Paths to God: Living the Bhagavad Gita

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There are three women whose contributions have made this book possible the Three Graces: Jo Anne Baughan, Gita (Lee) Brady, and Parvati (Betty) O'Neill. Without the gifts of each of them, this book could not have happened.

At many gatherings nowadays, there is what is called a "Keeper of the Heart someone whose task it is to hold an open, loving space, no matter what is going on around her. Jo Anne has been the Keeper of the Heart for this book. In a thousand unsung ways, she has literally loved this book into being.

Gita created both the glossary and the resources guide for this book, starting from a shoe box full of random clippings and scribblings. Out of her deep familiarity with spiritual literature, she has spun straw into gold and created a spiritual storehouse full of all sorts of rich and tasty treats.

Parvati, who was one of the students at Ram Dass's Naropa work- shop, phoned to offer her help at a crucial moment, when the transcription of the lectures was hopelessly stalled. Not only did she transcribe some of the tapes, but she sent along a treasure of Naropa memorabilia, including some personal photos of the event and a copy of the original syllabus, which we'd given up hope of finding. Parvati died of cancer in 2001. Her gift lives on in this book.

This book has a curious history. It grew out of a workshop called "The Yogas of the Bhagavad Gita" that Ram Dass taught in the summer of 1974. He presented the workshop as part of the curriculum for a summer session at the newly established Naropa Institute (now Naropa University) in Boulder, Colorado.

Naropa was founded by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a Tibetan Tulku and Vajrayana master. Trungpa was trained in the philosophical and meditative traditions of two branches of Tibetan Buddhism the Kargyu and Nyingma sects and he was one of the first teachers to begin introducing Tibetan practices to the West.

Naropa's aim was to explore the teachings of Eastern religious traditions within a rigorous, Western academic environment. The pro- gram for the summer session announced, "The purpose of Naropa Institute is to provide an environment in which the Eastern and Western intellectual traditions can interact and in which these disciplines can be grounded in the personal experience and practice of staff and students. All of the staff members are involved in the practice of some discipline related to psychological and spiritual growth. It is this direct experience which can form the sound basis for integrating the complementary intellectual and sensory-intuitive approaches to living in the world."

This is a book that is based on a course about an ancient Hindu text, which was taught at a Buddhist university, by a Jew who has a great love for Christ and Muhammad-so you can imagine what you're in for!

When I say this is "about an ancient Hindu text," I don't want to mislead you. This isn't really a book "about" the Bhagavad Gita. It isn't an analysis of the Gita, or a commentary on the Gita, or any- thing like that. Rather, it's a series of reflections about the major themes of the Gita-themes that touch on the various yogas, or paths for coming to union with God, that the Gita investigates. It's an attempt to look at how those yogas might be relevant to our own lives, in this day and age.

The Buddhist part of the equation, Naropa, was an institution founded by Trungpa Rinpoche, a tulku of a Tibetan Buddhist lineage. But it was an institution concerned as much with the development of the intellect as with its Buddhist lineage, with scholarship as much as with tradition. And that presented me with a number of interesting challenges, because my course on the Gita was primarily concerned with issues of the heart with the devotional and karmic-yogic aspects of life. Mine was not "the thinking man's" course.

I should point out that I'm not anti-intellectual. I think the intellect is a beautiful instrument that can be used very productively, when one isn't attached to the idea that thinking is what it's all about. But we are coming out of a kind of sickness here in the West, a sickness in the way in which we have overthought, the way in which we have been intellectually way ahead of our hearts' and our bodies' wisdom.