Landing The Flight of the Gander

    Joseph Campbell is rightly credited as being the mythologist to popularize mythology for Western culture. Flying from his Roman Catholic upbringing to the 12^th and 13^th century fairytales and legends to the vast mythologies of Hinduism and the Far East, Campbell’s capabilities of gathering and assimilating myths of varying history and culture has changed the way academia, and even the general public, approach the very word “myth”, let alone those stories that are categorized as “myth”. Yet, the mythical undercurrents of Campbell’s comparative approach to mythology found in The Flight of the Gander guide and often blind his existential, universalistic, and modernist tendencies of mythologizing. Most notably, Campbell’s affinity with Eastern mythologies creates a mythic, which is to say quite real, wall between he and the myth of his youth: Roman Catholic Christianity.

            As I engage with Campbell’s representation of Christianity, I acknowledge that I am part of a long tradition of Christian apologists. While I make no apology for the psychical and physiological abuse that plagues Christian history, I unapologetically abhor the misrepresentation of Christianity that Campbell presents in The Flight of the Gander.  Rather than actually getting entangled with the primary myths found within Judeo-Christianity, Campbell only takes up issues—and these issues revolve around interpreters whose socio-historical contexts differ greatly from mid-20^th century America—that conveniently corroborate his polemic of repudiating Christianity.  That is to say, Campbell only presents examples from the Judeo-Christian tradition that are in obvious contradiction to modern science and Eastern ideation. It is troubling, as a student of mythology, to see a mythologist as reputable as Campbell not attempt to re-mythologize a mythos that is part of his mythical personhood.

            Fleeing his Christian upbringing like a prodigal son, Campbell refuses to re-vision the Christian mythos in light modern cultural shifts. I, like the older son who stayed behind to work for dad, watch as Campbell mocks his Christian background; though, unlike the brother in the Biblical prodigal son story, I long for my brother to return home. I share Campbell’s disdain for the ignorant arrogance that marks Christian history, however I refuse to surrender to the rise of science. Rather, in company with the likes of CG Jung, I choose to regroup, to re-mythologize how the Christian myth can function in light of philosophical and scientific shifts. Jung is certainly not above criticism (hence the new “Post-Jungian” movement), however his attempt of finding use for the Christian mythos is part of what it means to be culturally adapting. Campbell, while calling forth the need for symbolic interpretation (98, 185), only criticizes and mocks interpretations of the Christian mythos.

 Campbell notes that archaic societies believed their deities to be actual entities whose powers could be invoked (24). Campbell then goes on to argue that the symbolic expression found in myths is due to the cultural milieu that these myths were born in.  Therefore, so his logic goes, since our age is a product of the scientific revolution the cosmological and philosophical paradigms of mythology should be based on scientific “facts” rather that mythological expression (102, 152). Robert Segal notes in his contribution to Myth and Method that science has replaced the function of cosmological mythology (82), however the replacement of scientific cosmological structuring does not necessitate an expulsion of mythic expression; rather, it calls for a regrouping of how these myths function, how they can still speak of the cosmos and even of and to the psyche. As mythologists, it would do well to recall that the slippery dichotomies of “fact” and “fiction”, “literal” and “metaphorical”—even those that are posed as “scientific”—have been shown to be fuzzier than once conceived. To this breadown we are indebted to literary theory, deconstruction, quantum mechanics, string theory, and the newly hypothesized M-theory. Campbell’s insistence, then, that science be the authority of all that is “knowable” or “relatively unknown” (152) is left in a mythical-modernistic-past as our age is post-modern.

Postmodernism is marked by that buzzword coined and popularized by Jacques Derrida: differance. Campbell argues time and again for individualism, the buzzword of the 1940-1970’s so closely intertwined with existential philosophy. However, Campbell works under this idiosyncratic philosophy as though, if one were “true to themselves”, they would obviously leave the Christian fold. However, in light of differance and the sociological work of Slavoj Zizek, it is increasingly difficult to see where the individual ends and society begins, and vice versa. Each entity—be it human or literature or “object”—is uniquely different and this vast amount and degree of difference is what makes up the individual, society—the story of humanity.  Campbell’s unwillingness to engage with Christian myths, to cover its underlying currents, and re-construct himself from this foundation is part of the Christian tradition. Campbell never escapes Christianity, if only in that he reacts to it; if Christianity were obsolete for Campbell, this reaction would be superfluous. Therefore, it seems as though part of Campbell’s affinity with the East is not only a divorce from his childhood religion, but is in fact a refusal to admit to a mythical worldview that shaped him early in life. Jungians might call this the repression of one’s shadow.

The shadow of Campbell’s past is literalistic interpretations of the Christian mythos; however, Campbell does not explore how this shadow could be re-visioned in light of his contemporaneous cultural outlook. Campbell’s avoidance of engaging with the myths of Judeo-Christianity cheapens his exploitation of past interpretations. In fact, his insistence that mythical expressions are culturally determined is paradoxical to his bird’s-eye-view that denigrates those who have gone before him, those who had different cultural influences. The works of Marcus Borg, John Crossan, NT Wright, and Jean Luc-Marion—writings contemporary with and after Campbell—are presenting Christianity in its historical contexts, drawing conclusions that mock Campbell’s mocking of theologians’ interpreting the “vehicle” as the “tenor” (53). Of course, if Campbell was to consider historical contexts, he would have to put the Judeo-Christian myth—and interpreters—in appropriate historical contexts, and universalizing mythic characteristics is essentially ahistorical work.

