[7]
Steadiness within Love’s Mutable Base
THE IDEA OF SURRENDERING to pure bhakti comes as such a relief at this point in the Gītā, given the buildup of intense storyline and dense teachings. Especially since it’s all been topped off with the news that the method that will get you through crises and on a path toward lasting insight—yoga—is virtually impossible for most of us. Learning that all we really need to do is to trust bhakti, eager students may heave a deep sigh of relief and sink slowly back into that supportive nest only love makes available. Pure, unobstructed love is warm, rich, full, accommodating, and strong. It provides a time and place where you can feel safe enough to truly let go. Arjuna’s relief too is palpable, but after only an instant of reflection on the blissful idea of bhakti and surrender, he—the wonderfully insatiable student—is troubled by the next logical step that again throws him into a moment of crisis. Given all the teachings that he’s learned from Kṛṣṇa to this point, including insight into the absolute nature of life, the self, the process of elements unfolding, and embodiment and sacrifice, how ultimately does surrendering to bhakti help? How can we “know Kṛṣṇa,” surrendering body, mind, emotion, and ego into the unknown at the time of death? So he asks, “What is this Brahman? What is the original self and what is action, O Best of Persons? And what is said to be the primordial domain of the elements, and who is the original divinity? How and what is the nature of sacrifice here in this body, O Slayer of Madhu? And how are you to be known at the time of death by the self-controlled” (8.1–2)?
Arjuna’s question is often interpreted as a query into how, in the end, knowing Kṛṣṇa will improve the inevitable situation we all face that one day we, and everyone we know, will die. Confusion about and fear of death are common unspoken uncertainties. Even more insidious than the background worry of winding up in a dumpster that ushers some to yoga is the seed of fear of our impending death. It is buried deep in the fertile soil of the imagination and embodied experience for virtually everyone. We may think we know interconnectedness and nonattachment. We may be cavalier, speaking of change as the constant and of impermanence as a blessing, and we may even imagine we are prepared for death. But then the time of reckoning comes and we find ourselves face-to-face with death—our own or that of someone we cannot imagine the world without. Perhaps we fight or sink into despair, depression, or denial but hopefully at some point in the process we find that these methods of postponing the need to confront the inevitable do not serve us or those we love.
Death is unavoidable—we are all barreling along on a one-way, dead-end street to death from the moment we’re born. The process of death is riveting, raw, the absolute invitation to show up, to get real, and to witness that everything is precious beyond description, transient beyond thought, and inherently intangible in its perceivable form. But truly facing these facts, surrendering to the present moment and, as Kṛṣṇa says to Arjuna, giving up our sense of separate self and coming to him and into the unknown takes tremendous courage. If we can quell our fears and avoidances, then the reality of death rips open our illusions to expose connections into the heart, the essence of existence, where we find that love is the only thing that sets us free. Without death there is no life, there is no true bhakti, there is only imagination.
Yet again, Arjuna is filled with doubt and finds himself in crisis. How does surrendering to Kṛṣṇa at the time of death actually help him or others he might encounter on the battlefield? Should he surrender to love or stand up as a good warrior and forget ahiṁsā in order to fight? Are fighting and ahiṁsā mutually exclusive? Kṛṣṇa reminds Arjuna that the way to see through the doubts, confusion, and fears is through yoga, the practice of focusing the mind and refining the capacity to let go into the vastness that is all manner of manifestations from subtle to gross. In chapters 8 and 9 of the Gītā, Kṛṣṇa offers a wider range of examples of who he is—which is everything—so that Arjuna can gradually start to experience the wholeness of manifestation and see that it is the surrender of self into this vastness with the knowledge that one’s self is actually part of the whole that helps at the time of death or any crisis. Kṛṣṇa advised Arjuna at the very start of the Gītā to stand up and fight—to meet his crisis head on, as a practice for that moment of death. Here too, in the middle of the story, he underscores the importance of facing our fears and crises by standing up with love, strength, and integrity, surrendering not out of duty or despair but out of devotion, courage, curiosity, and trust for the process. This is the most effective way to meet not only death but the full spectrum of life that leads us there.
