Short Story-Last Will and Testament

 

Last Will and Testament

In the world of social media, I was reading about sudden deaths.

People just fall to the ground while exercising… and die instantly.

It made me think.

Is it a side effect of COVID?
Or what really is it?

I was shocked to hear about her death too.
She was my age.

Best hospital. Best treatment.
Still… she went.

We always hear about heart failure.
But is it becoming more common now?

These thoughts kept flooding my mind, and slowly I fell into deep reflection.

And then it came to me—

Yes… it’s time to write a will.

A will—not for money.

A will for what I want when I go.

I don’t want my children deciding things for me.
This is my life.

I own it.

And I want everything done my way.

So I opened my laptop and wrote:

---

LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF BINDU JOHNY

I, Bindu Johny, being of sound mind, not acting under duress or undue influence, fully understand how I wish things to be after my death.

---

1. No Family Gathering

I enjoy silence.

I would like to go peacefully.

There is no need for large gatherings. Only close family and friends may come and comfort one another.

And please—eat what you like.
You don’t have to change your food habits because of me. Let it be a normal day.

I am going on a long holiday.
Once I reach there, I may forget all of you anyway.

So please don’t spend too much time feeling sad or remembering me.

Who knows… too many thoughts about me might even disturb my journey! 😊

Let me enjoy my new place and adapt to whatever life God has planned for me next.

---

2. Funeral Arrangements

Please book the earliest available date.

I hate waiting—and I definitely don’t want my body waiting in a freezer. Honestly, who likes staying in a freezer?

No need for new clothes.

I came into this world without clothes, and I am fine leaving the same way.

Just cover my body with a simple white sheet.

(A little makeup is allowed—I don’t want to scare people with my face!)

Do not bring my body home.

Do not perform any pooja or rituals.

Once I die, I do not belong to any religion.

---

3. Flowers and Final Wishes

Do not place flowers on me.

I love flowers—but only when they are alive on plants.

If you want to bring flowers, bring them in pots and give them to the people who attend.

That would make me smile.

Once a flower is cut from a branch, its life is already over.
Why would I want dead flowers on my dead body?

There is a small red box in the loft.

Inside are letters my husband wrote to me.

Those letters carry my journey—my youth, my move to London, my hopes, and the life we built together.

Please place those letters in my coffin.

I always joked about it.

Now I mean it.

At the funeral, play only the sound of “Om.”

Not as a religious act—
but as a universal sound of peace, beyond all religions.

No talks.
No presentations.
No long stories.

Let me leave quietly.

---

4. After I’m Gone

No celebrations after my death.

I prefer everything to go back to normal—as it was.

Take my ashes and place them in the ground in a park.

Plant a tree there, in my name.

Let the tree grow.

Let it give shade.

Let people stand beneath it and breathe a little easier.

Let something continue… even after me.

---

I finished writing and felt… peaceful.

As if everything was settled.

And then—

Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!

The alarm broke the silence.

I opened my eyes.

Oh…

It was a dream.

I looked at the clock.

4:50 a.m.

I smiled.

"Thank you, God. Another day has started."

I got up, stretched, and began my day.

Because death can wait.

There is still work to do.
People to annoy.
Flowers to admire.
Stories to write.

And a life… still waiting to be lived.

 

CHAPTER IV: Jnana Yoga, Unitive Wisdom, verses 12 – 21.

 CHAPTER IV: Jnana Yoga, Unitive Wisdom, verses 12 – 21.

I don’t want you to miss one of Narayana Guru’s greatest

comments, way down in my response to Bailey, so am reposting it

here:

When the great poet of India, Rabindranath Tagore, came to

pay homage to Narayana Guru, the poet was overjoyed by the

great changes brought about by Narayana Guru in the

socioeconomic setup of the country. Commenting on that, the

poet complimented the Guru on the “great work” he was doing

for the people.

The Guru’s reply was not delayed, “Neither have we done

anything in the past, nor is it possible to do anything in the

future. Powerlessness fills us with sorrow.” 1

Bindu

When I think about expectations, one example that comes to mind

is from when I first came to the UK after getting married. Back

home, we didn’t always say “thank you” for small gestures—we

would often just smile and move on. At that time, I was still trying

to understand the culture here.

One day, someone held a door open for me. I smiled and

walked through without saying anything. Then I heard her firmly

say, “Thank you.” Later I asked my husband about it, and he

explained that I was expected to say “thank you.”

This became one of my first lessons in understanding how

expectations work. Neither of us meant anything negative, but the

reaction came from a difference in conditioning. It made me

realize how frustration can arise—not because of intention, but

because people operate from different internal belief systems. I

also feel that the world has changed now—“thank you” and

“sorry” have become very common words, sometimes used even

when people may not truly mean them.

The passage about **īśvara—the ruling from

within—**gave me another way to think about action. It suggests

that life is not random, and that a deeper intelligence exists beyond

the surface ego. Most of the time, the conscious mind believes it is

in control, but many of our actions come from deeper patterns and

conditioning. As I become more self-aware, I notice the difference

between actions driven by fear and those that feel inwardly calm

and aligned.

Last week during my performance review, I had a serious

disagreement with my manager. I believe I have the right to

question things respectfully. After coming home, I felt stressed and

ended up taking sick leave, which is unusual for me. Sitting at

home worrying made me feel worse, so I decided to return to work

and face the situation.

This made me think about Krishna’s teaching of “action in

inaction and inaction in action.” In the past, I might have

remained silent outwardly but carried tension internally. This time

I acted, but my mind also became unsettled. It showed me that

acting outwardly does not automatically mean clarity inwardly.

There have also been moments when I sit and watch my

garden from indoors—looking at the birds and squirrels, or

watching the rain. Outwardly, I am doing nothing, but inwardly

something shifts. I begin to question myself: why am I so stressed

when the trees stand through all weather, the birds sing without

needing appreciation, and the animals share space without

conflict? In those moments, understanding deepens and emotions

settle.

So I feel that action and inaction are not simple opposites;

they can exist at the same time on different levels.

I also reflected on possessiveness through something simple in

daily life. I have a small fox that comes to my garden, and I feed it

regularly. I also feed birds and squirrels. One day, the fox did not

come at the usual time, and I felt concerned. At the same time, the

birds were trying to eat the fox’s food, and I found myself trying to

stop them.

In that moment, I noticed something interesting—no one

wants their own food, but everyone wants the other’s. It felt like

human behavior.

I also noticed my own attachment. Feeding the fox started as

a simple act, but gradually I became concerned, waiting, and

slightly anxious. When I become attached, the fear of losing also

increases. This helped me understand what Krishna says about

possessiveness. It is not just about physical things, but about the

mental attachment we create.

At the same time, the teaching does not seem to say we must

reject everything. It feels more like we should change our

relationship with things—caring without becoming dependent on

them.

