The Bhagavad Gita and the Bomb: sacred text, so often quoted on this anniversary, condemns murder by nuclear weapons

Above video (link): source here.

The use of nuclear weapons against civilians in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki seventy years ago has immediate and ongoing importance to every single human being to this day.

If there is any justification for the use of force, for the development of martial prowess, the justification lies in the possibility that martial skill can be used to prevent the murder of innocents.

The development and use of weapons for the express purpose of murdering noncombatants is a hideous perversion of that. 

The principle of non-murder should be the most uncontroversial and straightforward principle in the world. There really is no argument that can justify murder, although there are those who will somehow try.

Robert Oppenheimer was a gifted physicist who was recruited by the US government to help develop atomic weapons, and whose abilities appear to have played a major role in the development of the atomic weapons that were used on the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with such devastating and murderous effect. 

Many of the articles that have been published at this seventieth anniversary of the use of those bombs on Hiroshima (where a uranium-based bomb was dropped on August 06, 1945) and Nagasaki (where a plutonium-based bomb was dropped on August 09, 1945) cite Oppenheimer's statement that when his device was successfully tested in the desert of New Mexico in July of 1945, he and everyone present knew that this successful test of this weapon would change the world forever. 

He later said that he could not help but think of a line from the Bhagavad Gita: "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." Oppenheimer made this statement in 1965 during a televised interview. The use of this line by a figure of Oppenheimer's stature, on national television, has indelibly linked it with the development -- and use -- of this weapon.

This is a line spoken by Lord Krishna in the eleventh section or chapter of the Gita, when Krishna reveals his infinite form to Arjuna. It is specifically found in the thirty-second sloka (shloka), which can be seen in a variety of locations on the web, in Sanskrit characters, in Sanskrit rendered in the modern English alphabet, and in various translations in to English.

Here is one such site, which includes the Sanskrit characters as well as a transliteration with literal phrase-by-phrase translation (and a vocal recording of the spoken Sanskrit), and here is another which includes only the transliteration of Sanskrit into English alphabetical letters along with a slightly different translation into English.

In the first translation, the words of this important verse are rendered this way:

Lord Krishna, the possessor of all opulences, said: I am terrible time, the destroyer of all beings in all worlds; of those heroic soldiers presently situated in the opposing army, even without you none will be spared.

In the second, the passage is translated thusly:

The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: Time I am, the great destroyer of the worlds, and I have come here to destroy all people. With the exception of you [the Pandavas], all the soldiers here on both sides will be slain.

Here is a different translation from another site:

Said the Lord Supreme, "I am Time, verily the great destroyer of the Worlds engaged now in the destruction of people. Even without you, all the warriors on either side are going to be destroyed."

Clearly, many translators see the original word as indicating a personification of all-devouring Time, rather than "Death" as Oppenheimer apparently did. Perhaps Oppenheimer was quoting from a different translation (unless Oppenheimer, or someone who gave him the quotation, deliberately altered the translation of the sloka in order to make it convey a certain impression to the listener that demanded the use of "death" rather than "time").

Whatever Robert Oppenheimer intended to convey with his use of this particular line of the Bhagavad Gita in this instance, I believe the entire message of the Bhagavad Gita -- as well as the very specific message of this particular sloka -- can be seen as urging every single one of us to stand up for what is right, against the murder of innocents. 

It is a message that is absolutely opposed to passive resignation in the face of deliberate, scheming evil: in fact, the second half of the verse (which Oppenheimer did not quote in the televised interview) contains a promise from Lord Krishna that, whether or not Arjuna decides to stand up against the evil forces personified in the ancient epic in the form of the Karauva army, the outcome is already determined and Krishna has promised victory. The only question is whether or not Arjuna will participate as an instrument of the divine will, or whether Arjuna will decide to "sit this one out."

Note that in saying this, I am absolutely not trying to literalize the Bhagavad Gita: I am not saying that it is about a war that took place in ancient times, or that it is (by extension) directly applicable to any modern war, in which one country or combatant army can be identified as one side or the other. I have already written extensively on the evidence I find for concluding that the Bhagavad Gita is a celestial allegory that has to do with the struggle of the soul (that is to say, each and every human soul) in this incarnate existence: see this previous post and the video embedded in that post.

The mighty battle into which Arjuna is preparing to descend is the spiritual battlefield of this incarnate existence -- and the foes which he is facing include lust, anger and greed, which Krishna identifies elsewhere in the Gita (such as in the twenty-first sloka of section 16) as the three gates to Naraka, the underworld. Krishna's message to Arjuna prior to descending into this allegorical "battlefield" (which, as I have shown based upon celestial evidence and based upon the invocation of the goddess Durga immediately prior to the Bhagavad Gita is almost certainly the "battlefield" of this incarnate life) is that Arjuna should devote himself to right action -- action which is specifically described as not harming others -- that he should do this right action without concern for or attachment to the outcome, and that he should do what is right because it is right, and not out of any hope for either material or spiritual reward.

I have also argued that the Bhagavad Gita (and other ancient texts) are trying to teach us that in order to achieve the goal of right action without attachment to results that Krishna is counseling Arjuna to pursue, we must find the inner connection to the infinite which we all already have. When Krishna reveals his infinite form to Arjuna in the eleventh section (where the quotation in question is found), he is, I believe, imparting this very teaching. For more on that subject, see this previous post.

If the Gita is not literal but rather metaphorical, then it cannot be woodenly applied in a literalistic fashion as if the "good guys" in the ancient myth correspond to "my country" and the "bad guys" in the ancient myth correspond to "the other guys" (although this is in fact the way that literalists sometimes try to apply ancient scriptures, in order to condone a war they are promoting). Instead, I believe that Krishna's message is that we are to stand up against violent and destructive and callous forces within ourselves, as well as against violent actions by others, such as the violent and invasive behavior which is exhibited by the Karauvas who oppose Arjuna and his brothers in the metaphorical Battle of Kurukshetra in the ancient text.

Krishna here promises that these destructive forces will in fact be defeated and that victory is already assured (as the goddess Durga also promised when she appeared to Arjuna, in the chapters immediately preceding the Bhagavad Gita). He says that this ultimate victory will happen "with or without" Arjuna's participation -- but that Arjuna is actually designed for that struggle against evil and that it is actually his duty to participate in the metaphysical battle.

Again, I believe it can be conclusively demonstrated that this scripture is not directed to some ancient semi-divine warrior named Arjuna who is about to participate in an ancient battle on the plain of Kurukshetra: everything Krishna is saying is directed to each and every human soul, which comes down into this incarnation to participate in the struggle. The eventual victory is already assured, as both Durga and Krishna assure Arjuna: the question is whether or not we are going to participate, and the degree to which we will do so.

The Bhagavad Gita specifically states, in its eighteenth and final section or chapter, that taking no action at all is not really possible for any incarnate being. The only question is whether or not that action will be right action. Here is the relevant passage from the eighteenth chapter beginning at the eleventh sloka as found on this website (and you can also compare this website, which gives the original Sanskrit characters as well as a literal phrase-by-phrase translation, and this website which contains the 1885 translation by Edwin Arnold which, although poetic and somewhat flowery, actually has much to commend it, if examined carefully):

11 It is indeed impossible for an embodied being to give up all activities. But he who renounces the fruits of action is called one who has truly renounced [literally "Tyaga"].

12 For one who is not renounced, the threefold fruits of action -- desirable, undesirable and mixed -- accrue after death. But those who are in the renounced order of life have no such result to suffer or enjoy.

13 O mighty-armed Arjuna, according to the Vedanta there are five causes for the accomplishment of all action. Now learn of these from me.

14 The place of action, the performer, the various senses, the many kinds of endeavor, and ultimately the Supersoul -- these are the five factors of action. [Another version, from the second website linked above, reads: "The body, also the ego, the different separate perceptual senses, the various yet separated vital forces, and the fifth being the Ultimate Consciousness as the indwelling monitor."]

[. . .]

20 That knowledge by which one undivided spiritual nature is seen in all living entities, though they are divided into innumerable forms, you should understand to be in the mode of goodness.

[. . .]

23 That action which is regulated and which is performed without attachment, without love or hatred, and without desire for fruitive results is said to be in the mode of goodness.

24 But action performed with great effort by one seeking to gratify his desires, and enacted from a sense of false ego, is called action in the mode of passion.

25 That action performed in illusion, in disregard of scriptural injunctions, and without concern for future bondage or for violence or distress caused to others is said to be in the mode of ignorance.

26 One who performs his duty without association with the modes of material nature, without false ego, with great determination and enthusiasm, and without wavering in success or failure is said to be a worker in the mode of goodness.

Note that action performed without concern for violence or distress caused to others is condemned: it is not right action. Krishna tells Arjuna to do what is right without attachment to results -- he condemns doing what is causes violence or distress to others (and specifically condemns causing violence or distress to others without concern for those results).

The Bhagavad Gita elsewhere (most strongly perhaps in the sixteenth chapter) reiterates its condemnation for those who declare that there is no law in this life, no divine rule, and who give themselves up to evil deeds, and the ruination of others. Krishna vividly describes those following such a path:

Slaves to their passion and their wrath, they buy

Wealth with base deeds, to glut hot appetites;

"Thus much today," they say, "we gained! Thereby

Such and such wish of heart shall have its fill;

And this is ours! And the other shall be ours!

Today we slew a foe, and we will slay

Our other enemy tomorrow! Look!

Are we not lords? Make we not goodly cheer?

Is not our fortune famous, brave and great?

Rich we are, proudly born! What other men

Live like to us? Kill, then, for sacrifice!

Cast largesse, and be merry!" So they speak

Darkened by ignorance; and so they fall --

To bring this discussion from the Bhagavad Gita back to the horrendous act of creating atomic weapons to be used against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to kill hundreds of thousands of noncombatants including women, children, teenagers, and elderly people (and the building of other, even more powerful nuclear weapons for the express purpose of threatening their use against other cities full of noncombatants also including women, children, teenaged and elderly people), it should be plain from Krishna's words that such actions are murderous and would be specifically condemned. The passage above from the Gita, in fact, should sound eerily disturbing in light of the way that the Bhagavad Gita was specifically evoked by Robert Oppenheimer in that 1965 televised interview about the dropping of the atomic bombs by the United States.

In fact, contrary to what has generally been taught as inviolable dogma in the United States since 1945, the act of dropping those bombs was widely condemned as barbaric and completely unnecessary by military leaders in many top positions in the US armed forces at the time!

This website, linked in a previous post last year at this same time, contains quotation after quotation from military leaders including General Douglas MacArthur, Admiral Chester Nimitz, Admiral William D. Leahy, Admiral William F. Halsey, Undersecretary of the Navy Ralph Bard, and many others who objected to its use and who went on record saying that the decision to drop the bomb had nothing to do with hastening the surrender of Japan but rather had something to do with other motives.

