Healing Tones

Lord Krishna and Arjuna

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SINCE MY LAST POST . . . and on the very day I published it . . . Israel was bombarded and invaded by Hamas militants who slew hundreds of Israeli citizens in an early morning surprise attack. The devastation in the Gaza strip—where over a million Palestinians live under the rulership of Hamas—following the initial attack is apocalyptic as Hamas and Israel exchanged rockets and bombs in aggression and retaliation. Today Israel has issued an evacuation order for the Palestinian people as it positions its military forces for a possible ground attack on Gaza City with intent to eradicate Hamas from off the face of the earth. A colossal humanitarian crisis is now in progress as the people scramble to get out of harm’s way; an impossible feat for hospitals. May God be with the innocent civilians and children in their travail.

All one can sensibly do is come to a peaceful place of stillness and hold a steady current of love and compassion for those caught in the middle between these two nations’ disdain for one another, a hatred that fills the air globally with fearful and angry emotional energy.

For my readers I offer words of caution to withhold reactive thoughts and feelings. As the Gita counsels, “Govern thy heart.” Know that this, too, is encompassed by the Creative Process that is bringing about the disintegration of the old heaven and old earth to make room for the New Earth, whose heaven is already established in human consciousness. Look upon what’s happening with radiant eyes only, and with radiant hearts. Let love radiate without concern for results, as love never fails.

A CHANGE IN MIDSTREAM

As announced in my previous post, I will share an excerpt from the last chapter of SACRED ANATOMY, captioned “The Rainbow Body,” only at another time.

In light of what’s playing out in the Middle East . . . and as the moon eclipses the sun partially even as I make this shift in midstream . . . my thoughts turn to a passage in the Bhagavad Gita, “The Song Celestial”—as revised by Lloyd A. Meeker (Uranda) several decades ago—that holds words of wisdom spoken by Lord Krishna to Arjuna which may bring comfort to anxious hearts, tempering to over-heated emotions, and critical thinking to minds quick to judge. This excerpt is quite pertinent to the times through which we are moving, in which life in this unravelling and chaotic world often seems like a battlefield. See what you think.

Arjuna: How can I, in battle, shoot with shafts on Bhishma, or on Droja—O thou Chief!—both worshipful, both honourable men? Better to live on beggars bread with those we love alive, Than taste their blood in rich feasts spread and guiltily survive! Ah! were it worse—who knows—to be victor or vanquished here, when those confront us angrily whose death leaves living drear? In pity lost, by doubtings tossed, my thoughts—distracted—turn to Thee, the Guide I reverence most, that I may counsel learn: I know not what should heal the grief burned into soul and sense, if I were earth’s unchallenged chief—a god—and these gone thence!

Servant: So spake Arjuna to the Lord of Hearts, and sighing “I will not fight! held silence then. To whom, with tender smile, while the Prince wept despairing ‘twixt those hosts, Krishna made answer in divinest verse:

Krishna: Thou grievest where no grief should be! Thou speak’st words lacking wisdom! For the wise in heart mourn not for those that live, nor those that die. Nor I, nor thou, nor anyone of these, ever was not, nor ever will not be, for ever and for ever afterwards.

All, that doth live, lives always! To man’s frame as there come infancy and youth and age, so come there raisings-up and layings-down of other and of other life-abodes, which the wise know, and fear not. This that irks—thy outer-life, thrilling to the elements—bringing thee heat and cold, sorrows and joys, ’tis brief and mutable! Bear with it, Prince!

As the wise bear. The soul which is not moved, the soul that with a strong and constant calm takes sorrow and takes joy with equal peace, lives in the life undying! That which is can never cease to be; that which is not will not exist.

To see this truth of both is theirs who part essence from accident, substance from shadow. Indestructible, learn thou! the life is, spreading life through all; it cannot anywhere, by any means, be anywise diminished, stayed, or changed.