One insight I gained is that freedom may not come from

avoiding action, but from changing the intention behind action.

When I attach expectations or ego to my actions, I create tension.

When I loosen that, I feel lighter, even if the situation itself does

not change.

I also noticed this during my sick leave. Staying at home

made my mind more stressed, but returning to work made me feel

stronger. So maybe the answer is not to withdraw, but to act in a

better way internally.

My question is how to live like this consistently in modern

life. It is easy to understand these ideas, but harder to practice them

daily. Still, I feel I am starting to see that it is possible to be fully

involved in life, while slowly becoming less attached inside.

Love Bindu xx

Scott: One of the first things I learned on my first trip to India, in

1979, was not to expect thank-yous. Not hearing it revealed a

deep-seated habit I had never thought of before. Of course, it’s

worse if people expect it of you and you don’t know about it, so I

sympathize with you. I was more stumped by the Indian head

shake, meaning yes, no, or maybe, depending on mysterious

factors. Now I love it. From a distance, these things are funny.

Your summation of isvara is just right, Bindu. 

Our intuitions range from conditioned through enlightened,

and one of the conscious mind’s main tasks is to tell the difference

so we can choose the better option. This study will provide many

nuances to take into account. Being confident about our inner

visions is a major takeaway.

You going back to work after feeling ill about it is an

excellent example of what I just wrote. It has taken me most of my

75 years to gain a measure of confidence, but now I know if I go

back into a conflict, I will handle it intelligently and chances are

very good of a superior outcome. It’s gratifying, is it not? Mostly

but not always, people take it well.

I hope your fox came back! How exciting to have one

nearby.

Keeping posing your question of how to live well

consistently, not getting upset while acting, because answers don’t

help with such questions. Acting helps. Participation helps. The

Gita is tuned to this problem—Arjuna, frozen in the midst of the

great battle, is being educated in it, and it’s a long, slow process.

Yes indeed, “it is possible to be fully involved in life, while slowly

becoming less attached inside.” What hobby could be more fun

that this?

Venkat

Dear Scott,

An able tongue, a good mind, a look from Fortune, 

Atop her flower, a body that doesn't falter - All these 

To those who bring flowers to the Lord, falling daily 

At his trunk and red feet

- Avvaiyar 

A year and a half ago, I read this poem by a 12th century Tamil

poet that had a profound effect on me. This is the poet's prayer

before her collection of poems about moral ethics and wisdom.

This piece struck a chord in me and for a while I was wrestling

with the varied themes of the prayer poem. The original Tamil

version has a word that I use to remind myself to act when I am

inconsistent. I was reminded of these verses again when I read

Chapter III, 1-21. Although this was written in the Bhakti era and

talks about worship to the Lord Ganesha, I was reminded of this

poem when I read about Prajapati, the multiplying force and the

reciprocity of sacrifice.

Contemplating the Gita has helped me expand more on such

themes, differentiate them from the teaching, be confused when it

doesn't make sense, and be reminded to rest for it to take its own

course of understanding. One such contemplative experience was

my change in awe that everything around has been driven by

thought. Now I believe it's the unified output of thought and action

but struggling to understand the plane beyond both.

Such experiences of contemplation appear not only in such abstract

concepts but in everyday activities too. A colleague of mine was

regretting her decision after a comment from me that her solution

might introduce more problems. My response to her was, "As

engineers we make the best decision available to us at that time.

Don't regret or blame yourself for the decision you made earlier.

Let's think about the options available to us now and move

forward". My usual response would have been a lot different. I

wonder where it comes from.

PS: 

I am listening to Chopin's Nocturne in B-Flat Minor. It took me a

while but now I feel a sensation of being in a spiral on hearing it.

Thank you for the recommendations. I'll listen to them, reach out

for more, and keep you posted on my progress. 

Love, 

Venkat

Scott: Well, Venkat, it sounds like you’re already picking up some

new ideas from the Gita. There are plenty more ahead. You already

have a good instinct about karma yoga—unitive action—where

we’re in tune with our true nature to the extent that we don’t

always have to make a plan and follow it. Our living being is

already the plan unfolding, so let her rip! Yet we’ve become

separated from it to a greater of lesser extent. Goals and plans may

be better than nothing, but best of all is expertise as a wise and

compassionate human being.

Listening to things deeply, not only in masterful music but in

many venues, according to your inclinations, helps bring about

greater attunement with your inner awareness. At first the input

may not be delightful, but while we are engaged with other

matters, our brain is adjusting and incorporating the new

knowledge, and before long it does. Then, like learning to ride a

bicycle, it never leaves you. The siddhi flows out to have a

beneficial impact on every aspect of your life.

We do have to carve out a calm space in the ongoing turmoil,

to make assimilation possible.

I just bumped into a rarity from Guru Nitya that you may

appreciate. I’ve used it in this week’s in-person Class Notes:

For each one of us there is only one world. That is what we

each call “my self.” That world is an actualization of the total

creative energy of one’s manifestation, i.e. the prajapati. In

that, one cluster of attitudes makes one divine, another set of

attitudes makes one a human, and a third set of primitive urges

makes one a demon. However ugly those urges are, out of them

the most sublime aesthetic sensibility and spiritual wisdom are

to be evolved. Looked upon this way, there is no hell outside,

no heaven outside, no world outside. All pluralities organically

belong to the unity of one’s being.

Now we can see how the false fabrication of heaven and its

denizens, the earth with its sociopolitical histories, and hell

with its wildest screams of fear causes millions of people

everywhere to undergo excruciating pain, shame and misery.

All these are manmade hypotheses which have become the

most deplorable concepts of theology, religion, science,

sociology, political economy, and every kind of belligerency.

To clear the board of all such misconceptions we should make

a valiant attempt to go through the entire maze of

conceptualized beliefs.

A deep psychological analysis is to be made to understand

the images we generate inside, the emotional energy source that

generates imaginations that can foster sustaining faith in us, the

energizing value which is fed into images, and the shifting

values that intrinsically belong to the inner dynamism of

personality formation. (BU Vol. III, 40-41)

Gopica

Dear Scott,

Greetings and thank you!

Verses 12–21 of Chapter 4 of the Bhagavad Gita came alive for me

through a recent leadership experience. When my leader asked me

to step down from my role, I listened with openness and without

disappointment. I realized that the situation was not merely about

my role, but about the deeper alignment between nature, system,

and leadership style. I could see my own strength in autonomy,

while also understanding the collective expectations of the space.

What stood out for me was the possibility of responding without

resentment, speaking with clarity, and accepting the closure with

dignity. This experience helped me see action, detachment, and

acceptance not as abstract ideas, but as lived wisdom.

Reflection on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 4, Verses 12–21

Verses 12–21 of Chapter 4 came to me in a very personal and

unexpected way. What I first experienced as a leadership moment

became a deeper reflection on action, detachment, acceptance, and

self-inquiry. The situation helped me see that the teachings of the

Gita are not only meant for study, but for living through the

realities of relationships, roles, and inner growth.