To “dehistoricize” mythology is explicitly argued for in The Flight of the Gander (185). However, by insisting on the historical context of the myth’s presentation, one is then capable of understanding what gave shape to the myth’s structure, plot, subtleties, expressions, and teachings. Furthermore, by negating history, interpretation becomes a thoroughly idiosyncratic, mythical reading and it allows for present-existential desires/needs to supplant the existential context of the myth’s telling. Any hypothetical “original” message is, of course, fictional; however, reconstructing the myth’s socio-historical context enables the reader-now to better understand the message-then. Inattention to historical contexts taints Campbell’s presentation, and blinds him to his own socio-historical biases and this thematically follows with a blindness for the historical situations behind the Christian interpreters he so arrogantly (and paradoxically) denigrates.

   As an adherent to the Christian worldview, by noting that the Christ-myth informs me of who I am, where I am in the world-age, and how I am to function in that world-age, I acknowledge that this mythos makes up “me” as much as I contribute to the continuance of the myth. By adhering to this particular mythos, I acknowledge my participation in the Christian community; part of engaging in this community is to re-mythologize the Christian mythos in a way that is true to the myth’s central concepts and is simultaneously conducive with contemporary philosophical and psychological worldviews. That is, I agree with Campbell that the Christian authorities need questioned; however, they don’t need damned. To take an eye for an eye makes the world go blind, and Campbell exhibits this damning process by damning those Christian interpreters who have done their fair share of damning. The rise of individualism, which Campbell argues for (130-5), cannot replace the innate human need for initiation, integration, and engagement with a community—something that might be present in other writings but is absent in The Flight of the Gander. Campbell divorces himself from his past, though he participates with those he condemns by performing the same actions…a true paradoxical comedy.

Comparing the comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell to his own cultural matrix reveals a human shaped by his own cultural matrix: existential (i.e.—Nietzschean), modernistic, ahistorical, and universalistic. Campbell never takes the flight of the gander, though he does flee from his Christian past. In the dawn of a post-9/11 world, it is greatly needed to gander at religions; damning one religious worldview in favor of another—even if that religion be “science”—usually causes towers to crumble. Coalescing religions together mocks their diversity. Religions and their mythical stories unite, inspire, tell adherents who they are and where they are heading as individuals in a community. Universalizing this diversity as though it speaks of one cosmic myth undermines the identity myths create by adhering to them. It is this differing, this differance, that is to be dealt with if a myth is to be true to its followers, and its self. I follow Campbell to his logical conclusion: if science has replaced the cosmologies and philosophies of mythology, then postmodernism has replaced the likes of Campbell. And, this criticism will be replaced, too. The flight of the gander is not the flight of the individual, rather it is the social flight that has feet to land and wings to fly. The individual makes up the mass, and the mass is made up of individuals—all parts of a while gander where the differences harmoniously function in flight and in landing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Campbell, Joseph. The Flight of the Wild Gander: Explorations in the Mythological Dimension, Selected Essays 1944-1968. Novato, CA: New World Library, 2002.

 

Segal, Robert, A. “Does Myth Have a Future?” Myth and Method. Ed. Laurie L. Patton and Wendy Doniger. Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1996.

Krishna’s Dharma: Deconstructing and Reconstructing, Arjuna and Us

Religious texts are volatile. The unpredictable and evocative energy within religious texts provokes believing interpreters to give up their lives for others, and at other times take the lives of others. The Bhagavad-Gita, a poetic interlude within the mythical epic the Mahabharata, is not immune to these diabolically opposed exegetical potentials. The Gita takes up many of the thematic conundrums found in the Mahabharata, but most notably the Gita illustrates the concept of dharma using god-like figures and figurative rhetoric. Sanskrit scholar Barbara Miller mentions in her translation of the Gita that dharma,  “stems from the root word drh, ‘to sustain.’ A concept of complex significance in Indian culture, its basic meaning is ‘that which sustains’”(158). Simple enough, right? The complex ambiguity of Krishna’s dharma within the Gita and how it challenged Arjuna within the Mahabharata’s context has been the source of exegetical debate since the Gita’s conception. Two millenniums later, spiritual, political, and academic interpretations of the Gita still bloom; dharma cannot be ignored as every person, every kingdom, must face the question: How is appropriate inter-action to take place?

