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| Reflections of Autumn Leaves by Brad Gibson |
When a man has mastered himself,
he is perfectly at ease in cold,
in heat, in pleasure or pain,
in honor or in disgrace.
The mature man, fulfilled in wisdom,
resolute, looks with equal
detachment at a lump of dirt,
a rock, or a piece of pure gold.
He looks impartially on all:
those who love him or hate him,
his kinsmen, his enemies, his friends,
the good, and also the wicked. — trans. by Stephen Mitchell
I woke up this morning thinking about this passage from The Bhagavad Gita. Later this week, I’ll be going on a trip to Europe, including a short trip to Cologne, Germany (Brad was invited to give a talk at the prestigious Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing). To be honest, as a Jew with family members who were murdered in the Holocaust, I never wanted to visit Germany. And I’m nervous now about going. Of course, I’m not worried about being unsafe there. I’m mainly concerned about my emotional reactions to things like the sound of language, with which I have negative associations, and the sight of older people who might once have been Nazis. But while I could have decided to stay in Belgium while Brad went to Germany, I’ve decided to take it on. And I’m thinking about this passage from The Bhagavad Gita for inspiration.
So how does The Bhagavad Gita recommend attaining this level of equanimity? Simply by practicing “yoga” in the earliest sense of the word and that is by meditating:
Sitting down, having chosen
a spot that is neither too high
nor too low, that is clean and covered
with a grass mat, a deerskin, and a cloth.
he should concentrate, with his whole
mind, on a single object;
if he practices in this way,
his mind will soon become pure. —trans. Stephen Mitchell
Naturally maintaining equanimity in every difficult situation is very challenging. And although I know a lot of people who meditate on a regular basis, I still haven’t met anyone who is “perfectly at ease” or has attained the state of equanimity that The Bhagavad Gita says is yoga. But I still find great comfort in thought that this is a goal I can strive for. And even just increasing the amount of equanimity in my life seems a very worthwhile task.
