Tales from the Island of Serendip 4 4

[Flex Mentallo]

Though Krishna is Arjuna's friend and charioteer, he is also an avatar of the Supreme Deity, Vishnu.

 

 

 

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Like Hercules, Krishna strangled two snakes while still in his crib. Like any child growing up, he was mischievous.

 

 

 

 

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The poet Purandaradasa tells of how one day, Krishna steals his mother Yashoda's butter, but when she admonishes him to open his mouth and show her the butter, he instead reveals the entire universe.

 

 

 

 

 

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This revelation forms the subject of a famous Bharata Natyam dance, Jagadodharana, in which a single dancer performs both mother and child.

 

 

 

 

 

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As the two great armies prepare for battle, Arjuna is overwhelmed by the thought of the tragic slaughter to come. He turns to Krishna and says, "I will not fight".

 

Here is Krishna's response as translated by Mascaró.

 

 

9 – When Arjuna the great warrior had thus unburdened his heart, 'I will not fight, Krishna', he said, and then fell silent.

 

10 – Krishna smiled and spoke to Arjuna – there between the two armies, the voice of God spoke these words:

 

11 – Thy tears are for those beyond tears, and are thy words words of wisdom? The wise grieve not for those who live and they grieve not for those who die – for life and death shall pass away.

 

12 – Because we all have been for all time, I, and thou, and those kings of men. And we all shall be for all time, we all for ever and ever.

 

13 – As the Spirit of our mortal body wanders on in childhood and youth and old age, the Spirit wanders on to a new body; of this the sage has no doubts.

 

14 – From the world of the senses, Arjuna, comes heat and comes cold, and pleasure and pain. They come and they go; they are transient. Arise above them, strong soul.

 

15 – The man whom these cannot move, whose soul is one, beyond pleasure and pain, is worthy of life in Eternity.

 

16 – The unreal never is, the Real never is not. This truth indeed has been seen by those who can see the true.

 

17 – Interwoven in his creation, the Spirit is beyond destruction. No one can bring to an end the Spirit which is everlasting.

 

18 – For beyond time he dwells in these bodies, though these bodies have an end in their time, but he remains immeasurable, immortal. Therefore, great warrior carry on thy fight.

 

19 – If any man thinks he slays, and if another thinks he is slain, neither knows the ways of truth. The Eternal in man cannot kill; the Eternal in man cannot die.

 

20 – He is never born and he never dies. He is in Eternity; he is for evermore. Never-born and eternal, beyond times gone or to come, he does not die when the body dies.

 

21 – When a man knows him as never-born, everlasting, never-changing, beyond all destruction, how can that man kill a man or cause another to kill?

 

22 – As a man leaves an old garment and puts on one that is new, the Spirit leaves his mortal body and then puts on one that is new.

 

23 – Weapons cannot hurt the Spirit and the fire can never burn him. Untouched is he by drenching waters, untouched is he by parching winds.

 

24 – Beyond the power of the sword and fire, beyond the power of waters and winds, the Spirit is everlasting, omnipresent, never-changing, never moving, ever One.

 

25 – Invisible is he to mortal eyes, beyond thought and beyond change. Know that he is and cease from sorrow.

 

26 – But if he were born again and again, and again and again, he were to die, even then, victorious man, cease thou from sorrow.

 

27 – For all things born in truth must die, and out of death in truth comes life. Face to face with what must be, cease thou from sorrow.

 

28 – Invisible before birth are all beings and after death invisible again. They are seen between two unseens. Why in this truth find sorrow?

 

29 – One sees him in a vision of wonder, and another gives us words of his wonder. There is one who hears of his wonder; but he hears and knows him not.

 

30 – The Spirit that is in all beings is immortal in them all, for the death of what can not die, cease thou from sorrow.

 

(The Bhagavad Gita , translated from the Sanskrit

by Juan Mascaró, Penguin Books, 1962)

 

[Flex Mentallo]

The Upanishads

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Upanishads are comparable to the New Testament, but taken as a whole are as long as the Bible.

 

Here is the shortest of the Upanishads by way of example as translated by Mascaró. It is also perhaps the most beautiful.

 

I have chosen to illustrate the stanzas with some dance photographs. (When I was a student at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Baroda from 1980 to 1982, students from a tribal district revived a dying dance form called garba, an intricate circle dance performed during the nine nights of the harvest moon, a festival known as Navratri.)

 

 

 

 

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All we students got the opportunity to learn and perform it. We even got invited to perform in other venues. For many years I timed my later visits to coincide with the festival, and danced the nights away. My obligatory bare feet became so blistered, at times I could barely hobble when not dancing. Yet while dancing I barely noticed, because the tempo increases as the dance progresses, faster and faster, spinning and stepping, forward, sideways, forward, reverse; the same pattern of fourteen moves repeating and repeating and repeating, until you become quite lost in it. On one occasion after a long night of dancing, on my way to the student hostel where I lived, I found myself in a very poor quarter where servant families lived. They were trying to perform garba in the dead of night long after everyone else had gone to bed, but didn't know how to do it properly, so I taught them until the sun came up.

 

 

 

 

 

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Since my tribal friends revived it, the dance has become a world wide phenomenon, spreading first to Bombay, with sometimes hundreds of dancers performing before crowds of many thousands. But of course I preferred it when it was only us...

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Isa Upanishad (circa 600 B.C.)

Behold the universe in the glory of God: and all that lives and moves

on earth. Leaving the transient, find joy in the Eternal: set not

your heart on another's possession.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Working thus, a man may wish for a life of a hundred years.

Only actions done in God bind not the soul of man.

 

 

 

 

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There are demon-haunted worlds, regions of utter darkness.

Whoever in life denies the spirit falls into that darkness of death.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Spirit moves and moves not. He is far, and he is near.

He is within all, and he is outside all.

 

 

 

 

 

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Who sees all beings in his own Self,

and his own Self in all beings loses all fear.

 

 

 

 

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When a sage sees this great Unity and his Self has become all beings,

what delusion and what sorrow can ever be near him?

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Spirit filled all with his radiance. He is incorporeal and invulnerable,

pure and untouched by evil. He is the Supreme seer and thinker,

immanent and transcendent. He placed all things in the path of Eternity.

 

 

 

 

 

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He who knows both the transcendent and the immanent, with the immanent

overcomes death and with the transcendent reaches immortality.

 

 

 

 

 

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The face of truth remains hidden behind a circle of gold.

Unveil it, O god of light, that I who love the true may see!

 

 

 

 

 

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O life-giving sun, off-spring of the Lord of creation,

solitary seer of heaven! Spread thy light and withdraw

thy blinding splendour that I may behold my radiant form:

that Spirit far away within thee is my own inmost Spirit.

 

 

 

 

 

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May life go to immortal life, and the body go to ashes,

OM. O my soul, remember past strivings, remember!

O my soul, remember past strivings, remember!