However Robert Oppenheimer meant that famous Bhagavad Gita quotation, which now links (in many people's minds) the widely-beloved scriptures of the Bhagavad Gita to the decision to develop and ultimately use atomic weapons against noncombatant civilians, it should be quite clear that the Bhagavad Gita itself actually enjoins us to stand up against such violence -- that in fact it argues that our very purpose here in this incarnate life, this Battle of Kurukshetra, is to stand up for the right regardless of the outcome and without attachment to the outcome, and without concern for whether or not we seem to be prevailing at the moment in our stand against such violence.

In fact, the wider context of the ancient Sanskrit epic of the Mahabharata, which contains the Bhagavad Gita, reveals the cause of the disastrous Battle of Kurukshetra to be the passivity of the blind king Dhritarastra to stand up against the greedy, violent, and fraudulent schemes of his son Dhuryodhana (assisted by Dhritarastra's wily brother-in-law, Dhuryodhana's uncle, Sakuni, who is a great dice-player and one who by his own admission uses deceit to win at dice-gambling, and who arranges a scheme to defraud the Pandauvas of all their possessions in a great dice match, because of Dhuryodhana's overwhelming greed and because of Sakuni and Dhuryodhana's violent hatred of the Pandauvas). 

For more on Dhritarastra's blindness, see this previous post, and for more on his disastrous accommodation of the evil schemes of the members of his own household, read this chapter from Book II of the Mahabharata (section 48).

The lessons for us should be quite plain. It is now seventy years since the team of scientists led by Oppenheimer used their talents to create a weapon that was then used to murder hundreds of thousands of noncombatants. 

Some military leaders stood up against the use of this weapon at the time, to one degree or another, although none to the degree that would actually stop the use of this weapon in 1945 to incinerate and poison hundreds of thousands of noncombatants (most of them women, children, teenagers, and the elderly) in two cities in Japan (which was already sending out signals that it wanted to sue for peace), and none to the degree that would lead the public to demand an end to a policy of building such weapons with the express purpose of pointing them at other cities full of noncombatants for the next seventy years (right up to the present day).

All of that generation of scientists and leaders have now left that incarnation, but we who are currently living still face the same questions that they faced. Do we condemn the violent schemes of the Sakunis and Dhuyodhanas in our own household? Or do we accommodate and enable it, as Dhritarastra did? 

Are we using our talents to create tools and technologies that can be used by those who have no concern for violence or distress caused to others, and who sound like the "slaves to passion and wrath" described by Krishna in the sixteenth section of the Gita, saying to themselves "Are we not lords?" 

And if we create technologies that we see could have disastrous or even apocalyptic consequences, do we stand up clearly against their misuse, even if we don't know if anyone else agrees with us, even if we don't know what the outcome will eventually be?

These were obviously important questions for those living seventy years ago, but they are just as important for those living today.

Ultimately, standing up against murder should be completely uncontroversial. It is really impossible to argue for it.

The use of the quotation from the Bhagavad Gita in conjunction with the creation of the first atomic weapons, and with the use of those atomic weapons to murder hundreds of thousands of men and women and children, should cause everyone who hears that quotation to examine what the Gita says about doing what is right in this life, standing up against violence, struggling against the "forces of Dhuryodhana" (so to speak).

And, when we hear that particular quotation from the eleventh chapter of the Gita -- the chapter in which Lord Krishna reveals his Supreme Infinite form, which is beyond all definition and boundary -- we should consider carefully what this teaches us. It teaches us that we each come down into this struggle, this battlefield of incarnation, with a connection to the infinite (as Krishna states quite plainly many times, including some of the passages quoted above). And it also teaches us that the outcome of the battle is in a sense already determined, and that the "forces of Dhuryodhana" are already defeated (as Krishna tells Arjuna) and that Arjuna ultimately cannot lose (as Durga tells Arjuna just prior to the Bhagavad Gita).

I believe that the policy of using nuclear weapons (or any weapons for that matter) to murder noncombatants as an express policy of war or "peace" is absolutely criminal. The historical record shows that many of the military leaders of the US from previous generations (those who were born and received their education prior to World War I, such as those cited above and in this catalog) would agree. 

I believe it is also safe to say that the Bhagavad Gita, which is often cited on the anniversaries of the dropping of these hideous weapons on the noncombatant civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (as if perhaps Krishna would somehow condone such wanton murder), would also condemn such killing of women and children and teenagers and aged people.

Perhaps this closer examination of the Bhagavad Gita will motivate us to read through its ancient wisdom more frequently, and with an eye towards its application in our daily lives, even in this most modern era in which we find ourselves living.

And perhaps the admonishments and encouragement offered by Krishna to Arjuna will spur us to stand up for what is right, against murder and other forms of violence to others, even if we are not sure of the eventual outcome (though Krishna himself apparently is!)

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

"Split a piece of wood; I am there" -- the Force is all around us

Gospel of Thomas translation: Stephen Patterson and Marvin Meyer (link).

David-Dorian Ross has devoted much of his life to the practice of Tai Chi Chuan and Chi Gung (or Qigong). He has won eight gold medals in US competition and a World Silver and two World Bronze medals in worldwide Tai Chi competition performances. Together with martial arts film superstar Jet Li, he has made it his mission to try to spread the message of the beneficial aspects of Tai Chi and Chi Gung to at least a hundred million people who have not previously known about them!

Here is how he has described the force which is called chi (or hei) in Chinese culture and in writings going back hundreds and even thousands of years (and which can also be spelled qi in the Roman alphabet, under the convention that the letter q is generally used to represent a sound that is pronounced like a "ch"-sound in Mandarin):

Qi is not only a human, or even animal characteristic: everything in the world has energy -- plants, animals, even rocks. Qi is all around us, circulating in the air, vibrating in the colors we see, and literally raining down on us from above. The Chinese word for weather is tianqi: heavenly energy. Essentials of Tai Chi and Qigong, 121.

In other words, chi sounds very much akin to what was described as "The Force" in the very first Star Wars movie from 1977 -- a movie that resonated so well with so many millions of people that it became  an enormous box office sensation that year and remains the number-six-grossing film in North America of all time (I certainly remember the impression it made on me the first time seeing it that year, at my best friend's birthday party in the theater that is now a Planet Granite in Belmont). Below is the famous initial description of the Force by Obi-Wan Kenobi, played by Alec Guinness in an Oscar-nominated performance:

In that brief video clip, Alec Guinness / Obi-Wan explains: "The Force is what gives a Jedi his power: It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us -- it binds the Galaxy together."

In other words, the description is nearly identical to that given by Tai Chi and Qigong master David-Dorian Ross when trying to convey the concept of chi or qi. But, although his description of chi was written well after the initial box office release of Star Wars, we can see that the concept of chi has been known and described for literally thousands of years, such as in the inscription from a jade artifact from China dated to around 380 BC that was described in the preceding post examining one of the mysterious texts that are known as the Tai Chi Classics.

Star Wars is thus popularizing an extremely ancient concept in a very accessible manner and one which has captured the imagination of hundreds of millions (billions?) and continues to do so to this day. It is a concept that has been written about in China for at least 2,400 years, and has undoubtedly been understood and practiced for much longer than that.

In fact, the descriptions of chi given by David-Dorian Ross and in texts such as the Tai Chi Classics, the Tao Te Ching, and the jade inscription from 380 BC have clear and direct parallels to concepts which I believe can be found at the heart of virtually all the ancient myths, scriptures and sacred traditions from virtually every continent on planet Earth -- which can all be shown to use the awesome motion of the celestial spheres as a way of conveying truths about the invisible realm to our understanding, the invisible realm or spirit world or realm of the infinite which is in fact present in all living things and indeed in every single molecule of the universe.

The invisible realm surrounds and interpenetrates the visible or material world, and according to the ancient wisdom preserved in many sources around the world, it is the true source and fountain from which the visible world emanates or is projected (see for instance the discussion here, especially the extended quotation from Lakota holy man Black Elk, as well as the discussions in many, many other previous posts).

I believe that it is not an exaggeration to assert that the ancient myths and sacred texts and traditions of the world were in fact originally intended as powerful teachers to guide us towards regaining our awareness of and connection with the life-giving infinite source. As some of the Tai Chi Classics (including the Song of the Thirteen Postures examined in the preceding post) tell us, the invisible force of chi is already in us from the moment of birth or even before: we don't have to "gain more" of it but rather become attuned to it, within us and all around us.

The ancient myths are teachers for connecting with the infinite on many levels, which we are all designed to do.

Below is a short video clip of David-Dorian Ross showing a way of experiencing this force for yourself:

As the Thirteen Postures Song tells us, entering through the door on the journey traditionally requires a personal teacher -- but then there must also be a lifetime of continual cultivation and practice and study on one's own, for which each will ultimately "hear it" or "know it" from within himself or herself.

Although it has been obscured by nearly seventeen hundred years of teaching its stories from a literalistic perspective, I believe that it can be conclusively shown that the collection of ancient scriptures commonly known as the Bible (both the Old and New Testaments) was intended to teach this very same awareness of and connection with the infinite (within oneself and the rest of the universe, even the rocks and trees) that all the other myths and scriptures of the world were intended to convey.

Indeed, some of the texts in the same family or genre as those which became the canonical New Testament scriptures (but which were rejected and even outlawed by those advocating a literalistic or externalized approach to the stories and allegories) make statements and declarations that sound nearly identical to the descriptions of chi from the ancient texts of China, or of the Force as described by Obi-Wan!

For instance, in the Gospel of Thomas, one of the most important of the so-called "Gnostic Gospels" or texts that were left out of the canonical New Testament and thus forbidden by the end of the fourth century AD (and which has been discussed in some detail in previous posts such as "The Gospel of Thomas and the Divine Twin" and "The Gospel of Thomas and the Everlasting Spring"), there is this very interesting teaching:

Jesus said, "I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all attained. Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there." [Gospel of Thomas 77; translation by Stephen Patterson and Marvin Meyer].

In this very concise but extremely direct little vignette, we have Jesus telling us that he is the infinite, and the source of all that has ever come forth. Where do we find the infinite? The infinite is everywhere, in all things, in every single atom or molecule of the visible (projected) material universe.

Even if we split a piece of wood: there is the infinite.

This is a very powerful image, and very much in keeping with David-Dorian's teaching that qi is found in all things, even plants and rocks, and with Obi-Wan's teaching that the Force "binds the Galaxy together."

Elsewhere in the gospels (both those that were rejected by the early literalist leaders and those that were included in the canonical New Testament) and also even more directly in some of the letters attributed to the one who calls himself Paul, we are told that this infinite is within us as well. This can also be shown to be the message in other sacred myth-systems, such as that found in the Bhagavad Gita and in the Mahabharata which contains the Gita (discussions and videos here and here).

