Okay, perhaps you're not expecting me to show up so soon, but thought I'd offer my "first date" with the Gita, inspired by what those of you who have shared above.

I'm going to take the word "date" literally here, and say that it was about 41 years ago at the age of 14 (yes, hard for ME to believe that!). I grew up in Washington, DC, when many traditional teachers were coming to the shores of America, and I can't think of one I did not attend at one time or another. But more important with regard to the first date with the Gita, I used to go down to the Georgetown area of DC in which the original Yes Bookstore was located. The selection of books on spirituality, world and comparative religions, sacred texts, the occult, etc., was extraordinary. I used to take the bus down there ALL the time and sit there and read for hours, and then purchase many books. This is where I found not just one translation of the Gita, but many, and I cannot remember with which particular translation I started, but within a few weeks, I had thirteen different translations, because I had the sense that none of them were really revealing the original the way I needed it. This seed experience way back then, of needing to authentically read, feel, absorb myself in the depths of this special text, to have a powerful sense of what it reads and feels like in the Sanskrit, led to my deepening my life practice of meditation (and dropping out of high school to do this), coupled with later getting the rigorous scholarly training in college and graduate schools of Chicago and Harvard to learn Sanskrit, which THEN ultimately led to my producing my own introduction to, translation and illumination of the Bhagavad Gītā that was published by Harper One / Harper Collins Publishers just a few years ago, which all of you already know about.

In short, my first date led to a lifetime of dating, "going steady," as it were, leading to "marriage," and, well, if we want to take the metaphor even further, "having a BABY!" And yes, as Bob has mentioned above, I'm producing another "child" or book with Columbia University Press, a comprehensive word reference that can be used by the general reader as well as specialist, to do in-depth study of key words and concepts, to supplement the 24 page index to the verses found in the back of my available translation. Don't ask me when it's coming out.

With best wishes,
Graham
Author/Translator of Bhagavad Gītā: The Beloved Lord's Secret Love Song

Thank you, Greg!

Once one unlocks the treasures embedded in the text of the Bhagavad Gītā, one can't stop them from flowing. It is truly endless. I've spent over forty years finding this flow increasing, not decreasing at all! I am happy to send what few drops I can your way that might quench a little bit of your thirst for this. Please let me know if I can be of further service.

With all best wishes,
Graham http://www.secretyoga.com

Dear YogiOne Scott,

I'm so happy to hear that you're getting a good deal from all the discussion going on here in Bob's Blog! I am personally gratified whenever I hear that I've served someone on their journey. And yes, when I offer workshops at Yoga centers or when I'm invited to give seminars at the Yoga Journal Conferences, there really is SO MUCH to share. What I have harvested of the years is uncontainable, and it spills out in books, etc.

Because it is is a bit late here as I discover your post, I will have to respond more thoroughly perhaps tomorrow. But briefly, the Gītā really does speak about many ways to realize many levels of ultimate reality, Brahman. Of course, the three famous primary margas or paths are Karma, Jnāna, and Bhakti, as these three are forms of Yoga. But interestingly, there are MANY paths brought out in the Gītā. It is very versatile in its presentation, very broad minded, very accepting, very loving! We are even apprised that "despair" or "despondency" can be a Yoga if it elevates one's spirit to the lofty realms of reality. The first chapter is traditionally titled, "Arjuna Vishada Yoga," meaning the "Yoga of Arjuna's Despair." Wow! Of course, too often despair and depression can make people spiral down to desperation, meaningless, fear, worthlessness, and even self-hatred. The Gītā shows that despair can lead one to elevated states of the spirit. Marvelous!

Once a doctoral student wrote a dissertation claiming that Krishna's dialogue with Arjuna was the first psychotherapeutic session recorded in the history of the human race! LOL.

It's late! More tomorrow.

In gratitude,
Graham http://www.secretyoga.com

Bob!

Count me in! Indeed, count me in at anytime you or others think I might be a little helpful.

Graham http://www.secretyoga.com

Thank YOU, Bob.

Of COURSE we're getting ahead of ourselves, and also we're not, because the text should at times be taken as a whole, just as Krishna requests us in the last verse he speaks. It's a beautiful verse give the hermeneutics of deep study. I made a post regarding this subject on this blog.

So Chapter 16 is so interesting. It is a very good question I hear in your words: What function does Chapter 16 have in the whole of the text of the Gītā? How does it connect to the rest?

You let me know when it's time, and I'm there!

