Reading the Gita

You think asana is hard, have you ever tried to read the Bhagavad Gita? I’ve been trying for years, and that’s not an overstatement. I bought my first copy the year I got out of yoga school that was 2007! Now, 3 years later I’m find myself trudging through it once again. This time armed with 3 different versions I ordered from the library hoping I’d find a translation that, for lack of a better term, speaks to me. The thing about reading spiritual text…well there are a few so I’ll list some of my spiritual speed bumps for your consideration.

#1 For this one I’d go so far as to say this is across the board for any religion/spiritual way of life is that the texts were written thousands of years ago in languages no one speaks anymore. They are dead languages and they are ridiculously hard to comprehend. I just know the very, and I mean VERY, basics of Sanskrit and I get boggled by how many variations there are on ways to pronounce and spell just then names of the Deities. The big ones like Siva and Ganesh! And that’s in the actual Sanskrit. Once you get and translator involved all bets are off as far as I’m concerned. Most books I’ve read, even recent books by the Dalai Lama and translated into English, come out so dry or with obvious lack of knowledge of everyday English. Or worse you get them translated in “new age!” Now I come as granola as the next pagan/massage therapist/yoga teach as the next but even I draw the line sometimes. Maybe it’s my love of post modern fiction by the likes of Tom Robbins and Jeanette Winterson that I just can’t handle poorly constructed, wispy, un-engaging sentences. So there’s that problem.

#2 It’s not all in nuggets. At the end of every yoga class I sum up the meaning of the class or offer up and inspiration in the form of a quote. I call them yoga nuggets, they are short and clear and usually elicit a smile or giggle or thoughtful sigh, they make you think, or at least I like to think they make my students think. But when you are reading text like the Bhagavad Gita, it’s not all 20 word quips. No, no, no there are pages of things to wade through; sometimes they’re pages full of so much profundity that you are mired down and your brain can’t absorb it all or it’s setting or the 3^rd time something is being expounded on. Sometimes that extra explanation of a point is needed but maybe you got it the first or second time and are now day dreaming about what you’re going have for lunch.

#3 This one may just be my own personal problem but it’s a difficult one for me. I don’t soak up knowledge from the page I need more than that. I need discussion, experiments daily interaction with the theories and teachings. But I live in a tiny town and am the only yoga teacher here, somewhere lurking out there are more teachers and even some Buddhist but I haven’t connected with them yet. Which is frustrating when you are on a spiritual path and would like, if not a teacher, then someone to walk with you for while?

So those are the challenges I am faced with when all I’m trying, in essence, to do is sit down and read a book. What’s the answer? Well the same answer as when you come up on a challenge in your asana class; practice. Practice. Dedication. Self surrender. All the same principles as with our physical expression of yoga. Even if it means I read the same 3 pages over and over again for days, we do the same asanas over and over again until we “master” them and the you know what we still do them over and over again every day. Because yoga IS the journey not the destination and the Bhagvad Gita is a very important (and challenging) step on that journey.