His message is that to surrender, especially at the time of death, takes practice. This is what yoga is; the step-by-step practice of quieting the mind in a way that increases the capacity to let go and to surrender into the circumstances within any given nanosecond. Practicing the art of surrender before we meet the big one—death—is training to stay focused, and it prepares the ground for presence within a multiplicity of circumstances while we’re still alive and in this body. In this way the act of intelligent surrender facilitates the ability to let go and trust the unknown in a healthy, natural way. We are not so easily tossed into emotional imbalance and confusion when faced with complexities, dilemmas, or disillusionment in times of upheaval. Contemplative practices give us some experience in finding our way back to the present moment. Most importantly, with practice we’re more prepared to cope with whatever particular circumstances we face—including death. No guarantees of course, for at the time of death many factors converge to set the stage for the exit from this lifetime. Maybe it will be within our capacity to be conscious and “awake” as we release that final breath, and maybe not. Either way, as Kṛṣṇa teaches, for those who practice letting go and focusing on him in this lifetime—for those with the right intensions—death is a path (short or long) toward liberation. Even within the process of death we are encouraged to not be attached to the fruits of our actions. In other words, the message is that we aim to meet death exactly as it manifests, setting down our ideas of a good, bad, scary, enlightened, or chaotic death. We practice yoga and letting go as sincere offerings and sacrifices and out of devotion rather than as a means toward salvation or mastery in any way. By repeatedly and consciously rekindling a taste for focusing on and experiencing the divine nature of all manifestation, we prepare for and meet death in just the correct manner appropriate for each one of us in this particular lifetime.
Kṛṣṇa reminds Arjuna of what we see with the clarity of mind that we cultivate through practice: “The primordial domain of elements (adhibhūta) is the perishable existence. The puruṣa (the witness) is the basis of the divine creations. And I myself am all the sacrifices here in the body, O Best of the Embodied. And at the end of time, remembering Me, having released the body, the one who goes forth comes to my state of being. Here, there is no doubt” (8.4–5).
An important part of this teaching is the unquestionable truth that we do not know the circumstances or time of our death. We could die at any moment. Therefore we should be ready for death by consistently and under all manner of circumstance within the context of the ever-changing landscape of life focus on the interconnected nature of things. This section of the Gītā offers beautiful images through which we can recognize the process of death as well as practices, like chanting, that might be helpful in keeping us tethered to the present moment and the process that emerges when death presents itself. Kṛṣṇa explains that “Attending to all of the gates (of the body) and suspending the mind in the heart, having placed one’s own prāṇa in the head, established in yogīc concentration and saying “Oṁ,” the one syllable Brahman, meditating continuously on Me, the one who comes forth while releasing the body goes to the highest path” (8.12–13).
But he warns that all the worlds other than this imperishable realm (revealed and explained later in the text) are subject to rebirth. Kṛṣṇa calls the manifested realm as day and the unmanifested as night and says that all things come from the process of manifestation. Next he describes the “unmanifested,” the “eternal or imperishable being,” which is what he represents, what he is. Kṛṣṇa is “fire, light, day, the bright lunar fortnight, and the six months of the northern path of the sun are when Brahman-knowing people go to Brahman. Smoke, night, the dark lunar fortnight (kṛṣṇaḥ) and the six months of the southern path of the sun are when the yogī returns giving the lunar light. These two paths, the light and the dark, are thought to be perpetual in the world. By the first, one goes to not return, by the other, one returns again” (8.24–26).
In the context of the Gītā, in which reincarnation is a foundational belief, these practices prepare one for understanding the fabricating nature of mind and for touching into insights that can be helpful in the process of moving through death and into the next incarnation. Yet you need not believe in reincarnation to apply and benefit from the teachings. The idea, in part, is that if we have repeatedly practiced the process of letting go of attachments and have focused on all manifestation as an interpenetrating matrix of the divine, then at the time of death—at least in the background of our awareness—we may instinctively do the same. By not clinging to the body, the emotions, the life—even others we love dearly—we may be able to truly let go and, if circumstances permit, show up during the process of death. Those who do accept reincarnation would also be practicing not clinging to or coveting past or future lives. Envisioning the dissolution of our own corporeal and mental boundaries into a state of unification with our world, with the universe, and out to infinity, we may find moments of liberation, seeing death as a metaphorical concept for all transitions from moment to moment rather than just the end of a particular life.
