Learning from the Bhagavad Gita: One Mother's Experience
Inspired by recent posts and conversations on the topic of how Christians might approach world religions, Molly shares a recent experience with reading the ancient Hindu scripture and spiritual forbear of modern yoga, the Bhagavad Gita. We invite you to share your experiences with this text or any other that may have inspired you.
Noticing God in Unlikely Places
I was standing shoulder to shoulder with other parents at the base of the stairs, the lobby of the Empire State building. Looking up, I could catch a glimpse of my almost 18 year old daughter, her head just visible behind two other girls in the alto section. All the parents were a bit distracted, with small talk and college choices at the top of our agendas.
The singers started the performance, gently clapping and thumping in unison. Quiet humming followed the rhythmic body percussion. The city crowd grew politely quiet. Then, the singing began — tender harmonies, undefended voices, beguiling smiles from fresh, no make-up faces singing “Bring Me a Little Water Sylvie”. My daughter caught a glimpse of my tears, rolled her eyes, and smiled inquisitively.
What’s with the tears? I’d heard our choir perform this song plenty of times before. It’s not particularly moving. I mean, it’s lovely but doesn’t hold a special meaning for me. I don’t believe my outsized reaction stemmed from pride, as her (sometimes brutal) independence eschews any claim I have on her performance. It wasn’t exactly love, at least not love sustained by love willingly returned. It was more like love for love’s own sake, unattached to anything or anyone in particular. Suspended.
I think it was the tiniest piece of God.
““Whatever in this world is excellent
and glows with intelligence or beauty—
be sure that it has its source
in a fragment of my divine splendor.”
The Bhagavad Gita
The Bhagavad Gita is one of the best known Hindu scriptures. While we’d touched on the its story and teachings in my yoga teacher training, I didn’t read it then. I had barely absorbed the esoteric teachings of the Yoga Sutras and had little room to delve into a narrative scripture about a Hindu Prince, about to go into battle against members of his own family, and the Lord Krishna, his charioteer. I assumed it was about war and believed it would be of no interest to a midwestern Catholic and mother of three, just looking to teach a little yoga part-time.
I picked it up again a few weeks ago while doing research for a blog post. I planned to dip in, grab a few quotes, and dip out. But once I started in, cherry-picking this text, this scripture written at least 1800 years ago (scholars don’t agree on the date), to make my own point about yoga seemed fraudulent. I was compelled by the language, the tender voice of Krishna, the earnestness of Prince Arjuna. Though set on a battlefield, this wasn’t really a story of war, but the interior battle for one’s soul. Who am I to dip in and quote an ancient scripture of another culture?
So I actually read it – not as a scholarly, comparative study but as a piece of art and history, wondering about a story that seemed relevant to all ages and times. I chose Stephen Mitchell’s translation known to be accessible to the English language reader – fluid and poetic.
What I found was a relationship between humankind and God. It was achingly familiar. Humankind, full of questions and longing to know God. Humankind, with complicated, messy lives struggling to make the moral decisions in the face of moral ambiguity.
Here’s the basis of story: In the midst of battle, time stops as Prince Arjuna, his mind racing through outcomes that will likely occur if he fights successfully, struggles with indecision and pleads with Lord Krishna for answers. There is no easy answer to what Arjuna should do. Completely overwhelmed, he believes laying down his weapon, which would be a form of suicide, would be a better choice than the outcomes he presages. It’s quite the set-up. I had to read on!
When Lord Krishna speaks, which is most of the 18 chapters, we learn of a god who is at once personal, even tender, and yet completely beyond human understanding. A transcendent being reaching down towards humanity just as humanity is reaching up in longing. A god who holds all beings as equal, beloved, and loved. A god who understands the diversity, frailty and faults in human nature and therefore gives us many, many ways to find him. A god who understands and forgives those distracted by and desirous of the world with its offerings of money, power, pleasure, security, and recognition for their efforts. He is not a “gotcha” god looking for our worst, but a benevolent god willing to work with any crumb we set before him. A god who continues to be active and of service in the world, not out of necessity or lack of choice, but boundless love.
Universal Themes of an Ancient Scripture
I found the reading beautiful, comforting, and not unfamiliar. How can all of this unfold in a writing from long ago, in a land so far, far away, from a people who seem so very different in how they worship? While there is risk in me writing this, from my Catholic, American vantage point, it was a reminder to me that no geography or time period can stake a claim to Christ’s outpouring of love on the world.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
I am not implying ancient Hindu beliefs are the same as Christian beliefs. But, if Christ has been at work in the world, actively present and outpouring love since the beginning, should it come as a surprise to me that sincere seekers in other parts of the world, at other times, could come to know and love God? Is it possible for a Christian to recognize Christ at work in places and times far removed from our current vantage point? Bring on the wonder!