Considered an ancient text, the Gita contains many teachings of Krishna that sound all too familiar with rhetoric of current politicians and religious leaders. Krishna’s call to “wage this war of sacred duty” (2.33) is, seemingly, similar to President Bush’s reaction to those behind the World Trade Center towers’ destruction: “Given the nature and reach of our enemies, we will win this conflict…by meeting a series of challenges with determination and will and purpose” (Lincoln 100). Why turn to this religious text within a socio-historical context such as ours when religion is accused of being the source of so much violence?  The answer is in Krishna’s re-visioning of dharma that is found in the Gita—a re-visioning that takes readers beyond the surface scenes within the Gita to reach a dharma that is for Arjuna then, and our present. Furthermore, exploring Krishna’s dharmic teachings for a world-age where adharma is rampant might enable suggestive re-visioning for today. It is to the Song of the Lord, and the Lord of Song, to which we, as a collective Arjuna, now turn.

Now is as Good as Then: Krishna Re-Appearing.

            Hinduism assumes that the cosmos is involved in a continuous cycle of creation and destruction (Gita 9.7), and Krishna’s dharma re-visioning is said to materialize when adharma settles in, when “chaos prevails”(4.7). These periods of adharma are known in the Hindu cosmology as Kaliyuga, which Heinrich Zimmer elucidates as follows: “Egoistic, devouring, blind and reckless elements now are triumphant and rule the day. Kali means the worst of anything; also, ‘strife, quarrel, dissension, war, battle’” (15). Krishna’s dharma is absolutely essential for this period, otherwise destruction and chaos would prevail (Gita 3.23-35). This fits within the larger context of the Mahabharata, as the Gita is situated immediately prior to the Pandavas and Kurus warring one another. That is, Krishna’s re-visioning of dharma is performed in that sacred scene of adharma, where wars over “sacred duty” take place (1.1).

            The appearance of “Krishna” is enigmatic and tricky in itself. “Krishna” is put in quotation marks because clarification of what is meant by this term is needed. It is asserted here, emphatically so, that “Krishna” is a personified archetypal force that is conceptualized in anthropomorphic imagery, referring to what Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj suggests as, “… the indwelling principle within you—the atman, which is given various names” (137). This “indwelling principle” is expanded in the Gita as the indwelling spirit exists within all of nature as it does in humanity: “Learned men see with an equal eye a scholarly and dignified priest, a cow, an elephant, a dog, and even an outcaste scavenger” (Gita 5.18, cf. 13.3, 15.13-15). That is, the world-soul (brahman) and human-soul (atman) are intricately intertwined in matters of dharma for, if dharma is to sustain, then the entire cosmos must function harmoniously in order for nature and humanity to sustain and be sustained. “All this around me, and my own existence—experience within and without—are the warp and woof of the subtle fabric”(Zimmer, 26). This “subtle fabric” appears—in image and teaching—in breath taking and, seemingly, odd fashion in the Gita and throughout history, in different countries, figures and names.

The oddity of such perennial materialization, however, is due to the nature of its context; that is, the peculiar dharma forcefully appears when adharma is rampant. Krishna is notorious in Hindu mythology for disrupting social norms and notoriously well loved for doing so. Discussing Hindu stories that involve the thievery of Krishna, John Hawley notes that, “Krishna doesn’t use force, but his skill in stealing away what people hold dear is unparalleled; and he doesn’t kill, but he manages to unburden people of their ordinary lives” (163). As Ruth Katz points out, Krishna’s character in the Gita is marked as, “…a playful trickster…Krishna’s trickery implies an open defiance of traditional morality…” (241). Arjuna’s dilemma, to defend dharma (1.37), is seen in his reticence to kill his fellow kinsmen (1.28-31). Deciphering dharma is tricky when adharma is rife, let alone when family is involved. It is only fitting that Krishna would be seen as a trickster in a period that is replete with disorder and evil; truth, peace, and acceptance are certainly antithetical to social norms in such periods. It is not surprising, then, to see that Krishna’s presence in the Gita functions as a shocking implosion of Arjuna’s presuppositions. It takes a persona such as Krishna—or Jesus, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, et cetera—to awaken dharma, reverse social adharma and re-verse perennial truths that lead to restoration (4.8).

Krishna’s reorienting of Arjuna’s disillusionment takes up more than just the convoluted confusion of whether to engage in war; according to the Gita, the fundamental purpose of dharma is, “To protect men of virtue and destroy men who do evil” (4.8). The enactment of dharma is the internal renunciation of all fruits from action (2.55, 2.71, 5.21) and the carrying out of one’s personal dharma (2.31, 2.33) for the sake of social and cosmic welfare (3.11-16). As Jacqueline Hirst says in her contribution to The Fruits of Our Desiring: “Order in human society is, from the beginning, grounded in cosmic order and taught as such” (52). Arjuna is told to give up his previously embraced notion of dharma and find solace in the dharmic re-presenter who appears in Kaliyuga periods (18.66).  For Arjuna, in the larger context of the Mahabharata, this meant seeing through his attachment for his kinsmen and performing actions that seemed all together adharmic. To see through such horrific scenes is never easily accepted, as Krishna must repeat himself time and again for Arjuna to renounce the attachments that are seemingly normative when performing actions (examples—2.15, 2.22, 2.48, 2.55).

