Paths to God: Living the Bhagavad Gita [Paperback]

Throughout the ages, some very powerful commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita have been written by some of India's greatest sages: Shankara, Aurobindo, Vivekananda, and even Gandhi himself, the Mahatma, the "great spirit." Be that as it may, the greatest commentary yet written on the Gita is "Paths to God" by Ram Dass.

Now, I grant you, Ram Dass stands on the shoulders of giants, of course. Baba Ram had the nonreciprocal privilege of reading the commentaries of his predecessors. And it's true, Baba Ram had many more advantages over these other giants of Hindu thought: A doctoral education from Stanford, scientific training as a Clinical Psychologist, and hundreds of experiences with tryptamine psychotropics. Nevertheless, Dass deserves credit for his ingenuity and originality in rendering an ancient and esoteric text relevant and lucid.

The great key to spirituality is the same in all exoteric religions and wisdom traditions. Christ says "not my will but Thine be done." Christianity is very much about surrender to the Divine Will. So it is with Islam. The very word Islam means submission or surrender to God. In Judaism, the Torah is full of heroes who put the will of God above their own desires, perhaps the most notable example being Abraham, who is willing to kill his own beloved son, Isaac, at the Lord's command (this bears notable similarity to what is being asked of Arjuna in the Gita.)

Taoism, too, teaches "non action" and "effortless effort." This is quite similar to St. Paul's statement of "I no longer live, but Christ lives in me." In Buddhism, the Buddha is said to have said, "Paradoxical though it may sound: There is a path to walk on, there is walking being done, but there is no traveler. There are deeds being done, but there is no doer."

This is the heart of the Bhagavad Gita: deeds without a doer. In "The Perennial Philosophy," Huxley says that "The last end of man, the ultimate reason for human existence, is unitive knowledge of the divine Ground-knowledge that can come only to those who are prepared to `die to self' and so make room, as it were, for God."

When we surrender our puny, private little wills to the Universal Will of the Divine Absolute, the numinous Ground of All Being, then it is as though we are not living; it is as though God/Brahman/The Tao is LIVING us. (Do you recall Jerry Garcia's quip about the songs having played the band?)

This is one of the most important tenets of Hinduism: there are two selves. The ego is the small self, the contracted self, the illusory self. This self is called the jivan. Then there is the Universal self, the Transpersonal Self. This self is called the atman. The atman is made of the same soul-stuff as the spirit of the Universe itself, Brahman, the Divine Ground of All Being. It is only the illusion of separateness that isolates one from unity with God. For, as William Law said, "Nothing hath separated us from God but our own will, or rather our own will is our separation from God." Our way back is to surrender the will of the small self.

The keys to surrendering one's will are 1.) To, as Thomas Carlyle instructed, "Do the duty that lies nearest thee;" 2.) To, as the great UCLA basketball coach John Wooden advised, act without attachment to outcomes--winning and losing for instance; 3.) To hold on to no attachments whatsoever. As Baba Ram says, "Big Sale. Everything Must Go." We must let go of all of our maps and models of who we are. As long as we are busy trying to be somebody solid, we are trapped. You nmay recall Sartre's description of the cafe waiter who is trapped in his role in Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology (Routledge Classics). When we identify with our roles, with fixed identities (what Sartre called "facticity") we collapse our own being-for-itself, we become objects rather than conscious subjects and we lose the only real being that we have. The minute you say "I'm somebody who..." or "I'm the type of person that..." you're stuck; you're caught.

The four main paths to getting unstuck are the four great yogas: karma yoga (the path of action), bhakti yoga (the path of love and devotion), jnana yoga (the path of knowledge and wisdom), and raja yoga (kriya yoga, kundalini yoga, tantra, the path of spiritual exercises.) While we might have primary and secondary and tertiary paths throughout different points in our lives, each of us must integrate and weave together all four paths en route to Freedom. These paths are lucidly delineated in Huston Smith's classic The Religions of Man, but never have they been so carefully demarcated as they are here by Dass.

The book also includes important insights on guru yoga--a particular subset of bhakti yoga--too. Guru yoga is, of course, the path of following a spiritual mentor. We, in the West, are very suspicious of gurus and are very reticent to show devotion to other mortals on account of our obsession with "rugged individualism," but we must remember that Christ says "How can you say you love God whom you have not seen when you love not your brother whom you have?" And Jesus also reminds us that even as we have treated the least in society--the poor, the homeless, the naked, the hungry, the sick, the lonely, the widowed, so also have we treated God. Worship of our fellow man IS worship of God, one of the highest forms in fact. Baba Ram is wise in pointing out that you shouldn't fret too much over the level of enlightenment of your guru. It's not their purity that counts; it's your own. And everyone is the Teacher, anyway.. The whole of your Reality can be thought of as a virtual program, a game, "Lila," the play of God. Reality is an experience designed at every moment to teach you. All of Reality is your guru because all of Reality is God. In the words of Adi Da samraj, "reality is all the God there is."

"Paths to God" is written with immense wisdom. Ram Dass has the goods. And this, his guide to "Living the Bhagavad Gita," is quite likely his greatest literary achievement. Bravo.

When (about 40 years ago) I first heard about Ram Dass, I thought, "A nice Jewish boy pretending to be a Hindu sadhu? Come on now!" But I was curious, and open-minded, so I read a couple of his books, and found them--well, at least unobjectionable. Interesting. Now, looking back, I wonder how much of an influence he was on my decision almost 20 years ago to become "a nice Christian girl pretending to be a sadhak," living in an ashram in India. Maybe more than I realized at the time. I don't know. WhatI do know is that now, with many many studies and experiences under my belt, including experimentation with various religious paths (each of which contributed to my own evolution), I have once again read him--in PATHS TO GOD--and now I see he is not pretending at all. So many phonies in the West, both home-grown and imported from the East--but he's not one. He's the real thing. Even though now, unlike 40 years ago, I've studied the Gita and lived in the culture it informs, still I found new depths of understanding--of the Gita, of the universal insights of Hindu thought, and of simply how to live a spiritually serious (but fun) life. It is definitely worth reading. The only fault I find with the Kindle edition of this book is that the formatting suffers--if there's a picture with a caption, you have to sort that out from the on-going text. I hope a better job can be done on this as the art of ebooking matures. But even as it is, the book is well worth getting if you're interested in a clear and engaging presentation of some ancient wisdom.

Written with typical Ram Dass humor and brilliance, Paths To God: Living the Bhagavad Gita helps to bring light and clarity to this classic yogic text. I have always struggled to understand philosophy, and the Bhagavad Gita was a challenge for me to get through. But with this book as a companion, I feel that I can access the wisdom of the Gita a little easier. This book is very accessible for not only Westerners, but for anyone who is looking for a fresh perspective on the Gita.

I especially like the Syllabus at the end that includes exercises which allow one to integrate the lessons of the Gita into daily life. I feel more open to the wisdom that the Gita offers. It truly is a "manual for living a spiritual life".

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