Class Seven: I Am the Nectar **1) Our culture has a strong influence, from the Christian tradition, about what Lord Krishna refers to as “those who despise me when I take a human body.” He notes that the cause of this, of course, is that the people around him when he takes on the form of a normal person (as he does in the Gita, while driving Arjuna around) think that he’s, well, just normal. How does he describe his actual nature, the one that people should be worshipping, and how does this impact on our own daily lives?** Lord Krishna complains that people of the world are “ignorant of my higher nature,” which he in turn equates with being the “Lord of All Living Beings.” This recalls earlier lines in which Lord Krishna has described the ultimate Brahma, or Lord of the Universe, as being in fact that ultimate nature that all people and things possess. Let’s look at this nature, one more time; we can take the example of someone that we care deeply for, say our own spiritual partner. As opposed to the yelling boss example, we have a case here where we perceive very attractive qualities in this person; for example, we might admire how gentle and kind they are to everyone they meet. It’s important at these moments of admiration to continue to reflect on where this gentleness is coming from; in the case of the yelling boss, we want to know where the unpleasantness is coming from because we want to eliminate it from our life, but in the case of our partner’s kindness our concern is the opposite, to sustain it indefinitely, if we at all can. To do so, we’re first going to have to put our mind on our partner’s ultimate nature. That is, we’re going to have to admit that the gentleness that we see in them is coming from us, from a seed in our own mind that we planted when we were gentle with people around us before. We’re going to have to admit that the kindness we see isn’t ”in” our partner—and we’re going to have to admit that, if we hope to continue seeing this kind of kindness—then we’re going to have to continue showing it to others. This then raises the question of what it is in our partner that we should be appreciating in even a deeper way—and that is their ultimate nature, the fact that they aren’t really one way or the other, by themselves. In a way we should be praising this “blank white screen” quality of them, because this is the only thing that allows them to exhibit the kindness and gentleness and other qualities which we so love in them. Once we get to this place mentally, appreciating our partner’s availability to reflect our own goodness, then it’s not much of a leap to realize that every person and thing around us—whether we love them or hate them—possesses this same nature, regardless of what form we are seeing them in now. And so every person and event around us really *is* the same as Lord Krishna, a being with an ultimately beautiful ultimate nature, showing itself in many different forms. They are all, in fact, the Lord of Living Beings, and now we have a good and logical reason to honor them as such, all the time, everywhere. **2) Lord Krishna, in an extraordinary verse from the ninth chapter, describes himself in eight different metaphors related to a sacred offering. Describe the flow of the eight, and then explain how the Lord could be both the offering, and the person to whom the offering is presented, all at the same time.** In this exquisite verse, Lord Krishna says: I am the sacred offering I am the sacrifice I am the deathless nectar I am the magic herb I am the secret words I am the liquid butter I am the fire, And I am what Is offered to it. This entire verse is describing the steps to a traditional *homa,* or fire offering, known in Tibetan as *jinsek.* The “sacred offering” is the entire ritual, while the “sacrifice”—which in more primitive times was an actual living animal—is for example mentally burning all the bad thoughts we’ve had about someone else this week to the fire, or else all the mistakes we may have made in a daily practice, or a retreat. The “deathless nectar” is the *soma* or other sacred substance that we offer to the fire, as representing the wisdom or understanding of the ultimate nature of things that will actually bring us to deathlessness. The “magic herb” in less advanced practice was for example a natural hallucinogen that might help us reach a deep state of meditation in which to perform the fire offering; in a more mature practitioner, this is simply the deep state of concentration with which they remember the purpose and nature of the fire as they offer it. The “secret words” are the sacred mantra with which we offer the various substances of the fire, which facilitate their reaching the lips of the Holy Beings, whose mother tongue is the same, Sanskrit. The “liquid butter” is the *ghee* or clarified butter which we use a pure and sweet fuel to stoke the fire as we perform the offering. The “fire” is of course the sacred flame itself, and “what is offered to it” are the various substances which are burned—rice, barley, wheat, and the like, which in olden times were the currency by which all things were traded: the modern equivalent would be something like burning $20 bills. There is naturally some confusion here for Lord Krishna to say that he *is* all these components of a traditional fire offering, when he is at the same time the person to whom they are being offered. To understand this we need to go again to the way in which the Lord has already described himself as being not the manifestation of some ultimate nature, but rather nothing less than the ultimate nature through which all things are manifested. We can get a sense of this in our day-to-day life by thinking about how we might offer to cook dinner for a friend. Someone who is well educated in the deeper meaning of the Gita—who understands a “true” action—enjoys both the hours spent cooking a special meal for a friend, and also enjoys the thought of the ripples that will expand out from this gift. That is, suppose it really is true that all the good things that ever come to us only come to us because we have provided them, in some form, to someone else first. In this case, some confusion