the mind does too see the Self

[Guest guest]

Greetings Anand,

Dennis

 

My reason for taking the trouble to dig

up some scriptural references to counter

your

claims that the mind cannot see the

Supreme Self is that the idea that the

Self is accessible to the

rational mind is the key to my

understanding of the Gita. In fact

I had already come to realize the truth

of this before studying the Gita

(the idea is implicit in Spinoza's

'intellectual love of God').

 

I am not so foolish as to assert that

this is the only way of approaching the

Gita, but it is easy to defend

this propostion if you allow that

Krishna is the personification of the

Supreme Self. See for instance the

beginning of

Chapter 8 where Krishna tells Arjuna

that he is 'easy to obtain' (!); all

that is required is 'thinking on Me at

all times' (XIII.14), 'keeping mind

(manas) and understanding (buddhi) fixed

on me' (VIII.7). This is

'one-pointedness' of mind but not of the

type that Anand refers to; rather it is

a habit of referring all things to the

idea of God which is known in the

Christian tradition as the 'practice of

the presence of God'. This particular

spiritual discipline is of course not

going to work for everybody because it

requires understanding that God is

lovable and that in He loves us in

return something that atheists (like

myself) are bound to balk at initially.

Yet the idea of a loving God emerges

with great force in the Gita and in the

life of Jesus (albeit rarely elsewhere)

and the personification of the Supreme

self by Krishna --- who is after all a

man like Jesus --- is I think much more

satisfying to our human imaginations and

emotions than the Brahman of the

Upanishads or the Buddhist 'clear light

of the void'. (We don't really have any

adequate words for that which is

superhuman and when we try to express

the idea of the superhuman it tends to

come out sounding subhuman as in this

phrase.)

 

The mind's understanding of God changes

as the practice of presence of God is

engaged in (you just can't do it with

and idea of God that you are not

comfortable with) so that even if

bhakti-yoga is nothing but idol worship

to begin with it eventually ends up in

the same place as the loftiest

jnana-yoga: 'I am in God's presence

night and day/And He never turns

His face away' (Blake).

 

Regards

 

Patrick

 

PS Dennis, do you know of any good

concordances of the Upanishads and the

Gita?

[Guest guest]

-

Patrick Kenny <pkenny

> return something that *****atheists (like

> myself)****** are bound to balk at initially.

Are you! :-) :-)

>

> The mind's understanding of God changes

> as the practice of presence of God is

> engaged in (you just can't do it with

> and idea of God that you are not

> comfortable with) so that even if

> bhakti-yoga is nothing but idol worship

> to begin with it eventually ****ends up**** in

> the same place as the loftiest

> jnana-yoga:

 

Well said! How ever, I have a question. Where do we end-up? :-)

 

I remain yours,

Madhava