Bhagavad Gita & Palestine

on the duty of defending others

Things are humming along in the Synchron City. Everywhere I turn, we seem to be finishing each others’ thoughts. Phrases are being snatched out of the collective consciousness and turned into memes so rapidly it’s like spontaneous combustion. Amy of What’s in a Name, Really? has used my phrase Synchron City to spawn three, count ‘em, three AI extravaganzas.

And nowhere is this emergent Mind Meld more evident than with Nefahotep. He has just published:

Bhagavad Gita has an Important Message for how to view the Current World

This morning I was reading an introduction to A Course in Miracles. It states that A Course in Miracles is not a belief system and only one form “… of the universal course. There are many thousands of other forms, all with the same outcome.” It continues:

It could be said that in many ways the Course adopts an Eastern picture of both this world and of true reality. Their commonalities might be stated thusly:

• This world we live in, this massive panorama of innumerable separate bodies, all moving through separate places and separate times, this world of suffering, of disease, old age and death is an illusion. It is not reality at all but only a dream.

• Reality is a Oneness which transcends distinctions, differences and change, a condition that is outside space and time, and beyond comprehension as we know it. … it is this condition that we truly are.

• The goal of life, then, is not focused in this world, on amassing worldly power, fortune or pleasure. Our goal is to wake up, to realize who we really are, to unloose our attachments to this world and awaken into unlimited bliss.

Bliss isn’t the vocabulary of the Course nor mine, although I once put on a dinner called Swallow Your Bliss. This is someone’s summary. In reading Nef on the Bhagavad Gita, I was struck by many parallels to the Course, to the gnostic Gospel of Philip and to an article that Vanessa Beeley recommended to me on Resistance Justified: Unmasking Deceptive Neutrality by Myriam Charabaty. I’m going to try to weave these threads together but will miss much of the sources in the process so I recommend going to read them directly.

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Nefahotep’s 10 Verses from the Bhagavad Gita that Carry the Essence of Life from India.com: [His input in brackets, mine in italics]

1. “The peace of God is with them whose mind and soul are in harmony, who are free from desire and wrath, who know their own soul.” [Beautiful Balance]

2. “Hell has three hates: lust, anger and greed.” [Three forces that hold mankind back: Fear—Anger—Hatred] In my words, the unholy trinity of fear, guilt and blame.

3. “Anyone who is steady in his determination for the advanced stage of spiritual realization and can equally tolerate the onslaughts of distress and happiness is certainly a person eligible for liberation.” [Equal Mindedness, Perfect Peace comes from Balance]

4. “The happiness which comes from long practice, which leads to the end of suffering, which at first is like poison, but at last like nectar – this kind of happiness arises from the serenity of one’s own mind.” [Equal Mindedness] The Course talks about a period of unsettling that doesn’t need to be distressing but is often perceived that way. It teaches that the things you valued aren’t what you need or want. This is followed by a time of respite when gains are consolidated.

5. “No one who does good work will ever come to a bad end, either here or in the world to come” [Work for the Sake of the Work, Not for the Fruits of the Work]

6. “A gift is pure when it is given from the heart to the right person at the right time and at the right place, and when we expect nothing in return.” [Requires no Interpretation from me] The Course teaches that only what you give away is what you actually keep. The act of giving is how you know you have it.

7. “It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection.” [Integrity and true Honor]

8. “He who has let go of hatred who treats all beings with kindness and compassion, who is always serene, unmoved by pain or pleasure, free of the “I” and “mine,” self-controlled, firm and patient, his whole mind focused on me—that is the man I love best.” [Lord Krishna specifies I love he who seeks Truth in Equal Mindedness, One who does so, sacrifices ‘Agenda’ for Self Knowledge]

9. “You have the right to work, but never to the fruit of work. You should never engage in action for the sake of reward, nor should you long for inaction. Perform work in this world, Arjuna, as a man established within himself—without selfish attachments, and alike in success and defeat.” [Equal mindedness, Work for the Sake of the Work itself.]

10. “The non permanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons. They arise from sense perception, and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed.” [Equal mindedness] The Course would say that once you learn to trust that everything that happens is towards your own happiness, distress falls away. The Gospel of Philip says:

Those who sow in winter reap in summer.
Let us sow in the world to reap in summer.
Winter is the world, summer the other realm.

It is wrong to pray [for harvest] in winter.
From winter comes summer.
If you reap in winter, you will not reap.

You will pull up young plants.
At the wrong season no crop is yours.
Even on the days of the Sabbath, the field is barren.

WORKS AND KNOWLEDGE from Sri Aurobindo’s analysis of Isha Upanishad:

Mental thought is not knowledge, it is a golden lid placed over the face of the Truth, the Sight, the divine Ideation, the Truth-Consciousness. The Course talks about the world as an elaborate ornate golden frame disguising that the picture within is nothing.

Nefahotep on Duality vs Oneness

Everything is One. It's sometimes quite difficult to bring this type of realization to conflicts like we are actually observing today. So, what is the actual nature of this conflict? The "Force" that the Over Class represent don't want Man to achieve this realization, their goal is to Halt Spiritual Evolution, or at least slow it down.

My sense is that the Parasitic Over Class are very similar to the Kuruvas in the story of the Mahabharata; they were the avaricious enemies of the Pandava brothers, who had suffered greatly because of their Kuru cousins. The key thing about the Kurus is their moves to divide the Pandavas from the rest of the world around them. To live life severed from Oneness, is to diminish Experience. That’s what duality does.

The Gospel of Philip on the Archons:

The rulers wanted to fool people, since they saw that people have a kinship with what is truly good. They took the names of the good and assigned them to what is not good, to fool people with names and link the names to what is not good. So, as if they are doing people a favor, they take names from what is not good and transfer them to the good, in their own way of thinking. For they wished to take free people and enslave them forever.

