Article 23 Reasons

8/12/2019 Article 23 Reasons

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s p i r i t u a l i t y h e a l t h . c o m 6

and I am the sound of it heard throughout the univerI am the slight, delicate scent, the sweet fragranc

earth.I am the brilliance in both re and sun, and I am the

Divinity in all beings.I am the subtle spirit in spiritual practices that gives th

existence for example, the love in the devotee, tity in the ascetic, the sweet sense of charity in the

It continues for several more chapters, but by this time wfallen from head to toe in love with this wondrous textwere beginning to understand why this half-inch-thick mpiece poem about life, death, love, and duty is often cIndias greatest gift to humanity.

23Reasons to

Love

the BHAGAVADGITA

Whats behind my 25-year love affair withwhat is often called Indias greatest gift to humanity?

STORY BY JACK HAWLEY

ART BY K IM WATERS M URRAY

wenty-ve years ago, in the summer heat of Indias Deccanplateau, my wife and I stopped at a guesthouse. Tirsting forsomething to read, I skimmed a dog-eared Bhagavad Gita,coming to rest on chapter seven. Krishna, the Divinity gure,is describing the very nature of God. Enthralled, I began read-ing aloud to my wife, explaining that this is God talking:

I am Pure Consciousness, the underlying essence of all elements

and beings.I am the innate nature of everything.In pure water I am the sweet taste.In the sun and moon I am the radiance.In the very center of human beings I live as virility and courage.I am the sacred word Om, which is an appellation of the Divine,


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S p i r i t u a l i t y & H e a l t h S e p t / O c t 2 0 0 66 2

8,000 years ago people embarked on a startlingly

different approachto learning, turning inward.

I love the Gitas basic goodness, and how itpushes me beyond merely trying to be a good persontoward becoming my own Divinity within. And I lovethat it provides me with page after page of the means

to call forth that extreme goodness in me. And I lovehow it continually reminds me to do that.

I love theultra-honesty in it about reli-gion and the notions of heaven and hell,death and life. I love how the Gita lives inthe open spaces beyond religious dogma,and yet has a reverence for the scripturalteachings of all faiths.

Te origins of the Gita go back as many as 8,000 years, whenthe people who were building sophisticated cultures here inthe river valleys embarked on a startlingly different approachto learning. As they tried to comprehend their world whichwas no doubt as vexing to them as our world is to us theydiscovered important new ways of understanding. Instead oflooking outward for their answers, a small number of theseearliest scientists turned inward.

Tus, humanity began, those eons ago, to methodically ex-plore consciousness. Te methods they developed were not formerely coping with a harsh world but for living at a rare levelof consciousness that includes almost uninterrupted happiness.Birthed back then were the principles ofatma (a version ofsoul), reincarnation,dharma , karma , meditation, and serenity.Tese are the ideas that parented Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism,aoism, and inuenced most other enlightenment systems.

Te Bhagavad Gita (the Song Celestial) is the most com-plete spiritual text from those times. Te Gita buried in thecenter of a six-inch-thick epic masterpiece poem, the Maha-

bharata (Great Country), about the heights and depths ofthe human soul gives us a continuous, unbroken sight lineback into the minds and hearts of men and women living inthose primeval times. It provides perhaps the most completeexplanation of the earliest spiritual formulations of humanity,and it lives on today as a still-fresh centerpiece text guiding thedaily lives of hundreds of millions of human souls.

Now, in my small room a generation later, having researchedand written four books about the Gita, I wonder how best toexpress the real meaning of this great work. Te only true way

to let people in on the essence of the Gitas spiritual gifts is to nottry to analyze or further codify it; talking about the epic doesnot convey its epic deepness. Instead, the ancient sages withinme whisper the answer: Share your love.

The Bhagavad Gita begins with an impending war. Grief-stricken atthe prospect of battling armies of teachers, relatives, and friends,the warrior Arjuna refuses to ght. The God Vishnu (page 64), incar-nated as the charioteer Krishna (page 63), tells Arjuna he must fulllhis destiny as a warrior (right): the soul is indestructible and Arjunamust ght without attachment or aversion to an outcome.


