Class Five: Only a Handful **1) Approaching the end of the sixth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna makes the statement that a person who relates to every other person as if they were the Lord himself “could be living anywhere at all, but they are living in me.” What special practice can we do to come closer to this ideal relationship with everyone around us; how and why does it work?** We would like to reach a place where we are actually experiencing all of the people and locations around us as being Lord Krishna himself; or whomever it may be that we consider sacred. This begins with making conscious efforts to find special things and people in our life—we wake up in the morning with a resolution to try to pay attention to the wonderful things that are happening to us, rather than the day-to-day which is all too easy to become wrapped up in. At this point, the little special things happening to us are still within what we would call possible; it’s just that we are making some conscious effort to stay aware of them. The exercise though of constantly turning the mind to what is wonderful around us plants new seeds for the same. And it is at this point that a special practice is recommended—it starts with simply learning to step from one of our senses to the other, one by one, as if we were strolling by different windows in a long hallway. That is, we first turn our mind consciously to our visual sense, taking in all the visible objects around us at any given time, allowing our eyes to rest upon each one in a very aware way. And then we move on to our ears, carefully listening to each and every sound, soft and loud, which comes our way. Finally we turn our mental ears to our own mind, listening carefully to our own thoughts. While we are looking out our eyes, we consciously imagine that each and every thing we see is a message being sent to us from Lord Krishna, or from whomever we consider sacred. The same with everything we hear, and then the same even with the thoughts that pass through our own mind: each one, a message from the Lord. At the beginning, the messages take some interpretation: why would Lord Krishna be wondering what’s for breakfast? As time goes by, the practice becomes more natural until, finally, we begin to have spontaneous experiences of the divine in the “everyday” people and events of our day. We’ve been wondering whether we should be going to the morning or the afternoon yoga class, and we overhear a conversation at the grocery store: “I decided to go see my friend in the afternoon because, after all, my mother enjoys it so much when I visit her in the morning.” We take it as a message from Lord Krishna that we should go visit our own mother this morning, to plant some seeds for our yoga class in the afternoon. Purposefully planting seeds for divine experiences by first searching for them then makes then come spontaneously. **2) Towards the end of the sixth chapter of the Gita, Lord Krishna describes what happens to us after our death, as a result of our practice of yoga. He first describes a sort of worldly heaven, and then describes an even more desirable rebirth in this world. Explain, relating this experience to what is called the “aftermath” experience of the direct perception of the self, or ultimate reality.** Lord Krishna says that “otherwise” (meaning if we are not born into a temporary, worldly sort of heaven) we will be “born into a family of yogis, of wise ones,” and then states that this type of rebirth is more rare even than the worldly heaven he has already described. This description is all related to our direct experience of the self, or ultimate reality—which is related in turn to the condition of our inner channels, and thus our physical yoga practice. The primary goal of this practice is to bring the inner winds, prana, out of the two side channels (the *ida* and *pingala*) and into the central channel (the *sushumna*). This is because prana flowing in the side channels causes us to have emotions of ignorant liking and disliking, whereas prana flowing in the central channel brings on feelings of knowledge. When the prana is complete in this channel, this then brings on the direct experience of the self, as we have described this self earlier. This experience requires only 20 minutes or so, and is the peak experience of an entire lifetime of practice. It has a unique ability, among all the different types of experiences there are in the world, to move us far and swiftly along the spiritual path. When we come down out of the experience, we undergo a series of very special realizations, which altogether are referred to as the “aftermath” experiences. One of the most fascinating of these experiences is that—due to the fact that the prana has, for the first time in our life, penetrated far into the central channel—our heart chakra is opened up sufficiently for us to be able to see, briefly, into our own future. We undergo a vision in which we directly perceive how many lifetimes we still need to go before we reach enlightenment, and we perceive as well how, generally, these lifetimes will be spent. One understanding which inevitably comes to us at this time is that we know with a certainty that our spiritual education will continue unabated: the power of our direct experience of ultimate reality is so great that it plants seeds for us to be born amongst people of deep spiritual practice for all the lifetimes left to us before our enlightenment. Which is to say, we see directly that we will be nurtured along the path by kind and (as Lord Krishna says) infinitely competent and wise Teachers, for the rest of our worldly existence. In each rebirth too, as Lord Krishna notes, we will come to a point which the Tibetans call *bakchak sepa* {BAG CHAGS SAD PA,}. *Bakchak* (or *vasana* in Sanskrit) refers to mental seeds in which are stored all of our past spiritual realizations and understanding. *Sepa* means that—at some point in our future life—these seeds will reawaken, so that we can build upon the experiences of our past life in striving, as Lord Krishna puts it, further for our goals. Very often, the main ripening of these seeds occurs in our late teens and early 20’s, although it can also happen on occasions throughout the entire length of our life. **3) How does Lord Krishna describe the rarity of a direct experience of this nature? How can we understand this fact simply in terms of what we might call the “statistics of former lives”? And how does it parallel a similar statement at the beginning of one of the most important books ever written in India?