Returning to the ineffable
A meditation on devotion and illusion
Greetings. I’ve been working on several long form pieces, but am in an editing rut. My analytical side has taken over the emotional one, so here’s an attempt at a rebalance. This is about my relationship with religion, specifically with bhakti, roughly translating to devotional surrender. I know, a non zero amount of you will think this is lame, especially because the sense of Hinduism in the zeitgeist emphasizes non-dual interpretations of divinity. But that’s not authoritative; the beauty of Hinduism (a fraught term itself) is the multitude of interpretations and no central authority.
I search for the ineffable
I’m told it’s within me
The universe, untouchable and unknowable.
The divine is
Formless
Incarnate
Dual
Non-dual
Supersoul
Divinity descends to teach
difficult lessons humans hate.
Divinity has millions of names.
Does that make it separate from myself?
Yes, but also no.
If divinity is fully beyond senses
known only by the intellect
emotion is lost
so is the divine.
Emotion and I keep each other
at arm’s length.
If we mix, sometimes explosions
sometimes devotion.
Devotion has replaced explosion.
Explosions are of the world
Devotion is of another world.
I had Bhakti,
then what felt like enlightenment.
False enlightenment shrouded Bhakti
A blanket of Maya.
Bhakti reawakened
when I realized I knew nothing.
The dead end of worldly knowledge
A false wall hiding the Self.
A wall of knowledge
but not of gyāna.
Emotion
masquerading as logic
crumbled around me.
True emotion lay dormant.
Humans are easily duped into enlightenment
Degrees
Beliefs
Politics
The trappings of the infinite soul
in the finite body.
‘Meditate!’ they say.
Yoga, therapy, self-care
simulacra of depth,
a false enlightenment
further trapping the soul.
We perform
and accuse everyone else
of performance.
The body and mind degenerate.
Who are we performing for?Related post about my upbringing in the Hare Krishna community:
Really appreciate what you're doing over here at your substack.
Such a wonderful and undeniably true poem! Reaching divinity is not when one earns a college degree deeming them intelligent or dogmatically sticking to a set of beliefs or values. Achieving divinity is when one finds true happiness in life and in the people around them and remains open minded and keeps in mind we are always learning. This belief that political ideologies can bring you to the ultimate state of enlightenment is just wrong and led to the rise of so many totalitarian states and dictators such as Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany, Vladimir Lenin in the USSR, Benito Mussolini in Fascist Italy, Francisco Franco in Fascist Spain, Fidel Castro in Cuba, Mao Zedong in Red China, The Kim Family in North Korea, Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, Idi Amin in Uganda, etc. It has led to the birth of horrific ideologies like Nazism, Fascism, Communism, Socialism, and Anarchism. It has led to the birth of evil cults and hate groups like like Jim Jones’ People’s Temple, Heaven’s Gate, Charles Manson and his family, David Koresh and the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, the Ku Klux Klan, the American Nazi Party, the New Black Panthers, and the Nation of Islam. It has led to political polarization and tribalism that has torn America apart. It led to terrible atrocities like the Holocaust, 9/11 and the October 7th attacks. It created psychos like Osama Bin Laden, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, Baruch Goldstein, and Bob Mathews and his group the Order. It created white supremacist serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin. I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t strike me as being enlightened or having reached a state of nirvana. That’s become radicalized and having you’re brain warped. Ideologies, religious beliefs and awards and accomplishments can never lead you to true happiness. You can only find that it your family, friends and neighbors and practicing learning from everyone you meet as Socrates once advised.