Bhagavad Gita Cliff Notes

I was introduced to Transcendental Meditation in the late 60's by an extremely pushy Jewish woman from New York. I was skeptical, but had an amazing experience during my initiation ceremony. I meditated regularly. My anger diminished. I quit smoking and my migranes became less frequent and intense. I started going for teacher training, where we read and discussed Maharishi's translation and commentary. It is a beautiful epic poem with tremendous power for those who want to live a meaningful and purposeful life. Arjuna, the best archer of his time, the greatest warrier of his time, is paralyzed by doubt as he stands before his army on the battlefield just as a great battle is about to begin. He calls out to Lord Krishna for guidance, and, because he is spiritually powerful and open to the wisdom of pure consciousness, Lord Krishna carefully instructs Arjuna on the difference between good and evil and the necessity of following one's destiny to defeat the evil forces arrayed against him.

Reading through this lesson in destiny and greatness may be helpful to those who wish to have clearer vision and greater focus. Some of the people I know seem unable to easily make rational decisions and to quickly act, even in their own best interests. They are afraid of what others might think, or unsure of the right course because of conflicting sentiments and doubts. Life defeats them, because, unlike Arjuna, they have no method of acknowledging wisdom and truth, and seem trapped by life's petty confusions.

All of the great people I have read about, all of the great people I have known, have won lasting admiration because of their deep-seated, single-minded focus and purpose. This is not selfish, because parents at their best, especially Mothers, have this one-pointed devotion to their children. This is not selfish because doing the right thing, whether it is Winston Churchill, Abe Lincoln, Moshe Dayan, Andrew Carnegie, Charlotte Bronte, General Patton, Oprah Winfry, Lord Nelson, Ghandi, Michelangelo, Bach or Frederick Douglass doing the right thing, their doing the right thing inspires us all to greater levels of humanity.

Why Most Of My Friends Are Liberals & I Am Not

It may be as simple as geography. Except for a military sojourn (in the south & South Vietnam), I have lived all my life in and around NYC, SF & Chicago. You make your friends where you find them. And, my friends are all nice people. Even my liberal friends like and admire me & my family, so what's not to like? Many are fine parents and many have or have had outstanding careers. Some even worked their way through college, played football, ran track or served in the military like I did. And. as John Kerry said (in his concession speech), "we are all Americans", right?

Well into my 7th decade, I do not enjoy heated arguments with so many nice people, including family members, who, except for their politics, I otherwise adore.

The desire to make the world a better place is clearly what motivates my liberal friends. Yes, there still is injustice & poverty. I went home to Asbury Park recently & it saddened me that so many of my black former teammates & friends had already died far too young. Most urban high schools continue to dump far too many unmotivated & illiterate kids out onto the streets. What could be more noble than supporting politicians who can formulate remedies for these troublesome problems?

Also, I understand that my liberal friends may think that at least they are FOR something, instead of having a politics based on being anti-government, anti anti-poverty or anti equal opportunity. In younger days, I learned about The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire & other sweatshop disasters of the 1900's. I sang near the steps of The Lincoln Memorial with Joan Baez & Bob Dylan, two of my heroes when I was 22.

SO, WHAT'S MY PROBLEM NOW, DUDE?

I do understand thet capitalism is far from perfect. Just recently, the four of us Chicago Newberry's were dumped from a commercial flight and stranded in lovely Newark, NJ, We had to rent a car and drive all the way home. We passed a place in the Pocono's called, "THE LAND OF MAKE BELIEVE" in Hope, NJ. My problem with liberal politics is that this politics is based solely on hope rather than experience. You have to live in "The Land Of Make Believe" and deny sizable chunks of reality to remain faithful to what Hillary Clinton now calls "progressive" politics.

continued...

November 21, 2009

I wrote the above plus about 10 additional pages about a year ago, thinking out loud and on paper how to understand and bridge the space between me and my liberal friends. Since then, I took a personality test, and, lo and behold, I should grow up to be a counselor of some kind, which is exactly what I was as a young man at Huckleberry House for Runaways and San Francisco Juvenile Court. I was not a very good counselor because I wanted to tell people what to do, rather than asking them the right questions to help them lead better, more satisfying lives. My mentor, the great psychiatrist and pioneering family counselor, Alan Leveton, would constantly tell me to stop the tape when I brought him tapes of my piss poor counseling sessions with families at juvie. "Why don't you just ask ....?" he would always say.

I will try to ask poignant questions from now on. Today's NYT had columnist Bob Herbert bemoaning the state of Detroit. Why can't he see that in so many ways the devastation there is the direct result of decades of liberalism brought to you in living color by the Democratic Party in perfect alignment with the United Auto Workers' Union? Doesn't the same go for Detroit's schools with something like 70% high school drop out rates, along with school systems in Atlanta, Camden, Chicago, Cleveland, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Newark and Washington, DC?

Are my liberal friends bothered by the corruption and waste which is always part and parcel of almost every single large government agency from the post office to the probation department to the parks district to the DMV?

Do my liberal friends care as much about freedom as my conservative friends do? Don't they understand that we could easily loose the freedoms we enjoy with big government run amuck?