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I love how the Gita is so clear about how we must live withthe conse-quences of our actions,but with no hint of punishment. I love how itneither excuses nor overlooks our dark side and yet doesnt dwell thighlighting instead the bright side of humanity. Indeed, Sanskrit, precise spiritual language of the Gita, has no word for damnation.

I love the Gitasabsolute in-sistence on truth, and howadamant it is that we followour own basic nature and livea dharmic life which is toconsciously live by our own in-ner truth, a whole life of doingthe right thing. I love how itdoesnt compromise an iota onthis, and wont take any excuseswhere truth is concerned.

I just love thehappiness in the Gita, and thor-oughly appreciate its careful explanation of howto attain real happiness. I appreciate also that it laysout what happiness is not, and is so clear about the

obstacles in the way of lasting happiness.

I love my owninner peacefulness whenever I enter the Gitas teachings.I love how my anger has pretty much been eliminated, and how worldlyagitations are largely things of the past for me.

I love the Gitas teachings onacceptance not merecompliance, but acceptance as a state of mind anway of being a receptiveness so elevated that onlife forever soars when touched by the magic of Tis acceptance is the most shining facet of love, sall-embracing its the very essence of spiritual surender. When my wife suffered a stroke in Indiawe were both imbued with such a strong mood oacceptance that we are convinced that being in thmental zone is what pulled her through. (Tat fullstory is retold inTe Bhagavad Gita: A Walkthrough for Westerners[New World Library, 2001].)

I love the fact that the uttertruths of the Gita have beentest-ed and purified down throughso many centuries. It makes mefeel humbled and gladdened thatthese hoary ideas, stemming fromperhaps one of the oldest recordsof humanity (the Vedas), precedeall other teachings known inthe world today; that they havepassed the severe tests of count-less centuries.

I love that the Gitastruths, thoughstated in different ways at differenttimes by different peoples of theworld, have been known to humanityfor millennia and that all higherreligions and philosophical systemsare in nearly complete agreement

with these basic truths.

I love the absolute love in the Gita, and theutter adoration that saturates its pages. Ilove its straightforward emphasis on expe-riencingdevotion to a loving God.

I love itsdenition of sin not evilacts, but actions that make us veer fromthe spiritual path, away from our ownDivine nature.

I love not only its straightforwardelucidation of what God really is,but also what I really am. Some-thing shivers deep inside becausethese two descriptions sound somuch alike.

I also love that it so carefullyexplains justwhat heavenand hell are, and what theyare not. And I love that theGita reminds me that I cancreate heaven here on earth,if I want.

I love that it teaches us toreturn love for hate.

I love its insistence that welove everyone. No exceptions allowed!


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Jack Hawley, Ph.D., lives, studies, and lectures half of each year in anashram in rural southern India, where the values of the Gita are verymuch alive. When not in India, he brings these ancient yet current ideasto leaders and organizations in the West. His books include the classicBhagavad Gita: a Walkthrough for Westerners ; Reawakening the Spirit inWork: the Power of Dharmic Management ; Roadmaps to Self-Realization;

andEssential Wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita . His website is GitaWalk-through.com; email is [email protected].

Kim Waters Murray is co-author and illustrator ofIlluminations fromthe Bhagavad Gita andTe Butter Tief (from Mandala Publishing,mandala.org).

I love the Gitas emphasis onapplication,its insistence that we put its teachings into

practice in our daily lives. heory andmake-believe have no place in true spiritu-ality, says the Gita.

I love the Gita because it explains the significance of the mystical declarationOm- at-Sat. Pronounced Om-tut-sut, this ancient phrase is said to echo back tothe very beginning of time when Divinity rst projected itself as sound. Each word rep-resents Supreme Consciousness, the Source from which everything else comes. Utteredby knowledgeable people whenever they perform spiritual activities, Om- at-Sat lendsa blessed and sacred tone to their actions, serving as a reminder that the act about to bedone is noble and conducive to self-realization. Invoking this declaration, the sages tellus, puries ones own acts and reforms the world as well.