Set in the mythical context of the Mahabharata, the Gita presents this dharmic dilemma in hyperbolic settings so as to portray the difficulty in ascertaining how to uphold dharma. The Gita should be seen, however, more like a springboard than a bed to snuggle into, for the Gita and its dharmic teachings should be understood as recontextualizing previously held dharmic perspectives. Dharma, then, is a fluid concept and allows its applicability to twist and turn given the context in which it is being ascertained. Krishna’s archetypal reappearances and re-visioning is summed up by Ruth Katz: “God, then, is seen as the protector of dharma even as he acts within the yuga structure, changing with the shifting environment” (231). Krishna then will appear quite differently than Krishna now, but there will be an aura of familiarity, which will be spelled out later.

Speed up two millenniums. Today, Western culture is inundated with so much “war” rhetoric—from the war on drugs to the war on terrorism—that Michael Hadley writes, “War, in short, is now a ‘way of being’” (190). Put simply, since 9/11 the West’s mythic perception is constructed by a notion that took place on September 11^th, 2001: we are at war—militarily, economically, ethnically, and religiously. The evening news is sated with vivid images of violence, chaos, and hatred—at home and abroad. All the news reports confirm Zimmer’s definition of Kaliyuga, the age of adharma, the age when, supposedly, Krishna’s revelatory dharma is suppose to manifest.

Krishna’s Re-Visioning

Dharma, according to the Gita’s Krishna, is the detachment approach to reality where individual, social, and international boundaries are transcended (3.7, 3.25, 4.10, 5.11). As stated above, Arjuna’s dharmic visioning was deconstructed and the restructured dharma is one where brahman and atman are intimately interconnected. Within this interconnectivity, though, the individual is not lost.  As Krishna is quoted in 3.35, “Your own duty done imperfectly is better than another man’s done well. It is better to die in one’s own duty; another man’s duty is perilous” (cf. 18.47). Thus, when Krishna admonishes Arjuna to “Look to [his] own duty” (2.31) and to “stand up and resolve to fight the battle!” (2.37), Krishna is upholding the warrior’s dharmic role while redefining Arjuna’s presumption of social dharma. Individual duty and social duty are not so cleanly dichotomized in such re-visioning. In fact, while non-attachment to consequences is Krishna’s advice, this does not infer an amoral or entirely relativistic ethic. Nicholas Sutton notes that, “…it is only right action that is to be executed without desire” and the continuance of this is, “…entirely to do with the welfare of this world” (329). Thus, non-attachment is explicitly concerned with nourishing this tangible world, verses a transcendental world, and the non-attached motive is to be enacted in behavior that has trans-personal consequences.

Like the unity that exists as multiplicities, and the multiplicities that form unity (11.5-7, 13.30, 14.4, 18.20), the specificity of “non-attachment” and “right action” is ambiguously applicable. Thus, the Gita’s context makes Krishna’s admonition to fight understandable. To read this too literalistic, though, is to miss the point. The point is that dharmic re-visioning consists in disrupting the Kaliyuga disruption as a means of seeing clearly, of seeing through to the welfare of the world (12.4, 12.12). The Gita presents Arjuna seeking the council of Krishna as Arjuna questions how such a horrendous crime against honor in warring against family can be committed (1.34, 37). Arjuna’s difficulty is not only in killing his kinsmen, but this is coupled with the fact that to do so would be antithetical to his sense of dharma, the underlying order of the cosmos that is to be harmoniously engaged with. Hence, Krishna’s advice is ultimately directed towards the following: how to exist and engage with the order that sustains the cosmos—both on social and individual, macro and microcosmic levels. The vague applicability of dharma calls for constant conscious awareness of one’s historical context and how to behave in a dharmic manner, a manner that is fundamentally concerned with the sustenance of the world at large.

Krishna, Dharma, and…Us?

            To insert a concept like dharma in a postmodern, post-9/11 world—rife with chaos, pluralism, and violence—is capable by the very nature of Krishna’s visionary re-visioning found within the Gita. As Jacqueline Hirst notes, “[The Gita] may ask us…to go beyond our initial understandings of dharma, discarding or recontextualizing them as we go, to that which is truly dharmic” (55). What is dharmic has been repeatedly summarized with “sustaining the welfare of the world.” Considering the nuclear, environmental, ethnical, and biological threats facing the modern world, it would do well to offer some suggestive ways of recontextualizing dharma in our own Kaliyuga.

Literalistic readings of the Gita are, unfortunately, all too popular in recent and contemporary history. It is well known that the Gita was dear to Richard Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb. Mark Juergensmeyer notes that members of the Hindu Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Hindu nationalist party, the BJP have defended several acts of violence by quoting from the Gita (95).  The Gita is far from being an exception in matters of violent religious interpretations. The rise of current religious violence is coupled with an intense upsurge of globalization, providing a contemporary scene where national and hemispherical boundaries are transcended daily.

