Jo-Anne wrote:NYC, are you referring to the following verse in Chapter 9?
'For even the children of sinful parents, and those miscalled the weaker sex, and merchants, and labourers, if only they will make Me their refuge, they shall attain the highest.'
I took that to mean that Krishna was saying to Arjuna that, contrary to his prejudices, women and the lower castes could attain the highest through their own efforts.
Hi Jo-anne,
Yes, the passage you quote is the one I had in mind. But the text continues in the next verse (Ch9 v 33, if want to find it) that although women and the lower classes CAN "attain the highest" it is EASIER to do so if you are a brahmin.
Since these passages are in Sanskrit, English translations vary. Here are two:
From WJ Johnson, educated at University of Sussex and Wolfson College, Oxford, trans 1994:"For whoever depends on me, Partha [nickname for Arjuna], however low their origins whether they are women, farmers and merchants, or even labourers and serfs they go by the highest path.
How much more then deserving brahmins and devoted royal seers. Since you have been born into this impermanent, unhappy world, devote yourself to me."
And from Barbara Stoler Miller, Barnard College, University of Pennsylvania, trans 1986."If they rely on me, Arjuna,
Women, commoners, men of low rank,
Even men born in the womb of evil,
Reach the highest way.
How easy it is then for holy priests
And devoted royal sages?
In this transient world of sorrow, devote your self to me!"
Neither translation specifies that you must be male to become enlightened, but I think that in the context of its time of composition most of the Gita's audience would have understood "it's easier for Brahmins to be enlightened" to mean "Brahmins have lived many previous lifetimes of virtue and so have already done some of the work to be enlightened." Modern people might interpret it differently, that it's easier for Brahmins and royal sages to be enlightened because they have access to education, their lives are easier, they suffer less oppression, and they have to worry less about basic survival.
So it's accurate to say that women and the lower classes are not totally shut out of the enlightenment process -- but the two verses together make clear that some people have advantages in that process. Will it take a woman more than one lifetime, just to catch up to the Brahmins? The chapter doesn?t say. Bella mentioned "The passage in the Vivekachudamani about a male birth" which I would be curious to hear more about.
Here's a transliteration of the Gita passages in Sanskrit, in case someone has studied enough to understand it (wouldn't be likely on most boards, but perhaps someone here can?)
Maam hi paartha vyapaashritya ye?pi syuh paapayonayah
Striyo vaishyaastathaa shoodraste?pi yaanti paraam gatim.
Kim punarbraahmanaah punyaa bhaktaa raajarshayastathaa
Anityamasukham lokam imam praapya bhajaswa maam.Anyway, you can see that when you are dealing with a source text written in another language, whether it's Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, or Sanskrit, the translator is also an interpreter. I do think the translation Jo-Anne cites, which uses "those miscalled the weaker sex" for "women" is a modern bit of editorializing -- although it is the perspective I agree with.
This thread and AntonR's postings in particular remind me of a part of a text written 400 years after the Gita but still 600 years before the Adi Shankaracharya is said to have walked & talked advaita:
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali Ch 4 verse 15:
Each individual person perceives the same object in a different way according to their own state of mind and projections. Everything is empty from it's own side and appears according to how you see it.
Vastu-samye citta-bhedat tayor vibhaktah panthaVastu: the object
samye: being the same
chitta: mindstuff
bhedat:being different
tayor: of the two, subject and object
panthah: the path
vibhaktah: is different
Translated by Sharon Gannon,
www.jivamuktiyoga.comPS
Alban wrote:I think it was NYC (apologies if not) who was talking about realising the air about her was just a load more molecules whizzing about similar to the ones more densly packed materials. I have been thinking about this for a while but while that side of is explained by science, what isn't explained is the energy causing them to whizz about in the first place.
Yeah, that was me. And while I haven't the slightest idea of what makes the atoms and molecules whiz around either, the realization was more that although I'm used to thinking of myself as a separate entity from everything else, I'm breathing all the time, taking in air and keeping some molecules, exhaling other molecules, and I'm really not as separate as I think I am. I just don't normally notice how much "of a piece" my own existence is with everything else unless some unusual sensory thing happens.
Edited --
1 all Sanskrit terms in italics
2 header bolded
3 punctuation marks fixed