What about the freedom to fail? If we don't have the looming possibility of failure in our individual lives, how can we ever embrace the risks and challenges necessary for real success, real accomplishment? Do they really think more and more government safety nets can remove the risks from our lives, and have they considered that this would not be a good thing? Who do my liberal friends admire? Do they admire the public school teachers with their comfortable routines, decent standard of living and close to zero accountability? Wouldn't it be better if it would not be next to impossible to fire bad teachers? How does progressive idealism (equality and fairness for all) square with the inherent corruption of unions which insist on undemanding jobs with cushy benefits and cozy retirement programs? How has this kind of social engineering worked in places like Detroit? And, what of the companies like Caterpillar and John Deere which now prosper, after saying no to the same unions which have helped to destroy Detroit?

If progressive politics is part of a belief system, doesn't it make sense to routinely subject those beliefs to critical scrutiny? If it is part of so many people's identity, how on earth can the rest of us obtain a fair hearing when we have arrived at such different conclusions? Isn't it clear that we also want what's best for humanity? How can we encourage others to begin to see that the false security of collectivism is no security at all?

Isn't there a better alternative to progressivism? Isn't it better that conservative values and true humanism can not be boiled down to some simple slogans which can be shouted out from bull horns? Isn't the alternative to a false sense of security the hard reality of work, discipline and sacrifice? And, isn't this better?

A poem I wrote to my first wife, Cynthia

Perhaps I'll get over loving you
Like I'd love
Sailing a clipper ship
All by myself

But after loving you this way
It's like sipping brandy
At the bottom
Of the Matterhorn
After days of struggle
To the peak
All by myself

You are no clipper ship
No mountain high
And it is especially fine
You also love climbing up
And sailing down
All by yourself with me

Perhaps I'll get over it
Loving you this way
And that way

Baby,
You are no single mountain
But an entire endless range
Leaping on your slopes
Dancing through your valleys
Resting in your hollows
Slipping on your mossy damp
Into your deepest spring
Is better than any mountain
I've ever seen

For "Jaundice" (RIP Jan Overholtzer) {this poem did not work}

FOR JAUNDICE


Quick legs part
Off struts the little triangle
You are stubbornly oblique
Brooding in the deaf academy air
You depart in a sea of brown eyes
Pine needles hissing in your wake

Night with galaxies
Showers of light falling
Your words puff out
Like smoke from a locomotive

Rising tides press through
Narrow channels of limited opinion
Into the vigin bay
Great ships cut their way
In green waters uncharted
Silver fish leap
Teasing careless birds of prey

The waters are so beautiful
The land so new
Can this be the remote place
You traveled that summer day?

Some of My Poetry

GRAMP

Once long ago when I was 8 or 9 years old I lived in a stucco house with my Mommy, Gram and Gramp. Gram had a '41 Plymouth coupe, and she'd take me with her when she went shopping. There was plenty of room to sit next to her, but I preferred to stand up in the narrow space behind her seat or sit on the cardboard box right behind the passenger seat. Gramp never drove, and Gram used to chauffeur him around when he was healthy. But now he was dying of prostate cancer upstairs in the front bedroom, lying on blue stained sheets on top of the high bed.

Gram used to cut his fingernails with a huge pair of scissors. His nails were too thick for ordinary clippers. I liked Gramp even though he used to get mad and throw chairs around the dining room when I was mean to him or when some difficult customer stiffed him. But now he was all alone and too weak to throw chairs up in his room. I brought him pictures I made at school and asked him questions like what were his favorite colors, or why he called Gram "Besch." His favorite colors were blue and tan. and he couldn't explain why he couldn't pronounce "Bess." He seemed to enjoy my visits, and when I ran out of things to say or ask him, I'd occupy myself about the big room poking through its many drawers or making spray with Gram's adomizer. I'd peek out the window hoping to see the 10 year old beauty with the pigtail visiting her grandparents for the summer months, but summer was over and she was gone.

Sometimes Gramp would complain of being cold and I'd help him cover up, empty his blue bottle in the toilet, and then reattach it to the tube coming out of his swollen feckel. Then, I'd promise to be right back, run down to the basement, throw some coal into the furnace, and carry out the ashes. It was nice to run back up to his room and stand over the radiator, listening to it whistle and waiting for it to get hot.

The room had a particular Gramp smell: the smell he always carried with him, only it was stronger now. It was the vigorous smell of a man who didn't care to die quite yet. He was very quiet most of the time, but I could tell he was pleased when Mommy came home and played the piano downstairs. He did not smile but I thought he liked it when I marched around his bed while she played a Chopin Pollanaise.

But he died one night, and Dr. Clark came in the morning to comfort Gram and Mommy who were crying. I tried to keep the coal stove nice and warm and hold their cold hands with my always warm hands, but I didn't cry and Mommy yelled at me, "Why aren't you crying? What's wrong with you?" I never saw him after he died. They made me stay in the kitchen watching the crude gas light dancing on the walls and ceiling wondering why I wasn't crying.

But, whenever I'd return to the big room to plunder drawers and look out the window at you know who across the street, I rembered Gramp and the blue-stained sheets for his smell was still there.

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