Devoting Oneself

Ganesha, a.k.a Ganapati, Vinâyaka, Ekadanta

How do you know when you're imposing your aversion to suffering onto your decisions? And how do you know when you are actually making the right sacrifice? What if we believe we need to be humble, and do not fight for something that in fact we should fight for? What if, in believing we are making a great sacrifice, we are only running from a bad experience we had in the past? What if we sacrifice the very thing we were given to have, in the name of giving up something for God? In other words, what if our desire for our own pure and perfected kind of spiritual path, in fact, becomes an attachment that obfuscates the beauty and idiosyncratic quality of our life or path of devotion? If we are called to give up attachment to all desires, then at some point are we called to give up our conceptualizing or conception of our spiritual path?

Modern rendition of Ganesh

I learned from recent lectures on the Gita that we do best when we are not attached to our desires. We cause suffering when we become consumed with a specific outcome, especially to ourselves. This is easy to grasp even in just watching a blockbuster movie with a semi-critical eye: We see characters suffer with a desire they have and are unable to obtain, whether business or personal. Usually, the American formula is to deliver the desire at the end of the movie rather than to see the protagonist come to terms with existence, reality, and the difference between material and spiritual gain - that would be truly anti-climactic for audiences and our media culture does not often invite people to reflect. In a decent film, we may see the protagonist's perspective shift as he or she opens the self to new ways of thinking about what was originally desired. Most often, the protagonist achieves his or her goal and any suffering they had at the beginning or middle of the film only helped them to rise above and make that desire real: Thus, the happy ending American audiences have come to expect. But life is not a film or a formula. I am not Sandra and you are not Danny. I am not Thelma and you are not Louise.

Artwork from the film, Animals and the Buddha

So, perhaps it is hard to know if we may be imposing something as our duty or the right thing to do when in fact we could simply be running from an aversion we have or reacting to a deep-seated fear. We are human after all, and can oscillate from being horribly flawed and wondrously inspiring, sometimes at the same time (thus our pull to the tragic hero). In our best bet and effort, we can devote ourselves to a spiritual path, a continual committing of self to. We have more ethical guidelines, insight, and inspiration if we read ancient wisdom texts, but in the personal details of our lives, we can also get quite confused regarding grey areas. Individuals strive to develop a sense of individual duty (dharma) in this life in order to find fulfillment and create meaning. Yet, inevitably, life and the path of devotion will grant us new experiences, new questions, new quandaries/adventures, and there will be times when applying what we already know about moral/ethical issues to problem resolution is not clear or helpful enough, as in fact, no divine set of instructions has been provided for this, your particular situation or mine. Just as the influences of genetics is a vast and indecipherable sea of mutual influences that a program cannot account for as each individual is so uniquely different from another, so we as individuals come with all these samskaras - perspectives, habits, genes, environmental factors, ways of thinking, personal history, family, conceptions of who we are etc. What works for one may not work for another. Surrendering the self in the uniqueness of the self, humbly, respectfully, knowing we do not have it figured out may be the best we can do to steer the boat in the dark or in the fog.

   Chao-Chou: What is the Way?
   Nan-Chüan: It is our everyday mind
   Chao-Chou: Is it necessary to realize it?
   Nan-Chüan: To intend to realize the Way is opposed to the Way
   Chao-Chou: Without intending, how can you know whether it is the Way?
   Nan-Chüan: The Way does not depend on what you know or do not know. If you know it, your knowledge is just speculative ideas. If you don't, your ignorance is like the inanimate. When you have no doubts, the unlimited universe will open in front of you, and no discrimination is possible.

This dialogue from Thick Nhat Hanh's Zen Keys (1973) exemplifies the obstacles that can be created by conceptualizing or forming conceptions of our spiritual path. What I find interesting in this section is the concept of upaya-jñana, what Buddhism calls the Wisdom of the Skillful Ways, and how a good Zen master will create and employ varied methods to help individuals enter the world of awakening for different personalities and different occasions. Buddhism speaks of the 84,000 Dharma gates to enter into reality, and will not describe reality, for it has to be experienced, and in order for any skillful ways or means of the Zen teacher to be effective in helping an individual to enter awakening, "they must fulfill the real needs and particular mentalities of those they seek to guide" (52). I like this, for even though we are not the mind body, we still need the mind body to help us discover who we are (see the Gita or Yoga Sutras for a discussion of the atman) - and thus addressing who we are as a particular makeup of mind body is truly the best way to get us in the direction we are needing to go. Perhaps this is why we resonate with some people or teachers, and not with others.