The sustaining of one country ultimately depends on the sustenance of other countries in relation—economically, ecologically, politically, and in matters of human rights. Krishna’s restructuring of Arjuna’s concept of dharma is, for readers today, an international—indeed a cosmic—restructuring. Contemporarily, Arjuna is seen in each individual, and as a collective whole, as there is collective hope for a Krishna re-visioning that enables each country  to establish dharma nationally and internationally—those two so inherently entwined in our day. Problems arise, though, when the order that is sought is re-visioned in such a radical way that it implodes the anticipatory expectations clung to. While there are many examples of contemporary adharma in our Kaliyuga, a suggestive dharmic re-visioning towards the cacophonic relationship between the West and the Middle East will be focused on. This indicatory re-visioning will explore how the dharmic teachings in the Gita might provide insight for a world where the field of dharma is truly cosmic in scale. If such re-visioning does not take place, Agni might make an appearance in a nuclear way that would truly put an end to the chaos—once and for all.

As noted above, individual dharma is to function conjointly with cosmic dharma to “lead to freedom” (Gita 11.5) and is for “sustaining this entire world” (10.42). Unfortunately, since its imperialistic inception the West has characteristically been demonic: “[the West has said] I have gained this wish today, and I shall attain that one; this wealth is mine, and there will be more. I have killed the enemy, and I shall kill others too; I am the lord, I am the enjoyer, successful, strong, and happy.” (16.13-14). The West, specifically America, flourishes in its economical surplus and political might, all the while sustaining an adharmic identity that caricaturizes “divine traits that lead to freedom” (16.5). Focusing entirely on the interests of sustaining our national welfare, the United States has failed to harmonize its dharma with global dharma. Such national-centrism has resulted in a Kaliyuga that infiltrates in nearly every darkened corner of the world.

Since the Gulf War of 1991, the United States has sustained harsh sanctions on Iraq, “…which [have] caused widespread misery, including the deaths of over half a million Iraqi children, [and] were ‘worth the cost,’ as U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright famously put it” (Loy 96). The following list, far from exhaustive, exhibits the overwhelming adharma enacted by the U.S. government:

            …in 1965, the United States sponsored or assisted a military coup

            in Indonesia that involved the deaths of over half a million people…

            in the year 2001 alone the United States refused to join 123 other nations

            in banning the use of production of antipersonnel bombs and mines…

            Bush declared the Kyoto global warming protocol “dead” and refused

            to participate in revising it, because that might harm the U.S. economy…

            the United States was the only nation to oppose the U.N. Agreement to

            Curb the International Flow of Illicit Small Arms…In addition, the

            United States ha not ratified the Comprehensive (Nuclear) Test Ban

Treaty, signed by 164 nations but opposed by Bush (Loy105).

 

Given the unavoidable globalization that is in motion, the question is not whether or not the West should be internationally involved. The question is: what is the West’s dharmic role to enable international harmony where each country focuses on its own dharmic responsibility (Gita 3.35, 18.47) in such a way that will bring global peace (12.12)? In a country that promotes its motto as “liberty and justice for all”, violence has been the action taken in hopes of securing this nationalistic attachment. Two and a half centuries after America’s inauguration, two and a half centuries of working towards liberty and justice for all, the one thing that has been attained without failure has been violence—within and without national borders.

The Gita provides a disarming portrait of dharma. Recall that dharma essentially means “that which sustains” (Miller 158). In the wake of our Kaliyuga, the destruction of the cosmos has never been more perceivable and there are no lacking options that can be taken to actualize this. Violence has proven, it would seem, to be ineffective in creating global dharma. Hence, what if what the Mahabharata calls the highest dharma, that of ahimsa (non-violence), were attempted? What if the re-contextualizing of dharma in our age was to retract from our nationalistic attachments and seek a global dharma where countries work together for peace, compassion, and sustenance for all creatures (Gita, 12.4, 12.12-13)? Contemporarily, re-visioning dharma would call for a global paradigm shift, one where nuclear, military, and imperialistic weapons of mass destruction implode on themselves along with the present adharmic vision that poses itself as dharmic.

Concluding…for now.

In the Mahabharata Arjuna follows Krishna’s advice and the Pandavas defeat the Kurus. However, the Gita is ambiguous as to who or what Arjuna is to fight. This ambiguity is heightened considering Krishna’s teachings of how brahman and atman are so intricately intertwined, thus one should treat all creatures equally (4.35, 5.7, 6.29-32, 13.28). Who then is Arjuna to fight? “Great Warrior, kill the enemy menacing you in the form of desire!” (3.43). Arjuna then, and Arjuna now, is to fight against desires of attachment. The attachment of the West to attain nationalistic ideals while ignoring international needs is analogous to the short-sided disillusionment of Arjuna that Krishna deconstructs. To promote non-violence in an age of extreme violence would certainly be tricky, but the warning signs seen on every 6 o’clock evening news report suggest that such trickery is imperative if our world is to be sustained.