Verse 12

This verse reminded me of the importance of intention and

sincerity in action. In my role, I had tried to work with honesty,

integrity, and commitment. Even when the outcome did not go as I

had hoped, I could still see that my effort had come from a genuine

place.

Verse 13

This verse helped me reflect on the nature of one’s qualities and

role. I realized that my strength lies in autonomy and independent

functioning, while the system I was part of expected more

collective decision-making. I understood that this was not a

question of value, but of alignment between style and expectation.

Verse 14

This verse spoke to me about remaining untouched by reaction.

When my leader shared her decision, I did not feel disappointed. I

listened carefully, stayed present, and responded with respect. I

could see that a calm response itself was a form of inner discipline.

Verse 15

This verse brought to mind the larger order of action and

responsibility. I saw that both of us had tried to meet each other’s

expectations, yet the relationship had reached a point where

closure was necessary. I could accept that this was part of the

process, and not necessarily a personal rejection.

Verse 16

This verse made me reflect on the complexity of action and

judgment. I had already been noticing certain conflicts between

words and actions in the system, and this experience seemed to

confirm what I had been sensing. It became a moment of clearer

seeing rather than emotional disturbance.

Verse 17

This verse reminded me that action is subtle and not always easy to

understand. What appeared to be a role issue on the surface was

also a deeper lesson in leadership, systems, and relational

dynamics. I realized that this experience itself was part of my

learning.

Verse 18

This verse connected with my ability to listen without immediate

reaction. In the Zoom call, I stayed open and asked for clarity

about the gap between expectation and performance. My question

was not from defensiveness, but from a genuine desire to

understand.

Verse 19

This verse brought me back to the importance of acting from truth

rather than ego. I was able to speak gently, acknowledge her

position, and also share my perspective with clarity. I felt that this

was a more grounded way of being than reacting out of hurt.

Verse 20

This verse spoke to me about non-attachment to role. I understood

that I am not only the role I hold, and that my identity is larger than

the position I was in. When she asked me to continue as a

volunteer and as a citizen of the town, I smiled because I could feel

that the relationship itself was not lost.

Verse 21

This verse helped me appreciate the freedom that comes when

there is no resentment. I made it clear that I held no hard feelings,

and I respected the fact that she had taken responsibility for her

decision. I felt that the closure, if needed, could be completed with

honesty and mutual regard.

Through this experience, I could see how the verses of Chapter 4

were speaking to me through life itself. What seemed like a

difficult professional moment became an opportunity to witness

detachment, acceptance, and inner steadiness. I am grateful for this

teaching, because it helped me see that wisdom is not only in

understanding scripture, but in meeting life with awareness,

dignity, and grace.

 

Looking forward for the next experiential lesson 13

Thanks & Regards,

Gopica

Scott: Wow, Gopica, instant progress! Being able to keep your

cool and stay calm in a tense moment at work is inspiring. Did it

go over well with the leader? It would be interesting to hear a few

more details, if it isn’t top secret. How did others take your unusual

poise? Your account makes me quite curious about what was going

on in the interchanges.

Yes, the Gita is about action—unitive action, where there’s

no scheming or prejudice or fear, among other impediments. You

must have a deep grounding already in your own stability. The

Gita will support that and possibly broaden its scope. It’s fun to

read how it’s going for you. Success in communication tends to

breed more success.

Not taking things personally if you aren’t the cause, is

another exceptional skill, Gopica. I was raised to take everything

personally, so have had a tough time getting over it, even though

I’m a big advocate. Even in spiritual settings, there is often a

presumption that we cause everything we are involved with. I’ve

found that to be a huge waste of time, when I already have plenty

to work on without adding someone else’s karma.

Frankly, it sounds like you were let go from a job? Nataraja

Guru would say if you get fired, you should consider it a

promotion. I’ve found that to be true; maybe not always, but we

have much to learn from everything that happens.

Impressive account, thank you, Gopica.

Bailey

Think of examples of either action in inaction or inaction in action.

example of a time your best intentions were met with unfortunate

results, and see if you can tell in retrospect why that happened.

Were there implicit expectations involved?

The one whose works are all devoid of desire and willful motive,

whose (impulse of) action has been reduced to nothing in the fire

of wisdom, is recognized as a knowing person by the wise. (19)

Paris May 22

On what is action and what is inaction even intelligent men here

are confused. (v 16)

     How very apt today! To a teacher, a student of History, how

richly, ironically apt!  One of the little stories I liked to tell my

students concerns a conversation between President Nixon and

Chinese Premier Chou-en-lai during the former’s famous 1971

visit which opened the door to the Rise of Red China on the global

stage which continues ever stronger today.  Nixon is reputed to ask

Chou (known as the most scholarly and thoughtful of the Chinese

leaders) if he thought the French Revolution (Chou had studied in

Paris) was a good thing (or globally positive or whatever).  Chou

pauses. “It’s perhaps too soon to say.”

     Action in inaction.  When in 1939 WW II began in Europe (it

had opened years before in China, but wasn’t yet called that) the

United States was officially inactive, by the terms of the Neutrality

Act.  When in 1940 France had fallen and the Vichy regime made

a deal (an armistice, not a peace treaty) with Hitler, Britain fought

on, the Blitz began, and Churchill turned for help to the USA.  My

hands are tied by the Neutrality Act, replies FDR.  Inaction is the

law. True, over the next 18 months  creative expedients are found

to provide some help anyway: trade English bases in the West

Indies for old destroyers, food & medical shipments to break the

submarine-enforced German blockade... precise, limited actions

within the context of official inaction.  Still, it took Japanese

action, bold and treacherous, to get us into WW II in December

1941.  A closer look at those two “neutral” years by the historian

Lynn Olson reveals, however, a series of actions undertaken by a

variety of non-state in cahoots with some lesser-state actors to

prepare the US to enter the war, so that when Pearl Harbor

abruptly changed the game we were much readier than we could

have been in the summer of 1940.  

     Is this perhaps too carefully academic an example for the

intention of Scott’s prompt? (Happy Birthday, by the way). To take

it further into the realm of counter-or-alternative history, suppose

Roosevelt, driven by passionate conviction (by “desire and willful

motive” as v. 19 puts it), had tried to openly crash through the

Neutrality act in 1940, might not the result have been a backlash at

home as Germany grew stronger abroad?  Looked at thus, verse

16’s contention that intelligent folks can become confused is

illustrated.

