Week 19: Bhagavad Gita, Benedict and Augustine
Greetings from St. Lucia! I’m sitting in the shadow of the Pitons and it is pretty glorious. My husband and I are in the middle of a sailing trip to the “middle Indies” if that’s a thing; we started in Grenada, worked our way through the Grenadines, and conclude our trip here in St. Lucia in a couple of days.
I’ve had a fair amount of time to read and this was a great week for it. The Bhagavad Gita and the Rule of St. Benedict were this week’s texts, along with the first two books of Augustine’s Confessions. I need to make a full disclosure: I didn’t order my books in time for this week because I forgot what day we were leaving. I was limited by what my local Barnes and Noble had, which was a very good copy of Bhagavad Gita, the Penguin Classic (and therefore pretty reliable) Confessions, but no Rule of St. Benedict. I did have a book ABOUT the Rule, though, and even though it violates my current policy of reading the text itself, I had to make do with it. Benedict’s Way opens each chapter with excerpts from the Rule, so I’m just going to trust that it’s an accurate if incomplete image of the Rule.
With that said, I also changed up HOW I was reading the texts this week. I didn’t know what to expect with either the Bhagavad Gita or Benedict’s Way. I strongly expected short paragraphs of unrelated sayings, more aphorisms that I’ve had such trouble with time and again. I decided to read both the first two books at the same time, a few sections of one, and then a few of the other. In this way I hoped to get them to “talk” to each other, to help me see the similarities and differences. While it turns out that the Bhagavad Gita is NOT written that way, it was still productive. I’m not going to comment on them “against” each other, but it was helpful to me. I’m going to keep this method in mind going forward.
Now on to the books themselves. The Bhagavad Gita is a book of Hindu teachings. It’s a dialog, mostly between Krishna and his disciple Arjuna, as reported to a rival king by that king’s aide. The fact that it’s a dialog made it easier to read, much like Plato’s writings. Arjuna is struggling with the idea of fighting the opposing army, much of which is composed of people in his own family, and all of it people towards whom he bears no malice. He can’t decide that it’s okay to go to war. Krishna counsels him, and basically says, “Arjuna, you were born to be a warrior, and your job is only to be a warrior. To do less would be to violate your entire being.” Whoa.
My big takeaways were:
Everyone has a “dharma” inside of them, a piece of the entire dharma. Dharma is the universal law but it also dictates what is your own purpose in life. It’s important to understand your own dharma and act in accordance with it, not opposite it. Your dharma is what dictates your role in the world, like warrior or priest. It’s better to fulfill your own dharma imperfectly that to fulfill a different one perfectly.
It’s important to free action from the result of the action. In the story, Arjuna doesn’t want to fight. But since he’s a warrior, it would be wrong for him to act against being a warrior. It’s not his position to think about the result. In the same vein, grief is not appropriate for the wise. Grief would imply that you are attached to the results of your actions.
The material world is made of three “gunas” or qualities: sattva (law/harmony), rajas (energy/passion), and tamas (inertia/ignorance). Everyone has these qualities in an unequal mix, and they help determine what your own dharma is.
There are a couple of different ways to enlightenment, but the very best way is out of love for Krishna. You learn to love and approach Krishna through meditation. And the best way to learn to meditate: “little by little.”
The people born with a lot of sattva are more likely to attain enlightenment. Honestly it sounds pretty hopeless for those people born with a lot of tamas (ignorance). So this part of the book, to me, sounds like some people never really have a chance. That’s kind of depressing!
Of all the books of Eastern spirituality or thought, this one was by far my favorite. Not only was it more interesting to read as a dialog, but it felt much more robust as a worldview. While it seems to lack mercy or grace, it does talk about love and joy.
On to Benedict. I really do feel la little guilty that I’m even including this book, since it’s not what was on the reading list. I am choosing to believe that it gave me a good overview of the Rule of St. Benedict, though. Benedict wrote his rule around 600 A.D., and he wrote it to give monasteries a way of thinking about living in community. It’s hard enough to live with just a few people whom you love; imagine trying to live as a group, eating, praying, and working together. It’s no wonder that religious communities struggled or that, after Benedict wrote his rule, that many, many Christian communities adopt it and use it even today.
I absolutely loved this little book, and I look forward to reading the Rule itself in the near future. A few takeaways:
Humility, kindness, and reasonability go a long way. All of these make room for goodness to grow, and that is one of the goals for the community and for each individual in it.
Every day, strive to listen, pray, do a little manual labor, learn something, and serve the people you live with. When you read the Bible each day, make time for God to speak to you through His Word. Remember the passage of time, the seasons and the feast days. In doing this you remember your own mortality, which you must always be cognizant of.
Look for ways to offer hospitality to the outsider, but exercise wisdom as you do. Every outsider does not need to be embraced in the same way, and be wise in seeing who might do harm to the community. This is merely prudence on the part of a leader.
There is so much excellent wisdom for leaders in the Rule. After all, the abbot had a lot to balance. Delegate appropriately, but don’t be afraid to delegate what the assignee might deem to be too big a task. This is how he will grow. Lead by example and remember to Whom you will give account. Arrange things in the community so that the strong and the weak can all participate. Be aware of the things that diminish joy in the community; the most common one is fear.
Absolutely do not grumble. Ever. And do not tolerate it.
Begin and end with listening, to God and your brethren.
More than anything else I’ve read, it seems that if I just tried to incorporate one aspect of the Rule each week, my life would be richer for it. I absolutely loved the ideas presented in it.
Reading the two texts “against” each other helped me to most especially see their similarities. We should focus on the One we are aiming at, and remember that the tools to get there are not the most important thing. Striving for these things out of love is the best way. (In Christianity, it’s the only way.) Do not underestimate joy.
The third text for this week was Books 1 and 2 of Augustine’s Confessions. We get to finish that text next week, so I’d like to hold off my thoughts on that one until next week. Suffice to say, though, that it’s simply great, and so much more readable than I was expecting. Augustine comes across as an actual person, and that is really amazing.
With the island hopping this week I simply didn’t get to any of the music or art. That’s not great.
Next week we finish Augustine’s Confessions. The music is the Passion of St. Matthew by Bach, and the art is the Bayeux Tapestry.
As always, my Amazon list is here, and Ted’s reading list is here. See you soon!