Inspired the challenge,
Graham http://www.secretyoga.com

Bob!

Very good! Your assumption here is that fundamentalists can actually practice what they preach! When we truly practice, there is no need to preach, ironically.

I'm fascinated with your phrase, "the simple heart of religion," Bob. But as I keep saying, it IS indeed simple for those who have a relationship with one's own heart in relation to that particular "heart" that is found ex-pressed from a specific tradition. In a similar way, I cannot get myself to say that my love and relationship for my mother is the same as your love and your relationship with your mother--this of course is an analogy with limitations, but I think a point may be made. True, there are many things in common: mothers, males who love their mothers, et. But each relationship is unique. Here I draw from the profound knowledge of the Upanishads:

raso vai saḩ

"Relationality is truly the essence of reality."

Taittirīya Upanishad

Here is the critical place for interfaith dialogue. But interfaith dialogue is only as good as and can go only as deep as INTRA-faith dialogue, the depth of our own realization. And to assimilate the heart with which we may be connected to that of another person can get dangerously close to being reductive.

Over the years, having taught hundreds and hundreds of students, lecturing continuously in other non-university forums, I have found that there is a longing of the human heart to find that religions are basically saying the same thing. My question is, why do we long for that? And is it that for which we truly long? My response is no. My response is that what it is for which we truly long is a linking with others' hearts NOT because they see and think the way we do, but because the love and are lovable in all the ways that we can potentially see them.

It is Love . . . yes, as you quote Bob, God is love. But what that means to a Taoist or how it translates to him or her is quite another thing, of course. And even what that means in the Gita, again, is similar, as you say . . . but the subtle differences, for me, is where the sharing is! Where the opportunity for connecting is. Just as one day I can tell you how I love my mother and you can tell me how you do, without either of us supposing that we know, thereby getting such a fresh and joyful extension of our particular experiences of the heart.

Such sharing to me is the grace that is built in to things ultimately. Amidst the fear, the treachery, the suffering, the disasters, all the horrible things that occur all the time in this world, to find the beauty in the hearts of living beings, to know lovingness embedded in all of life, is the built in grace.

Chapter 16 is an extension---and we can certainly get into this later---of one of the ways the Gītā hopes to educate its reader, in BUDDHI YOGA, the Yoga of Discernment. To make choices according to the divine nature that we all have or the ungodly nature, as it were. The text can easily appear to be very deterministic in outlook, within its philosophy, but coupled with the narrative, it is clear that the writing is one of not only showing the power of "nature" and OUR inborn "nature," as in Dharma, but also how powerful human volition is. So much more to say on all these things, Bob. You certainly bring it out in me!

Overflowing with thoughts,
Graham http://www.secretyoga.com

Yes, Bob.

Many translations use the word "sin" or "evil" which I feel is carried over from the colonialist approach that swept India in the 18th through mid-20th centuries. Prabhupada was schooled at a very Christian college, in the context of British rule. So how would his English NOT translate the pāpa as "sin"? English for Indians WAS Christian, period! Many Indians translating the Gita will resort to this word not really appreciating its very specific Christian denotations as well as connotations, . . . way too much baggage for the Sanskrit word.

One of the few contributions I hoped to make with my translation was precisely to DE-Christianize the presentation of the Gita, which you find in Edgerton, Zaehner, and so many others, sometime less obviously. I even feel that Mitchell succumbs to this Christian or general Abraham ethos in more subtle ways at times, interestingly.

Ah! Perhaps I do too, and don't notice it! After all, I AM someone of European descent whose family has been in the US for several generations. But I don't come from a very religious background at all. My mother has been an artist and teacher all her life, and my father a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst and professor of medicine, and I was raised in a more humanistic, cultural setting, in Washington, DC. I'm certainly open to my own criticisms!!!

Best,
Graham http://www.secretyoga.com

Bob!

But I love these discussion! I only offer such responses to such marvelously honest, heartfelt and very informative messages that come to me here on your superbly hosted site.

Just quickly, a fundamentalist does not HAVE to carry the connotation of religious intolerance. But it often does, as you take the term in your words above. A fundamentalist often takes everything very literally as the direct word of God! And the religious intolerance comes in as such a person may apply it. That to me would turn such a person into a fundamentalist radical exclusivist!