      Inaction in action? To stay with WW II: how about the inaction

of Britain and France in the face of Hitler’s threats and

intimidation at Munich?  Or, a bit upriver, their, and the League of

Nations’, inaction-as-policy in the face of fascist aggression in

Ethopia and Spain, enabling the German and Italian (and at a

distance the Japanese) actions which led into WW II?  Or, to fast

forward closer to our own times and our immediate dilemmas:  the

inaction of the Obama administration when the 2008 financial

crisis caused thousands of middle-class Americans to lose their

homes (despite the urging of Shiela Baer, the Federal Housing

officer, to freeze the mortgage payments), the failure to use the full

range of Presidential powers to get through Congress stronger

workers’ rights legislation despite promises made to the unions

who had supported his election , to use them again in 2016 when

the Senate Majority leader refused to hold confirmation hearings in

2016 for Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court?  A lot of details

here for that Devil to hide in, that Devil who has now emerged as

Donald Trump gleefully contemptuous of the sort of constitutional,

legal and political scruples that held Obama back.  

     I’m not sure these musings on the basis of possible historical

parallels are very useful in the context of our current

dilemma.  Donald Trump is more than an apt symbol of the

problems our world now faces – he is a fierce and active driver of

the chariot of wrongs being done.  But he is only one driver. You

and I (I’m speaking generally)—what might we do? What ought

we to do?  As an American citizen I give money to Democratic

candidates opposed to his misdeeds and ambitions; I might also

attend demonstrations, write letters, sign petitions.  Krishna is

telling us that our actions, if devoid of desire and willful motive,

are OK (refined in the fire of wisdom).  Arjuna did pick up the

bow, and fight.  

     I am also confronted on a personal level with the dilemma

acting/refraining from action.  For the past year my son has

suffered attacks of pancreatitis, in some part the consequence of

alcohol abuse over some fifteen years.  He was pretty discreet,

even secret about it; his mother and stepfather knew, and I was

informed of  a few drunken episodes but for a long time resisted

accepting that he was –is—a full-scale alcoholic.  I would take him

out for a hamburger and drink a beer, convinced that by choosing

water or a soft drink he was demonstrating a degree of control that

showed he wasn’t in that deep.  The attacks –there have been five

of them over the past year, the latest happened yesterday—show

how serious the physical condition is.  His mother is the one who

takes him to the hospital, and stays closest to him.  I try/have tried

to be helpful, to be encouraging, to let him know that I love him

and at the same time respect his independence.  Keeping the latter

resolve has proved most tricky. When he had problems in his

college career –an English professor who seemed to be grading

unfairly, a math class he failed twice—I offered back up, and $$

money for extra tutoring.  I gave him driving lessons and offered to

pay for professional ones when getting a license daunted him for a

time.   But always he kept me at arms length. When he did solve

his college problems on his own, graduated and got his driver’s

license I congratulated him and made some suggestions about

further education.  On his own he found the boy he has now held

for four years: security staff at the Indiana University Art

Museum.  He is successful there, appreciated, and lives according

to a schedule of 8-hour shifts (staff is on the premises 24h/365yr)

that shifts about.  This virtually precludes any kind of social life;

he has no girlfriend (or boyfriend), he does have a cat.  I am glad

he has made his way thus far on his own but am concerned that he

has painted himself into a corner. A dead end. I refrain from

this.  He has a real interest in, and talent for history (one

suggestion of mine he did take in college, to enroll in a course in

Roman history).  I could help him, financially, if he decided to

pursue a degree or write a novel.  Should I again offer help? –

action.  Should I keep my mouth shut, holding myself ready to

help? Inaction.  Maybe there is an intermediate way.  Maybe the

recurring pancreatitis attacks will constrain possible pathways, or

maybe open up others.  Or both. Is the deeper problem that he

doesn’t know what he wants?  Wasn’t that the problem of all of us,

when we were young?  Our era, our culture says: he needs to

decide, he needs to act/not act.  Sure. But we who brought him into

the world, nurtured him through childhood, our caring, our

responsibility continues.  Elusively subtle indeed!

Scott: Curious connection, Bailey—Nixon in China, by John

Adams, is my favorite opera. Brilliant! Such an unlikely topic. It

showed me that even great evildoers can get things right, once or

twice in a lifetime; who knows how or why that happened? A tide

in the affairs….

For you, the way these personal traits Krishna is teaching that

also play out on the world stage must be especially fascinating,

especially the universal interplay of action and inaction. Nations

are always busy, busy, busy, while trying to keep a lid on most of

it.

I’m glad you note that these matters are to some degree

outside of the thrust of the class, yet it is amusing that you are such

an irrepressible history buff that you naturally are at home in it.

You’re right to say it’s perhaps too academic, a deflection of

powerful forces onto safer ground, but it all fits together. I have

enjoyed thinking about the two sides of this coin, after reading

your response last week, and am unable to draw a hard line

between personal and social motivations. They blend into each

other.

As far as our participation in righting the wrongs of human

endeavor, we have to accept we’re quite powerless. For my part, I

teach sanity through ancient wisdom, and hopefully demonstrate it

in my dealings with others. Good cheer seems radical enough,

these days!

During the first Trump administration, my daughter Emily

was shocked to see how inevitable it all is, from our perspective.

Like so many of us, we blamed the Germans citizenry for allowing

Nazism, yet now we find out how intractable it is.

We could talk about this for hours over a beer, if we’re ever

in the same time zone again.

Arjuna picked up the bow again, but his return to the fray

comes after the Gita. How to fight is left to each of us.

Your actions and inactions around your son really bring the

issue to the neutral-yet-vivid zone between ourself and the other,

Bailey. What do you do, when every option imaginable is not

enough? For me, the key to inaction is listening closely—to the

person and the situation—without pushing myself to respond.

Quiet the turbulent mind, so its clouds won’t obscure any “still

small voice” arising from the depths. Be as fearless as possible.

Prayers, agnostic or otherwise, should not be ruled out, yet don’t

pin your hopes on them, either.

I’m sure you recall Narayana Guru’s response to Tagore,

recounted in Nataraja Guru’s biography, here excerpted in Nitya’s

In the Stream of Consciousness:

When the great poet of India, Rabindranath Tagore, came to

pay homage to Narayana Guru, the poet was overjoyed by the

great changes brought about by Narayana Guru in the

socioeconomic setup of the country. Commenting on that, the

poet complimented the Guru on the “great work” he was doing

for the people.

The Guru’s reply was not delayed, “Neither have we done

anything in the past, nor is it possible to do anything in the

future. Powerlessness fills us with sorrow.” 2

Narayana Guru had at least a million times the influence on the

world that we will ever have, probably much more if it could be

measured. I often remind myself of the Guru’s unbearably

humbling, also doctrinally correct, pair of sentences.

Nancy Y’s biography has a longer excerpt, with her introduction:

During his time in Alwaye, Natarajan organized an opportunity

for a meeting between Narayana Guru and Rabindranath

Tagore, the famous poet (winner of the Nobel Prize in

Literature in 1923).