As a means of understanding this, Kṛṣṇa then spends considerable time in chapters 8 through 11 describing and eventually displaying in vivid, sometimes spine-chilling detail the layers buried within layers of mutable manifestation that he is. We’ve reached a point in the story where Kṛṣṇa can do so because finally Arjuna has begun to settle down, to be less distracted and far less immobilized by his pending dilemma of whether or not to go into battle. Arjuna’s mind is beginning to soften its grip on its presuppositions, and he is eager to hear more. By now he is taking delight in the words of Kṛṣṇa—“they are like nectar,” he says, and he begs Kṛṣṇa to tell him more. Arjuna has reached a point of voracious curiosity, like any of us might if we’d stumbled upon something that touches us so deeply that our sense of truth, meaning, and aesthetics is roused beyond thought. When this happens, no matter how often you hear about this thing that has awakened your essence, it is still new; not for lack of understanding, but because it is powerful, compelling, and infinitely interesting to the point you cannot get enough. This is now where Arjuna finds himself, and this is why the Gītā is sometimes referred to as nectar, or Gītāmṛta, as it is in the Gītā Dhyānam.
The Gītā emphasizes that understanding these concepts is a process of attaining knowledge, then letting go of the knowledge in a spirit of trust and surrender. Essentially Kṛṣṇa teaches the prerequisite of understanding, which is the ability to trust the unknown, the unknowable. Kṛṣṇa is saying that he is whole and unknowable by most, even by the gods and equally by those who are awakened. “Neither the hosts of gods nor the great seers know my source. Indeed I am the origin of the gods and the great seers in every way. One who knows Me who is birthless and the beginningless, knows the great lord of all worlds. Among mortals that one is undeluded and is released from all evils. Intelligence, knowledge, freedom from delusion, patience, truthfulness, self-control, calm equanimity, happiness and suffering, existence and nonexistence, fear and fearlessness. Nonviolence, impartiality, contentment, austerity, generosity, fame and ill repute—these many varieties of conditions of all beings arise from Me alone” (10.2–5).
Kṛṣṇa then reflects on the profoundly internal nature of true knowledge and again draws attention and refers back to the intimate direct experience of what is immediately before us at all times. Everything radiates directly out of Kṛṣṇa: understanding, knowledge, freedom from bewilderment, patience, truth, self-control and calmness, pleasure, pain, existence and nonexistence, fear and fearlessness, nonviolence, equal mindedness, contentment, austerity, charity, fame. These are all desirable qualities that we might like to think we possess; however, the Gītā has taught us that they are not ours, they are part of the infinite interpenetrating scope of things—all of the states proceed out of the whole, out of Kṛṣṇa. With this glimpse of the whole, we are then given four verses that many people consider the most precious gems of the Gītā as essence for those who seek freedom: “With all their thoughts in Me, with the prāṇas (vital breaths and all sensations) flowing to Me, awakening each other, always conversing about Me, they are content and delighted. To those who are continuously devoted and adoring the adoring, filled with joyous love, I give this yoga of intelligence by which they come to Me. Out of compassion for them I, dwelling in their hearts, destroy with the shining lamp of wisdom, the darkness born of ignorance” (10.9–12).
Kṛṣṇa explains that he is the source of all things and that the awakened ones (the buddhas among us) know this and are content in this knowledge. Rather than struggling, overthinking, conjecturing, controlling, and misperceiving, those who understand become content, wise in the knowledge that they can simply offer devotion to the divine, to Kṛṣṇa—Bhāvasamanvitāḥ. We are reminded that those who really know and surrender to the unknown often chant devotional songs, not only as an act of devotion but as a practice that is helpful in focusing and clarifying the mind by stabilizing the breath. This is true in cultures around the world.
