; the chances of another job coming up anytime soon
were not promising. And I was past 40. “We think it is time to cut
bait here, seek your future in the USA.” I wasn’t expecting to hear
it put so bluntly with my mother there, too. I wasn’t really surprised,
though. For a year I had been wavering, focused on the demands and
the wonders of being a full-time father to a new baby, especially in a house
where my polio-handicapped wife couldn’t carry her down the stairs to the
kitchen. In the summer the excavations demanded, and rewarded, my energies, so
it was possible to avoid too much thinking, then, consciously, about what
needed to be done longer term. But also impossible not to
think about it. All these years I had managed to hang on in
France—could I just leap the Atlantic now, blindly, with my family? Michel and
Geraldine’s challenge that evening helped my resolution. Yes, that
was the necessary action to take. A leap of faith? (Like returning
from India in 1973?) Well, we could stay in North Carolina with Kitch’s mother
and we had friends, too. Friend Carole got me a kind of visiting
faculty status at UNC, where she was professor; a car was made available by
other friends, on unlimited loan. My work, its originality, my archaeological
credentials were better known now, in medieval circles; I gave invited
lectures. A medievalist I met at the History convention at New Year’s arranged
for a one-year visiting job at Chicago-Loyola; there would be money, through a
small foundation, to support my returning to France in the summer for the
excavations... I had gambled and was getting my chance, getting by,
as the Beatles had sung, with a little help from your friends.
The third
moment takes us to the Spring of 1994. The Loyola year had been
followed by a two-year non-tenure-track appointment at Assumption College in
Worcester, Mass. I had succeeded in getting this extended –a third
year, a fourth—as the History Department was happy enough to have me to support
my unprecedented promotion (as non tenure-track) to Associate
Professor. I was publishing, giving papers at conferences, working
with the Director of the French Institute to create a program in France (the Assumptionists
are a French order). I was on the lookout for tenure-track jobs, of
course. One was announced in 1992 at Eastern Illinois University,
then withdrawn. I loved fathering Emma so much that when Kitch
proposed taking advantage of our generous insurance to follow up I said sure,
and in March 1991 Zachary Lewis was born. Not a tough decision this time—though
we were still precariously situated I had gained confidence in myself as a
husband, a father, a scholar, a practicing archaeologist... And perhaps a
confidence in the Tao? Then, in the Fall of 1991 the bottom fell out
in family life. What I can say here is that Kitch and her siblings
(two sisters and a brother) began to have “recovered memories” of childhood
sexual abuse. One sister’s marriage was destroyed; the other became
alcoholic, was abandoned by her husband; the brother killed
himself. Kitch survived, with help from therapy and from our church.
She remained a good strong mother, but our relationship suffered. I
became depressed. I saw a therapist and began taking an
anti-depressant. I was lucky in my therapist. He helped me see how
deeply-rooted my own problems were. Though oppressed by dread as the
winter of 1994 deepened with no certainty that Assumption would rehire me
another year I soldiered on as best I could. Then in February came a
phone call from the Chairman of the History Department at Eastern Illinois
University. They had just gotten a green light to reopen the search
for a medievalist. Was I interested? Two weeks later I was on a
plane to Charleston. I was prepared. I was confident in my
abilities, in my credentials. No need to wonder now about necessary
actions—act. Soon after my return to Worcester I was offered, and
accepted, a tenure-track job 19 years after obtaining my PhD. At age
50. In March I attended a scholarly conference where I met, for the first time
in years, Bernard W, my thesis co-director at Penn. This calls for
celebration! The inner voice warns: you’re not supposed to drink
alcohol while taking these anti-depressants. OK – let’s throw away
the anti-depressants. Don’t need them anymore! So is that
the resolution? Not exactly, though I did drink Guiness with Bernard and
friends that evening instead taking the pill (and had a very interesting,
quasi-psychedelic night, and was later chided for stopping abruptly &
cold-turkey instead of tapering off.) The resolution came in May,
when at my request Kitch and I met together with her therapist, my therapist
and a third one we didn’t know—a marriage counselor, perhaps. It was
time to prepare for the move to Illinois, to a future that for the first time
looked un-precarious and viable. My resolution, I told them all, was
to stop therapy for myself. I would not look for another therapist
in Illinois. I was duly grateful for the help I had received; now I
was resolved to take full responsibility for myself.
There have
been ups and downs since August 1994 –there always are, aren’t
there? The marriage with Kitch failed (or did it? perhaps
it is fair to say it had just come to the end of its line, but we again used
the same lawyer for our divorce, agreed on financial arrangements, agreed to
cooperate as fully as possible in raising the kids – “putting their interests
first”—and I believe we have both kept our word. We are friends
today, Christine and I, with Kitch and her husband Bruce.) The second marriage
with Christine, celebrated in Charleston in the Fall of 1998, continues.
Meanwhile
Donald Trump continues to sow havoc, suffering and
destruction. Thank you Scott and Deb for taking a stand at the No
Kings rally—a number of Meadowood residents attended the one here. I
take heart as I close this response on Easter day that Leo XIV, our new Pope
who is a fan of the Chicago White Sox, spoke out so clearly and forcefully
today in Rome against war and the habit of seeking to solve problems with
violence.
Scott: It’s
wonderful how the Gita is prompting you to review your life, Bailey. You’re at
the right stage for it. Curiously, I just prepped Atmo verse 64 for our
in-person class, and that That Alone chapter has a lot about memory. You might
find it timely. I always remember a short paragraph in it that includes:
Memory recall
affects your nervous system. When I was writing The Fable of a Yati, my autobiography, and reaching deep into my
memories, it was very painful. When I told Nataraja Guru that I was writing my
autobiography, he said, “You are very young. You can wait until you grow old.”
A lot of it is about detachment from
memories, so maybe don’t bother. You’re on a roll revisiting your history, and
it seems now’s the time. Go for it!
Speaking
of which, it’s great to see the Pope standing for sanity and peaceful
reconciliation, in a world gone insane once again. It’s one thing that’s
different from the Nazi playbook at center stage. And presumably the Pope’s in
a job where he can’t be fired by Trump for daring to care.
I
wonder if the perennial madness, with its vivid threats, makes such old stuff
as the Gita seem irrelevant? We may be forced to go back to survival mode,
while matters of the heart are stamped out. It’s impossible to forget Orwell’s
conclusion in 1984:
“There will be
no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will
be destroyed. But always— do not forget this, Winston— always there will be the
intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always,
at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of
trampling on an enemy who is helpless.
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine
a boot stamping on a human face— forever.”
I have found the philosophy to be
immaculately restorative. So far. For me at least, 9/11 was our Reichstag fire,
and I woke up nauseous every morning. But I had Love and Blessings to
edit and upgrade, and it took me two full years. I put in at least two hours
every day, and by the end of the session, I was restored to what passes for my
normal: balanced, resolute, and guardedly optimistic. The next morning, I would
again wake up drenched in dread of the implacability of hate. I knew I had
never accurately anticipated the future, so I hoped I was wrong. Like you with
your archaeology, I had Nitya and Nataraja’s genius to delve into, dig up and
preserve. I’m not unlike an alcoholic, needing a daily dose of wisdom to keep
me well. I still medicate myself constantly, and these classes are part of my
maintenance program. Glory Hallelujah!
Here’s
a favorite Frost poem for you:
Fire
and Ice
by
Robert Frost
Some
say the world will end in fire,
Some
say in ice.
From
what I’ve tasted of desire
I
hold with those who favor fire.
But
if it had to perish twice,
I
think I know enough of hate
To
say that for destruction ice
Is
also great
And
would suffice.
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