Recently I have been reading a chapter from the Indian spiritual classic the Bhagavad Gita as part of my daily devotions. As a Christian with a nondual approach, it is natural to me to read from scriptures of other religions that also connect with nonduality. In this episode I share insights about Christian nonduality from reading the Bhagavad Gita.
I deal with three overarching themes that make up the framework of the Gita. Each of them can be described in terms of a picture in the mind’s eye. The first picture is the chariot. The second is the battlefield. The third is Arjuna and Krishna in the chariot having the discussion on the subject of war.
Recently I have been reading a chapter from the Indian spiritual classic the Bhagavad Gita as part of my daily devotions. As a Christian with a nondual approach, it is natural to me to read from scriptures of other religions that also connect with nonduality. In this episode I share insights about Christian nonduality from reading the Bhagavad Gita.
I deal with three overarching themes that make up the framework of the Gita. Each of them can be described in terms of a picture in the mind’s eye. The first picture is the chariot. The second is the battlefield. The third is Arjuna and Krishna in the chariot having the discussion on the subject of war.
Recently during my daily devotions I have been reading a chapter from the Indian spiritual classic the Bhagavad Gita. Each morning I read a chapter from the Bible; this year I am reading through the Hebrew prophets. Then I read from another spiritual book, presently that is Thich Nhat Hanh’s Living Buddha, Living Christ. Recently I have added to that regimen a chapter from the Gita.
As a Christian with a nondual approach, it is natural to me to read from scriptures of other religions that also connect with nonduality. I have loved the the Tao Te Ching and the Upanishads for a long time. I have also read Buddhist sutras and the Quran.
Personally I first came in contact with The Bhagavad Gita while in college. It was around 1970 and a group of devotees of the Hare Krishna movement were visiting our campus. I got into a discussion with one of them and was offered a copy of The Bhagavad-Gītā As It Is. It is a translation by their leader along with a commentary. I read it and kept it for years.
I studied the Gita again in seminary while studying the world’s religions, but not very much since. I thought it was about time to buy a new translation and explore it again. So I purchased Stephen Mitchell’s new translation. His edition of the Tao Te Ching is my favorite, so I was eager to see how he approached this beloved Indian scripture.
For this episode and maybe another one I want to share insights about Christian nonduality from reading the Bhagavad Gita. For those of you unfamiliar with the Bhagavad Gita, it is a conversation between the Indian warrior Arjuna and his charioteer, who is actually Krishna, an incarnation of God. Arjuna is about to go into battle against some of his kinsmen when he has crisis of conscience. He doesn’t want to fight and kill.
At that point Krishna starts up a dialogue with Arjuna attempting to persuade him to fulfill his duty as a member of the warrior caste and go into battle. This conversation is the substance of the Gita, which itself is part of the larger epic the Mahabharata. During the conversation Krishna explains various ways that one comes to know God. He speak about the true nature of Reality, God and human beings.
As I talk about the Gita today I want to paint with a broad brush. I want to deal with three overarching themes that make up the framework of the Gita. Each of them can be described in terms of a picture in the mind’s eye. At least they were in my mind’s eye when I was reading it.
The first picture is the chariot. The second is the battlefield before the battle begins when the chariot is in the clearing between the two opposing armies. The third is Arjuna and Krishna in the chariot having the discussion on the subject of war.
First is the picture of Arjuna and Krishna in the chariot. I read that opening scene of the Gita and pictured it in my mind, and it immediately brought to mind Plato allegory of the chariot. Plato says a human being is like a Charioteer driving a chariot pulled by two horses. One horse is light and one is dark. One is good and one is bad. One is rational and one is emotional. One is mortal and the other is immortal. This is obviously a picture of duality. The charioteer is the self who is trying to drive these two opposing forces. The charioteer’s destination in the allegory is the realm of Forms, which in Plato’s philosophy is the Eternal.
That is the Western understanding of the nature of humans. What struck me immediately about the Gita, is that there is another person in the chariot. In the chariot is Arjuna, who is the human being. But he is not the one doing the driving. The chariot is driven by the charioteer who is Krishna, the incarnation of God.