Perhaps we can say that, owing to our individuality, we ultimately create ourselves in the grey areas: We can open to grey areas as learning, or we can close them off in aversion, and we certainly can deliberate and go back and forth between the two poles. As Viktor Frankl would say, it is up to us to create meaning. Perhaps more important for the bhakta tradition, and this is just my thought, is that we can follow a leading, a voice in the silence, and where there is none, we can concern ourselves with the how rather than the what: we can create ourselves in the grey areas as a humble offering, something that may be sweet because of our intention, even if we are unsure of the footsteps.  Perhaps the wiser decision is to choose the path that makes you have to trust more. New ground is good ground when you are moving in faith.

Bhagavad Gita 
Krishna & Arjuna on the battlefield

We can learn a lot in this regard from the Bhagavad Gita. As we find in the Gita, Arjuna has conflicting duties or dharma. The Gita was sung 5,000 years ago, and is situated within the great Hindu warrior epic, the Mahabharata. The setting for the Gita is the battlefield where two sets of cousins, the Kauravas (not so nice) and the Pandavas (mostly nice), must duke it out. On the one hand, the Pandava prince Arjuna is in the midst of a real crisis: his dharma would tell him to in no way kill his guru and his grandfather (who are aligned with the Kauravas on the field of battle), whereas dharma is also telling Arjuna to pick up the bow and fight. His heart is moved in seeing the men he always respected, and falters to the point that he lets the bow drop, and tells his charioteer, who happens to be Krishna, that he will not fight. Is it courageous of him to surrender his warrior duty and sacrifice justice for his people so as to not kill his grandfather and guru? His heart would tell him so, but Krishna will give him a greater perspective. And so, this is the moment when the Gita starts; with the dilemma of conflicting duties or dharma. The questions Arjuna asks are profuse, riddled as he is with doubt about the right course of action, even though Krishna is very clear and convincing as he appeals to Arjuna through warrior-like thought and then philosophical (and eventually bhakta) thought. In fact, the text can be quite repetitive with Arjuna's languishing, but this is the textual opportunity for Krishna to teach us that we should act without attachment to the fruits of actions. (The text is so rich, and offers so much insight on existence, action, desires, etc.). Another important aspect that emerges from the Gita is that, while for some people going off and meditating and doing yoga in the forest until the end of life is good, not everyone can be a forest-dweller yogi. In the Gita, we learn that yoga can also be done in the everyday world as the yoga of action (karma yoga).

19th century manuscript of the Bhagavad Gita

In conclusion, devoting oneself seems an appropriate title for this post. Devoting oneself may very well involve repeated, progressive, ever-evolving sets of decisions. All this in the hopes of arriving nowhere, for life is constantly unfolding, as is our being and our sense of relation to the Supreme Being. Ancient wisdom texts offer stepping stones for your feet, but how you take the steps with your whole self is up to your unique self and experience. It is reassuring, however, that there is a set of efforts, work, that one can consciously undertake in the yogic tradition. And while this begins with tapas, the fire of discipline, it can become so sweet that you cannot bear to not engage in reading the tales, saying the names, meditating, redirecting, loving, opening yourself to the mystery, the beauty, the fire. We are a being, but we are a being in relation to. And this is a lifelong discovery to manage and give space to.

Bhagavad Gita 
Krishna & Arjuna on the battlefield

Remembering our unique goal in life is a journey, an art, and it is the way you choose to give your life back. In some regards, we have very little control over our lives. We cannot control or even call to mind where we were before we arrived here in this life. We cannot control even our own emotions sometimes. But we can learn from deeper study of the yogic tradition in the Gita or the sutras to observe the mind, emotions, and thoughts (all things of the material world or prakrti) rather than to identify with them. Observe rather than identify, open rather than close, let yourself feel, let yourself let go, see all things as being for the best, wishing love to all, and releasing the past to the past. Releasing what no longer serves you. While many people accumulate and amass things, imagine if we opened ourselves up by letting go and creating space instead. This goes for bitterness, unforgiveness, fear, etc. as well as possessions - we know these can clog our minds and hearts. And so, what do we actually have or possess? This is a question we may face at the end of our life. For me, I hope the answer will be: a sense of gratitude, in love. We can choose to address that question and cultivate that graceful flow of gratitude and love now. 

Our minds need so much feeding and cultivating. One's individual sadhana or shastra can be a sincere way of beginning to approach and surrender further to the love of the divine. If you are a bhakta, then the ultimate goal is communion with your Beloved (Ishvara, whatever you choose to call the God of your heart) in all things, and in all ways.

Life is a landscape with so many deep ravines and high peaks and serendipitous paths that we can't imagine. It has been interesting to stop and marvel along the path, and it is good if we stop to examine and reset the intention of our hearts.

In deep appreciation of the lectures and teachings presented by Professor of Hindu Religions at Rutgers University, Dr. Edwin Bryant, in his lectures on the Bhagavad Gita at the Yoga Mandali studio in Saratoga Springs, NY, January 2018.