On Fear, Purpose and Clarity

In the aftermath of the election, I started rereading the Bhagavad Gita. The Bhagavad Gita is one of the fundamental books for the philosophy of yoga and the hindu religion. But you don’t have to practice yoga or become a hindu devotee to see its applicability to our current moment.

The Bhagavad Gita is a dialogue between two characters – Arjuna and Krishna. Arjuna is a young warrior who is compelled to go into a just war against neighbors, friends and relatives to combat unjust rule. Right before the battle begins, he is overcome with fear, sadness, reluctance and sits down on the battlefield, unable to go on. God – Krishna - appears to him in the form of his chariot driver and they commence a discussion about the importance of fighting an injustice and doing one’s duty. In the course of the dialogue, Krishna lays out the basic principles of living a good life, and entering into the moment with courage, leaving fears behind.

I’ve read this book in the past, but typically a few verses here and there, the collection of verses that pertain to a particular concept. This time I am reading it for the story. I am reading it for my own courage. I am reading it to have a reminder that the fight for justice is embedded in yoga, even though we rarely hear about that in class. I am reading it to be reminded that there is a deeper purpose to yoga than just feeling physically better in my body.

I was hoping the book would shed light on fear, since I have experienced so much fear in the past few months.  I was hoping it would tell me something about the qualities of fear, when to listen to it and when to ignore it, how to know what kinds of fears are justified and how to act on them.

It does talk about fear, but not like that. In fact there are only about 8 verses in the whole book that even mention fear, and all of them focus on how to move forward despite fear, or how to cultivate fearlessness.

What a great reminder that fear is hardly ever helpful. I mean, hypothetically it can help in the moment I guess. Maybe it can make you more observant. But it can also cloud your judgment, paralyze action, obscure obvious solutions, sap your energy. It can alienate you from the people and purpose that actually motivate and inspire.

One of the reasons this is relevant to me today is because I have become a news junkie and it is really building up the fear. Despite writing in January that I wanted to avoid the negative, limit my exposure to DJT because of the impact on neural pathways in the brain of reinforcing constant negativity, I haven’t avoided it at all. I’ve basically been connected to the news and social media without interruption since Nov 8.

This week I am realizing that it is just stoking my fears and making me crazy. I need relief. I need to create a space in my life that doesn’t include DJT in every second of every day. Part of the challenge is that I legitimately need to keep up with the news. How much, in what form, how to balance sanity with being informed? It is a difficult path to map.

But the Bhagavad Gita has lots of answers – you just have to decide to see them. I think of a lot of the Gita as being an instruction manual for creating the yogic mind. The yogic mind is defined by clarity. The practice of yoga is meant to build up that clarity – first through the physical body and ultimately in the deeper self and soul. Clarity that balances out two qualities – movement and torpor. On their own, in their purest form, either of these qualities are inadequate for living the good life. You can probably remember times in your own life characterized by either or both, and can immediately see the problems it creates. Too much movement causes agitation, inability to be stable, inability to see clearly. We all know people who can’t sit still, can’t focus on one idea, can’t take sustained action because they get distracted. Sometimes we are that person.

Torpor, inertia, lack of movement has its own challenges. Depression, disempowerment, lack of action, complacency. Living in this world requires action. Finding one's way to the divine requires action, and torpor resists it.

There is a tendency to think that the point of yoga is to check out of the rest of life. Beginner students can’t wait for savasana, where they tune out completely, sometimes go into a dreamy state.

But that’s the beginner state. The true yogic mind is not checked out. It is not a dream state. It is actually completely present, completely alert, completely aware, undisturbed by spikes of emotion or random sensory data, but able to take studied, sustained, purposeful action. Imagine being able to sit completely still, to see everything, to resist all distractions, to see injustice and wrongs, to know and identify them as wrong without spikes of emotion, and to know what to do. To act from that firm foundation of clarity. That, to me, is the yogic mind. In Sanskrit, the sattvic state.

This is all coming to me now because I have become a news junkie and it is killing me. It is creating a yo-yo between movement and torpor. My blood pressure is up, my pulse racing; I’m overloaded on adrenaline. I am vacillating between feeling energized and enervated by the fight. I feel simultaneously agitated to fight and completely exhausted. There is no space for clarity. I’m just constantly processing what is happening and how other people I know and respect are reacting to what is happening. I keep checking in to see if it is really as bad as it seems, and every time I do, the answer is – nope, it is even worse.

It is not sustainable to be in this constant state of alarm and it is not helping me identify action from a foundation of clarity.

And so, now, back to practice. Sitting meditation, yoga, pranayama. These are the practices prescribed in the Bhagavad Gita. This is what Krishna basically instructs to Arjuna – you must take up the fight when duty requires it. If you don’t fulfill that duty, you are denying the purpose of your life. You are already dead. But you can take up your duty without fear, without abandoning your own humanity. The path of yoga is to help you see and act out of your duty. And in doing so, you realize your true purpose and bring to fruition your true self.

Take heart friends and fellow warriors. This is our time. This is what we were born for. This moment is what we have worked so hard to be ready for, through so many past fights. But please also take care of yourselves. Remember that clarity of purpose, of analysis and of action is our goal, not agitation that lacks direction or foundation.  

New guided meditation for our time coming later this week.

With love, gratitude, and solidarity in this fight.