Busted; Completely & Undeniably

Oh, that Aurobindo is a sneaky rascal; he thinks of everything, apparently, and leaves us readers with zero wiggle room as we digest and interpret what he is saying.

Right at the very beginning of the "Core Of The Teaching" chapter of his Essays On The Gita, he comes right out and says, Lao Bendan, be careful... i can see what you're trying to do here. I'm watching you...

And then he goes on to say,

[The Gita] lends itself, even more than other scriptures, to one-sided misrepresentations born of a partisan intellectuality. The unconscious or half-conscious wresting of fact and word and idea to suit a preconceived notion or the doctrine or principle of one’s preference...

...It is [Human reason's] very nature to seize upon some partial conclusion, idea, principle, become its partisan and make it the key to all truth...

And unfortunately, i can't deny that he has seen right through me. I have to admit that as i read this i am adapting his ideas to my partisan beliefs, keeping what strengthens them, and discarding and disregarding what doesn't fit.

You see, Aurobindo and i disagree on what is probably the largest issue in the entire book: the nature of the consciousness that underlies everything and everybody that is, was, and ever will be. Aurobindo says this is God, a supreme being that gives everything its existence, and is superior to everything that is, everything imaginable, and everything that could be. I don't believe in such a God.

Aurobindo goes on to point out, correctly, i think, that

... the modern mind has exiled from its practical motive-power the two essential things, God or the Eternal and spirituality or the God-state, which are the master conceptions of the Gita.

So if God (with that capital 'G') is one of the master conceptions of the Gita, where does that leave my interpretation of the book's meaning and usefulness?

I accept wholeheartedly the spirituality part, but would rather define that as the seemingly necessary human desire (need?) to find and understand the innate consciousness that we were born with; that consciousness that isn't affected by our egos; that consciousness that isn't polluted by all the social, cultural, religious, and other conditioning that we are indoctrinated with from the very first moments of our lives.

Spirituality, for me, is the work done to uncover that version of me that is neither male, nor white, nor middle class American, nor educated, nor a speaker of English, nor Buddhist, nor happy, nor hungry, nor cold, nor spiritual, nor anything else i could possibly label myself as. It is the struggle to wipe away all the dust, all the mildew, all the "stuff" that conditioning has put between me and that spiritual being that i really am; that version of me that Bankei, a 17^th century Japanese monk, called The Unborn.

It's there, that's a given, and while you can never see it, or approach it, when that you is surrendered it appears right in front of your eyes. But it isn't a God, IMHO.

So where does that leave me and my friend? Issues, issues, issues.....

The complete, unselfconscious surrender of yourself, i.e., your self, to that which governs all. That's the goal, and on that Aurobindo and i can agree.

Hmmmm... in the meantime, i'll just keep reading.

And, changing topics, just for the record, i was struck by the amazing similarity between this, written by Aurobindo,

"That which the Gita teaches is not a human, but a divine action; not the performance of social duties, but the abandonment of all other standards of duty or conduct for a selfless performance of the divine will working through our nature..."

and this, in the "Prayer" chapter of Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet,

I cannot teach you how to pray in words.

God listens not to your words save when He Himself utters them through your lips.