In our discussion of Chapter 6 of the Bhagavad Gita at the Kennedy School, Swami Tyagananda Ji shared a story. There was once a kid. His parents offered him cookies of different shapes, colors and sizes. The kid picked one, and eventually fell in love with that particular kind of cookie. Unbeknownst to the kid, all the other cookies offered to him were ultimately the same – they all tasted alike, and were made of similar ingredients. However, the kid was so caught up in the external appearance of shape, color, and size that he refused to eat any other type of cookie.
Now, we all have made choices similar to that kid. On what basis can we judge someone else’s preferences? Maybe the kid really liked the combination of size, color, shape, and taste of that particular cookie. True – but I think Swami Ji was trying to make a deeper point. He was essentially echoing verse 9 of Chapter 6 of the Bhagavad Gita:
“He attains excellence who looks with equal regard upon well-wishers, friends, foes, neutrals, arbiters, the hateful, the relatives, and upon the righteous and the unrighteous alike.”
We all discriminate between our friends and foes, between well wishers and those not wishing us well. But verse 9 is saying that in making all these distinctions, we are acting like that kid who refuses to eat another type of cookie. If the kid understood the true nature of the cookies, then he probably would have changed his preference.
But what is the “true nature” of the cookie? This perennial question has captured the imagination of philosophers from West and East for millennia. Verse 6 provides some clues. If we are to not discriminate amongst friends and foes, relatives and distant, righteous and unrighteous, Gita is urging us to see the common oneness in everyone — our true nature. Many have argued for such oneness through secular means. Underlying the human rights movement is a claim that we should respect the common goodness and humanity in all of us. The claim of Gita, however, is broader. It says that the underlying reality of not only humans, but every entity is the same — Brahman. We are all part of that single reality; in our essence, we are Brahman. A world with prejudice based on race, ethnicity, gender, class, religion etc. is a world filled with kids fixated on one cookie over all else.
Chapter 6 actually provides a way to realize our true nature by introducing us to “the way of meditation.” I know almost nothing about meditation; so I will simply end with a metaphor on meditation that Swami Ji shared. He said that during meditation, your mind acts like that oil being transferred from one container to another – an unbroken stream. While concentration needs effort, meditation is effortless. Through the unbroken stream of consciousness, you are connected to that one reality – Brahman. So in meditation, we become the kid that is indifferent to the external differences between the cookies.
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