In honour of the great poet of Bengal the people in the vicinity

of the hermitage arranged a kingly reception. Elephants were

requisitioned. He was to be brought in procession as far as the

foot of the hill of the Ashram. Musical accompaniments were

arranged. The Guru stood in the verandah of his rest-house and

himself ordered the best carpets that the hermitage possessed,

to be brought out to adorn the foot of the seat of the honoured

guest. The people thronged with the guest, anxious to hear the

conversation between the Guru and the seer of Santiniketan.

Each of the crowd thought himself the chosen follower of the

Guru, and as space was limited, it took some time to establish

silence for the conversation. The two veteran leaders greeted

with joined palms, and sat down facing one another. The seer

of Bengal broke the deep silence that marked their meeting, and

complimented the Guru on the “great work” he was doing for

the people. The Guru's reply was not delayed, “Neither have we

done anything in the past nor is it possible to do anything in the

future. Powerlessness fills us with sorrow.” His words sounded

an enigma to some. Others thought he was just joking. Still

others examined the logic of the statement. A characteristic

silence followed the remark. The crowd looked at one another

for a meaning, but it was the Guru's face itself that gave the

silent commentary to the words. Deep silence and earnestness

sat on his features. Smiles of curiosity and the rival

expectations of the people were drawn into the neutral depths

of silence by the suggestion that was expressed on the features

of the Guru. All was silent for a minute or two. The climax of

the interview was reached in silence where all met in equality.

Usual conversation followed and the poet and the crowd

retired.

1 Nataraja Guru. The Word of the Guru, (Cochin, India: PAICO

Publishing House, 1968) p.34.

2 Nataraja Guru. The Word of the Guru, (Cochin, India: PAICO

Publishing House, 1968) p.34.

Nature’s Retreat

We speak of stress and weary days,
of sickness, sorrow, tangled ways.
We call life unfair, harsh and unkind,
while storms of thought consume the mind.

Yet nature whispers a different song,
where nothing is fair, yet all belong.
The sun burns bright with tireless flame,
still flowers bloom and do not complain.

The birds endure the changing skies,
yet greet the dawn with joyful cries.
The fox in heat may seek the shade,
yet carries on through light and fade.

No life escapes the test of time,
the steepest hill, the hardest climb.
What comes to you is not always yours to choose,
but how you bear it is yours to use.

So bloom like flowers beneath the sun,
sing like birds when day has begun.
For life’s true gift is not what’s given—
but how we live the life we’re living.

Garden Of Dreams

Waves of nature rhyme through the garden, 

while the passion of the sun ponders its flames. 

 In tender retreat, blossoms bloom softly, 

as nature brushes the quiet rhythm of love. 

Stress

 I could not give up.

There was no going back. After years of suffering— silent battles of the mind, pain resting heavily on my shoulders, an invisible weight I carried alone— not anymore. I burned away the burden. I refused the pull of darkness. The road was steep, unforgiving. At any moment, I could have fallen— yet somehow, I endured. Sharp stones pierced through worn shoes. Even as my feet bled, I hid the pain and kept moving forward. And now, I decide: No more depressive moments. No more crossing broken lines— that chapter is closed. Once, stress ruled my mind, turning thoughts into storms, silence into pressure, each step into exhaustion. But clarity arrived quietly— like dawn after endless rain. It reminded me: survival is not a prison. Pain was never meant to be my home. So now, I choose differently— To breathe without fear. To walk without yesterday’s weight. To build instead of break. To heal instead of hide. Let this be a new beginning, guided by clarity, peace, and purpose. No more crashing. No more pain. Only forward— at last.

Whispers From Nature

 In the quiet chambers of my soul,

I carried storms no one could hold.
Smiled through wounds, walked through fire,
Burning softly with hidden desire.

One day I looked toward the sky,
And asked the Lord, “How do I fight
The weight of wrong, the silent pain,
The endless loss, the hidden rain?”

God only smiled—calm and deep,
Like oceans resting in their sleep.
Then nature whispered through the air,
“A clearer path is waiting there.”

I said, “I cannot return the pain,
Nor stain another heart again.
To hurt someone would wound me more,
And leave my spirit bruised and sore.”

Again He smiled.
And then I knew.

Not every battle needs noise to move.
Not every answer comes through war.
Some victories begin at the core.

“Fast in silence,” the heavens said.
“Speak less. Let peace be your bread.
Do your duty. Walk your way.
Leave injustice where it lays.”

So now I move with quieter feet,
No bitterness for those I meet.
For silence, too, can strongly stand—
A gentle strength from God’s own hand.

A Kinder Sky

​

One minute rain, another minute hail,

then sunlight breaks, then wild winds sail.

The seasons dance like clowns in the sky,

changing their masks as the hours pass by.

Buds on the ground tremble in fear,

confused by the moods that keep drawing near.

Roots grow weak, exhausted by the game—

tired of the chaos, tired of the same.

I looked at nature and softly said:

“I wished for rain to wash my patio clean,

to carry away the dust unseen.

I wished for gentle drops to make my plants smile

through the tireless heat that burns all the while.

But today you are harsh in every way—

hailstones falling, cold winds that stay.

My bushes are fading, struggling to survive;

they only need rain and sunlight to thrive.

When my plants flourish, my heart does too.

So promise me this, sky so blue:

let the buds grow without fear or pain.

Seasons may change, but not all at once again.

Let tomorrow arrive with a kinder sign—

only soft rain and warm sunshine.

The Warrior

​In the battlefield of wounds and fire,

a warrior walks through pain and desire.

Every inch bleeding, every breath torn,

yet he moves forward through the storm.

The ground may shake beneath his feet,

defeat may whisper, cold and deep.

Still he does not turn away,

still he chooses another day.

He knows the darkness he must face,

knows fear is waiting in every place.

Yet courage is not the absence of scars —

it is walking wounded beneath broken stars.

The sword grows heavy within his hand,

hope fades slowly across the land.

But something stronger burns inside —

a silent flame he cannot hide.

Not every warrior fights to win;

some fight so they do not surrender within.

And that is the power no storm can bury:

the heart and soul of a wounded warrior.

Lesson 11 CHAPTER IV: Jnana Yoga, Unitive Wisdom, 1-11

 A few of you uncovered my birthday—thanks for the good

wishes. I’m 75 as of today, May 9, and holding the class is a major

joy of my senescence. I hope you quiet ones are getting something

out of the course, too. I did hear from Puja she is reading along, a

nice surprise. Good wishes to everyone!

Bindu

When I reflect on my life, I realise that many of my early choices

were not truly my own. I never consciously chose to come to

London. Instead, I followed the path shaped by tradition, family

expectations, and social norms.

I grew up in a culture where arranged marriage was the norm.

When my parents accepted a proposal from a family in London, I

went along with it without question. However, when the groom

came to see me, he rejected me, saying I was “a bit chubby” and

wanted someone better suited. In a small village where everyone

knows one another, this news spread quickly. The same people

who knew my marriage was fixed also knew it was rejected. It was

deeply humiliating.