But these fleeting frames, which it informs with Spirit deathless, endless, infinite, they perish. Let them perish, Prince! and fight! Life cannot slay. Life is not slain!

Never the Spirit was born; the Spirit shall cease to be never; never was time it was not; end and beginning are dreams! Birthless and deathless and changeless remaineth the Spirit for ever; death hath not touched it at all, dead though the house of it seems!

Who knoweth it exhaustless, self-sustained, immortal, “indestructible—shall such say, “I have killed, or caused to kill”? Nay, but as when one layeth his worn-out robes away, and, taking new ones, sayeth, “These will I wear today!” So putteth by the Spirit lightly its garb of flesh, and passeth to inherit a residence afresh.

I say to thee weapons reach not the Life; flame burns it not, waters cannot o’erwhelm, nor dry winds wither it. Impenetrable, unentered, unassailed, unharmed, untouched, immortal, all-arriving, stable, sure, invisible, ineffable, by word and thought uncompassed, ever all itself, thus is the Soul declared! How wilt thou, then—knowing it so—grieve when thou shouldst not grieve? How, if thou hearest that the man new-dead is, like the man new-born, still living Being—one same, existent Spirit—wilt thou weep?

The end of birth is death; the end of death Is birth: in the fallen state! and mournest thou, Chief of the stalwart arm! for what befalls. Which could not otherwise befall? The birth of mortal things comes unperceived; the death comes unperceived; between them, beings perceive:

What is there sorrowful herein, dear Prince? Wonderful, wistful, to contemplate! Difficult, doubtful, to speak upon! Strange and great for tongue to relate, mystical hearing for every Son! Nor wotteth man this, what a marvel it is, When seeing, and saying, and hearing are one!

This Life within all living things, my Prince! hides beyond harm; scorn thou to suffer, then,
for that which cannot suffer. Do thy part! Be mindful of thy name, and tremble not!
Happy the warrior to whom comes joy of battle—comes, as now, Glorious and fair, unsought; opening for him a gateway into Heav’n here on earth.

But, if thou shunn’st this honourable field—If, knowing thy duty and thy task, thou bidd’st
duty and task go by—that shall be sin! And those to come shall speak thee infamy
from age to age; but infamy is worse for men of noble blood to bear than death!
The chiefs upon their battle-chariots will deem ’twas fear that drove thee from the fray.
Of those who held thee mighty-souled the scorn thou must abide, while all thine enemies will scatter bitter speech of thee, to mock the valour which thou hadst; what fate could fall
more grievously than this? Either—failing thou wilt win blessings of peace, or victor thou wilt reign a king on earth. Therefore, arise, thou Son of Kunti! brace thine arm for conflict, nerve thy heart to meet—as things alike to thee—pleasure or pain, profit or ruin, victory or defeat: so minded, gird thee to the fight, for so thou shalt not sin!

Thus far I speak to thee as from the “outer view”—unspiritually. Hear now the deeper teaching of Reality, which holding, understanding, thou shalt burst thy limitations, the bondage of desiring results. Here shall no end be hindered, no hope marred, no loss be feared: faith—yea, a little faith—shall save thee from the anguish of thy dread. Here, glory of the Kurus! shines one Law—one steadfast rule—while shifting souls have laws many and hard . . . .

. . . . But thou, want not! ask not! Find full reward of doing right in right! Let right deeds be thy motive, not the fruit which comes from them. And live in action! Labour! Make thine acts thy piety, casting all self aside, condemning gain and merit; equable in good or evil: the Central Way brings release in true nobility!

Yet, the right act Is less, far less, than the right-thinking mind. Seek refuge in thy soul; have there thy heaven! Scorn them that follow virtue for her gifts! The mind of pure devotion—even here—casts equally aside good deeds and bad, passing above them. Unto pure devotion devote thyself: with perfect understanding comes perfect act, and the right-hearted rise—
more certainly because they seek no gain—forth from the bands of the outer, step by step,
to highest seats of bliss.