In other words we think that we as the little mortal self are in control, but we are not. We think we are the ones driving the chariot which is our body, our emotions, and even our intellect, but we are not. God is in control. We as the ego or personal self are just along for the ride.
Krishna says that he is the True self in every person. Krishna says, “I am the Self, Arjuna, seated in the heart of all beings.” That means he is Arjuna’s true self. The psyche can think it is in control and give all the commands it wants, but the charioteer runs the show. All we need to do is realize this and admit that we do not have the reins in our hands.
The second picture is the scene on the battlefield. The two armies are lined up facing each other on the battlefield. Arjuna takes that moment to instruct his charioteer to drive the chariot into the empty space between the opposing armies. Arjuna says to Krishna, “Drive my chariot and stop between the two armies, so that I can see these warriors whom I am about to fight, drawn up and eager for battle. I want to look at the men gathered here ready to do battle service for Dhritarashtra’s evil-minded son.” It is there in between the armies that Arjuna and Krishna have their discussion about the nature of humans, the divine, and reality.
This also is an obvious picture of duality. The picture is of a vast battlefield with men and horses in armor with weapons lined up against each other. The two armies are described as one good and one bad. In the middle is an empty space, which is “no man’s land.” In the space between dualities is the no-self where we explore and discover what we really are and who we really are. If we knew nothing about the conversation between Arjuna and Krishna, we would already know a lot.
This imagery reminded me of the description of God in the Hebrew Bible. God is in the Holy of Holies located in the empty space between two cherubim above the cover of the Ark of the Covenant. That is a picture of duality with the True God pictured as occupying the space between. In the Hebrew Scriptures it is the High Priest, who represents all of Israel who comes into the Holy of Holies once a year and speaks the unspeakable name of God YHWH, which is the Hebrew equivalent of the Sanskrit OM.
What also comes to mind is the opening scene of the creation story of Genesis. In that story God creates the temporal physical world by dividing. He separates light from darkness, the heavens from the earth, and the waters from the waters so that dry land appears. On that dry land he places humans and all livings things, which are themselves dualities – male and female. This space in the midst of duality is the setting of Bible history, starting with the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which is the tree of duality that humans eat from. These are just a few of the parallels that come to my mind.
The third picture I see in the Gita is the two characters having a discussion. Even though lots of subjects are discussed, the main topic is whether or not Arjuna should fight. Seeing the faces of his kinsmen lined up for battle he cannot bring himself to fight and kill these people he knows. He decides to lay down his bow and become the ancient equivalent of a conscientious objector.
That scene of Arjuna laying down his bow and then at the end of the book picking it up again is a powerful picture. The ethical problem of war has been a struggle in my life ever since the Vietnam War. Over the years my approach has fluctuated between an ethic of nonviolence and just war theory. I keep coming back to the example of the 20th century nonviolent Civil Rights and Anti-War movements. This subject that was raised with me while reading the Gita.
Mahatma Gandhi was inspired by Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in his nonviolent campaign for national independence for India. Yet in the Gita the figure of God in the person of Krishna argues and persuades Arjuna to fulfill his duty as a member of the warrior caste and fight. But in his commentary on the Gita, Gandhi concluded, “The Gita does not decide for us.”
Reading the Bhagavad Gita has been a way for me to contemplate how far a follower of Jesus can engage in earthly battles. For now my pacifist roots are prevailing. Nonviolence seems like the only long-term solution. Violence sows the seeds of future violence. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth only makes the whole world blind and toothless. And my dentist says I have no teeth to spare.
Yet while reading the Gita I can also see how wars occur within the larger context of nonduality. I see that the drama of dualities is always happening within nonduality, no matter what decision we make on exercising force during our lifetimes. There is nondual space within which the opposing forces of yin and yang fight.
The Eternal Self is in all humans on both sides of all issues we face in our lives. The Eternal self holds all human history and all the universe within itself. That Eternal Self is what we are. That Eternal Self cannot die. That is the nondual message that this Christian hears while reading the Gita.