The entire scenario is left to interpretation, and the Gita, like any ancient extant text, has its fair share of interpretations. The current international situation will have future historians performing their own interpretations of how dharma was incorporated, and sadly often ignored in our Kaliyuga. A re-appearance of Krishna is most certainly needed, but are we willing to embody Krishna today? This exploration opened with a question, implying a need for an answer. The answer just might lay in the questioning – by breaking the bonds of present attachments, the West can enable questioning to happen, which will open up opportunities to view things anew. This question must first be addressed: Is the West willing to actually question their current sense of dharma? May the evening news’ one day report, like that of Sanjaya, that there was rejoicing, for dharma was actualized in an adharmic age. May history say, on a global scale, that for a time, “fortune, victory, abundance, and morality [did] exist” (18.78).

 

 Works Cited

 

Hadley, Michael. “The Ascension of Mars and the Salvation of the Modern World.” The Twenty-first Century Confronts Its Gods: Globalization, Technology, and War. Ed. David J. Hawking. Albany: State University of New York, 2004. 189-208.

Hawley, John Stratton. “The Thief in Krishna.” The Inner Journey: Views from the Hindu Tradition. Ed. Margaret H. Case. Sandpoint, ID: Morning Light Press, 2007. 162-171.

Juergensmeyer, Mark. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious

Violence. Los Angeles and London: University of California, 2000.

Katz, Ruth. Arjuna in the Mahabharata: Where Krishna Is, There Is Victory.

Columbia, SC: South Carolina UP, 1989.

Lincoln, Bruce. Holy Terror: Thinking About Religion After September 11.

Chicago and London: University of Chicago, 2003.

Loy, David R. “The West Against the Rest? A Buddhist Response to The Clash of Civilizations. The Twenty-first Century Confronts Its Gods: Globalization, Technology, and War. Ed. David J. Hawking. Albany: State University of New York, 2004. 95-110.

Hirst, Jacqueline. “Upholding the World: Dharma in the Bhagavadgita.” The Fruits of Our Desiring: An Enquiry into the Ethics of the Bhagavadgita For Our Times. Ed. Julius Lipner. Calgary: Bayeux Arts, 1997. 48-63.

Maharaj, Sri Nisargadatta. The Nectar of Immortality: Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj’s Discourses on the Etnernal. Ed. Robert Powell. San Diego: Blue Dove Press, 1996.

Miller, Barbara Stoller, trans. The Bhagavad-Gita: Krishna’s Counsel in Time of

War. New York: Bantam Dell, rpt. 2004.

Sutton, Nicholas. Religious Doctrines in the Mahabharata. Delhi: Motilal

Banarsidass, 2000.

  Zimmer, Heinrich. Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization. Ed. Joseph

Campbell. Princeton: Princeton UP, rpt. 1974.

Thanks-Giving: there’s a reason that word is an amalgamation of two.

It’s a bit odd that we still celebrate, as a nation, Thanksgiving. We all know, or at least I think we do, that the stories of the pilgrims and Indians are imaginative stories…like Alice in Wonderland, or Robin Hood. And, I actively identify with and participate in a culture that is post-evangelical-Christian, yet here I am all packed and ready to go visit my parents and siblings. I’m not really sure why I’m doing it, other than the socio-familial obligations that weigh so heavy they are more painful than the over-stuffed feeling that is inherently involved in Thanksgiving dinners. Or any Indian-buffet, for that matter.

The critic within wants to deconstruct Thanksgiving and its overt Christian overtones.
The critic wants to mention that with all this “giving thanks for what we have” there is the day that follows, which is the day of more sales at your local, national, and international department stores, than any day of the year.
The critic wants to ask, “how can you say how thankful you are for what you have when soon after this meal you’ll think of what you don’t have?”.
The critic wants to scoff at how Christians all participate in the same rituals—Turkey, potatoes, rolls, pumpkin-pecan-sweet potato pies, apple cider—and yet somehow their ritual is more acceptable than “those pagans” doing the same.
It’s all gluttony. All of it. Even the “giving thanks” part…a day set aside to overstuff our optimism while suppressing the ungrateful bitches that reside within so that, at least for one day, we can appear to be thankful.
And, of course, appearance is where it’s at. (don’t forget to throw up, all you skinny folks, so you can appear to join in the gluttony without losing the skinny).

This has all went through Carl (the name attached to “My brain”—I’m trying to re-train Carl so that so much isn’t “mine”).

Then again, it is a ritual. There is some religion going on, even if it’s not recognized as a religious rite. And, it is a collective ritual enacted by hundreds of millions throughout our country—those at Wal-Mart or your 24/7 customer service centers being the exceptions. The critic is who tends to be more influential on Carl, but I’m proactively stopping it this time. Not because Thanksgiving is anything special to me, not that I will eat turkey or go shopping Friday or even care what others are thankful for. None of this means anything to me, but it means something to others, and that seems to be what this is more about.

Setting aside a time to look back and realize all that is Gift—all that is bound up with existence that can’t be earned or accrued. Like a girl choosing to love you…we all know, guys, you can’t do anything to get a girl to love you. Maybe fuck you, maybe even like you, but for a girl to love you…she has to give that. Admittedly, this existence has been supported and sustained by more Gift than anything ever acquired by my efforts. Countless friends, parents who have been more supportive than any girl, employers, random strangers, a timing belt that seems to never break…yea, there is lots for me to reflect on and let a grin come through after such reflections. But that’s not the point.

