This life is a battlefield and we are the warriors who have to constantly discriminate between what to engage with and to what extent, how much to interact with a person or situation, pick our battle or let go. BG teaches( dispenses) that art of living. The AOL life. It is anything but prescriptive. BG sermon/ advice/ was only given on a battlefield signifying...what can be done when one is in the thick of things. ( depending on how seasoned one is in life) Running away is certainly not an option. The Battlefield is internal, churning is within like.. the kindgom of heaven. Its not to be taken literally else one will miss the point of extracting juice out of the most dynamic set of words on practical living ever uttered.
This talk nicely illustrates the distinction I was making in previous comments concerning ‘being invested’ and ‘being involved’. The separate self mistakenly sees meaning as originating ‘in the world’. The local self, intimate with the Absolute, is alive to the radical ‘intentionality’ of the Absolute and acts accordingly. Call it ‘duty’, if you like. Reason or meaning is both a gift and a demand. When it seems that two aspects of that radical intentionality, call them love and intelligence, are in conflict, it’s time to observe carefully. As Francis says, there can be no intrinsic conflict. If we examine our motives and find ‘love’ deficient, we will probably recognize some form of a reification of reason that results in ‘sentimentalism’. If ‘intelligence’ is deficient, this may be due to a reification of reason that results in ‘instrumentalism’. Both sentimentalism and instrumentalism are reified ‘ideologies’ of the separate self. It’s interesting that the fellow who asks Francis about ‘cynicism’ turns up rather often and would seem to know Francis well. Cynicism (in modern form) is another ideological construct of the separate and invested self. It’s actually a form of resentment as in, ‘the world (or humanity) has let me down’. In this regard, I have found one piece of advice from Francis invaluable. When things are going well, the separate self tends toward ‘self congratulation’. When things are going poorly, that same self tends toward resentment, self pity, perhaps moral outrage. Francis recommends an alternative approach. When things are going well, one ought to experience ‘gratitude’. When things are going ‘poorly’, it’s high time to simply ‘observe’. That’s how I remember it, at least.
@@Red-ch3xq I’m sympathetic to your observation, Red. When I first heard Francis make his remark on ‘gratitude’ I had to wonder if there wasn’t an element of ‘duality’ going on, as in ‘gratitude to whom?’ But the more I reflected on it, the more I liked the framing. Gratitude, in a sense, might simply be another translation of ‘ananda’ and a delight in that which ‘Is’. Francis was addressing a ‘seeker’ who was perhaps questioning and/or struggling with his own ‘cynicism’ (I haven’t seen the talk itself recently - it’s been a year or so). In that case, gratitude might be a step in the right direction. It certainly beats the kind of ‘self congratulation’ I detect in many self styled ‘realizers’. But perhaps you’ve reached a point of perfect equanimity and pure egoless observation, and are now giving talks of your own, not coming to Francis for guidance. As for me, I do sometimes observe myself ‘taking sides’, although I try to do it with grace and humor, and perhaps with a sense of gratitude that such ‘sides’ are intrinsically ephemeral.
What most are seeking is beyond the sheath of the intellect. Break through or see through that sheath and one enters freedom. What enters? Some call it the soul; others the Atman.
How about the 'yoga of there being no finite or true absolute understanding', as there isn't. Just another supposed and proposed voice of knowing, when, the truth of it is, there isn't one. It's a continuous stream of creating, from or or of a creation of which each is a part of, with an intention seemingly to be not naive, ignorant or arrogant enough to believe to ever truly knowing It. The paradox of experience might we call it. Like attempting to watch the end of your nose and then discovering a mirror, only to forget why they were looking in the first place. The reason in the first place... they weren't sure.
