On this path effort never goes to waste, and there is no failure. Even a little effort toward spiritual awareness will protect you from the greatest fear. (2:40)
Introduced &
Translated by
E k n at h
E a s wa r a n
- 1985, 2007 by The Blue Mountain Center of Meditation All rights reserved. Printed in Canada
Second edition. First printing May 2007
i s b n – 1 3 : 978–1–58638–019–9
i s b n – 1 0 : 1–58638–019–2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2006934966
Printed on recycled paper
Eknath Easwaran founded the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation in Berkeley, California, in 1961. The Center is a nonprofit organization chartered with carrying on Easwaran’s legacy and work. Nilgiri Press, a department of the Center, publishes books on how to lead a spiritual life in the home and community. The Center also teaches Easwaran’s Eight Point Program for spiritual living at retreats worldwide.
For information please visit www.easwaran.org, call us at 800 475 2369 (USA and Canada) or 707 878 2369 (international and local), or write to us at The Blue Mountain Center of Meditation,
Box 256, Tomales, CA 94971–0256, USA.
I m a g i n e a va s t hall in Anglo-Saxon England, not long after the passing of King Arthur. It is the dead of winter and a fierce snowstorm rages outside, but a great fire fills the space within the hall with warmth and light. Now and then, a sparrow darts in for refuge from the weather. It appears as if from nowhere, flits about joyfully in the light, and then disappears again, and where it comes from and where it goes next in that stormy darkness, we do not know.
Our lives are like that, suggests an old story in Bede’s medi-eval history of England. We spend our days in the familiar world of our five senses, but what lies beyond that, if anything, we have no idea. Those sparrows are hints of something more outside – a vast world, perhaps, waiting to be explored. But most of us are happy to stay where we are. We may even be a bit afraid to venture into the unknown. What would be the point, we ask. Why should we leave the world we know?
This is true of adventurers of every kind, but especially of those who seek to explore not mountains or jungles but con-sciousness itself: whose real drive, we might say, is not so much to know the unknown as to know the knower. Such men and women can be found in every age and every culture. While the rest of us stay put, they quietly slip out to see what lies beyond.
Then, so far as we can tell, they disappear. We have no idea where they have gone; we can’t even imagine. But every now and then, like friends who have run off to some exotic land, they send back reports: breathless messages describing fan-tastic adventures, rambling letters about a world beyond ordi-nary experience, urgent telegrams begging us to come and see. “Look at this view! Isn’t it breathtaking? Wish you could see this. Wish you were here.”
This is true of adventurers of every kind, but especially of those who seek to explore not mountains or jungles but con-sciousness itself: whose real drive, we might say, is not so much to know the unknown as to know the knower. Such men and women can be found in every age and every culture. While the rest of us stay put, they quietly slip out to see what lies beyond.
Then, so far as we can tell, they disappear. We have no idea where they have gone; we can’t even imagine. But every now and then, like friends who have run off to some exotic land, they send back reports: breathless messages describing fan-tastic adventures, rambling letters about a world beyond ordi-nary experience, urgent telegrams begging us to come and see. “Look at this view! Isn’t it breathtaking? Wish you could see this. Wish you were here.”
M a n y y e a r s a g o, when I was still a graduate student, I traveled by train from central India to Simla, then the summer seat of the British government in India. We had not been long out of Delhi when suddenly a chattering of voices disturbed my reverie. I asked the man next to me if something had happened. “Kurukshetra!” he replied. “The next stop is Kurukshetra!”
I could understand the excitement. Kurukshetra, “the field of the Kurus,” is the setting for the climactic battle of the Mahabharata, the vastest epic in any world literature, on which virtually every Hindu child in India is raised. Its char-acters, removed in time by some three thousand years, are as familiar to us as our relatives. The temper of the story is utterly contemporary; I can imagine it unfolding in the nuclear age as easily as in the dawn of Indian history. The Mahabharata is literature at its greatest – in fact, it has been called a literature in itself, comparable in its breadth and depth and character-ization to the whole of Greek literature or Shakespeare. But
Introduction
what makes it unique is that embedded in this literary mas-terpiece is one of the finest mystical documents the world has seen: the Bhagavad Gita.
M a n y y e a r s a g o, when I was still a graduate student, I traveled by train from central India to Simla, then the summer seat of the British government in India. We had not been long out of Delhi when suddenly a chattering of voices disturbed my reverie. I asked the man next to me if something had happened. “Kurukshetra!” he replied. “The next stop is Kurukshetra!”
I could understand the excitement. Kurukshetra, “the field of the Kurus,” is the setting for the climactic battle of the Mahabharata, the vastest epic in any world literature, on which virtually every Hindu child in India is raised. Its char-acters, removed in time by some three thousand years, are as familiar to us as our relatives. The temper of the story is utterly contemporary; I can imagine it unfolding in the nuclear age as easily as in the dawn of Indian history. The Mahabharata is literature at its greatest – in fact, it has been called a literature in itself, comparable in its breadth and depth and character-ization to the whole of Greek literature or Shakespeare. But
- introduction
what makes it unique is that embedded in this literary mas-terpiece is one of the finest mystical documents the world has seen: the Bhagavad Gita.