** One of the most famous books of ancient India is the *Commentary on Valid Perception,* a study by Master Dharmakirti on how it is that we conceptualize objects in the world around us. It begins with the following lines, meant to show how rare it is to find a person who is even remotely interested in a spiritual path: The vast majority of common people Are attracted to common things; And because they possess no wisdom, Aspire not at all to the holy books— But it doesn’t end there. Even those who do aspire Are caught in the filth of envy, And begin to hate one another. Because of this situation, The fact is that I have composed this text Without any hope of helping other people; Rather, I take joy in undertaking this task Because I understand that by doing so I will acquaint my own mind with its contents Over a very long length of time. Lord Krishna in our own text goes on to say that—out of thousands of people—“only a handful strive for goals of the spirit.” And then he says that, among the very few who do strive and who do reach spiritual goals, “only a handful know me in the way I am.” What this last describes is the rarity of the direct realization of the self, or ultimate reality. In the recorded history of these teachings, only a handful of practitioners have been recognized as “aryas,” or those who have had this direct perception; among them, Masters Nagarjuna, Asanga, and Tsongkapa. It is said that if there is but a single arya on an entire planet at any given time, we are all highly fortunate. This rarity can be explained in terms of the “statistics of former lives.” The mind, as opposed to the body, is not something which can ever be destroyed, even by the death of the body. And it can only be born from similar stuff—mental stuff. If we think carefully about the implications of this fact, it is clear that the first moment of our mind in this present life must have been produced from the last moment of a mind in our past life. And it is equally clear that—if this is the case—then our mind cannot have had any beginning. In this event, then we are not talking about having had thousands or even millions of past lives. We are talking about past lives that literally have no beginning. We can then think of the stream of our mind, during the unenlightened period of our existence, as being as long as an endless universe—something like a spaghetti noodle that has no front end at all. At some point on this endless line there is formed a single dot: the moment that we first had a direct experience of the self, or emptiness. The length of our worldly life—a life in a body of flesh and blood, before we turn entirely into an angelic being of light—after this dot is very limited. Quite typical is 7 lives to live after our first direct experience, and before our body transforms. The simple mathematical odds then of an arya (which means a person who has had the direct experience of emptiness) living in the same world with us are countless billions to one. **4) Lord Krishna tells Arjuna that the Lord possesses both a “lower” nature and a “highest” nature. For the lower nature, he lists for example the different elements, or elemental energies which in ancient Indian philosophy were thought to underlie all material existence. This same division into a lower and higher nature can be made with regard to the self that we normally believe exists, and the self which is the nature underpinning all existence. Give a brief description of these two kinds of self.** Lord Krishna’s statement at this point reflects the teaching on the two truths, or the two levels of reality. The lower reality is commonly called “deceptive” reality. That is, it really is something that we see around us, but it is constantly deceiving us. Here is a real example of this deceptive reality. We are one of those unfortunate souls who suffers from regular, very debilitating headaches. When we get one, we immediately go and take an aspirin. Let’s suppose that it’s one of those days when the aspirin actually works, and our headache goes away. The deceptive reality here is of an aspirin that works on our headache, from its own side. Inside our own mind, we feel that the aspirin has worked because of some “active ingredient” within the pill. Mentally we picture a pill-shaped object which contains within it a few small grains of some very powerful chemical which has the power to take away our headache. This though can be proven to be deceptive, because very commonly we get another headache within a week or two, and we take the same pill for it, and the pill doesn’t help at all. If the pill did have within it some chemical which takes away headaches, then our headache should have gone away. But we can see that it does not—that the bottle of aspirin, and especially the extravagant claims made on the bottle’s label—have been fooling us. And so we can say that the lower level of reality is a level where things appear to do something from their own side, but where in time personal experience informs us otherwise. When Arjuna stands between the lines of the two armies and considers his two options—either fight, or refuse to fight—he is being caught in a kind of trap. Neither action is certain to produce the result that he hopes for, and so in actuality neither is really an *action.* He is stuck in the lower reality, the deceptive reality. The higher reality is the true nature of things: the self, the ultimate reality, that objects do possess. In the case of being confronted by a hostile force (as Arjuna is), it is the fact that this hostility can have no other cause than our own recent hostility towards others. We can think of this as the absence in the universe of an aspirin that works from its own side: one that really does contain within it some active ingredient which works all the time. To have an encounter with this higher reality, to commune with it, is to perceive in an immediate way what’s left over when we remove all the objects from a room which don’t work—which don’t work through some power of their own. **5) Lord Krishna says that Arjuna should understand that “all the qualities you see in things” are “things that come from me.” He specifically mentions here the three qualities which have come to be known as the “three gunas.” How are these three qualities described, in a very traditional presentation, and what is their role in the creation of the 25 components of existence accepted by the Sankhya or Numerist school of Hinduism?