Nefahotep on Dividing and Duality:

Dividing is incumbent to duality and is also part of the mental process. The mind itself rarely ever notices that things are one, rather it naturally tends to notice everything in parts. This is also why it is easy to fool Humans into believing God is somehow separate from Man. We are always experiencing this world as separate parts, yet along the way, we get glimpses of the true Oneness.

I’ve said that the eye makes distinctions but the I makes connections.

Nef on an Important message mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita:

We have never been "Born" and we have NEVER "Died." Life is a movement of Consciousness, it is not exclusively physical the way we experience it. The Body is only an outward functionary of Being; it is transitory.

The central precept of the Course is that we are not separate bodies at all. Bodies are illusory figures in our dream. We can never die because we were never born. The Gospel of Philip states this explicitly: “How can those who were never born ever die?”

Nefahotep on Questioning Action:

When it came to the final war against the Kurus, the great warrior Arjuna throws down his weapons and tells Krishna that he refuses to fight. To kill his cousins would make him unable to bear his own life, nothing would be worth doing that; not even for winning back his kingdom. Krishna, the Divine Charioteer then shows Arjuna a vision in which his cousins are already laying there dead; that the "action" that must be taken on this battlefield of Kurukshetra does not "belong" to him, the participant in the action does not have a choice. Fruits of that action are not the purpose of the fight.

[From Nef’s comment] This is one of the areas of Eastern Philosophy that the west could never quite get. The 'ahimsa'—non-harming—is actually complex. If Arjuna follows ahimsa towards his cousins, that can be considered 'himsa' towards all the people the Kuruvas are tyrannizing; he would be allowing the Kurus to continue what they were known for.

I think this is an extremely critical point made by Ward Churchill in Pacifism as Pathology and by Arundhati Roy regarding the ‘Gandhification of NGOs’ and the withdrawal of support from movements of armed resistance. As Vanessa Beeley points out, the International Court ruling is not just too little, too late, but is merely seeking a more civilized occupation.

The ICJ ruling and the aftermath for Palestine

Vanessa writes:

It is mistaken to call it a ceasefire. By its definition a ceasefire is an agreement between two conflictual armies. Palestine does not have an Army, it does not have a Navy nor an Air-force, it is an indigenous Resistance movement whose right to armed resistance against an apartheid, brutal occupying force is enshrined in International Law.

Myriam Charabaty’s article is Resistance Justified: Unmasking Deceptive Neutrality:

Yesterday, the International Court of Justice and the world were put on trial as they witnessed a live-streamed genocide. Will they choose to preserve their humanity in the face of this ongoing atrocity? By failing to confront the occupation as a whole, including the ongoing genocide in Gaza and systematic ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and Occupied AlQuds, they admit to prioritizing their interests over their humanity.

As for us, the people who have chosen the honorable path of steadfastness and resistance across the Axis, we will continue to stand with our most honorable Resistance until we achieve liberation, regardless of the cost. Resisting oppression and occupation is our fundamental human duty.

I found it interesting that her article talked about the two questions they’d all heard, “Do you condemn Hamas?” and “What’s a proportional response to Oct 7th?” These were the questions Piers Morgan kept hammering to Bassam Youssef, making me wonder if those talking points preceded Oct 7th.

Nef on The outward Fight:

At some point, the Over Class, Black Nobility, Parasitic Elites, Potentates, Khazarians and all other types will in fact cease to exist. Violence which is not necessary will not cause these self proclaimed “Masters” and “Rulers” to change, while they remain here. Whatever action that becomes necessary should be participated in without any passion attached to it.

I would add to his list of necessary actions to support the forces of indigenous armed resistance with our voice, and don’t fall for the false trope of neutrality. There’s no neutrality under occupation. To defend yourself is just but to defend others is honorable. To be neutral is to side with the empire and is an act of violence (himsa) towards those being tyrannized, terrorized and murdered.

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For more: Is Our Love Being Pimped for Profit? and Sam Harris’ War on Burkhas:

In Russell Brand's interview of ex-Navy SEAL Jocko Willink, he asks, "Is our beauty being harnessed for nefarious ends." I rephrase that by asking "Is our love being pimped for profit?" Are all of us being monetarily raped and economically drafted into servicing the empire? I differentiate between the work we do and the job we're paid for, and quote John Cusack on sugar daddy politics and Arundhati Roy in defense of self-defense. I suggest that we sell our bodies but keep our hearts and minds free, and explain why Russell is my favorite hooker in the YouTube brothel.

In Feb of 2018, Russell Brand asked Sam, "What's the biggest threat to freedom, Islam or consumerism?" I rephrase consumerism as capitalism and deconstruct Sam's examples of burkas and suicide bombers that he used to show religious ideology, particularly of Islam, was the source of all evil. I look at how this reasoning gave a faux-moral rationale for the occupation of Afghanistan and the killing of 1M people since 9-11, letting motivators like paychecks and profits off the hook. Rephrasing Russell's 2021 video, I ask "Did Sam Harris Use Feminism to Justify the Afghan Clusterf*ck?" and I urge Sam to question his dogma of moral superiority and its cover of "humanitarian intervention."

Should we be taking sides on Palestine and Israel? I look at the two sides as empire vs. sovereignty with the default 'neutrality' as siding with empire. Israel and Palestine bring up the thorny question of whether possession is ownership. To answer that, I describe the rules for sharing from my daycare provider. Everything you need to know, you learned in kindergarten! I look at how indigenous rights are being weaponized and why reparations simply pass slavery on to a new generation.