similar to the one here with the fire offering pops up. If every meal I have ever eaten only came to me because I have cooked a meal for someone else first, then that means that delicious food can only pass through my lips if it passes through the lips of another person. That is, for food to pass into my stomach it has to pass first through the lips of another person. In this case, the difference between *your* lips and *my* lips gets a little confused: food doesn’t reach my stomach without passing through your lips, so in essence then they are part of me. Which means that *you* are *me,* and the person for whom I’m cooking the nice dinner is the same as the person who is doing the cooking. Balance this again with the fact that I couldn’t be seeing the meal as a meal unless it had the same nature that you and I have—unless it had that “blank white screen-ness” to it, and we can see why Lord Krishna could be not only the offering and the one to whom it is offered, but also everyone who ever makes such an offering. **3) Again in the ninth chapter of the Gita, Lord Krishna describes the results of four different forms of spiritual practice in determining our future fate. Compare these four, referencing the Sanskrit words and their English cognates, and their relative benefits and drawbacks.** Lord Krishna first mentions spiritual practices which are aimed at propitiating worldly gods: powerful spirit beings who are, nonetheless, caught within the cycle of suffering—not because of the place in which they live, but rather because they still fail to understand the real nature of things, and are still engaged in actions infected with the “dark ignorance of pairs of choices.” If we concentrate our spiritual practice on worshipping or contact with such beings, says Lord Krishna, then the natural result is that we will end up being with them—in a vast community of people who are still struggling, still devoting themselves to actions which, simply put, don’t work. The Sanskrit word for “worldly gods” here is *deva,* which derives from *diu,* meaning *to shine,* and referring to the sky, and thence a *being who lives in the sky.* The word can also refer to an enlightened god, and causes thus some confusion sometimes. Another kind of practice popular in the days of the Gita was the worship of the spirits of ones ancestors. Scripture does describe, and we ourselves encounter much evidence of in books and records even in the everyday world, people who die and, due to various forms of craving, are reborn as ancestor spirits. A typical example is of the mother or father of a family who worked very hard to purchase and furnish a house, and then dies in that house. Due to their attachment to the house, these types of people are often reborn as a spirit being who is for years forced to stay there, watching others use the house, trying to communicate with them, and tortured by the frustration of being unable to do so. There are spiritual practices where we make offerings to such ghosts, and try to bring some comfort to them. But if we continue to be attached to them in the way that they themselves have been attached to their house, there is a danger that we might one day join them. This is not to say that we shouldn’t love our parents and pray for them if they should pass away, only that we should understand where they have really come from, and continue to do for others the kindnesses that brought us these beautiful beings in the first place. The Sanskrit word for “ancestors” here is *pitir (pitr%),* which throughout the Indo-European languages means *father,* and derives from a root √*pa (pa#),* meaning *to protect:* a father is the protector of the family. *Father* itself is a cognate, as is—interestingly—*Jupiter,* which ultimately means “Sky Father,” as the *ju-* is for the old Indian *diu-,* meaning as we have just seen *the sky.* Lord Krishna thirdly describes practices which focus on the spirits such as those which frequent mountains or forests: nature spirits. These are known as *bhuta (bhu#ta),* which is related to a word for *the elements,* as these beings frequent elemental places. From this same root √*bhu (bhu#)* come English words such as *be* and *being.* Again, these are beings (like fairies) with some special powers, but who still haven’t grasped the concept of how they have created their own world. They are thus, necessarily, still trapped in reacting in a mistaken way to what they like and dislike. And thus they still suffer. They can appear as very attractive to those few who can make contact with them, but are inevitably said to change capriciously into beings who harm us, again because of their basic ignorance of how things work. Through constant contact and propitiation of them, we become like them, plant the seeds to be them, are reborn as them—and continue to suffer. Lord Krishna finally describes making offerings, quite simply, to “me.” In this context we can think of Lord Krishna as representing our own Heart Lama. Rather than putting our hopes in temporary gods or ancestors or local spirits, we place all our heart and mind’s hopes in this one extraordinary person. The very act of feeling intense faith for them creates seeds in our minds to see them be the One Lama who can save us from all pain and bring us on to every form of happiness. If we spend our every moment thinking of them, hoping to be like them, then inevitably we in turn become the One Savior of every suffering creature around us: we come to Them. **4) Lord Krishna says that he will accept and “eat” or partake of even the smallest of offerings—a leaf, a flower, a palmful of water—if the person offering it possesses a heart which is “pure.” Describe the difference between a heart which is pure by habit, and one which is pure through knowledge.