I had lived according to what I believed was a “right”

way—respectful, God-fearing, and obedient to social

expectations—yet I still faced rejection. This experience created a

shift within me. Although better proposals came afterward, I

rejected them. Looking back, I can see that I was reacting from

hurt and anger—perhaps toward my parents for rushing into the

situation, and perhaps toward the circumstances that interrupted

my education.

At that time, my parents strongly believed in astrology and felt I

should marry between the ages of 18 and 20, so they were eager to

proceed with proposals. But internally, something had changed in

me. I withdrew and resisted.

Then, within three months, my husband’s proposal came. In

hindsight, I feel I may have accepted it partly as a way of escaping

the shame I experienced. When he accepted me, I remember

thinking, in my 20-year-old mind, that he was more handsome than

the one who had rejected me. It felt like a turning point, and within

ten days, we were married.

This may seem unusual to some, but in 1990s Varkala, this was

normal. Marriages were arranged, and love often followed

marriage rather than preceded it.

Looking back now, I understand that I did not choose London out

of desire or ambition. I chose it as a way to restore my self-respect.

I was young, not yet wise, even though I was completing a

mathematics degree. I was not thinking deeply about my future—I

was reacting to pain.

When I arrived in London, I entered an unfamiliar world. Apart

from my husband’s family, I had no support system. I struggled

with language, pronunciation, and cultural differences. At 21, I

became a mother while still adjusting to a new country. Life

moved quickly, and I adapted as best as I could.

Reflecting on the statement from the Gita, “When ignorance

attains power, truth becomes its greatest threat,” I see elements of

that in my past. I was not aware enough to question the path laid

out for me. I followed what was considered right without fully

understanding whether it was right for me. The social structure I

lived in did not encourage individual questioning, and in that

sense, truth—personal truth—remained hidden.

At the same time, I do not view my husband as part of that

ignorance. For me, he came at the right moment, almost like a

form of grace, helping me move beyond a painful phase in my life.

What began as an escape gradually became a pathway for growth.

Over time, London, which I once felt I had not chosen, became

part of my identity. I often think of it as a stepmother—sometimes

harsh, sometimes nurturing, but still shaping who I am. I continue

to balance different values from family, culture, and work, learning

as I go.

The Gita’s idea that “what is coming at you is coming from

you” has made me reflect on responsibility. I no longer see myself

as a victim of circumstances, but I also try not to blame myself

harshly for decisions made without awareness. Instead, I recognise

that I was acting from the level of understanding I had at that time.

Now, I see my life as a gradual movement from:

 following without questioning,

 to reacting from emotion,

 to beginning to reflect and choose consciously.

Joining this class is part of that journey. For the first time, I feel I

am not just accepting ideas or reacting to situations, but truly

trying to understand myself. In that sense, I relate deeply to the

idea of “wisdom sacrifice” from Chapter IV—the effort to seek

understanding and strip away what is unnecessary.

I may not have chosen my path consciously in the beginning, but

now I am beginning to choose awareness. And perhaps that is

where true freedom starts.

Love Bindu x

Scott: Yes, Bindu, we humans stumble through life, suffering

many slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, yet somehow most

of us eventually knit together into a substantial being, with a

capacity to heal or harm those around us as we make our way

forward. I find it helpful to realize others are as in the dark as I am,

so I don’t put them on a pedestal or grant them powers over me

they don’t actually have.

Apparently, love marriages began with the movies, and have

been around only about 100 years. Their success rate is no better

than arranged marriages, from what I’ve read. The whole

partnering business is a fantasy tempest inching fitfully toward

reality. No matter what road we take, life is a struggle to come into

our own. It sounds like you have been both fortunate and skillful,

Bindu.

The best is that if you do wake up to your life, you are

satisfied how it turned out, and can laugh at what a fool you’ve

been. (I’m speaking of myself, primarily. We all make plenty of

mistakes, and they bounce off each other.) The Gita is a

masterwork that will help many of your intimations fall into a

sensible order. As you identify with the wisdom sacrifice, you’re

already well along in assimilating its message.

Well said, how you see your life: none of us choose our path

early on, and it’s very lucky we don’t get the chance. When we’re

ready, we can take over some of the guidance, and take other hands

off our steering wheel.

Guru Nitya often told us that our “inner guru” arranged the

world to promote expression of our latent abilities. I find that an

uplifting metaphor, with a lot of truth in it. We don’t, then, have to

paddle our own canoe, all we have to do is help it along with a few

strokes, and watch where it’s taking us. Bindu, you have every

reason to give your inner guru a lot of credit—it’s done very well

by you.

Gopica

My reflections on verses 1 to 11 of Chapter 4. These verses speak

about how true wisdom is not just information, but knowing how

to act with clarity, humility, and faith. I can see this in a recent

experience at work.

Verse 1–2 Wisdom comes from clear guidance

In these verses, Krishna says that wisdom is passed from one who

knows to one who listens with care. In my work, the leader guides

us, but sometimes the message is short and not fully clear. Instead

of reacting, I now try to ask a gentle question, to understand her

intention before acting. This helps me work with clarity, not

confusion.

Verses 3–4 Duty without ego

Arjuna asks who can truly understand this teaching. These verses

remind me that duty is about doing what is needed, not trying to

prove myself. The admin felt blamed for data that depended on

volunteers. Instead of taking it as “my fault” or “her fault,” I tried

to see it as a shared duty: help gather the data honestly, within

what is possible.

Verses 5–7 Acting in the present moment

Krishna says he appears whenever dharma declines. For me, this

means: respond in the present, not in fear. When only 3 out of 17

volunteers replied, I did not stay stuck in frustration. With the

admin, we called the others and gathered what was possible. We

did not wait for “perfect” data; we did what was right now.

Verses 8–11 Steadiness in action and relationship

Krishna says he acts to protect the good, remove what is harmful,

and re-establish balance. These verses help me stay steady when

things feel unfair. Earlier, I used to feel heavy or confused with the

leader’s feedback. Now I try to listen, reflect, and act with clarity. I

also respond with empathy, not anger.

There was a situation where the leader asked me to work with the

admin, then later her message was a little unclear. I did what I

understood, admitted that it was based on my understanding, and

shared it openly. She replied “thank you” and asked to integrate the

data. This shows that honest action, even in confusion, can still

support harmony.

My admin, often says, “inspite of her giving 100% effort, she at

times accused” and feels hurt. I gently asked her, “Can anyone

really meet 100% of another person’s expectations, especially what

is not in our control?” I invited her to focus on what is in our

control: doing our best, learning from what comes, and staying

kind to ourselves and others. She felt more relaxed after that.

Scott: It sounds like you are more of the guru to your admin,

Gopica, than she is to you. You’ve handled a tough situation well,

and I really like the way you have applied the ancient wording to

present-day issues.