And yet, for at least seventeen hundred years, this understanding of the ancient scriptures as powerful teachers to help us become aware of and attuned to the force of the infinite within us and all around us has been suppressed (the Gospel of Thomas, quoted above, was literally buried in a sealed jar beneath some lonely cliffs along the banks of the Nile River in Egypt since the fourth century, because these teachings were forced to "go underground").

In fact, the very same Gospel of Thomas tells us that the ones it labels as "the Pharisees and the scholars have taken the keys of knowledge and have hidden them. They have not entered nor have they allowed those who want to enter to do so" (39).

It's as if our planet had a host of stories and written guides for cultivating and using the Force, and a group deliberately set out to destroy all knowledge of them.

Why would anyone want to do that?

The good news is that the teachings have not been totally obscured. They are preserved quite powerfully in the world's myths, which are like a precious inheritance to humanity. And they are preserved in ancient systems such as Tai Chi and other martial arts, as well as in Yoga, all of which are deliberately designed to help us become attuned to the cycles of the universe and to the flow of this infinite divine energy which is both within us and also in every single other person and creature we meet and every other thing that we see (even within a piece of split wood!).

And, the popularity of films such as Star Wars  show us just how powerfully this concept resonates with us.

For this reason, we should be grateful to teachers like David-Dorian Ross (and Jet Li) who are preserving and passing on aspects of this ancient knowledge to millions who have not known about it before.

Namaste.

A meditation upon the Thirteen Postures Song 十三勢歌

image: Wikimedia commons (link), cropped and with added text of the Song of the Thirteen Dynamics (or Song of the Thirteen Postures).

The Wudang Mountains of China are associated with the ancient internal arts: practices and disciplines designed to facilitate one's cultivation of and connection with chi.

Whether or not they actually originated there, the association between the internal arts and the Wudang region is justifiable, because the area has been a center for both ascetic and monastic pursuit of the Way of the Tao for at least 1200 years and possibly even longer than that. There are direct parallels between concepts conveyed in the Tao Te Ching and teachings associated with the specific "internal" martial arts and disciplines associated with Wudang.

According to legend, it was to the Wudang Mountains that the mysterious Zhang Sanfeng retired to live an ascetic life, leaving a promising career in the government ministries and giving away all his possessions. The traditions say that Zhang was already an accomplished martial artist who became more and more attracted to the development of internal kung fu, and whose prowess became greater and greater even as he became less and less interested in external displays of power, until he eventually made his way to the mountains . . .

There, he would in time master the internal arts, develop one (or more) of the most famous systems for cultivating internal power, and ultimately become a Taoist immortal or 仙 -- a word that is pronounced Xian in Mandarin and Sin in Cantonese, and which when used as a verb means "to ascend" or "to transcend," and which thus when used as a noun means by extension "a transcendent one" or "an ascended one" (the character itself is composed of the symbol on the left for person and the three-pronged symbol on the right which means "mountain").

Among the many texts sometimes attributed to this legendary personage or associated with the internal arts he imparted, one intriguing representative of their style and content is the Song of the Thirteen Postures, a short poem whose actual origin and date and author(s) are all unknown, but which is counted among the Tai Chi Classics: texts belonging to the art of Tai Chi Chuan, one of the three main Chinese martial arts associated most closely with Wudang and with the practice of attuning oneself to the flow of chi. The other two are Xing-Yi Chuan ( 形意拳 -- pronounced Jing Ji Kyun in Cantonese, and translating to something like "Form and Conscience Fighting Style [literally "fist"]") and Bagua Chuan ( 八卦掌 -- pronounced Baat Gwaa Jeung in Cantonese, and translating to something like "The Eight Divination-Trigrams Palm").

Zhang Sanfeng is traditionally credited with creating the original system of Tai Chi Chuan itself. An earlier name for Tai Chi Chuan was in fact "The Thirteen Postures" or 十三勢  -- the first two characters and syllables of which literally mean "Ten - Three" (which is the standard way of saying "thirteen") and the final character and word translating more literally as "powers" or "energies" or "forces" or "dynamics." Thus, "The Thirteen Dynamics" or "The Thirteen Forces" might be a more accurate translation of the sense of the original, although it is so commonly referred to in English as "The Thirteen Postures" that this is probably what we should use to refer to the poem in question.

It is also worth noting that the reason for the "Thirteen" in the title comes from the connection of the different "forces" or projections of energy used in the motions of Tai Chi were traditionally eight in number and connected to the eight angles or Eight Divinatory Trigrams of the BaGua, and to these were added five directions or ways of stepping or directing the body (going forward, going backwards, going left, going right, and holding at the center), to bring the total to thirteen.

The Thirteen Postures Song is reproduced in the Wudang Mountains image above, and is available in various English translations (some more literal than others) in a variety of places on the web, including here and here and here. Borrowing from these sources as well as from the literal meanings of the characters themselves (with apologies for any misinterpretations which I myself introduce in the process), a fairly literal translation might be:

-------------

Thirteen Collected Dynamics: Do Not Lightly Esteem ["do not take them lightly"].

[Their] Life-Heart and Head: [It] Issues from the Waist / Kidney Region.

The Transformations and Turnings of Empty and Solid: [You] Must Keep in Heart-Soul-Mind.

Chi Everywhere in the Body, the Human Body: Not Steered into an Obstacle [usually translated to mean "not hindered or obstructed"].

Stillness [in the] Center of Initiating-Action: Action Like Stillness.

Because of it, the way that you Adapt to the Opponent's Moves: Indeed Mysterious and Uncanny.  

Each Posture [each "dynamic" or "force"] Learn by Heart: Come to Know its Usefulness and its Deepest Essence.

Acquire / Will Come all-Unconscious: Effortless Mastery or Advanced Skill [literally "kung fu"].

Deeply Engrave and Hold the Heart-Mind in the Place of the Waist / Kidney Region.

In the Abdomen area [be] Relaxed and Still: Chi Gallops, Flying-up -- Yes!

Tailbone Centered and Straight: Divine Energy [from there up through] The Top of the Head (like a string through a thousand coins).

The Benefit of a Body Filled with Lightness and Agility: [it is achieved by] Hoisting or Suspending the Top of the Head (as if hanging from above).

Follow the Slender Thread [perhaps meaning "to the deepest, thinnest ends of the roots"]: Push Towards what you Seek.

Flexing and Opening and Closing: You will Hear it or Know it from Within Yourself.

The One who Begins this Path: Must necessarily have this teaching Transmitted from the Mouth [of a teacher].

Practice your Skill [literally "kung fu"] Without Stopping, Without Resting: the Way is by Your Own Study -- your own Cultivation.

Regarding the Usefulness of this System: What Guideline or Standard shall we Make or Observe?

The Heart-soul and the Chi Arrive as the Sovereign: the Bones and the Flesh are the Monarch's Ministers and Officials.

Towards What Goal does all of this Push or Impel us?

The Benefit of Desired Long Life and Delay of Aging: a Never-Aging Springtime.

A Song -- Ah! A Song -- Oh! A Hundred and Forty.

These Written Characters -- Genuine, Clear-cut: Right in Conduct, Without any Suspicion.

If one does Not Toward this Direction Push, Seek, and Go . . .

In Vain all that is Spent on Achieving Skill [literally "kung fu"]: Sighing, Loss, and Regret.  

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This is a remarkable poem, filled with important teachings with far-reaching implications.

Foremost among them, perhaps: the connection of the cultivation of chi and the concept of stillness in the midst of action.

The poem imparts specific images to aid in attuning oneself to the invisible force of chi. Chi itself is written 氣 and it is pronounced hei in Cantonese: both chi and hei mean "breath" and "spirit," which just as in English can refer to either literal breathing and also to the entire realm of spirit, the life-force, that which animates all beings (the in-spir-ation) and which also permeates all things in the cosmos.

While the actual date and authorship of this specific poem is unknown (and some scholars place its origin to within only the past few hundred years or so), texts which explicitly refer to the raising of chi exist from as early as 380 BC, as Professor Victor H. Mair (an accomplished scholar of Chinese culture, language and history who has taught at the University of Pennsylvania since 1979) notes in his valuable translation of the Ma Wang Deui "silk texts" containing an early arrangement of the Tao Te Ching (discovered in 1972). Describing an inscription on ten pieces of jade which once formed a small knob, he gives this translation:

In moving the vital breath (hsing ch'i) [through the body, hold it deep and] thereby accumulate it. Having accumulated it, let it extend (shen). When it extends, it goes downward. After it goes downward, it settles. Once it is settled, it becomes firm. Having become firm, it sprouts [compare Yogic bija ("seed" or "germ")]. After it sprouts, it grows. Once grown, then it withdraws. Having withdrawn, it becomes celestial [that is, yang]. The celestial potency presses upward, the terrestrial potency presses downward. [He who] follows along [with this natural propensity of the vital breath] lives; [he who] goes against it dies. [cited on page 159 of the paperback edition of 1990 of Victor H. Mair's translation of Tao Te Ching: The Classic Book of Integrity and the Way]. 

The harmonies in this jade inscription from 380 BC and the teachings contained in The Song of the Thirteen Postures should be self-evident.

Additionally, as Professor Mair references in a bracketed parenthetical comment upon one specific part of the above-quoted jade inscription, some clear connections can be perceived between the teachings in these ancient Chinese texts and the teachings preserved in the Yogic traditions and texts. Professor Mair addresses in some detail these conceptual connections in the Afterword and the Appendix of his translation of the Tao Te Ching -- not referring specifically to the Thirteen Postures Song but rather to the Tao Te Ching itself, which also contains numerous admonitions to have stillness or inaction even in the midst of action.

Professor Mair points out some of the passages in the Tao Te Ching concerning action-inaction, and connects their teachings directly to the direction given by the Lord Krishna to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita. For example, in the section of the Tao Te Ching traditionally numbered 38 (but in fact arranged as the very first section in the Ma Wang Deui texts), we read -- in part -- that:

The person of superior integrity takes no action, nor has he a purpose for acting.

The person of superior humaneness takes action, but has no purpose for acting.

The person of superior righteousness takes action, but has a purpose for acting. [From the passage found on page 3 of Professor Mair's 1990 translation].

All this taking action and taking no action, without a purpose for acting, may seem confusing, but when we examine (as Professor Mair does) the words of Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, we may begin to understand what is being advised.

And again, a few sections later in that part of the Tao Te Ching traditionally numbered 43 but arranged as section 6 in the older Ma Wang Deui texts, we read:

The softest thing under heaven

gallops triumphantly over

The hardest thing under heaven.

Nonbeing penetrates nonspace.

Hence,

I know the advantages of non action.

The doctrine without words,

The advantage of nonaction --

few under heaven can realize these! [page 11].

It is interesting to wonder, given the explicit description in the tenth line of the Thirteen Postures Song of chi as "galloping," whether the Tao Te Ching in this passage is not referring to the invisible spirit-force of chi when it describes the triumphant nature of "the softest thing under heaven."

