A Message of Hope for the Ages

 

Arjuna and the Lord Krishna

In the world-renowned Sanskrit scripture known as the Bhagavad Gita, the Lord Krishna, who is Hinduism's supreme manifestation of the deity, extends a message of great hope to his close friend, the warrior Arjuna.

Whenever life on earth grows bleak because ignorant men have filled the nations with violence and greed, Krishna teaches, God is once again incarnated among us as the savior of humanity. Since this is so, darkness can never achieve a decisive victory over the light, and gravity can never overcome the power of Antigravity.

Whether this business about the incarnation of divinity is literally true or not, the symbolic significance of Krishna's words is so sublime that they should never be forgotten.

Yes, the counsel is clear: When things look bleakest, and you are tempted to despair, help is on the way. "Hope springs eternal in the human breast," as Alexander Pope put it. So may it spring in yours!
 

Out of the Dust

 

Over the course of
our lives, which tend
to grow longer with
each passing decade,
the great existential
problem for most of us
is not mental anguish
but the phenomenon of
physical pain, which can
overtake us on any day of
our lives and make us feel
as though we should never
have been born.

This recognition
is not a joyous one,
but its does demand
our attention.

Soon or later
the body betrays
the Spirit within it.
That is why it's so vital
to develop Antigravitational
capacity, to rise out of the dust
that the body is slowly becoming, and
to find a new home for our hearts and minds
in a cosmos that God has been building
(we hope) to host us for eternity.

 

Fire from Heaven

Lines from "God's Grandeur"
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil . . .
Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil . . .

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

With Wings or Without?

From the beginnings of civilization and back into prehistory, divine beings were often depicted with wings to show that, like the birds, they were creatures of the sky who observed humans from on high and could hide and frolic among the clouds. Their wings also allowed them to move rapidly from place to place, which explains why one devotee could experience their divine presence at one location and another devotee, far away, could apprehend the same divinity only a short time later.

However, in the Western tradition God's powers are seen to be so overwhelmingly great that he defies gravity at will, as dramatized on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Michelangelo fresco known as "The Creation of the Sun and Moon." Our Father, according to this vision, is definitely in heaven, but he needs no bird-like appendages to keep him there; wings are for lesser beings like angels, not the Lord of the Universe. Obviously, this article of faith has evolved far beyond the one that likened the gods to glorified eagles.

The absolute difference between human beings who are earthbound and a transcendent God who floats about in ultra-reality at will is a reminder that we should cultivate humility. Michelangelo's magnificently famous "Creation of Adam," also on the ceiling of the Sistine, may reveal the Creator and his human creation as approximately the same size, but there's no question about which one claims immortality, keeps celestial companions, and possesses the life-giving touch--and which is an utterly dependent creature without clothing, shelter, full consciousness, or, as yet, a single companion.
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