I am inspired by the orthodoxy of the Franciscan Friars, a Catholic religious order currently in the spotlight through the writings of Richard Rohr, emphasizing that the first incarnation of God as not the birth of Jesus, but His creation of the universe.
The concept of the Universal Christ is explained in the video from the Center for Action and Contemplation.
Practical Applications for the Christian Life
As for how this reading has personally affected me, I confess to having a bit of Holy Envy, as described by Barbara Brown Taylor in her book of the same title. The Bhagavad Gita is less a treatise on what to believe but how to work out your own salvation. Fidelity to Christian beliefs and a Christian life is challenging, as is discerning how to be and act in the world.
In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5 – 7), Jesus offers us the beloved beatitudes, some of which deal with inner transformations or postures (blessed are the poor in spirit and the pure of heart) and others, outward signs of faith (blessed are the merciful and the peacemakers). Jesus challenges us with seemingly paradoxical statements like, “Don’t let the right hand know what the left is doing” (Matthew 6:3), while also asking us to “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16). How does one become a person who lives this faith, not simply one who belongs to it? I am often left wondering if it’s even possible to embody these spiritual values in my ordinary life.
The Bhagavad Gita reveals a path to living in faith. Krishna advises Arjuna, repeatedly and in many different ways, on the path to salvation. It is not total renunciation of the world, but an inner renunciation. Beings act; it’s what beings do, but each and every action can be a devotion to God, worshipful, instead of a means to an end. A deep and abiding love of that which is eternal and beyond you, your higher Self, God, is the path to inner freedom, peace and enough wisdom to see reality and your place in it with clarity. Great love and devotion is strong medicine -- strong enough to circumvent our natural inclination toward the anxiety and worry that comes with the territory of gripping tightly to our desired future.
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:34
A Taste of Freedom
The reading of the Bhagavad Gita, and my own holy envy, brought to mind a time last year when this lesson of non-attachment became all too real. I was in the midst of a battle with the teen we met at the beginning of this essay, the one standing on the steps of the Empire State building. At the time, she was fighting her own inner battle, riddled with sadness, anxiety, anger and withdrawal from the family. Our relationship was beyond strained, and existed only on her terms. Nothing I did helped, and almost every action seemed to make the relationship worse. Righteous anger with a smidge of guilt was my go-to emotion. I was torn between the resignation and helplessness -- biding my time until she left for college yet also knowing she needed help I had no idea how to give. I know many parents struggle similarly, yet there’s no comfort in numbers with a struggle so deeply personal.
Like Arjuna, I was thrust on a field with no control over the outcome. The only real choice was to give up on my responsibilities which, believe me, was tempting, or choose to accept the reality that while I had little control I had a duty to act; to ask God to help me do the next right thing, for Him, and do it well, without clinging to anxiety about what comes next. Rise and repeat. I prayed so much, so hard. Pleading with God to change the situation morphed into a simpler request for love, forgiveness, clarity and strength to do “the next right thing”.
I found that love and forgiveness flowed naturally for the asking, and began to flow back toward the Source from me -- and gather strength. From this place of love, I could see more clearly. I could act with gentleness and let go without giving up. With love of and through God, and plenty of prayer, life was unfolding as it must, yet without my greedy wish for something easier, without coveting my neighbor’s children, without coercion and manipulation (generally in the form of taking away her beloved phone) to achieve the response I felt I deserved , as a mother and authority figure. Life unfolded without growing anger and resentment toward the source of this distress, without my acting out of pride and ego at inevitable provocation. I didn’t always get it right, I sometimes failed, but we were on the right path.
I stayed tethered to God because I needed prayer for clarity, each and every moment if that’s possible, so I could simply do the “next right thing.” I was guided, day by day, moment to moment, to be whatever was called for -- poor in spirit, a peacemaker, merciful, meek, pure of heart. My intellect or desire, try as I might, could never get me there.
I had, unknowingly, given up the fruit of my actions and devoted them to God. And finally, at the base of those stairs, looking up at a choir, I caught a glimpse.
But now she is in college, she is fine, she is happy. I stake no claims to her happiness, but am happy to have her in my life.
No longer in crisis, I find I am praying less regularly, less emphatically. I am less poor in spirit, less a peacemaker, less merciful, less meek, less pure of heart. I am allowing my intellect to rule once again, to try to grasp for the ungraspable. I haven’t glimpsed God in nearly as many places.
The reading of the Bhagavad Gita rekindled an urgency within me: the need to devote my actions to God—even when there is no crisis—and to let go of the outcomes. God is right here with each of us, always, but easily forgotten. My resolve to worship a living God is renewed by an ancient text from another world, another lifetime. Should this even surprise us?