For a fairly detailed examination of the importance of the teachings given to Arjuna by Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, see this previous post

(which also contains a video).

That post examines the fact that Krishna's direction to Arjuna, given in a variety of different ways using a variety of powerful metaphors, can be summarized as "do what is right, without attachment to the results" and thus, without ulterior motive -- without concern for reward or even without concern for the outcome whatsoever. This can clearly be seen as throwing some light upon the Tao Te Ching's admonitions regarding "taking action" or "taking no action" but having "no reason" (no ulterior motive, no concern for or connection to the results) for it.

Professor Mair explains in his Afterword that the concept of wu-wei or nonaction is one of the most important concepts in the Tao Te Ching, which tells us that "through nonaction, no action is left undone" (see discussion on page 142). He explains that an understanding of the Bhagavad Gita helps us to realize that this teaching about nonaction may in fact mean action --  but action  as though not acting (because totally nonattached to the action) [this is at least my interpretation of what Professor Mair is expounding on pages 142 and surrounding].

My earlier post and video discussing the Bhagavad Gita, which on a literal level is portrayed as Krishna's advice to Arjuna prior to entry into the great Battle of Kurukshetra, may in fact be seen as guidance given to the human soul prior to descending into incarnation itself, which is by its very nature a great battle or struggle or interplay between the "forces" of matter and spirit. If so, then the Bhagavad Gita teaches us that one of the most important principles in this life is to do what is right, but without attachment. And, the Bhagavad Gita shows that in order to do this, one must be connected to the divine charioteer -- portrayed in the Gita as the divine Lord Krishna, who in the text of the Gita itself reveals himself to be the Infinite, the Supreme, the Undefinable (beyond words or categorization).

In other words, in order to be able to act without acting (without attachment), we must cultivate connection with the Infinite: with the invisible force which pervades everything.

And this is exactly what the Tao Te Ching teaches as well (note that it describes the Tao as beyond categorization, beyond labeling with words, beyond definition).

And it is exactly what the Song of the Thirteen Postures appears to be telling us also! In order to achieve action without action, we must attune ourselves to the invisible force which is inside us and which permeates the universe around us as well (which it explicitly calls 氣  or chi ).

The line which most clearly deals with the concept of action while centered in complete stillness or lack of action (lack of attachment, lack of motion) is the fifth line of the Song of the Thirteen Postures (the line which is highlighted in red in the text shown above, superimposed on the photograph from Wudang), and which translated rather literally reads:

Stillness [in the] Center of Initiating-Action: Action Like Stillness.

The poem could hardly be more clear and direct on this point.

Note also the important third line of the poem, which emphasizes guarding deep in our heart-soul-mind the endless interplay of empty and solid: this, I would argue, could well be the very same interplay or struggle allegorized in the Battle of Kurukshetra -- the endless interplay between the realm of Spirit and the realm of Matter (between "empty" and "solid").

Finally (although there is much more to discuss), we cannot end this brief examination of The Song of the Thirteen Postures without pointing out that fascinating fourth line from the end, which says:

A Song -- Ah! A Song -- Oh! One Hundred Forty.

What is this supposed to be teaching us? Well, the very next line tells us the meaning of the "one hundred forty": it refers to the characters in the poem itself. So, the first half of that line which says "A Song -- Ah! A Song -- Oh!" must be talking about the Song of the Thirteen Postures itself.

It is advising, it would seem, a regular repetition of this song to oneself, as a way of calling to mind this important guidance for our struggle in this life. It is telling us that this song is something we should sing to ourselves, perhaps daily -- in much the same way that the sections of the Mahabharata which take place immediately prior to the Bhagavad Gita present us with a hymn to sing in order to summon the goddess Durga, and then tell us that this is a song we should sing to summon the goddess every single morning!

Thus we see that the ancient texts were given as powerful helps for us in this life -- powerful tools to guide us towards the cultivation of our contact with the infinite (which is, in fact, already inside us and already all around us) and our cultivation of an effortless and unattached principle of action: doing what is right, without attachment to the outcome.

And, along with these ancient texts, there were given very specialized disciplines, including the practice of Yoga but also in China of martial arts which have a clear focus upon the cultivation of the internal power of chi.

These practices are for our daily use -- and both the Song of the Thirteen Postures and the jade inscription from 380 BC advise us to pursue them diligently, because the benefits of practicing them are very great, but the penalty for neglecting them include sighing and loss and regret.

We are indeed fortunate that this ancient wisdom has survived and that we can avail ourselves of it, and that doing so does not necessarily entail a life of asceticism in the Wudang Mountains -- although for some it might!

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

The Eight Pieces of Brocade (八段錦): "Riding Horse, Drawing Bow to Shoot Eagle"

When I was a young lieutenant in the 82nd Airborne Division, I purchased a book called The Kung Fu Exercise Book by Michael Minick, published in 1974.

The book contains a series of exercises which it explains on page 9 are derived from the "Ancient Art Silk Weaving Exercises" and which the author says are part of a system which is far more than just exercise:

The system I am going to describe is far more than just a pattern of exercises. It is an integral part of Chinese medicine. Traditional Chinese medicine's weapons against ill health are few in number, but they are extraordinarily effective. They include acupuncture, moxibustion (a form of therapy in which acupuncture points are generally heated instead of needled), remedial massage, herbal remedies, and, most basically, exercise. 7 - 8.

The ancient art exercises described in the book, the author says, are surprisingly easy to do, can be performed by people of any age, do not require physical exertion, can be performed almost anywhere, and can be performed in as little as ten minutes if necessary (12 - 13). Most importantly, the book explains, "these exercises put one into contact with one's inner life force" -- the Prana or Chi or Hei:

Regardless of semantic differences, few dispute the presence of this force within us. Anyone who does either the Ancient Art Exercises or Yoga for a while will become aware of it. With increased experience, he may be able to move this energy around his body. Advanced practitioners can often will it to flow into their hands or down their legs; they have control over each individual bodily organ just as the famous fakirs of India have when they stick pins through their bodies or stop their hearts. There is only one way such control can be gained -- through contact with their life force, or Ch'i. We are not suggesting that the exercises presented here will make you capable of lying on a bed of nails -- such feats take years of special work -- but you can expect to be put in touch with your own internal energy. 12.

While I wasn't particularly interested in being able to stick pins through my body, there was something discussed later in the book which caught my attention, during a section in which the author, after pointing out the often-made generalization that modern western medicine is usually more interested in finding problems and manipulating the environment versus traditional medicine including Chinese medicine is more interested in assessing and maintaining healthy systems and focusing on improving the body systems rather than altering the external environment, described some basic indications that the body systems are in tune and functioning properly. One of these indicators we can look at, the book says, is our sleep pattern:

Do you sleep soundly? A man or woman with the aforementioned energy sleeps soundly and deeply, and wakes completely refreshed after six hours' sleep. Moreover, such a person falls asleep minutes after his head hits the pillow, regardless of place or circumstances. Talking in one's sleep is an unfavorable sign, as are violent, disturbing dreams. Finally, one should be able to awaken at a preset time by simply visualizing the hour to get up immediately before going to sleep. The inability to meet these fundamental conditions indicates a basic health problem that needs attention. 18 - 19.

That caught my attention because sleep (or the lack of it) is a constant issue in the types of training I was involved in at the time. 

Not long after I got the book and started to work on some of the exercises, my unit went out to the field for an extended training event (back in those days we didn't come back in for weekends, either). Imagine my surprise when I set my wristwatch alarm for a very precise wake-up time very early in the morning well before the break of day, and woke up on my own, the next morning, two minutes before the alarm was scheduled to go off!

I have not been particularly fastidious about performing these exercises over the years, but I can say that this ability to wake up a few minutes before my alarm is set to go off continues to manifest itself (off and on), depending on the level of these types of activities that I incorporate into my daily routine. 

Now one thing that is interesting to consider is the question of exactly "who or what" is waking you up in this example. 

Obviously, it is not your conscious mind that is waking you up, since when you are asleep your conscious mind is pretty much not conscious (in most ordinary definitions of consciousness or unconsciousness).

Is it then your "subconscious" mind that wakes you up, right when you know you needed to wake up?

How does one's subconscious keep track of the time and know when it is time for you to wake up? Is the "subconscious" really "conscious" while you are sleeping?

Or could this be an example of the "higher self" (given various names in the ancient texts and traditions of humanity)? Modern conventional paradigms of mind and consciousness which deny the possibility of the existence of a "higher self" or "supreme self" are forced to find a way that the unconscious or subconscious mind can perform all the sometimes quite incredible feats that people sometimes demonstrate, but as we may have an opportunity to explore in future posts, there are times in which individuals have demonstrated knowledge which comes to them in a state of non-ordinary consciousness which neither they nor their "subconscious" could possibly have known through any means within the conventional paradigm.

And here's another blog post from about one year ago which touches upon the same general idea, and which contains a helpful quotation from Alvin Boyd Kuhn on the subject.

I would suggest that the ability to wake up a few minutes before your alarm clock borders on the "difficult to explain" (although not impossible to explain). Situations such as the near-death experiences described by persons whose brains were being monitored and whose brain scans during major surgery showed absolutely no activity are much more difficult to explain (see for example the famous NDE discussed in this previous post, which actually took place right around the same time or just a year or two before the field exercise where I first discovered that the exercises from the Kung Fu Exercise Book seemed to be "working" for me in terms of waking up when I needed to). If someone is registering no brain-wave activity during a certain period of time, then it is difficult to attribute knowledge that they appear to have obtained during that period of time to the "subconscious mind."

If you are interested in the exercises in the system described in that 1974 book, they are actually a part of an ancient system of exercises known as the Eight Pieces of Brocade

(a "brocade" is a treasured piece of fine embroidered fabric), or the 八段錦.

This set of three symbols represents a symbol for the number "eight," a symbol for a "piece," and a symbol for embroidery or brocade, and is pronounced ba duan jin in Mandarin, and baat dyun gam in Cantonese*. The video embedded above shows one version of the ba duan jin available on YouTube, although you can also find many others.

One of my favorites from the series described in the book (and shown in the above video between about the 4:30 mark and the 6:30 mark) has always been the exercise which author Michael Minick refers to as "Riding Horse, Using Bow and Arrow to Shoot Eagle" (pages 75 and following). You can see that this exercise is referred to by a variety of related names: on this wikipedia entry, for example, it is called "Drawing the Bow to Shoot the Eagle / Hawk / Vulture."

Not only is this a beautiful and very satisfying exercise to make a part of your daily practice, but it also seems to have a celestial aspect (as do many, many facets of the Chinese martial arts -- see for example the discussions here and here and here).

There is a constellation which is traditionally envisioned as "drawing a bow" and "riding a horse," and what is more it is positioned very close to the majestic figure of an Eagle in the heavens: the constellation Sagittarius, positioned at the base of the glorious column of the Milky Way, and currently very visible along with the mighty Scorpion in the southern sky (for viewers in the non-tropical latitudes of the northern hemisphere it would generally be towards the southern horizon) in the hours after sunset.

