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- Here Was One
Here Was One
No. 12
Grant Hodges
September 03, 2023
The Bhagavad Gita
Dear Reader,
Scripture is a form of literature, and few scriptural works have endured as long as the great Hindu poem, the Bhagavadgītā.
Probably written between the fifth and second centuries BCE, the Gita (as it’s often called) is a standalone portion of a much longer epic, the Mahābhārata, which describes a war of succession that likely took place centuries or millennia earlier—at the dawn of Indian history.
Oddly, most people today would recognize the Gita by its famous quote—“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”—recalled by J. Robert Oppenheimer during the successful test of the nuclear bomb. But the Gita’s brilliance has influenced other historical figures as well, from Carl Jung to Henry David Thoreau, and its central message is one of love and peace.
Mahatma Gandhi said this about the poem:
I find a solace in the Bhagavadgītā that I miss even in the Sermon on the Mount. When disappointment stares me in the face and all alone I see not one ray of light, I go back to the Bhagavadgītā. I find a verse here and a verse there and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming tragedies—and my life has been full of external tragedies—and if they have left no visible, no indelible scar on me, I owe it all to the teaching of Bhagavadgītā.
Background
The Gita’s premise is straightforward. Just before a climactic battle, a prince named Arjuna begins to have second thoughts. He seeks counsel from his charioteer—Krishna—on a range of issues, from the rationale for the war to his own moral dilemma about participating in it. Unbeknownst to Arjuna, however, Krisha is an incarnation of Vishnu, one of the supreme Hindu deities; and over the course of the poem, their dialogue expands to cover perennial questions about life and death.
This week’s piece consists of several of Vishnu’s responses to Arjuna’s questions about the divine and how to live a “godly” life:
From the Bhagavadgītā
Transl. by Eknath Easwaran
I am ever present to those who have realized me in every creature. Seeing all life as my manifestation, they are never separated from me. They worship me in the hearts of all, and all their actions proceed from me. Wherever they may live, they abide in me. (6:30-31)
When a person responds to the joys and sorrows of others as if they were his own, he has attained the highest state of spiritual union. (6:32)
That one I love who is incapable of ill will, who is friendly and compassionate. (12:13)
They alone see truly who see the Lord the same in every creature, who see the deathless in the hearts of all that die. Seeing the same Lord everywhere, they do not harm themselves or others. Thus they attain the supreme goal. (13:27-28)
What It Offers
Scholars have noted that the “battle” Arjuna is preparing for in the Gita—and indeed the entire war in the Mahābhārata—is really a metaphor for every person’s inner struggle for meaning and peace. What I find most interesting about the Gita is that much of Vishnu’s advice—which centers around unity, love, and selfless service—appears nearly identical to the guidance of later mystics, theologians, and poets.
Take, for instance, Augustine of Hippo’s adage: “Love, then do as you like.” Or John Donne’s famous line, “No man is an island.” Or even this quote from John van Ruysbroeck, a medieval Flemish mystic who certainly never read the Gita:
The image of God is found essentially and personally in all mankind. Each possesses it whole, entire and undivided, and all together not more than one alone. In this way we are all one, intimately united in our eternal image, which is the image of God and the source in us of all our life.
Reading the poem from a Western perspective, it’s tough to think that we’re not all “climbers on the same mountain.” And whether the summit is God, enlightenment, spiritual union, or just inner peace, Vishnu’s insights remain just as fresh and applicable today.
As the Hindu god says directly in the Gita itself: “As they approach me, so I receive them. All paths, Arjuna, lead to me.” (4:11)
*****
What is the meaning of life? That was all—a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years, the great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead, there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one.