Clarity gained through questioning is so central to life, it’s

too bad many people are over-sensitive to being questioned.

Because of your example, I searched through Guru Nitya’s

Selected Quotes (available on his website

http://aranya.me/read.html . So many amazing treasures of

wisdom! The main point is the disciple must ask good questions, in

a respectful manner. Just what you’ve demonstrated.

The relation between a question and its answer is analogous to

the relation between a disciple and Guru. A silly question can

evoke only a commonplace answer, while a serious question, in

its turn, can open up rare secrets. Each disciple gets, as it were,

a Guru according to their own merit. (Gita, 13)

After humbling yourself, you should look for an opportunity

where the guru is pleased to narrate. But beyond that the

reverence stops. Thereafter, you put searching questions to the

guru. You are not to just sit there like a dunce; you must ask

searching questions. And when he or she speaks, you are not to

lie down and accept it at face value, but you must critically

examine every word. Scrutinize all that is said. Then afterwards

you do what you like according to your best understanding, not

what the guru likes. (Therapy and Realization in the Bhagavad

Gita)

Many questions stem from their answers. So if we wait for

some time, the questions will transmute into their answers.

(Love and Blessings, 426)

The seeker and the seer are on the same path. All the same they

are not the same kind of beneficiaries of wisdom. The seer has

solved age-old riddles in his or her heart. The seeker again and

again gets lost on the slippery pathway to certitude. The quality

of life is decided by how happy you are, how consistently you

are happy, and how you are established in that happiness.

Those who lack this excellence are always haunted by the

questions: “What next? Where should I turn? Who can I

approach? How can it be accomplished? How can I know that

what I seek is truly what I need or what I want?” From the

examples of those who have gone before us, we discover that in

most cases those who have succeeded had someone to guide

them, someone to hold their hand with compassion. The

successful have been led to the sanctuary of satisfaction where

there is no longer any remorse or sense of inadequacy. The

masters who lead the seekers are called preceptors of wisdom.

(Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, Vol. III, 433)

Bailey

OMG  Scott!  “When ignorance attains to power, truth is its

biggest threat…. Because of this, truth seekers are marginalized

virtually everywhere.” How true is this of the culture you inhabit,

if any?”  er, did this prompt just come to you out of the

blue?  Those who worship ignorance, the Isa Upanishad assures us,

enter a realm of blind darkness—but “truth” seems hardly to daunt

them.  Or rather, for Demonic Donald, “truth” seems to mean

whatever he says it means at a particular moment.  It does seem

emphatically the case that “truth seekers”, in regard to the

Absolute as well as managing our vulnerable and menaced

everyday world, are marginalized, at any rate that seems to be

Power’s plan.  In the culture I inhabited, by choice aided by luck,

most of my life, truth was the lodestar for many of us, and that

remains true of my colleagues in the universities, those I know

somewhat.  But we are under assault by the power-worshippers

driven by ambition and greed, themselves nourished by resentment

and ignorance.  How to understand this? Watching a Neflix

documentary on WWII offers a kind of knowledge that does not

encourage the faith in Reason and Progress bequeathed us by the

Enlightenment.  Grinning young German soldiers, healthy well-fed

and confident, advancing into Russia in the summer of 1941,

filmed as they obey orders to shoot down Jews and other

subhumans, to set fire to their homes and farms.  They don’t look

so happy and confident at Stalingrad in the winter of ’42-43, but

still they mostly obey orders (the filmmakers show us an

exception, a soldier ordered to shoot a prisoner, who instead walks

him out of sight and lets him escape into the woods).  I have been

reading a lot, in the last couple of years, about world of the 1930’s

and 40s in Europe, the world of the growing-up, youth and early

maturity of my parents, the “cultures” –historical events,

economics, social realities, ideologies—of those years.  I could

teach a class, a whole semester of classes on that era, but would I

at the end of it understand more why those young soldier did the

things they did, why the ones still surviving in 1945 continued to

fight desperately in obedience to a deranged madman whose final

plan was to destroy as much as could be destroyed?  Into blind

darkness enter they...  indeed.  Sure, there were exceptions,

happily.  The Paris to which I shall return tomorrow has preserved

so much of its charm and historic beauty, its character, because the

German commander in August 1944 evaded and finally disobeyed

Hitler’s direct, oft-repeated orders, to burn the place down.  The

crack SS divisions who got those same orders, at the same time, in

regard to Warsaw carried them out with thorough, savage brutality

– while Stalin kept the Russian army in check 50 miles

away.  Meanwhile France was being liberated by the combined

efforts of the French themselves and the Allied armies (rather

astonishingly France quickly transitioned from a defeated,

occupied country to a partner ally which would take a judicial seat,

with the Americans, English and Soviets, to judge the Nazis at

Nuremberg).   

     Did Krishna incarnate, per verses 7 & 8, in some sense in those

times restoring righteousness, protecting the good, destroying evil

doers?  I’ve also been watching a new movie about Nuremberg,

where “crimes against humanity” began to have legal

existence.  We Americans have mostly in our lifetimes admired

Lincoln for defending the Union and ending slavery –and he

remains a symbol of what much of the world admires/has admired

about America in our lifetimes—is this “truth” too now under

threat?  

 

(chez KD (Kathleen) 28 Blvd St Denis, Paris April

30)   “Conscious living”/ “Deliberate living”.  ED emphasizes this

as key to Swamiji’s living/teaching. The stability of the self-

imposed pattern of his days once he became settled in the Ranchi

ashram in 1930 was rigorous, reliable, though subject to

adjustment with changing seasons (monsoon) or such

circumstances as the two visits to France arranged by his French

disciples.  Stabilitas is the key vow taken by monks of the Order of

Saint Benedict, like Thomas Merton, ever since the 6 th  century. A

useful prompt for me?  How can it be?  I am no monk!  Is not

impulsive living-in-the-moment-listening-for-guidance-by-that-

inner-voice (the key concept of the Quakers) more in accord with

my nature? Or is this thought among Ego’s master ploys?   

(May 4)  My nature. My destiny. My svadharma.  My

intention/intentions.  My choices (my question to Nataraja Guru at

New Year 1973: how to make choices?) What am I supposed to do

in/with my life? “Deliberate living”---oh, plunged am I, plunged I

have been since I got on the overnight plane a week ago and

opened a second-hand copy of Philip Roth’s novel The Human

Stain (2000) which I had impulsively bought for a dollar in the

Bloomington public library’s old-books-sell-off shop just before I

left.  Oh, I knew this to be as heavy-duty-as-delightfully-written-a-

novel, for I had read it before, on the 2001 trip to France when I

brought my 15-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son along to

discover my Europe with me.  And when they had returned to the

States with Christine and I settled into directing the Walhain

excavation I opened that then new-and-fresh novel (the story set in

1998) to relax evenings to read with growing delight.  Roth’s gift

as a writer: so serious and at the same time so funny.  This is the

time to reread it, Impulse said, so I grabbed it and here I sit shaking

my head in wonder at 2 AM in Paris, France.

