An Atheist Explores the Bhagavad Gita Part Ten: God Is Ghee (Yog Through The King of Sciences (Rāja Vidyā Yog))

 Chapter Nine: Yog Through The King of Sciences (Rāja Vidyā Yog)

God Is Ghee.

 Welcome to the next instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bhagavad Gita).

In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the Bhagavad Gita, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.

 For more detail, see the introductory post https://bit.ly/2XAch2A

For the online Bhagavad Gita that I use, see here https://www.holy-bhagavad-gita.org/

 And now:

 Rāja Vidyā Yog

“It is I who am the Vedic ritual, I am the sacrifice, and I am the oblation offered to the ancestors. I am the medicinal herb, and I am the Vedic mantra. I am the clarified butter, I am the fire and the act of offering. Of this universe, I am the Father; I am also the Mother, the Sustainer, and the Grandsire. I am the purifier, the goal of knowledge, the sacred syllable Om. I am the Ṛig Veda, Sāma Veda, and the Yajur Veda.”

 What I find interesting in this chapter is the notion of the “true” heaven, that of one-ness with Krishna, and a “good enough” heaven, ruled by Indra and home of the celestial gods, where those who have lived a life of contemplation and goodness get to go for a time but, because they haven’t followed the path that leads to Krishna, eventually they get reborn rather than escape the cycle.

 That’s not really an idea that I’ve seen in the Near-Eastern monotheisms. Even the (later) inclusion of purgatory in Christian mythology doesn’t really follow. Generally it’s heaven or bust, depending on if you have faith or not. This concept works well with the Hindu mythology with its myriad of gods – these gods are fine as far as they go, but they’re not the whole story according to Krishna.

 There’s some wonderful poetic description of how Krishna is everything and everything is Krishna (see quote above, and also “I am the Supreme Goal of all living beings, and I am also their Sustainer, Master, Witness, Abode, Shelter, and Friend. I am the Origin, End, and Resting Place of creation; I am the Storehouse and Eternal Seed.”)

But although all things are part of Krishna, Krishna is not bound by them. The divine ages, the kalp, are demarcated by all things becoming dissolute in Krishna before being reformed by His creative nature, but (the implication seems to be) that Krishna Himself is not bound to these cycles.

Krishna is similarly unattached to who gets to achieve union with Him; saint or sinner it doesn’t matter as long as they follow the right kind of yog to reach him. The sinners will have their sins removed once they become one with Krishna, of course, and I think it’s kind of hinted in the prior chapters that it would be hard for somebody steeped in “sin” to manage to reach the right frame of mind to do so in the first place.

And, of course Krishna is un-attached, it makes sense given that lack of attachment is needed to reach Krishna in the first place.

“Science” in the title seems to be in its sense “knowledge”, the vidya of the Sanskrit version, although the commentaries translate it specifically as “science”. I think perhaps the term in this sense is that of a kind of knowledge or philosophy applied practically.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dr Simon Reads... Appendix N. Part One: Poul Anderson

Image
Dr. Simon Reads Appendix N: Introduction This is a new series that will feature sporadically, in which I explore classic fantasy and science fiction works. You will either know what I mean by “Appendix N”, or you will have no clue. In the original Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Masters Guide, Gary Gygax provided a large number of appendices, from random smells to reputed magical properties of herbs and gemstones. Appendix N was a bibliography of works that inspired him. Back in 1982 when I first got hold of this book, there were only a couple of items on there that I’d read, and only a few other authors that I’d even heard of. Many years later, after, much reading, I returned to Appendix N expecting to have added greatly to the works on there that I’d read; but actually, there were still very few. Many of the authors were obscure or out of print authors of, for want of a better expression, golden age pulp; the kind that feature in Amazing Stories and the like. Now, ...
Read more

An Atheist Explores the Qur'an Part 121: Closing Thoughts

It took half as many posts to tackle the Qur'an as it did the Bible, 120 compared to 248, but it felt like longer sometimes. Perhaps because the Qur'an is written by a single man and deals with pretty much the same topic over and over, whereas the Bible is a compilation of multiple works, some of which are historical, some apocalyptic, some laws or building instruction, some philosophical, some poetic, some a bit of each. From that point of view, I'd have to say that the Bible was the more interesting work to read. Have I learned any great wisdom from the Qur'an? I'd have to say … no, not really. Granted, I probably didn't approach it with a particularly deep understanding of the material in the first place, but that (as with the Bible readthrough) was always my intent. Picking through line by line is still something of a deep dive, and in both books I tried to be alert for symbol and metaphor. Doing it that way, however, it's easy to miss thematic callb...
Read more

An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 140: The Fall and Rise of (Slightly Tarty) Cities (Isaiah 21-25)

Isaiah 21-25 The Fall and Rise of (Slightly Tarty) Cities Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version). In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology. For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP And now: Isaiah 21 “And he cried, A lion: My lord, I stand continually upon the watchtower in the daytime, and I am set in my ward whole nights:” Isaiah has a vision that causes him pain like the pain of childbirth, apparently. From out of the desert comes a chariot bearing news that Babylon has fallen, but I don’t know to whom. This chapter says to “ watch in the watchtower ”, from which I guess the Jehovah’s Witnesses get the name of their little newsletter. Also Isaiah, or the people to whom he speaks, are told to “ go set a watchman ”; another line ...
Read more