The Bhagavad-Gita, the Bible: grief and being human

My final religious studies class was World Religions. I have in the past written about my teacher who was a Wiccan and taught all religions from an eastern slant. She was not a religious studies teacher by profession but headed the Women’s Studies department. We did become friends as I endured her ‘blessed be’ at the end of every class and she endured my evangelical outlook. But realizing I was not going to really receive the teaching I needed on world religions I threw up my hands and spent the rest of my semester exploring, in papers, the difference between Christianity and other world religions.

One of the papers I wrote was entitled, “The Bhagavad-Gita, The New Testament: Grief and Being Human.”

Here is the paper slightly redone including a change in the title:

Both the Bhagavad-Gita and the Bible deal with grief. (1) An emotion that is common among humans. One sacred book affirms grief as an important part of being human, while the other book suggests that grief misleads and directs people away from reality. Exploring both the Bhagavad-Gita and the Bible allows the reader to understand which sacred text affirms people in their humanity.

The negative influence of grief in the Bhagavad-Gita is expressed by Arjuna who, while facing a huge battle, dialogues with Krishna, one of the manifestations of Vishnu and Arjuna’s charioteer. Arjuna expresses his desire not to fight. He is concerned that he will be killing “fathers, and grandfathers, teachers, uncles, sons, brothers, grandsons, father-in-law, dear friends, and many other familiar faces.” (31) Arjuna gives as his argument not only the pain of killing loved ones but also devastation, vice, mixing of caste, and broken families.

Krishna’s reply to him, which sets the basis for the philosophical foundations of the Bhagavad-Gita, is the Gita’s form of renunciation. The Bhagavad-Gita completely sets aside the human act of grief. Krishna says, “Your words are wise, Arjuna, but your sorrow is for nothing. The truly wise mourn neither for the living nor for the dead.” (38) And “Death is certain for the born. Rebirth [reincarnation] is certain for the dead. You should not grieve for what is unavoidable.” (38)

His statements are based on the viewpoint, “that which is non-existent can never come into being, and that which is can never cease to be. Those who have known the innermost Reality know also the nature of is and is not.” (36)Here ‘is not’ is the universe; ‘is’ is the one the only reality. The Atman is reality, the one, Brahman within the illusion of the universe including humanity.

According to the Bhagavad-Gita it doesn’t matter which path one takes to realize the Atman within; it may be the “yoga of right action” or contemplation. The important point is that the seeker understands the identity of the Atman as Brahman. Krishna emphasized the monistic world view when he stated “Who sees the separate/lives of all creatures/united in Brahman/brought forth from Brahman/Himself finds Brahman/not subject to change/Is the infinite Atman/without beginning/beyond the gunas [three material strands that define personality].” (105) In other words the Brahman is the same as the Atman, and the world that the Atman operates within is not real but illusion.

While Krishna is pictured as a personal deity, and the followers of Krishna are encouraged toward a more active devotional life (the Bhakti Marga tradition) there is still the view of the non-importance and non-reality of the material world which marks most of the variations of Eastern thought. This allows for a strong development of ethics for the sake of moksha, that is, the realization of Atman as Brahman. But it also destroys the personal emotions of the individual. If one is forgiving and contented, it is also because the individual has not been hurt by the other, nor has he hurt the other. All of that is simply an illusion.

For example, Krishna tells Arjuna, Dream not you do/ The deed of the killer/ Dream not the power/ Is yours to command it.” (37)

The New Testament letter written by Paul to the Thessalonians states, “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who sleep, that you may not grieve, as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. (1 Thess. 4:13-14)”

This was not a rebuke, but a word of comfort to those Paul knew had “received the word in much tribulation.” The early Christians had grief but not without hope, and that hope had a great deal to do with the resurrection of the body. In fact, Jesus wept as he stood at the tomb of his friend Lazarus, and then he called Lazarus from the tomb.

Paul also wrote to the Corinthian Church, “For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation; but the sorrow of the world produces death. (2 Corinthians 7: 10)” Because of a worldview that not only posits God as personal and loving, but also as a God who created the universe as a reality out of nothing, the material world has importance. Grief over sin and death is allowed since it is real sin and real loss. The grief only becomes useless when the person experiencing it refuses to turn toward God for gifts, that is, the gift of forgiveness and life. Humans experience grief and joy as reality.

The Bhagavad-Gita only affirms the one, Brahman. All else is illusion. It does not affirm the reality of the universe nor the relationships that promote shared emotions among people. It offers several Eastern ways of moksha, the most important being Bhaki Marga, the way of devotion. And devotion implies detachment from all human emotion. Yet, the goal of such devotion is a loss of distinction between the individual and the one. All but the one reality is erased including the individual.

On the other hand, the Bible affirms not only the personal and transcendent Lord, but the reality of the universe and the distinction of creature from creator. Grief is treated as an important human emotion and belongs not only to humanity but also to the incarnate Lord, Jesus Christ.

1.For this I have used, Bhagavad-Gita: The Song of God, Translated by Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood, Intro, Aldous Huxley, paperback edition(A Mentor Book, New American Library 1972)