The point seems, Mr. Critic, to be that what matters to you doesn’t matter during this holiday. Critique all you want—they really are valid critiques that should be examined; but until you can love what you tend to critique, then it’s most likely that you won’t cross anyone’s mind when they do their own reflecting.

There’s Good Reasons

Time is so precious as you age, and I’m not so sure that is a good or bad thing. Twenty four hours is never enough and it can seem so long, too. It’s all a matter of which emotion is in the driver’s seat any the given time of reflection. I don’t have time for high-school-type friendships where all you do is get together and bitch about others and how nothing seems to go your way. I have all the time in the world to deeply connect with others and thankfully that list is pretty short these days, making the connection all the more thick.
I don’t have time to write blogs too much, because on-line views have been replaced for professor-views. Maybe I will post a paper on here…maybe I won’t even remember to. My attention is thrown in so many directions that I truly, truly feel decentralized, out of control, overwhelmed, and at times paralyzed. The lack of guidance at my school is disappointing for someone whose interests are so separated by institutional-categorization. Furthermore, I am finding myself disgusted with the idea that I can study another religion, say “this is what this means and how it relates to the psychological needs of humanity” without really engaging in the religion myself. It’s a Western privilege to spend our time on these matters; and, it’s an obvious manifestation that there is a lack of personal religion that we need to go and study up on others and trivialize the religious validity of its adherers with our own post-secular, post-modern agenda, which ends up turning on itself. So much shit is being written and talked of today; Mother Earth would make us wash our mouths out with soap.

A friend recently went off on me because I told them I don’t know what “who I am means” (my older brother did the same, too). I should have been more careful as to who I disclose such matters to. Just like I should be careful as to what I write. God forbid a bit of honesty get out on a system that broods deceit.
Like several friends I have.

But the reasons that might be good for my discontent all seem superfluous as I gaze at the workings within and realize that it’s my lack of attention to those I love that gets me in situations where all I do is replicate trendy hipster magazines that dog on “normal” society. As if me and my ego-centralized concerns really mattered. The only time I think they do is when they get out of alignment with the larger responsibility of living in harmony with the Life that is within and around this body I exist in.
Too bad you often need a doctor to get re-aligned, and I don’t have health insurance.

Death in a Cab, heard in a hospital

I brew coffee, serve coffee, make and serve espressos and subsequent espresso-bean-drinks at a local hospital to pay the bills. While working, a good amount of caffeine is ingested as well: free and legal drugs are kin to me. I’m an addict, plain and simple.

For the most part, I enjoy the regular customers that come through the line each day. There are, of course, those two hand-full of folks who refuse to look at you in the eye when going through the routine “how are you?” “I’ll have…” “Thanks, have a nice day”—one would be inclined to presume they look at the vending machines with more concern than they’ll look at an actual person.

Then there are those extra-ordinary customers; no, people who you can’t help be assume it’s an ingrained custom to live extra-ordinarily. Admittedly, these are my favorite, they truly make my day when our paths cross. An elderly was coming through every day for about a week, at 15 minutes past opening, without fail. She would order a 12oz coffee: no cream, sugar, or Splenda please and thank you. Her beverage mimicked her: small, thin, and natural with little to no additives. Thankfully, she treated me better than a vending machine as she would force a weak smile that barely curled towards her eyes; it looked like it hurt to smile, or maybe she just had too much hurt to hide, so much hurt that it even leaked through her blue eyes and weathered skin.

She never left a tip—not even a nickel.

I inquired: “You have been coming for a little over a week now. Is there any indications that you might be leaving soon?”

“Maybe. The doctors aren’t confident enough this morning but hopefully we’ll get some good news this afternoon.”

“Well, ma’am, I just want you to know that seeing you come in here everyday to be there for your spouse is really inspiring for a youngster like me. It is so incredible to see folks who have been there for each other so many years and are stronger than many youths today.”

“Thanks, dear. I’ve been around 62 years, figured I might as well see it through till he gets on with it and just dies.”

She smirks; her eyes soften and for the first time her smile seems to have an aroma of refreshment. Perhaps she had been coming for conversation the entire time and not just coffee. For a split second, maybe an entire second, guilt creeps up. I ignore it, feeling guilty never does much good anyhow.

“Are you serious?” (I think to myself: Ok, of course this is a rhetorical question, but come on, is that all I have to offer her?—ask about her story). “How did you meet?”

“Blind date. I met him in late January and by the second week in February, we were married. I wouldn’t have had it any other way. It’s been good, and I’m hoping our deaths are just as lovely as our lives have been.”

I’m flabbergasted. I try to come up with something but all that comes out of my stupefied mouth is, “wow.”

“You have a nice day dear, maybe I’ll back in a while to get one of those cinnamon rolls.”

Of course she never did come back. I haven’t seen her since. I don’t blame her; the cinnamon rolls we serve would most likely make her stomach expand at least six inches if she happened to take a sip of water while eating one. They look heavenly, and anything that looks that good is most likely hellishly experienced. I am curious if her husband is physically better or not; I am curious what his wife would prefer. I am curious what it would be like to be alive long enough to be married to someone for 62 years, let alone actually be married that long.