Prāṇa (or breath, sensation, and the connection of mind and breath) is the substratum of sensation and thought for all sentient beings, and this biosubstratum of experience flows and flowers in and out as Kṛṣṇa and as all manifestation. This is all wonderful and potentially filled with insight, and it is made even more so when shared with others. Speaking in the plural, Kṛṣṇa reminds Arjuna that the buddhas help to wake each other up (bodhayantaḥ parasparam) just as he has patiently carved space in the very center of the battlefield for Arjuna himself to take hold of his inclination to wake up. Kṛṣṇa chooses to explain this with the words kathayantaśca māṁ nityaṁ. Katha means talking but not ordinary talking. It describes the sense of a clear discussion of truth. The telling of a myth is katha if it is soaked in bhakti. Katha is not just talking mindlessly or gossiping to someone, it has to be enlightened talk—or at least sincere talk of the truth. This type of talking is delightful, and it lasts eternally—like when you really get into a profound conversation with someone and it goes on and on and suddenly you realize it’s gone on all night. Your lotus seat starts to ache, but you are still so happy! This is the key to katha: it is so delightful that it is thrilling to share; you must share the truth. It turns out that it’s the sharing or the linking between—in this case linking together of—buddhas that is beautiful beyond words. If you have an insight or exciting experience that reveals a glimpse into the nature of reality, it is much nicer to share it than to hoard it as if it’s all yours and there isn’t enough to go around. It’s as if you’re out hiking and you discover an immaculately crafted den full of foxes with four tiny innocent baby foxes staring out, waiting for their mother to return. You come to a standstill and watch, barely breathing in order to not disturb—you’re so excited that, just like Arjuna, your hair stands on end! You turn to your companion, if you’re lucky enough to be hiking with a friend, and exchange looks of awe. It is much nicer if there’s someone there with you to share it with and better still if they too are on a path to awakening. Sharing is a central characteristic of bhakti, and it is how bhakti or pure, unadulterated devotion unfolds.
This is spoken of in many classical Indian texts, the idea of sadhu saṅgha, or hanging out with people who are waking up, knowing there’s a lot of waking up to do. It’s thrilling to find yourself on that delicate edge where you’re caught off guard from your beliefs and the center of gravity shifts away from self-obsession toward other. With that little bit of tipping of the center—with awareness of and respect for saṅgha or other—the whole thing moves into a new, significant realm of reality. The best part of it all is that it is spontaneous—you don’t do anything at all. In fact, if you try to make community or friendship happen you’re destined to fail miserably until you let go and trust the process of meeting the other authentically and without an agenda—the true meaning of community, or saṅgha. The sharing and insights come because it is a spontaneous process, not one done out of obligation or theory or in order to get something but one offered with sincerity, love, and in a spirit of kindness without knowing where it will lead. That’s when you actually start to wake up.
It turns out that those who embrace this sense of bhakti—sharing with others and welcoming insight without clinging to it—are those to whom Kṛṣṇa gives buddhi yoga, or the yoga of discernment. Buddhi yoga is considered the yoga of intelligence and just like the sharing of love and freedom, it isn’t something you do or take; it is not a function of the ego because intelligence is a gift. And from the perspective of the Gītā, intelligence is a gift only to those who are absorbed in bhajatāṁ prītipūrvakam, or devotion filled with joy. In this sense we are seeing buddhi as the context maker, that which, within the Sāṁkhya system, envelops the I-making principle, the ego, or the ahaṁkāra. When the ego is contextualized it effortlessly dissolves into intelligence. Buddhi yoga is considered a gift because it is given out of compassion as the process of shining the lamp of observation and ultimately wisdom into everything experienced.
Again, for those philosophers among us who do not resonate with the storyline of Kṛṣṇa, or possibly any deity, as the all manifesting and all knowing, the metaphor of a deity representing wholeness can still be very helpful, unless we are so self-absorbed—as unfortunately some are—that we are unable to let go of our theories and to experience interconnectedness in nature, relationships, or even in birth and death. Even staunch atheists or brilliant agnostic philosophers have bodies. They experience breath entering and exiting the body and the vibratory quality of all sensations. So for spiritual seekers and deep thinkers alike the direct perception of even simple moments of daily life can plant seeds for insight and awakening. This is especially so when, having merged with sensation and emerged on the other side with theories or stories, we can remember to give it back, to surrender to the truth that even our most brilliant insight and knowledge must be poured back into the fire of awareness if we are to dive deeper still.
