There are many blessings that come with the living of the hermit life. And I am especially blessed as I am not a ‘hermit alone’ – I share my life, the Hermitage, and my spiritual practice with another hermit. We are partner hermits.
One component of that spiritual practice is our times spent together reading a few verses from the Bhagavad Gita. We pursue our own personal studies, but sometimes one or the other of us will share an especially resonant verse, or an insight or thoughts.
This morning my partner hermit told me, in a casual almost by the way manner, that she’d just read a verse that spoke about not disturbing others, and not letting ourselves be disturbed by others.
At first, I had no memory at all of this verse; I just couldn’t place it. Which might sound a little worrisome, given I’ve been studying this text for seven or eight years.
So, it wasn’t till she gave me chapter and verse and I looked it up for myself, that it finally clicked into place. Of course I knew this verse, but it had slipped from conscious memory.
And that surprised me: this verse seems to me to be speaking to a key concept in the teaching of the text as a whole, as well as to my personal aspirations. Surely, I would think, it should be, what’s the expression? Top of mind?
He [sic] who disturbs no one, and who is never perturbed by anyone, who is unattached to happiness, impatience, fear, and anxiety is dear to Me.
Bhagavad Gita 12:15
This verse is full of meaning for me. It’s like a one-stop how to lesson in avoiding the personal suffering that’s brought about through attachments. Mind you, once again I can’t help wondering after years of study, and with how much this verse resonates for me, why I had such a hard time remembering even seeing it before.
I suspect the power of the ego and the mind have a lot to do with it. Ego – along with its master, the mind – love attachments to the world, to anything really. I guess they are always doing their best to keep me attached to my compulsions and aversions.
Imagine though, not being disturbed by anything – or anyone – and me actually not doing anything that disturbs anyone or anything?
Not just people and other living entities in my immediate physical environment, but out there in the wider world – in the Universe even.
It’s about vibes isn’t it? What vibrations am I putting out into the world? Are they vibrations and waves of love, peace, compassion, detachment, equinimity? Or at they vibes of discord, dislike, anger and sorrow over the stuff I can’t control?
And just think what it would be like if I weren’t so attached to the idea that my happiness depends on getting pleasure or ‘results’ from worldly things, activities based on the senses? Imagine really understanding that the only true and real and lasting happiness and satisfaction can only come come from within my Self?
This doesn’t mean at all that I can’t be happy, or can’t have fun or enjoyment. It is merely saying that, if I can accept whatever comes to me in life without clinging to the things I want, or running away from the things or situations I don’t want, then there will be less suffering.
Ego is jumping in now and wants me to note that, while I may in fact be on the path to detachment and freedom, I’m not far along enough yet to escape its clutches. Anyway, moving right along.
Impatience, fear, and anxiety are tricky presences in the attachment arena. I’m even less far along the path to letting go of these stubborn attachments. But, again, at least I’m on the path.
And what is that path? Where’s it going? Well (paradox alert), on the path in this instance is another way of saying I’ve not realised fully that I am already at the path’s destination. I just think I have a long way to go.
I think Swami Ramdas said: ‘When you set foot upon the path, you have reached the destination.’ I think!
That’s the ‘dear to me’ bit of the verse explained. The ‘me’ in this phrase represents the aspired to full realisation that I am free, liberation or enlightenment some call it. It’s a place, or state of mind in which I move through the world with peace, calm and equilibrium, where nothing disturbs me, and I disturb no one.
That state of liberation doesn’t mean I have given up, or will have to give up, all desires for things I want, nor will I have escaped the things I have aversions to. It simply means I will no longer be driven by those desires and aversions, I will no longer be attached.
It means, too, that I will no longer be concerned in an attached way, to who says or does what to whom, when, where, why or whatever. At that stage I will be in the world, but not of it.
Of course, I am a hermit; you would think it’s easy for me being secluded from the world (well it’s not total seclusion). If only that were true.
I still have the clingings, cravings, and aversions; I’m even attached to the clingings and the aversions.
The one desire, the one I permit myself to cling to, is the desire to free from all other attachments, the attachments that cause so much suffering.
As long at I have that desire guiding my life, then I will be satisfied, when I can be, knowing that one day I will fully realise that I’m already free, unattached, liberated and happy.
There’s a song I wish I could remember the name of, or at least who sings it, but there’s a line in the lyrics that, says something like ‘I don’t want to go searching for what I already have.’ That’s me!
Notes from the Hermit's Cave 