     Coleman Silk, the protagonist, in his Freshman year at Howard

University when his father (by whose firm intention he was

enrolled in that university) abruptly dies, drops out of school and

acts decisively.  WWII is started: he joins the Navy, as a white

man.  Today we might shrug – mixed-race, big deal, but in those

days black and white was...black and white.  No joking, no

nuances. Some of Coleman’s forebears had been slaves in Georgia

not so many years ago but the paternal line moved north to New

Jersey and intermarried with Negro families which went back to

the 17 th  century, light-toned from generations of racial

mixing.  Coleman, energetic, disciplined, strong-willed as a teen-

ager takes up boxing-for-fun (well, it might be said, for character-

building); his Jewish teacher/trainer nudges him to fight-as-white

in a particular match which could have led to an athletic

scholarship in a major university, allowing him to “slip the punch”

of accepting a life in the officially inferior stratum of segregated

America.  Something his father, a man of unyielding principle,

would never allow.  So in Howard, the foremost historically black

college, Coleman is on the rails to life as a Negro, an identity

imposed on him by birth, as he sees it, against which his spirit

rebels: NOT CHOSEN BY ME.  Father suddenly not there, he

chooses the Navy and passing-for-white henceforth, and the

consequences of this choice over the rest of his life are the novel’s

major theme.  In the summer of 1998, after a distinguished career

as a Classical scholar professor, and Dean of elite old Athena

College in the Berkshire mountains of Western Massachusetts (my

own Williams College is clearly Roth’s model) he is estranged

from the college and the community where he had wielded such

power, been such a great teacher, as a result of an offhand phrase

used in class misinterpreted (to some extent understandably-if-

stupidly, to some extent opportunistically and maliciously) as

racist.  Roth is a prophet, here, of the turmoil in 21 st  century

America over “woke culture”, a term not yet invented and

cynically manipulated by the Right and Donald Trump.  But what

speaks to me here in our study is what to learn from Coleman

Silk’s drama about “deliberate living”, the nature of Truth, and the

consequences of the choices one makes.  

      For young Coleman, to accept an identity as “colored”, or

Negro, amounts to a Lie in regard to a preferred Truth that insists

he construct his own identity as an individual.  The ideal expressed

by the Victorian English poet Henley: “I am the master of my

fate/I am the captain of my soul” (Invictis).  His deliberate

rejection of that identity leads to cutting himself off from his own

family, and in order to invent the self and construct the future he

has decided upon, to invent himself as Jewish, to marry a Jewish

woman and pass along his invented story, this chosen identity, to

his own four children.  In pursuit of his own private Truth, to

entangle himself such a web of deceits that an accusation of

“racism” becomes his nemesis.  Just today in an article in the

French weekly L’Express, bought on impulse for the metro, the

French philosopher Julia de Funes explains: the error comes from

the insistence in our contemporary culture of putting identity in

place of principled, nuanced distinction.  It is one thing to affirm,

Coleman, that “race” ought not to matter (both laws and social

realities have changed so much since the 1940s that many more

people agree on that), another to hide the truth of your own racial

background.  The tragic issue of the path your choice(s) entailed is

made clear in this novel, as is its resonances with the tragic Greek

dramas you taught with great care, honesty and skill in your

career.  The heroic aspects of that deliberately chosen life are also

explored, with sensitivity, nuance and humor, by Philip Roth in a

novel which I consider worthy of a Nobel prize. Is it by chance that

a French philosopher waves to me as I pursue my path, savoring its

ironic wealth?  Perhaps, Nataraja Guru, I have not entirely

disregarded your advice?

     What does Krishna say?  “As each chooses to approach Me,

even accordingly do I have regard for him. My very path it is, O

Arjuna, that all men do tread from every (possible) approach.” (v

11)

      What has Gilles Farcet to say to us (Christine and me) a propos

our “inner ecology” in our morning spiritual reading? (9 AM

now)  Good resolutions, he asks us?  Problem is, the one who

resolves to take a healthy morning run is not the same as the one

who decides ten minutes later better to drink a coffee than to lace

up the running shoes.  We are not one, we are several, many.  Until

we are unified...  Until “the heart becomes like a stone”

(Yeats, Easter 1916), until young Silky the boxer becomes Dean

Silk... the many don’t agree.  Best, advises GF, to keep the

resolutions simple, as realist as possible. I hear Kathleen returning

from her early morning yoga.  Let us go down to Le Sully and sip

our café crème.

Scott: To be honest, Bailey, the quest for power and dominance is

a most typical urge of ignorance, and human history is littered with

its tragedies. Yet, that is a good quote, to shrink it down to a few

words. We are left to wonder if computer power isn’t the last

weapon needed to make ignorance a permanent condition. It’s

certainly a big help, and you have to credit the right wing for first

realizing its value for propaganda.

We didn’t expect to witness the apocalypse, did we? It

seemed like scare tactics, more than a warning of what to look out

for.

I don’t know that I have any consolation to offer, but I find

profound consolation in the Gita’s clear-headed philosophy. At

least it can help us stay sane while all those about us are losing

their heads. (I’m sure you know your Kipling, here paraphrased.)

You are finding the readings a stimulus for retrospection over

your life, it seems, and that’s a wonderful thing at a late stage like

ours. We hit a very sweet spot in history, and ardently hoped it

would last. Why would anyone prefer hatred and misery-making to

peace and love? And yet the appeal is irresistible. Darn! The movie

of our lives holds plenty of comedy and tragedy, suspense and

ennui, cleverness and stupidity. No boots stamped our faces,

endlessly. My drop in the bucket is to pass on a little of what a

very enlightened and kindhearted trio of gurus gifted all sentient

beings, and is already fading away. It’s too early to imagine what

comes next.

People our age watched a lot of documentaries on TV about

WWII in our childhoods, and it made us peace-lovers. I can still

picture some of the scenes, all in black and white. Soldiers frozen

stiff in Russia, as they walked, still upright, forging forward.

Impossible! Scenes out of hell, right here on earth.

We’d welcome Jesus or Krishna coming back into the world

and kicking ass, but I’m afraid it isn’t going to be that easy. I’m

happy to be proved wrong. There is an inherent balance in the

world, and it may be that humans have overstepped their bounds of

devastating our dear Mother, so our time is up. What “rough beast”

will replace us?

Th Roth book sounds fascinating; thanks for the synopsis.

As yogis, we know we can’t “fix” anything. we can only live

well and stand for reason and justice. Try to live up to XII,15: Be

one who does not disturb (the peace of) the world and (whose

peace) is not disturbed by the world, and who is free from

exaggerations of joy, hate and fear. Nothing to it.