People seldom do the sacrifice of prāṇa—of breath or sensations—because they’re off in the thought patterns. We start by offering the two ends of the breath, the prāṇa pattern (inhaling) and the apāna pattern (exhaling) to one another, pouring them back and forth. It is easy to think about but not always so easy to do because to really pour prāṇa into apāna requires good alignment, and good alignment is scary because you must be undefended, vulnerable with your emotions revealed. Once you’ve connected with the prāṇa it is so beautiful you might be reluctant to sacrifice it. Yet the message of the Gītā is that we must give the whole thing up. “Come to Me,” Kṛṣṇa says repeatedly, knowing this is the path into his true nature. The essence of yoga practices, it turns out, is as much the practices themselves as it is putting the whole thing down. It is the act of sacrificing the breath, and along with it sincerely sacrificing sensations, fears, stories, and so on into the fire of awareness. It is observing the embodied experience that is constantly transforming to inform you that you are indeed the sensations themselves—everything, even the sensations of fire, but not only the thought that fire could burn you, but the air, the ashes, the shape, and even the moisture in the fire. The whole thing, we put down and offer it into the sacrificial fire of awareness.
This is not done just at the time of death, but at all times, and this is Kṛṣṇa’s consistent and final teaching when he says, “Come to Me,” because all times are the time of death, and metaphorically we are constantly placing things down into the eternal fire of awareness. Even the moments between what you conceptualize as reality—right there is where space, the uncategorized, nondifferentiated connection to all else, resides. And you put that down too. If you’re doing this at all times, then when the actual time of death comes, at the very least you’ll be familiar with the practice and the feeling of putting things down. Having practiced putting down things—from the insignificant to the insightful—you may already have found in that release the wonder of letting go into the process of life, which is really what waking up to the present moment, waking up to life itself, is all about. By practicing the ongoing art of letting go during life, when death arrives at your door perhaps there will be an opportunity to experience and to express—offer to others—the compassion of interconnected awareness. This is an essential aspect of the buddhi or imagination.
It’s interesting that in the text the word anukampā is used to describe this process of giving buddhi. Anukampā is often translated as “compassion,” but literally it means “trembling along with.” Within the story, Kṛṣṇa expresses this as a connection on an embodied level with Arjuna and his experience of truth, saying that he is trembling along with—or utterly empathic to—the experience of others with whom he shares this wisdom. Basic ignorance, known as avidyā, or the sense of separateness, is considered to be the root of all suffering, and it is the polar opposite of anukampā. By explaining to Arjuna the fundamental problem with the “ignorance” of seeing oneself as separate, Kṛṣṇa shows him a path toward liberation. Avidyā leads to asmitā (ego), which leads to raja and dveṣa (attraction and hatred, respectively), and eventually to abhiniveśa, or the fear of death.
These are said to be the causes of suffering because within them lie an absolute obstruction of pure relationship and insight into the interconnected nature of life. They also contain food for ego embellishment and fear. By eliminating the root cause of suffering (avidyā) even if we do so only theoretically while still feeling separate and alone on tangible levels, we begin to chip away at the natural human obliviousness to the fact that all life is absolutely divine so that we may begin to see whatever it is we imagine to be “God” everywhere. In this way, at the time of death we may have the good fortune to surrender to the process of life, resting in the strength of being surrounded by the divine.
With this teaching Kṛṣṇa has given Arjuna yet another potent building block to balance upon in his step-by-step process along a path toward waking up. Arjuna gains a newfound sense of freedom and begins to feel stable and happy, and this is when he hears Kṛṣṇa’s words as nectar and longs for more. Kṛṣṇa is delighted and offers images for an even more intimate layer of his manifestations—deeper than Arjuna’s personal experience of water, others, or his own fears or joys. Kṛṣṇa next moves into the realm of myth saying that of snakes, he is Ananta (the serpent of infinity), and of collators, he is time. He is the wind, all-destroying death, and the origin of those things that are yet to be. He goes on to say that there is nothing that could exist without existing through him. But then he asks Arjuna why he needs to know all this, and this question leads into chapter 11 of the Gītā, one of the most intimate, beautiful, and profound—almost psychedelic in its imagery—pieces of writing within the whole text.