When thy firm soul hath shaken off those tangled oracles which ignorantly guide, then shall it soar to high neglect of what’s denied or said, this way or that way, in doctrinal writ. Troubled no longer by the priestly lore, safe shall it live, and sure; steadfastly bent on understanding service. This is Reality—and Peace!

Arjuna: What is his mark who hath that steadfast heart, confirmed in holy service? How know we his speech, Krishna? Sits he, moves he like other men?

Krishna: When one, 0 Pritha’s Son!—abandoning desires which shake the mind—finds in his Soul full comfort for his soul, he hath attained Reality—that man is such!
In sorrows not dejected, and in joys not overjoyed; dwelling outside the stress of passion, fear, and anger; fixed in calms of lofty understanding—such an one is Muni, is the Sage, the truly Radiant One!

He who to none and nowhere overbound by ties of the outer, takes evil things and good
neither desponding nor exulting, such bears wisdom’s plainest mark! He who shall draw as the wise tortoise draws its four feet safe under its shield, his five frail senses back under the Spirit’s buckler from the world which else assails them, such an one, my Prince, hath Wisdom’s mark! Things that solicit response hold off from the self-governed; nay, it comes, the wrong responses of him who lives beyond depart—aroused no more.

Yet may it chance, O Son of Kunti! that a governed mind shall some time feel the sense-storms sweep, and wrest strong self-control by the roots. Let him regain his kingdom! let him conquer this, and abide in Me, intent. That man alone is wise who keeps the mastery of himself! If one ponders responsively the objects of the outer, there springs attraction; from attraction grows desire, desire flames to fierce passion, passion breeds recklessness; then the memory, all betrayed, lets noble purpose go, and saps the mind, till purpose, mind, and man are all undone.

But, if one deals with objects of the outer not loving and not hating, making them serve his free soul, which rests serenely lord, Lo! such a man comes to tranquility; and out of that tranquility shall rise the end and healing of his earthly pains; since the will governed sets the soul at peace. The soul of the ungoverned is not his, nor hath he knowledge of himself; which lacked, how grows serenity? and, wanting that whence shall he hope for happiness?

The mind that gives itself to follow shows of sense seeth its helm of wisdom rent away, and, like a ship in waves of whirlwind, drives to wreck and death. Only with him, great Prince!
whose senses are not swayed by things of the outer—only with him who holds his mastery, shows wisdom perfect. What is midnight-gloom to unenlightened souls shines wakeful day to his clear gaze; what seems as wakeful day is known for night, thick night of ignorance, to his true-seeing eyes. Such is the Saint!

And like the ocean, day by day receiving floods from all lands, which never overflows; Its boundary-line not leaping, and not leaving, fed by the rivers, but unswelled by those—

So is the perfect one! to his soul’s ocean the world pours itself responsively, leaving him as it finds, without commotion, taking its tribute, but remaining sea.

Yea! whoso, shaking off the yoke of the outer, lives lord, not servant, of his life; set free from pride, from fear, from the sin of “self,” toucheth tranquility! 0 Pritha’s Son!

That is the state Divine! There rests no dread when that last step is reached! Live where he will,
Die when he may, such passeth from all ‘plaining, to blest Nirvana, with the Gods, attaining . . . .

. . . . Within the Hedge he lives; restraining heart and senses, silent, calm, let him express Reality, showing pureness of soul, abiding on the Rock, tranquil in spirit, free of fear, intent on Me, expressing thought of Me.

That Faithful One, so devoted, so controlled, comes to the peace beyond—My peace, the peace of highest Heaven!

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So do we now, with strong hearts and radiant love, face the challenges to which our calling brings us. I welcome any thoughts and inspirations you may have and wish to share, either in the comment feature of by email. Until my next post then . . .

Be love. Be loved.

Anthony

tpal70@gmail.com