It's been over a week now, closer to two actually, of as little exposure to news as possible without locking myself away in a box somewhere. I still go online to check email and haven’t gone off of facebook, so of course I’ve seen the biggest news of late—things such as the horrific wildfires in Australia and the apparent uncontrolled spiral towards war between Iran and America. The latter was every other post when I glanced at Facebook just a few minutes ago. An assassination. A retaliation. What’s next? I skim a few comments. “WWIII” some read. Fear is dominant. This looks important I should read more. But no. I walk upstairs and pull a book from the shelf to read during lunch instead. Let the crazy, the horror, the fear and alarmism, hell the end of civilization as we know it if that’s what’s to come, let it all go on without me dwelling on it for a bit longer. I want to read of Arjuna going to war instead.
I know the pages are dog-eared and some of the text is highlighted but can’t remember which book it’s in so bring a few down to the kitchen table.
This one? No.
This one? Yes, but that’s not the the passage I was thinking of.
Ah-ha! This one.
MYTHS OF LIGHT: Eastern Metaphors of the Eternal
This! This is what I was looking for
On page 47 is Joseph Campbell’s brief summary of a ‘little jewel of spiritual revelation” from the Bhagavad Gita.
The Horror
… The young warrior-prince Arjuna is the leader of an army, along with his brothers, the Pandavas. They have lost their possessions—their kingdom and even their shared bride—in a dice game with their cousins, the Kauravas, who are the leaders of the opposing army. Now, Arjuna’s charioteer is his friend Krsna, who is an incarnation of the god Visnu; Krsna is the lord of the title of the book, in that he is both a king and an avatar of the lord of the owrld. Though he is God incarnate himself, he is playing the role of charioteer at this cataclysmic battle between the armies led by these two bands of brothers. In the trumpet call to start, Arjuna says to Krsna, “Drive me out between the two armies before I let the battle start; I just want to see for a minute.”
So Krsna does drive Arjuna out. Arjuna sees on both sides men whom he admires, men whom he loves, and he drops his bow. He goes pale and says, “Better that I should die here than that I should let loose this battle fury.”
His friend, the god, looks at him and says, “Whence comes this cowardice? You have lost your mind; you have lost your equilibrium. You are a warrior, and the highest goal of a warrior is a just war.” Now, all wars are just from both sides, always. Krsna, having the divine long view, understands this. “So get in there and fight. Did you think you were going to kill these people? They are already dead!” Then he touches Arjuna’s eye and Arjuna sees his friend Krsna transformed into the lord of the world. He is a tremendous, monstrous divinity, with many mouths with great tusks in these mouths. In this expanded vision, Arjuna sees both armies flying into these mouths and smashing like grapes, and the blood pouring down from the maws like spilled wine.
Arjuna’s hair lifts and he’s ays, “Who are you?”
His former companion answers and says, “I am Kala. I am black time, who am here for the end of the world. I am licking up mankind. Now,” he says, his appearance returning to its normal blue-skinned calm, “did you think you were going to kill these men? They are already dead, as I told you. Those forms that you kill are total, but the immortal portion is untouched. What was never born never dies. Rains do not wet it; fire does not burn it. So get in there and seem to be doing things. You are to be the instrument of destiny itself.”
For some reason that I’m not quite sure, choosing to re-read that instead of the news has left me better fit to carry out the rest of my work for the day, which I better get to as soon as I share this if I'm to finish before my next class of students arrive.
I know it’s there. All the worrisome news: the crazy world outside my door. In a minute or two online I saw enough to know the world is still a mess. My concern that belligerent men are at the helms of powerful nations—nations with weapons and technology capable of ending civilization as we know it—is still with me. My concern that one of those so-called leaders is a narcissistic ignoramus in way over his head hasn’t waned much either. It's enough to fill me with rage if I dwell on the power he has to damage the world my kids are inheriting. Thus I’ll do my civic duty and vote to remove him and his cowardly enablers if or when the next election ever comes about. I may sign a petition or twelve or call one of my elected representatives to voice my disapproval again before then as well. But for today, for this moment, I opted to fill my mind something other than the current news.—something to remind me that the world has always been a mess and humankind has imaginatively trudged upward and onward trying to make sense of it all in spite of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment