Not even pure love is free from danger.

I found Alycone and Ceyx's story beautiful and very touching as well. It is about a king and his wife, two who love each other and live happily together. Ceyx, the husband, has to undergo a journey through water and risks his life to complete his mission. The idea of risking to loose her all, hunted Alycone, and so she begged him to travel by land. Her love towards him was so big, and the bond between them so strong, that she was willing to risk her life and accompany him, for, without him nothing made sense. However he won`t let her come to the journey to keep her safe from the dangers of the sea. "If you die my life is over and shall be cursed with every reluctant breath I draw."(PG 20); here Alycone proves how in the story love is portrayed as a feeling of dependence: without one`s lover, life is not worth continuing and every second is more painfull than the one before. Love has been reflected everywhere in stories throughout history, but...Does this kind of love really exist? It is admirable how love endures until death and is loyal and transforms people.It is similar to the story of Odiseus and Penelope, she refused to get married and waited for her husband for years until he returned ^from war disgized as a begger. There are not a lot of relationships like this one these days. I relate this situation to the one of the wives that see their man go away to war without the serenity of knowing they will return home. Is there no compassion, like the gods didn't have it with Alycone?

In his mission a storm caused his death and he prayed for his dearly and poor wife. Morpheus(Note that Morpheus comes from morphos that means shape)acquires his shape and warns Alycone in sleep. She looks and looks along the shores seeking the body without life of her lover, when she finds him, she becomes a bird. I don`t understand this transformation very well or it’s meaning. I interpret it as she becoming the one who is watching over everything. The fact that she had a premonition of his death and since many times the repeated visit of a bird is interpreted by many as a premonition that someone you lost is accompanying you, or that something is to happen or just happened, makes me think that is what it means.

I was interested about how sleep is a character and talks and acts.

Wait, what did he say?

I listened to this version of creation more than four times and the only thing I am sure about is that I did not understand it very well. Today we may find many versions of creation including the big bang and evolution, the creation by god and many others. Within the little information I was able to understand was that the earth was created to be equal and something about the creation of oceans, rivers, and lakes. In a part of the explanation the narrator used what I assumed was another language and I had a hard time following.

A Long Process and Arjuna's Final Decision

Throughout the different teachings Krishna convinces Arjuna to fight for different purposes and to stand for various principles. All of them funded on discipline and basically following his directions and his advice. “I will teach you the totality\ of knowledge and judgment;\ this known, Nothing else in the world need to be known.”(2, T7), he knows it all and the one who really understands him and his knowledge will triumph. “Vile, deluded sinners are the men\ who fail to take refuge in me;\ their knowledge ruined by magic,\ they fail prey to demonic power.”(15), Krishna throughout the book is basically telling him to follow him.

He also mentions that concentrating in him and mentioning the divine syllable OM results in infinite spirit, “At the time of death ,\ with the mind immovable,\ armed with devotion\ and strength of discipline,\ focusing vital breathe\ between the brows one attains the supreme\ divine spirit of men”(10, T8), men have always looked for a consolation to accept death, it is comforting to think that there is something beyond death, that it won´t all end forever, it is a pattern that is repeated in many believes around the world. “These bright and dark pathways\ are deemed constant for the universe; by one, a man escapes rebirth; by the other, he is born again”(26), I also recall this thing about choosing paths, in the catholic religion, there are also different paths, the one that follows the path of god is redeemed and lives in his refuge but the other does not, in this case is born once again and remains trapped in the continuous cycle.
As the book continues, Arjuna is taught about the mystery in faith and its magic as well as divine power. I specially liked the eleventh teaching as I was finally able to have an idea of what Krishna looked like. It is a very distortional image in my head as it is described as many things in one, with many bellies, and many eyes, and many arms, it is quite confusing; “Arjuna see my forms\ in hundreds and thousands;\ diverse, divine,\ of many colors and shapes”(5, T11).

The rest of the teachings basically described how to achieve your true spirit through faith in god and how there is good and demonic in man. Finally in teaching eighteen Arjuna fights.
I personally thought he was right since the beginning.

Comparing Religion

I was surprised when I found many familiar trends in the ideas, goals, and prices of sacrifice and fulfilling duty very similar to the ones of the Christian religion. In the third teaching I got started with a phrase that resembles how god is the creator and we are meant to procreate, as in Gilgamesh where the ones that reproduce have a better “after life”, “ When creating living beings and sacrifice, Prajapati, the primordial creator, said: ‘By the sacrifice will you procreate! Let it be your wish-granting cow!’”(10, T3). “Enriched by sacrifice, the gods\ will give you the delights you desire; \he is a thief who enjoys their gifts\ without giving to them in return.”(12), as it is shown in this phrase, in this teaching it is also mentioned that sacrifice is an obligation and it shall be done to pay back all that the gods granted men. This also leads to what we call sin. God shows himself as a complete authority, the one who does not follow what he commands and thinks and the one who does not defend them with their live in sin and is not free. We can also see this in teaching: “Surrender all your actions to me,\ and fix your reason on your inner self;…”(30), “Men who always follow my thought,\ trusting it without finding fault, \are freed, \even by their actions” (31). This, I found particularly interesting for, I recall many wars that still are found today for religious reasons, since by following their god they are freed from their actions or they are justified this wars are very accepted among people and happen easily and confidently.

“He who really knows my divine\ birth and my action, escapes rebirth\ when he abandons the body\ and he comes to me, Arjuna” (9, T4), here I was also able to notice that as in the catholic religion and as in many others, the ones who followed god completely and fulfilled their duty in earth end up in its presence to find complete peace and satisfaction. I was particularly intrigued when Krishna said that he created himself when there was chaos and that he had also lived many lives as humans but remembered them all. How would he create himself? I was interested in the fifth teaching as well when a lord was mentioned.

Discipline in Action

After reading teachings three, four, and five, my perception of what detachment, discipline in action and inaction are in the book has changed big time.

Action and discipline are almost all about taking control of your senses and learning to act in order to give to the gods and pay your dept with them to eventually elude evil “When his senses are controlled\ but he keeps recalling\ sense objects with his mind,\ he is a self-deluded hypocrite” (6, T3), “Enriched by sacrifice, the gods\ will give you delights you desire;\ he is a thief who enjoys their gifts\ without giving to them in return” (12, T3). In teaching three he describes how the ones who perform action detached are the ones with knowledge and that they must guide through inspiration the ones who are attached. Krishna says passion is the enemy of knowledge and all that stands for what is good, It is Desire and anger, arising\ from nature´s quality of passion;\ know it here as the enemy voracious and very evil” (37, T3)I had heard before about OM in that culture but I had never understood what it meant when it is mentioned, “Action comes from the spirit of prayer,\ who´s source is OM, sound of the imperishable; so the pervading infinite spirit\ is ever presented in rites of sacrifice” (15, T3).

In teaching four Krishna emphasized in the evil and the bad result of ambition and individuality. I was surprised by how he rejects one to follow his desire and deny his word and thought. Content with whatever comes in chance, \ beyond dualities, free from envy,\ impartial to failure and success,\ he is not bound even when he acts” (22, T4) this quote was hard to understand for me, this means one can not feel almost anything that is biased not even in suffering, it reminds me of the saying that everything happens because god wanted it that way and that it happens for a reason, it is a very conformist idea. Knowledge is also called a purifier in this teaching, knowledge justifies whatever action.

Teaching five repeats all the principles of the previous ones and reinforces the importance of knowledge. When someone understands he acts well and thought, I believe that as well. I say to be happy you should learn to accept defeats and be impartial of things; I wish I could apply that some day. A new thing is mentioned bonding renunciation and discipline, “Renunciation is difficult to attain\ without discipline;\ a sage armed with discipline\ soon reaches the infinite spirit” (6, T5).

Reincarnation and Honor by Spiritual Discipline

I was able to identify principles of reincarnation that called my attention. Krishna told Arjuna that everybody is somehow eternal and that nothing ever ends or begins. It is a very complex ideology. “He who thinks this self a killer\ and he who thinks it killed, \ both fails to understand; it does not kill, nor is it killed.”(19) He justifies the killing of all the ones in the battle by saying that they will die someday anyway and that even if they died there inner body would remain. This all makes me wonder if this principle of reincarnation is really true, and relating it to all the other culture that believe there is a life after death and that the soul is eternal it makes a lot of sense. Do we really go somewhere else or is it just a consolation to all humans? Why do we assume that only humans have an after life? What about animals? We all make part of the natural cycle of death. But this teaching, I think, is more about honor and the glory of the ones who fulfill their duty as great warriors.

Krishna talks about the importance of duty and how discipline is so important in life and brings peace and joy. He also says that detachment in action is also important and makes the discipline. “When like a tortoise retracting\ its limbs, he withdraws his senses\ completely from sensuous objects, \ his insight is sure.”(58), here and in the previous phrases the god is saying that living without feeling any preference, without having feelings towards anything, and abandoning individuality you are a man who´s thought is sure. I, on the other hand, think that one should experience different things and be themselves; sometimes a moment of happiness and attachment is worth a life time of suffering.

Why Fight?

We have begun to read The Bhagavad-Gita, one of, or if not the most influencial books representing the indu beleives. At the beginning of the first teaching of I was confused about what was happening, many different supreme characters where mentioned, and they where described as son´s or grandson´s of others. I found this very interesting as I noticed the role of the past generations and who the ancestors of a person where determined a great part of one´s identity. Then I realized what is happening is a war between the son´s of two different god´s (a religious war).

“Honor forbids us to kill\ our cousins, Dhritarashtra´s sons; \ how can we know happiness\ if we kill our own kinsmen?”(37) Arjuna argues how kingship and self pleasure is not worth the death of his people, people who have a life and an important role in society. I have to say I agree with his point of view regarding fighting or not. Many families suffer for their member´s death and for what, for anything; people all throughout history have died fighting for one´s they don´t even know and principals they don´t follow. He also brings into consideration the importance and spiritual value of the family and how the war will cause disorder, “The sins of men who violate\ the family create disorder in society\ that undermines the constant laws\ of caste and family duties.”(44) Family as in the roman culture is a quite serious institution that has to be respected to its maximum.

I was intrigued by a specific thing Arjuna said about three worlds, “I do not want to kill them\ even if I am killed Krishna; \not for kingship of all three worlds, \ much less for the earth! (35). I wonder what three worlds he is talking about are, and what they represent.