There is, in fact, no other way to read the Gita and grasp it as spiritual instruction. If I could offer only one key to under-standing this divine dialogue, it would be to remember that it takes place in the depths of consciousness and that Krishna is not some external being, human or superhuman, but the spark of divinity that lies at the core of the human personality. This is not literary or philosophical conjecture; Krishna says
There is, in fact, no other way to read the Gita and grasp it as spiritual instruction. If I could offer only one key to under-standing this divine dialogue, it would be to remember that it takes place in the depths of consciousness and that Krishna is not some external being, human or superhuman, but the spark of divinity that lies at the core of the human personality. This is not literary or philosophical conjecture; Krishna says
The Upanishads are not systematic philosophy; they are more like ecstatic slide shows of mystical experience
– vivid, disjointed, stamped with the power of direct personal encounter with the divine. If they seem to embrace contra-
introduction
dictions, that is because they do not try to smooth over the seams of these experiences. They simply set down what the rishis saw, viewing the ultimate reality from different levels of spiritual awareness, like snapshots of the same object from different angles: now seeing God as utterly transcendent, for example, now seeing God as immanent as well. These differ-ences are not important, and the Upanishads agree on their central ideas: Brahman, the Godhead; Atman, the divine core of personality; dharma, the law that expresses and maintains the unity of creation; karma, the web of cause and effect; sam-sara, the cycle of birth and death; moksha, the spiritual libera-tion that is life’s supreme goal.
Th i s b r i e f g l o s s a r y is a guide only to Sanskrit terms used in this volume. Words used once and explained in context are not included. As a rough guide, Sanskrit vowels may be pronounced as in Italian or Spanish. The combinations kh, gh, th, dh, ph, and bh are always pro-nounced as the consonant plus a slight h sound: th as in hot-head (not as in thing); ph as in haphazard (not as in phone).
Every Sanskrit vowel has a short and a long form, the long pronounced for twice as long as the short. The diphthongs – e, ai, o, au – are also long. To simplify the spelling of Sanskrit words in this glossary we have retained only the long mark (¯) for the long vowels, omitting the other diacritics sometimes used to spell Sanskrit words in English.
The Atman
“There are two selves, the separate ego and the indivisible Atman. When one rises above I and me and mine, the Atman is revealed as one’s real self” (Katha, page 51).
The above lines represent the journey of the Self rising above the ‘I’, ‘me’ and ‘mine’ notion and attaining the true Self that is Atman. In the Upanishads, the concept of the Self or the Atman has been given immense prominence because the Hindus believe that God or Brahman resides in every individual. The realization of the true Self leads to the realization of Atman, the Self that rises above trivial things and selfishness.
The Taittiriya Upanishad mentions that body is the first layer of the human personality amongst the many layers that include the mind, intellect, emotions and will. Another revelation the Upanishad makes is that the mind has no conscious or life of its own and that is acts as only an instrument of consciousness. As these layers are uncovered, each trace of individuality is removed and the individual attains purity or Brahman, as the sages call it. Brahman comes from the word brih meaning ‘to expand’. With the discovery of Brahman, the sages also found that this thought or concept is intrinsic to core of human personality as well. They named this thought or ground from where Brahman occurs as Atman. When the Self attains the ability to expand his thoughts beyond the physical, visible world, it transforms into Atman.
“Those who deny the Self are born again, blind to the Self, enveloped in darkness, utterly devoid of love for the Lord” (Isha, page 29). When humans deny the existence of the Self or Atman, they deny the very existence of God himself and this leads their lives into darkness. When the Atman denies the existence of Brahman, it breaks the dharma or law that “expresses and maintains the unity of creation”. Recognizing the presence of Atman makes it possible for the individual to understand the cycle of birth and death that is, samsara. When an individual attains the power to move beyond the first layer, which is the human body, and embrace the Atman, he becomes equal to the Godhead that is Brahman.
In the Hindu mythology, the concept of Atman holds immense significance because it is considered the most fundamental aspect. Many accounts of Atman are inscribed in ancient Hindu scripts including the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita. In the Gita, Lord Krishna in an attempt to make Arjuna understand the need to fight explains the true meaning of the body and Atman. He explains that similar to the humans changing old and dirty clothes and putting on new ones, the Atman too casts off old body to reside in a new one (BG, 2:22). Hence, the physical body holds no significance, the Atman that makes humans, human. People should not cry over the loss of the physical body rather they should let go and embrace a new beginning.
“Those who know they are neither the body nor mind but the immemorial Self, the divine principle of existence, find the source of all joy and live in joy abiding” (Katha, page 41). People who attain the knowledge of the true Self are able to alleviate themselves from the trivial things that make them sad or happy and embrace the true happiness. When they realize that they are beyond the body and the mind, the power of the timeless Self, the gates to true happiness opens for them. I have hardly ever given thought to realizing the power of Atman or the true Self. Gradually, as I came to know more about Atman, I have found myself more at peace. I used to feel sad and depressed about the death of my most beloved grandpa but now I know that he has resided in another body and is happier. This knowledge has given me the power to move beyond the petty worldly things and become a better person.
In general, the lines perfectly explain the lives humans should live by rising above ‘I’, ‘me’ and ‘mine’ and accepting the presence of the Atman. The Atman is indivisible meaning it cannot be divided into two and the ego stops humans from realizing this truth. When they ultimately realize it, they become aware of their real self, the Atman. With this knowledge, they are able to distinguish themselves from others and stop crying over small things that make no sense to the Atman. They begin their journey along the path of dharma by focusing on their karma – the cause and effect – and understand samsara.
References:
Easwaran, Eknath. The Bhagavad Gita:(Classics of Indian Spirituality). Nilgiri Press, 2007.
Easwaran, Eknath. The Upanishads:(Classics of Indian Spirituality). Nilgiri Press, 2007.