Below is a screen-shot from the open-source planetarium app Stellarium, showing the Scorpion and the Eagle and Sagittarius (this one is unlabeled, but the ones below it will add outlines):

If you go out to see it, you should be able to find the glorious Scorpion, and even see the delightful "Cat's Eyes," as well as view the most dramatic portion of the Milky Way band, rising up between Scorpio and Sagittarius.

You should also be able to spot the bright little "teapot" portion of Sagittarius (can you find it in the un-marked image above?). The "teapot" also looks like a grasshopper or a "locust," and it figures as a locust in many scriptures of what have come to be labeled the Old and New Testaments, including the events described in Revelation chapter 9.

Below is the same screen-shot, this time with the outlines of the Scorpion and the "teapot" section of Sagittarius marked in green, and the outline of the Eagle in red (I think the Eagle looks almost "bat-like" when you find him in the actual night sky -- his wings are actually quite a bit larger than they appear in this image, because Stellarium "curves" the stars to simulate the wrapping-around of the actual night sky, which sometimes distorts the constellations a little depending on where they are on the screen):

Now, the side of that "teapot" that is pointing towards the Scorpion (and towards the Milky Way) is actually part of the "bow and arrow" that Sagittarius the Archer is holding: can you envision it? The "teapot" is the brightest and most-noticeable portion of the Sagittarius constellation, but it is not actually the entire constellation. Below is the outline of Sagittarius (in blue) as envisioned by H. A. Rey:

Finally, although I usually do not place much value on the flowery artistic renditions of the constellations that are sometimes included in planetarium functions or in some books about the stars, here is the same screen-shot with an artist's rendition of the mythical figures belonging to each constellation:

Such flowery artistic renditions are practically useless for actually finding a constellation in the night sky. However, in this particular case, I have included it here because it shows how Sagittarius is often traditionally envisioned: as a Centaur bearing a bow, preparing to launch an arrow. And, you can see that he is located very near to and directly below the Eagle of Aquila.

It is very possible, and in fact in my opinion it is very likely, that the Ancient Art Exercise of "Riding Horse, Using Bow and Arrow to Shoot Eagle" in the Eight Pieces of Brocade is referencing this celestial series of figures.

Thus, when we perform this and other ancient physical exercises, we are consciously or unconsciously attuning the motions of our body to the cycles of the heavens and the cosmos.

I hope that you will have the opportunity to go out and see the beautiful Milky Way galaxy rising up between Scorpio and Sagittarius this week (or indeed this time of year), as well as the majestic Eagle flying above them.

I also hope that if it is at all possible, you might try incorporating some of the Eight Pieces of Brocade  into your own daily practice (although I am not a doctor, and make no claims as to its medical benefits, although I personally have no doubt that it is beneficial in many ways).

And, if you begin to find that you "wake yourself up" one or two minutes before the alarm is scheduled to get you up in the morning, you might also ask yourself just who or what could be responsible for that!

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* The word translated as "piece" in English (as in "Eight Pieces of Brocade") is actually a "quantifying unit," used prior to nouns and generally appropriate to a certain category of objects, items, people or animals -- there are different quantifying units for different categories (if you ask for "one glass of beer," for example, you will use a specific "quantifying unit" which we would translate into English as "glass of" or "cup of," and this would be a different word than the word you would use if you wished to purchase eight ink-pens, or "eight 'units of' ink-pen"). You can see some of the different quantifying units listed here -- about the seventh down on the list you will find the word and the character used for the category of nouns or objects which "can stand or spread," and this is the word used for quantifying pieces of brocade.

The blindness of Dhritarastra, and Upamanyu at the bottom of the well

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

The previous post and video discussing the ancient sacred text of the Bhagavad Gita explored its celestial foundation, showing that like the rest of the world's Star Myths it uses the majestic celestial cycles as an extended metaphor portraying the descent of each human soul into this incarnate life, an incarnate life which can be seen as a sort of "battlefield" characterized by the endless struggle or interplay between the material and spiritual realms (both within the individual and without).

Immediately prior to Arjuna's descent into the battle of Kurukshetra, he is given direct guidance from his divine companion, the Lord Krishna: 

Do your duty to the best of your ability, O Arjuna, with your mind attached to the Lord, abandoning worry and attachment to the results, and remaining calm in both success and failure. [. . .] Therefore, always perform your duty efficiently and without attachment to the results, because by doing work without attachment one attains the Supreme. (2.48 - 49; 3.19).

In fact, over and over throughout the Gita, Lord Krishna's message to Arjuna is basically the same: do what is right, without attachment to the results: instead of attachment to the results, the mind should be attached to the Infinite divine principle.

This Infinite supreme principle is represented in the Gita by Lord Krishna, who shows himself in the Gita to be completely Infinite, beyond definition or categorization by the mind. The same Infinite supreme principle is represented in the chapters immediately preceding the Bhagavad Gita (in the Mahabharata of which the Gita is a small but central part) by the goddess Durga, who is also described in terms which indicate that she too is supremely beyond definition or characterization or containment within boundaries (see discussion and video in this previous post).

While this advice may seem to apply only to those ascetics who withdraw from the hustle and bustle of the daily struggle to make a living and negotiate the mundane world of keeping the dishes washed or the faucets from leaking, I believe that it may well have been given for the benefit of all of us here in this incarnate realm, even if we do not personally dress in flowing robes and retire to a life of full-time meditation and study of the Vedas (although of course it would be of great benefit to us in that particular path of life as well).

Consider, for example, the possibility that some of our greatest times of frustration and anger seem to come at moments when we experience serious self-doubt (such as when changing out the above-mentioned faucet, if that is a task we're not really sure that we will be able to do properly, and we don't have confidence that it will turn out no matter how many times we consult helpful internet videos purporting to show us what to do). It is in those situations (I find) that we seem to be most prone to lashing out (even if we are "only" lashing out at an inanimate faucet, or the entire unfair world of faucets and water-fixtures -- the things we say to inanimate faucets, bolts, washers, and threaded fasteners can in fact be quite ugly and embarrassing to us in later recollection, and things we certainly hope that the neighbors did not overhear).

Or, consider a classic hero in any of your favorite old kung fu movies: if he or she is completely confident in his or her ability to handle the situation, the kung fu master will not show the slightest bit of anger or frustration -- while the villain (who secretly fears he may not be able to handle the abilities of his opponent) gets angrier and angrier and eventually bursts out in a display of rage which lets the audience know that he is in fact about to lose.

Wouldn't we all desire to arrive at the place where we are like that hero in the kung fu movie -- totally secure in our knowledge that we can handle the situation at hand (any situation whatsoever), and therefore completely unflappable and beyond anyone's ability to make us "lose it"?

As we all know, however, the material world seems to be custom-designed to defy the possibility of any one mortal human to have such kung fu (and such knowledge of plumbing repair, automotive mechanics, personal finance, parenting, golf-ball physics, etc) that no situation can ever arise which would be beyond their ability. 

And yet it may well be that Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita is specifically telling us that no matter the situation in which we find ourselves, we can in fact transcend both the heart-clutching self-doubt and the attachment to results that can cause us to fly into a rage (or otherwise say and do and think things which we later regret), and instead become more and more like that enlightened kung fu master in the old movies (as an important side note, some of the asanas of yoga, which are basically impossible to accomplish at first try but which can eventually be achieved after years of disciplined practice, may be teaching this very same thing).

Again, I believe it is very possible that the lessons imparted to Arjuna prior to the great Battle of Kurukshetra are given to us not only for helping us in the extraordinary circumstances or extreme situations in which we might find ourselves, but in ordinary and mundane aspects of everyday life (including changing a faucet, or parenting). 

Even if most of us have not reached the level of the kung fu master for whom no situation could ever arise beyond our personal capability, by following the Bhagavad Gita's directive of doing what is right, to the best of our ability, and attaching our mind to the Infinite -- to which we, in fact, always have immediate access -- we can replace that clawing self-doubt with something completely different.

This may seem to be just too simple, but it may in fact be one of the primary things we are supposed to be practicing here in this material world. Remember, this one piece of advice is in fact the central message that Krishna offers to Arjuna, over and over throughout the Bhagavad Gita, in a variety of different ways. 

And, it certainly does not seem to me to be extremely simple to do consistently, even for one single day. First, it is not always perfectly obvious what it means to "do what is right" or "do your duty" in every possible situation -- we are often pretty good at rationalizing our way out of doing what is right, coming up with excuses to tell ourselves in order to excuse ourselves from doing what we know we should do, as the figure of the blind king Dhritarastra demonstrates very graphically in the Mahabharata. 

In fact, the character of Dhritarastra seems to embody a powerful warning against trying to distort the actual Bhagavad Gita message of "do what's right without attachment to the results" into the false message of "use 'fate' as an excuse to avoid doing what's right," or "leave it all to fate (without attachment to the results)." 

The Mahabharata portrays Dhritarastra's abdication of his responsibility to restrain evil as directly responsible for the chain of events that bring about the Battle of Kurukshetra in the first place. In this case, Dhritarastra fails to curtail the wicked schemes of his own son, and because as the king and the father everyone else defers to him as the one who should act, things get progressively further out of hand. 

Dhritarastra, for his part, consistently declares that all is in the hands of fate, and so he has to accept the outcome. For example, at the end of Book 2 and Section 48, in response to the urging of his wise brother Vidura to stop the disastrous dice game which will eventually lead to the enmity that brings about the cataclysmic battle, Dhritarastra defends his refusal to do his duty by saying, 

Therefore, auspicious or otherwise, beneficial or otherwise, let this friendly challenge at dice proceed. Even this without doubt is what fate hath ordained for us. [. . .] Tell me nothing. I regard Fate as supreme which bringeth all this. 

The ancient scriptures, through the events in the Mahabharata, appear to be showing us that this attitude of Dhritarastra is a perversion of what the Bhagavad Gita teaches: it is not "avoid your duty and abandon attachment to results" but rather "do your duty, to the best of your ability, without attachment to the results."

Because the Mahabharata is using metaphors to convey spiritual teachings, it makes Dhritarastra (whose character I believe to be a metaphorical figure meant to depict an aspect of our human experience in this incarnate life, and not a literal historical king from the ancient past), a blind king, whose failure to see the right course of action and his resulting failure to do what is right lead directly to the disastrous battle between two sides of the same family. 

But, the Mahabharata elsewhere tells us in no uncertain terms that this metaphorical blindness is exactly our condition when we plunge into material existence, until we regain our connection to the Infinite -- which is actually within us and thus potentially available to us at any time, in any situation.

In a fairly short passage found very early in the epic, in Book 1 and Section 3, the Mahabharata gives us the story of a spiritual disciple named Upamanyu, who out of hunger eats leaves from a tree which cause him to go blind. Crawling around on the ground in his blinded condition, Upamanyu proceeds to fall right into a deep well, where he winds up alone, at the bottom of a well, blind.