** Here is a brief description of the three traditional qualities, and how they contribute to the creation of the world, in the ancient Sankhya system of Hindu philosophy. This description is summarized from a text called *A Survey of the Schools of Philosophy,* written by the great Changkya Rolpay Dorje (1717-1786). It enumerates the 25 components of the Numerist or Sankhya system of Indian philosophy, and relates them to our three qualities. These 25, the components of all existence, are in fact the source of the Numerist school’s name. There are three different qualities: particles, darkness, and courage. The quality of particles has a nature of movement, and of engagement. It is also referred to as “suffering.” The quality of darkness has a nature of heaviness, and of cloaking. It is also called “dark ignorance.” The quality of courage has a nature of lightness, and of effulgence. It is also known as “happiness.” Courage also involves the qualities of joy, and contentment, and goodwill; of pleasure, and peace. The quality of particles involves disliking things; torment; grief; desire; and something which is unbearable. The quality of darkness involves ignorance, dark ignorance, carelessness, sleep, and distraction. Then there is (1) the individual self (*purusha*), whose nature is of the mind. It is anything but the creator of the expressions of the world; it is unborn, and so unchanging; it is the devourer, who experiences pleasure and pain; it is free of the three qualities; it covers all beings; it is singular, without parts; it exhibits no beginning, and no end. The individual self, until the day of liberation, stays part and parcel with (2) the universal self (*atma*). Once we do achieve liberation, it stays separate. Through these two are produced the other 23 components of existence. For example, when the individual self feels a desire to experience sound, sound is provided by the universal self. This happens through a process where a component called “the nature of things” (*prakirti*) produces a component known simply as (3) “mind” (*buddhi,* also called *mahat*). This is described as a kind of matter which has the power to allow us to perceive an object: it is said to be like a two-sided hand mirror, where the image of the outer object appears on one side, and the image of the individual self appears on the other. From this in turn is born a component called (4) “identity” (*ahankara*). Identity can be manifested in three different ways: through expressions, through courage, or through darkness. When it manifests as expressions, it produces (5-9) the five building blocks (*matra*) of visible forms; hearable sounds; smells; tastes; and touches. From these are produced (10-14) the five elements (*bhuta*) of earth, water, fire, wind, and space. When identity expresses itself through courage, it can take on eleven different forms: (15-19) the five powers of action (*karmendriya,* including the speech, hands, legs, anus, and sexual organ); (20-24) the five powers of the mind (*buddhindriya,* including eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin); and (25) that state of thought (*manas*) which is the combination of both. When identity expresses itself through darkness, it is described as that which inspires the engagement of the previous two types of identity. **6) Krishna says in the seventh chapter that people mistakenly think of him as the “unmanifest fallen to manifestation.” And then he says that they do not understand him as the “ultimate reality, the unsurpassable firmament.” Explain this statement in terms of the three forms of an enlightened being.** We can think of Lord Krishna’s description here in terms of what are known as the paradise body, the emanation body, and the reality body of an enlightened being. Each of these is one part of who we are once we achieve our final enlightenment, and become an Angel who can be present in all places to help all living beings. The paradise body is the physical body of an enlightened Angel—the body that lives in an everlasting heaven. This body or person has five different qualities: they are always adorned with the 112 special marks of an enlightened being, full and distinct; they are always surrounded by followers who are at least people who have experienced both the direct perception of ultimate reality and the ultimate form of love; they always remain in this form until the last person in the universe has been freed from pain; they always give spiritual teachings which are based upon the desire to free all beings from suffering; and they always remain in an enlightened paradise. This form is what Lord Krishna is calling the “unmanifested” form, since it is out of the range of perception of all but those people who are furthest along the spiritual path. The emanation body consists of those forms which an enlightened Angel sends out to help all other beings. When we do become enlightened, and our prana does move fully into our central channel, then we spontaneously gain the ability to appear in any form at all, in any place at all, that would be of help to someone else. This is what Lord Krishna calls the “manifested” form. He says though that someone who would perceive him only as a paradise body expressing itself in an emanation body would not be understanding who he really is, for his real essence is the “unsurpassable firmament,” or that reality which underlies each and every existing thing. It’s important to understand that it is this deeper reality which is at the core of every enlightened being: it is the ground of their existence, the “space” which allows them to have their other forms, whether in a heaven or here on earth around us. That is, the body which we possess now can only change into an ultimately beautiful form in our paradise—and into a form which expresses itself in countless emanations—if we from the very beginning lack any fixed form coming from our own side. It is not in fact that our present body changes into a paradisical form. Rather, we work constantly to develop an intense desire to help others in infinite numbers of ways. This then plants a seed in our mind which causes us to see our current body in a different way—as the two forms mentioned above. Without this underlying reality to ourselves, without this “unsurpassable firmament,” we could never become enlightened, never help countless other beings. This is how Lord Krishna wants people to understand him. *Coffeeshop assignment:* Please meet with one other member of the class (preferably someone you didn’t know before the course started) to talk a bit about this class, before the next one—and to collaborate on filling out your homework. *Meditation assignment:* 15 minutes per day, thinking of some people and events that came to you in the last day that might have been divine. *Meditation times and dates* (homework without this section completed will not be accepted):