I love the Gita for itsdepth, breadth, andmostly its height. Ilove it for its honestyand humanness, for itsgentleness and its lovingdevotion. I love how itmakes room for every-body.I love how it tellsit all so straight.

I love the emphasis in the Gita on goingbeyond beyond all our worldly levelsof understanding, beyond everything wesee or feel in the world. I love that itpullsus higher and higher to our most loftynature and then even beyond that, asI mentioned, to the Divinity within us.I love how it shows me again and againthat I am all the power and glory of theuniverse, and so is everyone.

I love how the Gitalooks death (and life)squarely in the eye, and gives not onlystraightforward methods for conquering ourfears of death, but for triumphing over deathitself! (Te secret: move beyond the painfulcycle of birth and death altogether.)

I love that the Gita explainswith precisionhow the world re-ally worksand how my life reallyworks and how I can live a tru-ly happy life and even die happy.

I love the Gitas far-out, far-reachingaudaciousness insisting, in the face of todays universal convictionsto the contrary, that human suffering can be overcome.(Its a matter of moving beyond mere happiness.)

I love that the Divin-ity described in theGita is loving, gentle,andnonpunitive.


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Self-Inquiry Self-AssessmentConsider the list of Illumined One qualities to be both a lifegoal list and life assignment checklist. Take it seriously butnot grimly. As you read each item:

Put a 19 self-rating (see sample scale below) next toeach of the 24 items based on the extent you practicethat in your life at this time.

Mark* * by any impossibles (qualities that, to you,now seem unattainable).

Date this sheet and revisit it later to check your prog-ress. (You will be pleasantly surprised.)

The truly enlightened human, the Illumined One,can be identied by certain qualities. He or she . . .

______ abandons all selsh desires, cravings, and tor-ments of the heart

______ is satised with the True Self Within (Atma)______ wants nothing outside of the True Self ______ knows that real bliss is found only within______ is unperturbed by sorrow and adversity______ does not thirst for pleasures______

is free of the three traits that most tarnish themind:______ a) greed______ b) fear______ c) anger

______ is detached from worldly objects of desire

______ neither rejoices nor gets depressed when facedwith good or bad fortune

______ is poised in wisdom above worldly turmoil______ deftly withdraws the senses from attractions of

the world (just as the turtle pulls in its limbs toprotect itself)

______ keeps the mind ever intent on achieving the goalof life, which is union with Divinity

______ gets in the habit of substituting divine thoughtsfor bad thoughts and sense attractions

______ stays free of either attachment or aversion tosense attractions

______ is tranquil of heart______ is absorbed in the peace and wisdom of the True

Self Within (Atma)______ knows that serenity is the point where all

sorrow ends!______ uses the minds powers to restrain the senses

and steady the mind______ is totally still, never disturbed, despite the con-

stant ow of desires and attachments______ is free of ego (the sense of I and mine)______ lives life devoid of cravings; forgets desire.

Once you achieve this xed, still state, you will never fallback into delusion, and will eventually achieve the goal oflife, which is to merge into Me, Divinity.

In response to a question at the end of chapter two, theBhagavad Gita gives a listing of the qualities of the enlight-ened human being (referred to as an Illumined One) andnever veers from these through its remaining 16 chapters.

I take that list a step further, making it into the modernself-inquiry instrument. This can register as a test. But whenpeople take a breath and dive into the teachings, they ndthemselves comfortably participating in spiritual growth.

Thats when I sigh, because for many people this is the

breathless opening of a profound shift in consciousness and consciousness is everything! When we changeour consciousness we change our world, and when wechange our world we change the world. Its that simple,and that profound.

Proceed unhurriedly with high receptivity. Notice yourawareness shift as you proceed. Do not seek to learn thematerial, but to become it to actuallybe the conscious-ness that permeates these teachings.

how illumined am i? A spiritual progress instrument drawn from the Bhagavad Gita

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9never seldom sometimes frequently always

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Article 23 Reasons