** When we hear statements such as this one, describing how offerings presented by people with a pure heart are more pleasing to Holy Beings, we tend to get in our minds a picture of a quiet person who is nice to most of the people around them. The lesson of the Gita though is that a person who is “pure” is one who is—yes—quiet, and nice, but who is this way because they have a deep understanding of how the world works. That is, if we are nice to others only out of habit, or the nature that we were born with, or because it is the way were taught to be by our parents or the institutions of our place of birth, we run the risk of changing when we’re pushed far enough; and life tends to push us exactly that far. A personality of kindness can only be maintained, under the pressure of life’s inevitable disasters, by someone who clearly understands that there is no other way to act—that no other form of action can ever give us any desirable result at all. This kind of educated kindness inevitably also affects the world in much more profound ways. We can reach and to some extent maintain an attitude of kindness if we are constantly within the company of people who themselves are kind. But when we lose this support, we inevitably slide back to a more self-interested nature if we lack the backup of a firm and logical understanding why we *must* be kind, why there is no other choice. If we do have this support, we ourselves can affect other people in positive ways which aren’t limited to their being close to us. We can carefully explain to them how it is that aspirin really works, and this lesson is much less likely to be forgotten when we can’t be around each other. A person who is kind out of understanding, and not out of habit, is pure enough to make offerings that please the Lord, because they can help both others and themselves in an ultimate way. **5) Lord Krishna tells Arjuna that—whatever he does, or eats, or offers or gives or practices—he should make it all a gift to the Lord. What is the most helpful way to think of this Lord, as we do make offerings to Them?** There is a temptation, when we do make an offering of something good we’ve done—like a yoga class, or a kind word to someone—to think of the recipient of this offering as a very big and faceless, universal entity: a god or uber-being who is busy looking after everyone in the world and who probably doesn’t have a lot of time to notice one small offering from one small person. That is, especially in our Western culture, we tend to think that we are offering something to some gigantic God who has created the world. It’s important that when we do make an offering of something good we’ve done, we reflect on what quality it is that makes the Holy Being to whom we are making the offering someone worthy of such an offering. Ultimately, say the scriptures, the one quality of such a being which most reflects their kindness is the effort that they constantly make to communicate to us the path that will make us the same as them. That is, we make offerings to higher beings because of the kindness they have shown to all of us by helping us to understand where things really come from, and thus escape from the pain of a constant stream of useless action. And this kindness is most often expressed not in some internal flash or vision, but normally by these beings taking the form of a human being to whom we can relate: someone we can talk to, someone who can answer our questions and advise us day to day. Which is to say—when we do pause before a meal to offer the first part to the Lord of the Universe, or offer them the fruits of a regular yoga or meditation practice—the picture that we have in our mind is best that of our own personal Teacher. They are our portal to the enlightened realm, which essentially means that they are, for us, equal to all the Holy Beings of the universe combined. If we continue to think of them in this way—if we continue to make our offerings to the One who stands by us, guiding us, rather than to some faceless god—then inevitably the bond between our Teacher and ourselves becomes constantly strengthened, with each new goodness offered. And this will make it easier for them to take us to their side. **6) In a verse of comforting words which are repeated in a great many religious traditions, Lord Krishna tells us that—no matter how serious the mistakes we have made in our life up to now—we become saintly in the simple act of surrendering ourselves to our own Lord, since we are now “thinking right.” How do we explain this in terms of the mental seeds which determine everything in our world?** The question of whether or not we can ever remove the negative karmic seeds that we have created in the past—whether or not we can “get out” of a karmic mistake made in the past—is a serious one which is discussed at length in the many lineages of ancient India. The conclusion is that it *is* possible for us to isolate, from among the billions of karmic seeds within our mindstream, any particular mistake that we have made in the past, even if we don’t clearly recall the details of committing it, or are simply deducing that we must have some particular seed from the past given a particular problem that we are facing in the present. That is, suppose that we face up to the biggest “crime” that any of can ever commit—which is simply having misunderstood, for nearly our entire life, and like Arjuna, what makes an action “true.” Suppose that we seek to do the biggest negative-seed cleaning there is: removing the seeds of every action we ever undertook in the past, with a belief that things were coming somehow from outside of ourselves. The primary method for isolating and removing a negative karmic seed from our past is quite simple: we simply resolve to avoid, as best we can, committing the same mistake again. The more powerful this resolution, the greater its accuracy and efficacy in removing the karmic seeds we planted from our original mistake. In the case of our past lifestyle of misunderstanding everything around us, the most powerful antidote would be to start, as Lord Krishna puts it, “thinking right.” “Thinking right” he describes as “relying on the Lord, and on nothing else.” And what is it to rely on the Lord? To rely on what the Lord has taught us: That we make our world, by how we retreat others. *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 sweet little things we have done in the last day or two, that we could offer to our Lord, our Heart Teacher. *Meditation times and dates* (homework without this section completed will not be accepted):