After his spiritual teacher notices his absence and comes looking for him and calling out his name, Upamanyu answers from the bottom of the well. His teacher comes to the top of the well and asks what has happened: Upamanyu relates the story of his having eaten leaves from a mighty tree, which caused him to go blind, and then fall to the bottom of the well.

The Mahabharata tells us that the teacher says:

"Glorify the twin Ashvins, the joint physicians of the gods, and they will restore thee thy sight." And Upamanyu thus directed by his preceptor began to glorify the twin Ashvins, in the following words of the Rig Veda:

"Ye have existed before creation! Ye first-born beings, ye are displayed in this wondrous universe of five elements! I desire to obtain you by the help of the knowledge derived from hearing, and of meditation, for ye are Infinite! Ye are the course itself of Nature and intelligent Soul that pervades that course! Ye are birds of beauteous feathers perched on the body that is like to a tree! Ye are without the tree common attributes of every soul! Ye are incomparable! Ye, through your spirit in every created thing, pervade the Universe! Ye are golden Eagles! Ye are the essence into which all things disappear! Ye are free from error and know no deterioration! Ye are of beauteous beaks that would not unjustly strike and are victorious in every encounter!"

And Upamanyu's glorification of the Ashvins continues, until the text tells us that "The twin Ashvins, thus invoked, appeared" and restore Upamanyu's sight, and give him a blessing and tell Upamanyu that he shall have good fortune.

Clearly we have here another illustration of the importance -- and the immediate availability -- of the connection to the Infinite. This time, instead of Lord Krishna representing the supreme Infinite or the goddess Durga representing the Infinite, it is the twin Ashvins who are specifically described in terms that indicate that they themselves are beyond categorization, that they are themselves the Infinite and undefinable and unbounded (at one point in the hymn of praise, Upamanyu says that they are both males and females, that they are the givers of all life, and that they are the Supreme Brahma).

And, just as in our previous examination of the Bhagavad Gita we saw clear evidence that Lord Krishna is associated with the celestial figure of the constellation Bootes the Herdsman (as Arjuna the semi-divine archer is associated with the celestial figure of Orion), and just as in our previous examination of the Hymn to Durga we saw clear evidence that the goddess is associated with the zodiac constellation of Virgo the Virgin, in this story of Upamanyu and the Ashvins, we see clear evidence of celestial metaphor at work as well.

The twin Ashvins very clearly correspond to the zodiac constellation of Gemini the Twins, who are located near the "top" of the shining column of the Milky Way galaxy. The Milky Way actually makes a complete ring in the sky, with one half of the ring visible primarily during the summer months and the other half during the winter months: when the part of the Milky Way that the Twins appear to guard (with Orion right nearby) is visible in the sky, the other half (it's "lower end") is not visible, and vice versa. On the other side of the celestial sphere, the Milky Way band is guarded by the constellations Scorpio and Sagittarius. When the Twins and Orion are in the sky, Scorpio and Sagittarius are not (because nearly 180 degrees offset on the celestial sphere), and when Scorpio and Sagittarius are in the sky, then the Twins and Orion cannot be seen.

Below are two frames from the Stellarium digital planetarium app, showing a southern-looking view for an observer in the northern hemisphere, looking at each of the "two sides" of the great Milky Way ring as it rises up from the southern horizon, at two different times of the year. On top is shown an image of the "upper reaches" of the Milky Way column (flanked by the Twins and Orion), and immediately below that is an image of the dramatic "base" of the Milky Way column (with Scorpio drawn in, lurking at the very bottom).

The constellations which I believe figure most prominently in this episode of Upamanyu and the Ashvins are given colorful outlines for ease of identification: if you want to see the same screen-shots without the colorful outlines, I have provided them at the bottom of this post, in the same stacked order (the Twins-side of the band in the top image, and the Scorpio-side in the lower image).

I believe that it is pretty clear that celestial representation of the "well" into which Upamanyu falls when he is blinded by the leaves of the tree is in fact that shining column of the Milky Way itself. Way up at the "top" of the column, we see the Twins of Gemini -- representing in this particular myth the helping deities of the Ashvins, who dwell in the realm of spirit but who will appear immediately when invoked by Upamanyu.

At the very bottom of the column we see the helpless figure of the Scorpion, who may well represent Upamanyu in his blinded condition (there are other important myths in which a figure associated with Scorpio is temporarily blinded, but in any case, we know that Upamanyu is located somewhere at the bottom of the well, which is where Scorpio is to be found).

When Upamanyu's teacher calls down to him in the well, the teacher may be "played" in the myth by the constellation Orion, who is also located (like the Twins) near the "top" of the well when Upamanyu is at the bottom.

In his praise and invocation of the Ashvins, Upamanyu declares that they are many things: they are both males and females, they are the parents of all, they are the ones who set in motion the wheel of time -- which wheel is itself described in imagery which parallels very closely the image of the wheel with "strakes" that is described in the famous Vision of the Prophet Ezekiel in the Hebrew Scriptures.

He also describes them as beautiful birds, as golden Eagles, who have perched on something that is very "like to a tree" -- undoubtedly, this is another celestial clue to help us decipher the constellations underpinning this text. The two birds on the body that is like a tree are the two majestic constellations of Aquila the Eagle and Cygnus the Swan, both of whom are above poor Upamanyu at the bottom of the well.

What is going on here? What is the message?

I believe that this story of Upamanyu, with all of its celestial trappings, is a condensed allegory of our human condition in this incarnate life -- the kind of spiritual teaching that the ancient scriptures almost always try to convey using celestial imagery. 

We are cast down into incarnate, material existence in a human body like Upamanyu falling down a deep well. The plunge down into the lower realms of matter is associated with the lower half of the zodiac wheel -- where Scorpio and Sagittarius basically "guard" the lowest point on the annual cycle, just prior to the winter solstice (see the now-familiar zodiac wheel diagram, used in countless previous posts, below):

In this incarnate condition, we are like prisoners at the bottom of the wheel -- like Upamanyu deep at the bottom of the well. We are also spiritually blind, prone to falling prey to all the many attachments and errors against which the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita warn us.

And yet at some point there comes a turn -- a turn in which we look to the realm of spirit, to the connection with the Infinite which has in fact been available to us all along (because we are not, in fact, entirely animal or entirely material, but have within ourselves a divine spark, an inner connection to the Infinite).

When Upamanyu invokes the Ashvins, he is calling to the ones who are located at entirely the other end of the wheel -- at the top of the cycle, in the upper realms of fire and spirit, and at the very top of the Milky Way column that can be envisioned as running from the bottom or "6 o'clock" position on the above zodiac wheel right up to the top or "12 o'clock" point on the circle, right next to the Twins of Gemini.

And so, when we look at Dhritarastra in the Mahabharata, and his disastrous failure to do the right thing, we must realize that he also does not represent an external king who lived thousands of years ago, but that he (like Upamanyu) is meant to depict one aspect of our human condition.

He is frequently wracked by self-doubt, and he also needs to be warned against the specific errors of wrath and anger by his wise brother Vidura, in Book 5 and Section 36 for example. His disastrous (even if often understandable and even at times well-meaning) failure to do what is right is a depiction of our own typical condition in this incarnate existence (as is Upamanyu when he becomes blind and falls down into the well).

But, although we are in this condition down here at the bottom of the well, we actually have access to the Infinite, right where we are -- as Upamanyu demonstrates when he calls upon the Ashvins and they appear, and restore his sight. This is depicted as the solution to our plight: connection to the Infinite, with which we in fact are already connected, if we could only see it (and even Dhritarastra later invokes through meditation the same connection to the infinity of the invisible realm, which is depicted in the illustration at the top of this post).

In fact, this is the only source of rescue depicted in the text. It is not Upamanyu's wise teacher who rescues Upamanyu: it is Upamanyu's wise teacher who tells Upamanyu to call upon the Ashvins. It is the connection with the Infinite that Upamanyu must achieve or restore in order to escape or transcend the condition in which he originally finds himself at the bottom of the well. 

This is in fact identical to the message that Lord Krishna gives to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, and identical to the message depicted in the invocation of Durga immediately prior to the Bhagavad Gita. All three parts of the Mahabharata are in fact telling us and showing us the very same message -- they are just employing different metaphors (and different celestial entities, whether Bootes, Virgo, or the Twins of Gemini) in order to convey that message.

And so, I hope, this discussion helps to remind us that these teachings are for all of us, all the time. The esoteric metaphors in the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita are not just for full-time yogis, or kung fu masters, or those facing extraordinary circumstances. We have all of us  eaten from the leaves that have temporarily blinded us, and we have all of us fallen into a deep well, so to speak. 

If that is the case, then these teachings are for everyone who finds himself or herself cast down into this physical existence, this deep well (which is, I'm sure, just about everyone who is reading this blog right now).

The solution is simple, but it is one that can occupy us for a lifetime. In the words of the ancient text: 

Do your duty, to the best of your ability, with your mind attached to the Lord [to the Infinite, to the goddess Durga, to the twin Ashvins, to Krishna the divine charioteer], abandoning worry and attachment to the results, and remaining calm in both success and failure.

(below are the screenshots of the Milky Way band, with the Ashvins on top and Upamanyu at the bottom of the well, without the annotated constellation outlines):

The Gospel of Thomas and the Divine Twin

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

Why was an entire "library" of ancient texts carefully sealed in a large storage jar at the base of the steep cliffs of the massif known today as the Jabal al-Tarif, along the banks of the Nile River in Egypt not far from the ancient city of Thebes, sometime during the second half of what we label today as the fourth century AD (the fourth century being the years in the 300s, since the first century AD consists of the years with numbers below 100, such as for example AD 60 or AD 70, causing all the subsequent centuries to have numbers "one higher" than the "hundred multiple" on the year-numbers, which is why the years in the 1900s were the "twentieth century")?

What would be the purpose of carefully sealing an upside-down bowl over the top of the large jar containing these texts, and burying them some distance from the city, underneath the talus at the base of the cliffs?

What was so important about the texts that someone would want to bury them? Were they worried about the texts being stolen? Or was there some other reason?

After this ancient jar was rediscovered in the 1940s (more details about that, along with some maps showing the location of the discovery, are in this previous post), and scholars began to decipher the ancient manuscripts, one possible reason these texts were buried began to suggest itself: these were ancient texts that were not included on the lists of approved writings that church authorities began to publish in the second half of that same fourth century -- and texts that did not make it onto the list of approved writings were no longer safe to have in one's possession (often texts excluded from the approved list were specifically denounced as heretical and spurious by the authorities).

Thus, it is quite possible that someone or some group who personally treasured these texts and their teachings, but did not feel it was safe to keep them in their immediate possession as the pressure against "heretical" texts ratcheted up during the second half of the fourth century, took them up the Nile to the cliffs away from the city and buried them there, fully intending to come back to them at some point in the future.