What I am not curious about is this: there is a Death Cab song entitled “What Sarah Said.” Towards the end of the bridge in that song, he sings, “love is watching someone die—so who’s going watch you die?” This is a rhetorical question used usefully, unlike my usage. I never understood that line, what he was really hinting at besides some biting remark to a girl he didn’t feel reciprocated love from; not until I met a lady who had loved being married for over half a century and was loving life to the point where she embraced every-thing it brings us: even the death of one we fall for after just two weeks of knowing them.

mythopsychosis: an explanation

I am a student. I make this acknowledgement before attempting to post anything; call it a discrepency, call it honesty. Either way I am attempting not to inform you, but to reflect for myself. The world at large is only as interesting to me as the world within, and I firmly belief that whatever we are to make of the world ultimately derives from a psychological foundation that is revealed in our habits, expressions, imaginations, et cetera.

It seems appropriate that I’ve come to this point: integrating the study of religious texts with some pseudo-scientific field like “psychology”. With the exceptions of James Hillman, David Miller, and other mytho-psychologists, the majority of psychiatrists still believe that theirs is a scientific field. As if “psyche”—that mental instrument used to for scientific discovery—can fall beneath itself. Conventional psychology—developmental, abnormal, child, adult, et cetera—interests me as much as Bill O’Riley’s opinions matter to me.

As for the latter, I take up what my friend told me last week: “Opinions are like buttholes: everyone has one.” My friend stopped short in that, like buttholes, opinions usually wreak of something awful, especially those from Bill O’Riley.

I became interested in religion at a fairly young age, sometime around 16 years old. Well, let me put that this way: I became interested in studying religious texts at that age, whether I was religious or not depends on what one means by “religious”. Studying the Bible—academically and meditatively—has always been a joy for me.

I don’t think I ever truly enjoyed going to church, though. Except for when there was those few instances of the religious experience; I’ve had those at four in the morning while I was only wearing underwear. Church, from what I can recall, always had a taint of the Badlands attached to it.

I don’t study the Bible too much anymore. At least not proficiently. I read the gospels—canonical and non-canonical—daily, but only for meditative purposes. I don’t believe much dogma. I don’t even know really what I believe, other than what I know. This “knowing” is naïve, though I don’t naively know. I know it’s naïve, therefore it’s not naïve for me to choose to know the way I know what I believe. It has been through a mystical lens that I have always read religious texts. Since my spiritual awareness germinated from the dirtiness of Christianity I seem to always think in typical Christian-mystic fashion. It’s completely intuitive; I’m not trying to convince, because I don’t really care if you believe me. I don’t need your belief for my own.

My interest in psychology is a conundrum. My initial exposure came through the writings of Carl Jung, introduced to me by a (now ex-)girlfriend. The affinity of my thought world with depth psychology culminated in Jean-Luc Marion’s book God Without Being. Even to this day it’s difficult for me to pray, because when I go to pray I immediately anthropomorphize the Divine. I do pray; I mean, wait, no, I don’t know what I mean. I feel God…at least, that’s how I phrase it. I don’t really know what it is though. I don’t think I’m supposed to.

Depth-psychology, then, is of interest—great interest—because it is from within that I feel this thing called “god”. What or who this thing or being (or none of the above) is or isn’t (or either) is beyond me; but I know the feelings that I have regarding that stem from within. Hence, I go to the depths of my psyche and from there the world becomes a mystical land that is often more accurately described by the poet than the scientist or positivistic philosopher.

I don’t expect too many to agree with me with that last statement.

Life has brought me here, to this place where I live in a ultra-conservative, Midwest city and fly once a month to the liberal west coast. As if I’m on a teeter-totter of ambivalence; a refusal to be static, a constancy of fluidity. And, let me just put it out here: I don’t find it as mere coincidence that the last of my friends to remain in academia live on the east coast, studying at a seminary (a liberal one at that, but still a seminary). It’s as if my flying back and forth and not living in California is more of an ambivalence of (lacking) confidence for where I truly am in Life and where those who have encouraged me in my academic and spiritual journey are. I’ve been through a marital divorce; that wasn’t nearly as difficult as divorcing myself from those who have made love with me in our spirits.

But deep inside, in that part of me called “the pits of your stomach” (“Even if I descend to hell, O Lord, there I find you”), I know I can’t distinguish my experience of God and an ontological being of God. I can’t decide if I make up God or if God makes up me. And I don’t really care to make such superficial, if not narcissistic, demarcations, because the last time I checked, life didn’t consist of too many strict categorical separations.

So I enter a mythology and depth-psychology program, because that programmed way of thinking has been how I’ve seen the world since I was old enough to start thinking for my self. Only, my self is more thought for, through the Divine which works through me, than it thinks for itself. It’s always been that way, I’ve just been a bit too arrogant at times to admit to this privilege. This thing called “being alive”…whatever that means.