Appreciatively,
Graham http://www.secretyoga.com

Michelle,

There is no word in Sanskrit that really is tantamount to the word "sin" in English. You'll notice that every time the Sanskrit word "pāpa" comes up in my translation of the Bhagavad Gītā, I never give the word "sin" as a translation, nor do I use the word "evil." Much can be understood about the meaning of the word "pāpa" by understanding its antonym "punya," which means, "meritorious," or "auspicious," etc. The word "pāpa" means not just something that you or I may do that is "wrong," or "bad," or "immoral," etc., but it ALSO refers to those unfortunate things or inauspicious things that may happen TO us. Sin is more the former, and never the latter of these two meanings. So the word does NOT fit and thus you will not find it in my book. Also the word "evil" is too strong, though it could include something of that at one end its meanings. Here's a verse, considered by Rāmānuja of the 11th Century, to be the ultimate verse of the whole work, that contains the word pāpa in it:

Completely relinquishing
all forms of dharma,
come to me
as your only shelter.
I shall grant you
freedom from
all misfortune-----
do not despair!

(BG 18.66)

Note that the word "misfortune" above is used to translate "pāpa," and since the latter is in the plural, I say "all misfortune", which also doubles up to translation the word for "all" as it is prefixed to the word, sarva-pāpa. This to me is a far more accurate translation that the Western ideas of "sin" and "evil." It is a much broader term than either, though it could include both of these in some sense.

Hope this helps a little bit!

With best wishes,
Graham http://www.secretyoga.com

Bob and Michelle!

Thank you Michelle for your comments above, and Bob for your work here with Einstein's sagacious words. I appreciate your presentation of how his statements can sound like they're echoing the Upanishads. I would agree, and would also agree that he carries a yogic vision as you say.

I was also interested to read your appreciative P.S. of me, and I would like to comment briefly on it. First, I don't feel a million times more knowledgeable than YOU! I admire what you're doing here, and while yes, I am a specialist as a scholar and a serious practitioner of yoga for over forty years, I don't really feel that this places me beyond anyone. I am truly humbled by what comes from everyone and indeed, I always feel how much I have yet to learn! But within your very warm appreciations and your spirit of dialogue and sharing which has been just wonderful, I certainly to absorb your words here with gratitude.

Now it is interesting how you characterize me as someone who takes ancient texts as "the direct word of God," "where every word has divine meaning." This feels to me very close to my position and yet also very far away. The phrase "the word of God" sounds terribly Abrahamic, and thus foreign and when I hear you saying it, I don't feel like that is I. We just may be talking about semantic differences, but those too are important. I much prefer to use the word divine or divinity rather than God. What's the difference?

Right off, the word God has for so many in the West incorporated the idea of "supreme Creator," which, as you know, for the Indic traditions is NOT that big a deal. In fact, the cosmic acts of creation and dissolution are "subcontracted out" (say, to Brahmā and Śiva respectively) because "God" is not that interested in those activities. The meanings that I include in the definition of "the divine" is something different than many lexical definitions as well: the divine is the whole of existence, the outermost world, that which contains everything, AND the divine is that which is in the heart of all living beings, AND the divine is that innermost world, the very center of all existences. It's more to me like cosmic geometry than anything else, and I feel that the Upanishads speak to these levels of divinity. It has, as you know, an entirely different feeling and ethos than that of which we know in the Abrahamic traditions, though even they can at more rare instances, sound a bit like this.

My relationship with the Gītā intrigues me, too, by the way. A year ago I gave four sequenced lectures at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC on "Scriptures of the World Religions: From Taoism to Christianity." I feel, just as with art, something very powerful is delivered in those writings that have moved the minds and hearts of countless millions of people of huge spans of time, and that not everything in scripture is to be accepted blindly, no. I strongly feel that what scripture must do, if it is to do its job, and after we have done our job in truly understanding what is actually expressed there symbolically (meaning at a literal, suggestive, and metaphorical level, perhaps even an allegorical level, ALL working together in some fashion at the same time), we must resonate with what's being said, and scripture must resonate with what is intuitively within the deepest core of our beings.

So I do not subscribe to a fundamentalist vision at all, not in the least. It is a process of deeply and genuinely connecting, going deeper into the vision of what is being said, and going more deeply within ourselves, and making the connection . . . I have found that SUCH TREASURES ARE TO BE FOUND!!!! It is about establishing a very deep relationship of dialogue and sharing with a text! It is about hearing what these ancient voices have to say and how they can move our hearts, even now! It's about making some very select portions of these special writings our best friends!

Hope this clarifies a bit . . .

Best wishes always,
Graham http://www.secretyoga.com