Apparently they never got the opportunity to go back.

These ancient texts, along with some others that have come to light in more recent discoveries, as well as a very few other fragments and manuscripts that had been found or preserved prior to those found in the jar at the Nag Hammadi, suggest to some researchers a very different history of the early centuries of the Christian church than has traditionally been taught. Some of the evidence can be interpreted as indicating that early teachings very different from what we today think of as "Christian teaching" were forcibly suppressed and driven underground (literally driven "under ground" in the case of the texts buried at Nag Hammadi) during the second, third, and especially fourth centuries, and replaced by an "approved list" of texts and teachings, which were to be interpreted from a primarily literalist perspective. 

In the next few posts, let's briefly examine a few of the ancient texts that were pretty much lost to history for nearly 1,600 years, surviving (as far as we know) only inside that sealed jar buried under the earth beneath the cliffs of Nag Hammadi and safely out of the way for the spread of literalist teachings until that jar was unearthed again in the twentieth century.

When we do so, we will find some teachings which seem to strongly resonate with some of the themes we have been examining recently in our examination of some of the "Star Myths" in the Mahabharata of ancient India, and in the

Bhagavad Gita that is part of the Mahabharata. In fact, we will find teachings in some of those long-buried Nag Hammadi texts that I believe have clear affinity with much that is found in the ancient wisdom preserved in myth and sacred stories literally around the world -- and indeed, that is even found in the texts of what we think of today as the Bible (the texts that did  make it onto those approved lists), but which are more evident in those Biblical texts when they are understood as esoteric allegory rather than as literal accounts.

Previous posts have presented evidence that the stories of the Bible were not intended to be understood as literal history but as esoteric allegory, and that forcing a literal reading onto them has resulted in an interpretation that is pretty much the polar opposite of their intended teaching -- see, for example, this discussion of the Easter cycle, or this discussion of the specific parts of the Easter cycle between the Triumphal Entry and the Betrayal, or this discussion of the Judgment of Solomon.

The entire "library" of texts that have survived from the discovery of that jar at Nag Hammadi (apparently, not all of the texts found in the jar survived, because when they were first found a few of the texts were actually burned as fuel for a cooking fire, according to stories surrounding the discovery) can be found online here, as well as in print form in various translations and collections (such as this collection edited by Nag Hammadi scholar and translator Marvin Meyer).

Out of that collection, we'll just look at a few passages from a couple of texts over the next few days or weeks. However, those interested in learning more can go straight to the Nag Hammadi texts themselves -- although the passages often appear cryptic at first, sometimes quite strange and alien, and even downright off-putting, remember that they are intended to be understood (I believe) as esoteric  allegory and that as such they are intended to convey spiritual truths which our literal or rational mind would "choke on" or reject, but which can often be best absorbed through powerful stories or metaphors.

Remember also that these texts were considered precious enough by someone living in ancient times to bury them, possibly at some risk to themselves, because they couldn't bear to see them destroyed -- and remember as well that the teachings in these texts was apparently considered so dangerous by those trying to spread a different system that these specific texts were literally unavailable after a certain point; they were completely or nearly completely eradicated. 

And, it should be noted, these texts were not marginal or unimportant texts: some of them (such as the one we will discuss in a moment) were mentioned quite often by ancient authors (including literalist Christian authorities, who were denouncing the texts), and so their titles were know to modern scholars even though -- until the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library -- their contents could not be consulted (except, in a few very limited cases, in a few fragments that survived, including in one case fragments which survived in a rubbish heap).

One of the most well-known and important of the texts found in that long-buried jar from Nag Hammadi is the text known as The Gospel of Thomas, which introduces itself as a record of the "secret sayings that the living Jesus spoke and Didymos Judas Thomas recorded" (this is the translation version found here, by Stephen Patterson and Marvin Meyer; there are several other versions of English translations available and linked from that location, and it is interesting to read the different translations to try to get additional perspectives on the ancient text). 

This opening line itself offers us some extremely important insights, based on the name "Didymos Judas Thomas" -- the title "Didymos" or "Didymus" for Thomas is also found in the canonical gospel of John (in chapters 11, 20, and 21) and it means "Twin" (as does the name Thomas itself, apparently, but Didymos comes from the Greek word for "Twin" and Thomas comes from the Aramaic word for "Twin").   

Of course, a character specifically identified as a Twin might suggest a connection to the Twins of Gemini, to those who have become familiar with the patterns found in Star Myths around the world, and it is certainly possible that the Thomas character has some connection to the zodiac constellation of Gemini.

However, it is also quite possible that something even more interesting is at work here, something related to the previous discussion entitled "Why divinities can appear in an instant: The inner connection to the Infinite." That post argued that the ancient Star Myths are intended to convey the knowledge to us that even in this incarnate existence, we have inside of us a connection to the infinite: a connection to the divine, what is also described as the "hidden divine spark" or the "god within" (and see other related discussions on this very important subject, such as "Namaste and Amen," or any of the many previous posts about Osiris and the casting down and raising-up-again of the Djed).

How does the character of "Didymos Judas Thomas" convey a related message? The answer comes when we ask, "if Thomas is a twin, who is the other twin in the pair?" After all, that is a natural question to ask if we are reading a story and we are told that a character is a twin, but we are not immediately introduced to the other twin.

Interestingly enough, in another of the Nag Hammadi texts -- and in fact in a text which was bound up together with the Gospel of Thomas in the book-form or "codex" known to Nag Hammadi scholars as "Codex II" -- a text called

The Book of Thomas the Contender, we get a startling answer as to who the other twin of Thomas might be (in the esoteric allegory).

In Section II of The Book of Thomas the Contender, which is called "Dialogue between Thomas and the Savior," we read these words in a sub-section regarding the subject of ignorance and self-knowledge:

The savior said, "Brother Thomas, while you have time in the world, listen to me and I will reveal to you the things you have pondered in your mind. Now, since it has been said that you are my twin and true companion, examine yourself, and learn who you are, in what way you exist, and how you will come to be. Since you will be called my brother, it is not fitting that you be ignorant of yourself . . ."

Stop! 

What?

Did this text just say that the Savior addressed Thomas as "my twin"?

Yes, that is what was asserted in this text. Now, if you are one who wants to interpret literally ancient texts about what the Savior said, then you are probably going to reject this text as being heretical. If you try to take this text literally, it will cause big problems with other texts, such as the scriptures describing the birth of the Savior (in which it is never said that he was born as one in a set of twins, for instance).

But, if you are not troubled with a need to force every ancient scripture into a literal mold, and if you believe that they were not intended to be understood that way, then you can ask yourself what this assertion that Thomas was the twin of the Savior might mean -- what it might have been intended to convey.

As you did so, you might remember that in other ancient mythologies, most notably perhaps in Greek myth, there are sets of twins in which one twin is divine or immortal, and the other twin is human and mortal. These Thomas narratives in the Nag Hammadi texts seem to be resorting to this same metaphor: we have a divine twin ("the living Jesus" as he is called in the opening line of the Gospel of Thomas, and "the Savior" as he is called in the Book of Thomas the Contender), and we have the mortal counterpart, the human twin: Thomas, the one who writes down the sayings for us, which he received from the divine twin.

Now, as we saw at the end of the preceding discussion regarding the "inner connection to the Infinite," there is a passage in the wisdom-book of Proverbs which declares "there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother." As that post argued, and presented evidence from myth (particularly myths in which a god or divine being appears instantly, which also happens to be one of the characteristics of the risen Christ) this teaching may well be trying to convey to us the knowledge that our connection to the infinite, to the realm of the gods, is not external to us: it is within us already.

The metaphor of a divine twin and a human twin, such as the Gemini Twins in Greek mythology of Pollux (divine) and Castor (human), may well be referring to just such a concept or teaching. Expressing it in this way can convey this truth to us in a powerful, metaphorical, esoteric manner.

If that is the case, then what we see here in the Gospel of Thomas (and in the Book of Thomas the Contender) may well be conveying the very same truth, just in a slightly different form than it is found in (for example) the Greek myth of Pollux and Castor. In the Nag Hammadi texts mentioned here, Jesus is the divine twin and Thomas is the human twin, but they are not in fact two different entities. This is a teaching about the "Christ within" (which is a teaching also found in the writings of the apostle who called himself Paul, a name which the Reverend Robert Taylor points out is very much linguistically related to Pollux and to Apollo).

We are already, perhaps, getting a sense as to why these texts ended up buried in a large jar in a secret location, where the authorities who had declared such teachings to be "heretical" could not find them and destroy them.

There is much within the Gospel of Thomas itself to back up the interpretation that has been suggested above. In future posts we may have occasion to examine a few more of them, but for now let's just look at another metaphor, offered as a saying of Jesus, found in section 109 of the Gospel of Thomas.

There, in the translation of Stephen Patterson and Marvin Meyer, Jesus says:

The (Father's) kingdom is like a person who had a treasure hidden in his field but did not know it. And [when] he died he left it to his [son]. The son [did] not know about it either. He took over the field and sold it. The buyer went plowing, [discovered] the treasure, and began to lend money at interest to whomever he wished.

This is a very interesting metaphor, and one that suggests that the "treasure" of the infinite is buried away deep inside us like the treasure in the story that lies buried under a field, which can remain there our entire lives without our knowing it. But it is something which we actually already have, if we just knew.

The scriptures appear to be trying to break through our ignorance on this subject, to tell us that we already are connected to something that is actually inexpressible in its infinity (that cannot be quantified or defined or even named, as the opening lines of the Tao Te Ching declare, and that thus lies beyond all the quantifying and labeling and chattering of the part of us that we call our mind).

Thomas is telling us the words of Jesus, but perhaps "Thomas" received these sayings from a divine source that was not external to him (though none the less divine and none the less real for that). In fact, we should not think of the Gospel of Thomas as being about some "twin" who lived thousands of years ago: as Alvin Boyd Kuhn advised us in a passage quoted in several previous posts, we won't understand ancient texts unless we realize that they are about us. Each and every individual soul that incarnates in this world is, according to such a reading, like Thomas: a twin to a living infinite inner divinity, possessed of a friend that sticketh closer than any "external twin" (as close as literal twins are to one another, this twin is even closer).

This teaching is also portrayed in the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita, with Arjuna and his companion and divine charioteer, the Lord Krishna (as well as in the episode in which Durga appears before the battle: see videos here and here and additional discussion here).

These are not the messages that are traditionally drawn from the scriptures of the Bible when they are approached with a literalist hermeneutic (because literalist readings necessarily start off by seeing the characters in the text as primarily external to us, since those characters are understood to be literal-historical figures). But they are messages which resonate strongly with all the other myths and sacred traditions of the world -- and they are in fact the messages which I believe these texts were intended to convey to us, before something happened and that message was all but wiped out, around the period of time that the Nag Hammadi library was being sealed away.

Why divinities can appear in an instant: The inner connection to the Infinite

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

Why do the deities in the Mahabharata often appear instantly, upon the recitation of a mantra, the singing of a hymn, or even simply upon being remembered? 

I believe that this characteristic was included in the ancient scriptures in order to show us that we have access to the infinite at all times -- and indeed that in a very real sense we can and should avail ourselves of that access on a regular basis, in this life.

Many previous posts have explored the critically important assertion of Alvin Boyd Kuhn which is in many ways a key to our understanding of the ancient myths, scriptures and sacred stories of humanity, in which Kuhn (addressing the stories of the Bible in particular) declares:

Bible stories are in no sense a record of what happened to a man or a people as historical occurrence. As such they would have little significance for mankind. They would be the experience of a people not ourselves, and would not bear a relation to our life. But they are a record, under pictorial forms, of that which is ever occurring as a reality of the present in all lives. They mean nothing as outward events; but they mean everything as picturizations of that which is our living experience at all times. The actors are not old kings, priests and warriors; the one actor in every portrayal, in every scene, is the human soul. The Bible is the drama of our history here and now; and it is not apprehended in its full force and applicability until every reader discerns himself [or herself] to be the central figure in it! [For full quotation and source with links, see this previous post].

Now, what Kuhn asserts in the above paragraph is just as true for the world's other myths. Let's see how it applies to the specific aspect of the Mahabharata mentioned above (the ability to summon the gods and goddesses at a moment's notice). 

If we apply this paragraph directly to the Mahabharata, we can paraphrase some of these assertions as follows:

The episodes in the Mahabharata in which men or women are depicted as summoning powerful deities through the recitation of a mantra, the singing of a hymn of praise, or even by simply thinking upon that deity and wishing for him or her to appear, are in no sense a record of what happened to a man or woman long ago in a more magical (or imaginary time and place). As such, while they might be tremendously entertaining, they would have little significance for our lives today. They would be the (miraculous and extraordinary) experience of a people not ourselves, and would not bear a relation to our life. But these events are actually recorded in these myths to provide us with a vivid picture of something that is in fact a verifiable reality of a situation that is present in your life and in mine -- indeed, a reality in all lives. They mean nothing as outward events: the beautiful wives of Pandu, for instance, did not summon gods outwardly. Nor was Arjuna's invocation of the goddess Durga an outward event. These are picturizations of truths which are part of our living experience at all times. We indeed are in contact with those same mighty supernatural powers -- with Krishna and Durga and the heavenly Twins or Ashvins -- right at this present moment. The actors in these myths are not beautiful wives or powerful warriors: in every single episode, these actors are none other than the human soul possessed by each and every one of us. The Mahabharata (and all the other myths and scriptures and sacred stories) is a drama of our lives -- our lives right here, right now, in this modern life, in the city where you live, in the situations you experience -- and it is not apprehended in its full force and applicability until every reader discerns himself or herself to be the central figure, present in every single scene!

In the previous post, we discussed some of the unusual marriage activity recorded in the Mahabharat, in which the two wives of Pandu take five different divine gods to be the fathers of the five powerful sons who collectively become the heroes of the story, the Pandavas (a name which means descendants of Pandu). The summoning of the five different gods is done through the recitation of a mantra: immediately upon its recitation, the desired god appears. 

Elsewhere in the Mahabharata, as we saw, Arjuna (one of the Pandavas) recites a hymn of praise to the goddess Durga, at which the powerful goddess appears and blesses him, telling Arjuna that he will be victorious and that in fact it would be completely impossible for him to be defeated in the upcoming battle.

At other points in the epic poem, such as in Book I and section 3, the celestial Twins called the Ashvins are summoned by a disciple named Upamanyu, who has consumed some leaves of a tree that made him blind, causing him to stumble into a deep well, where he was trapped until he called upon the Ashvins for succor. 

And there is also a powerful sage or rishi named Vyasa or Vyasadeva who is the mythical author of the Mahabharata itself and who also appears as a character who weaves in and out of the various scenes, appearing when he is needed before retreating again to his contemplation and disciplines in the remote mountains. Vyasa also has the characteristic of being able to appear whenever he is thought upon: at his birth (recounted in Book I and section 63) he tells his mother "As soon as thou remembers me when occasion comes, I shall appear unto thee." 

What are we to make of these wondrous episodes in the Mahabharata, each one of which is surrounded by all kinds of memorable action and human drama? These depictions of the gods and goddesses  (and, in the case of Vyasa, this epic poet and bringer of inspired verse) appearing at an instant when a human man or woman concentrates upon them are not to be understood as outward events, in Kuhn's argument, but rather as an inward reality, as a depiction of our experience in the here and now.

If Kuhn is right, then what (oh what) could these specific episodes be depicting?

I believe the answer is hinted at in yet another earlier post exploring the powerful teaching contained in the Mahabharata -- an examination of the Bhagavad Gita, which is a section within the Mahabharata itself. There, we saw compelling evidence that the conversation between the semi-divine bowman Arjuna and his companion and divine charioteer, the Lord Krishna, relate to the "metaphor of the chariot" found in other ancient Sanskrit scriptures. 

In that metaphor, the chariot helps us understand aspects of our incarnate condition. The war-cart itself is our body, and the mighty horses which pull it are our senses and our desires (both of which can easily run completely out of control, and threaten to wreck the entire enterprise). The reins in the metaphor, we are told in another Sanskrit scripture, are our mind, through which the horses can be controlled.

But obviously, there must be someone or something else behind and above the reins in order to direct the chariot: behind and above "the mind" itself, that is. This concept of a someone or something else, standing apart from the mind and above it, was discussed in the first blog post of this series, entitled "Self, the senses, and the mind." This higher self is referred to by many names, among them the True Self, the Supreme Self, the Lord in the chariot, and (in the Sanskrit text cited for this metaphor) the Atman. In other cultures and other traditions there are many other names to refer to the same concept.

But in all cases we are dealing with a Higher Self who is in some sense and to some degree connected to the infinite and the ultimate. This is the infinite, the ultimate, the un-definable: the divine charioteer who is beyond the "chattering" and the "endless transforming" and the "labeling and defining and delineating" of the mind (and again, the mind is not a negative or bad tool, any more than the reins on the chariot are a bad tool -- it is an essential tool, but it is not the one who should be driving the chariot).

We get in contact with this infinite aspect by standing apart from our mind, our senses, and our desires (not by getting these to somehow "go away" or "stop" being what they are -- the horses on the chariot will not go away, nor will they turn into something other than horses -- but we can stand apart from and above them in order to see that we are not them and we do not have to go wherever they want to pull us, that in fact we can tell them where we want them to take us). 

Practices we have at our disposal for getting into contact with the infinite include mantras, chanting or singing of hymns, prayer, meditation, yoga, rhythmic drumming, and more.

The gods and goddesses in the stories show up quite suddenly and instantly because they are, in a very real sense, already there. We are already connected with them. This does not mean that they are simply "our imagination" or "not real" (as if our "imagination" is not connected to the very same vital flow of infinity that is completely unlimited in its potential and its power). As we see in Kuhn's quotation above, which is so valuable that we can and should return to it in analysis like this, just because the myths are depicting inner realities as outward events does not mean that they are not "real" if they do not take place in the outward space. These myths are dramatizing truths about our living experience at all times. You and I are in contact with Krishna and with Durga right now: if we do not realize it, that is only because we are allowing the chatter of our minds or the horses of our senses to keep us from connecting with the power of the unbounded, the undefined, and the infinite (unbounded aspects of which Krishna and Durga show themselves to be in the Mahabharata).

It is also noteworthy to point out that divinities who can appear at a moment's notice are also found in other esoteric mythologies and scriptures around the world. The Norse god Thor, for instance, was notable for being able to appear whenever his name was called by the other gods, in time of need (which they had to do on more than one occasion). The other gods usually had to call on him when they were being bested by a powerful jotun, and thus Thor usually appeared in a fighting rage (or, if he wasn't in a rage when he appeared, one glance at the menacing jotun usually caused Thor to go into battle mode).

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

But, it should be noted that Thor's ability to appear in an instant means that he, too, is somehow representative of that divine charioteer who is above mind and above even the physical world, and yet somehow available to us at all times, if we just learn how to direct our focus in the right direction.

It is also not inappropriate, I believe, to point out that the risen Christ in the stories of the New Testament also displays the ability to simply appear out of nowhere amongst the disciples, sometimes when they are least expecting him to do so. 

In the preceding post, which looked at the two wives of Pandu who used a mantra to call upon divine gods to appear, we also saw that the pattern of five husbands in the Mahabharata appears to have an echo in the New Testament episode of the encounter of Jesus with the Samaritan woman at the well, who likewise is said to have had five husbands. In that encounter, the previous post points out that Jesus tells the woman that she can have everlasting water, living water, springing up unto everlasting life -- and that this living water is somehow "within." 

I believe that this again is a "pictorial form" (in Kuhn's words) of something that is in fact a "present reality" in the life of each and every human soul. This "picture" is one of an unbounded, an infinite, and a life-giving stream, available for the asking because it is already "within" us. We already have access to this living water, but we need someone to tell us that it is something that we can actually get in touch with. That is what the ancient myths and scriptures are there to do.

By his demonstrated ability to simply appear out of nowhere and disappear again at will, the risen Christ in the gospels would also, under this interpretation, be pointing us towards connecting with the infinite within ourselves. And this, according to some analysts, is exactly what Paul in his epistles declares to his listeners, using the strongest language possible in some cases:

O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you [. . .]? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? (Galatians 3:1-3)

Gerald Massey (1828 - 1907) and others have argued that the writer who calls himself Paul is pointing his listeners to a spiritual truth, not an external flesh-and-blood individual. He is pointing them to what he elsewhere declares to be "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27). 

This is not to say that Paul did not believe what he was talking about to be "real" or that he did not believe it to have life-altering power: on the contrary, the tenor of his letters indicates that he knew what he spoke of to be absolutely real, and absolutely earth-shaking in its ability to transform. Nowhere in the above discussion should anything be taken to indicate that the infinite, the ultimate, the un-limitable and truly un-bounded divine power -- which the Bhagavad Gita describes as the Lord Krishna and which the Hymn to Durga addresses as Kali, as Maha-Kali, as Uma, and as "Durga, who dwelleth in accessible regions," and as "identical with Brahman" -- is in any way not real. 

But, as the quotation from Alvin Boyd Kuhn tells us, these are not stories about ancient events that happened to someone else: these are aspects of our life, right here and right now. They are telling us about a divine aspect to which we have access right here and right now, and with which we are already internally connected in some mysterious way.

As the verse in the Old Testament wisdom-book of Proverbs tells us, "There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother" (Proverbs 18:24). 

Even closer than a brother, because not external to us at all.