Reading the Bhagavad Gita, Chapters 9-10

At the opening of chapter 9,

“Lord Shri Krishna said: I will now reveal to thee, since thou doubtest not, that profound
mysticism, which when followed by experience, shall liberate thee from sin." (p.24)

We then spend all but a few lines of chapter 9 re-stating things Krishna has already said previously:

• Krishna is the progenitor and sustainer and mystical permeating aether of everything in the universe, with more ringing metaphorical "I am" statements
• Those who do not attain fully to Krishna's profound mysticism will get proportionate rewards, although they will still be part of the cycle of death and rebirth
• Krishna accepts all worship and sacrifice, and even if people think they are worshiping other powers they will get they proportionate rewards.
• Concentrate fully on Krishna and you can escape the cycle of death and rebirth. 

As far as I can tell, these lines are the extent of the profound mysticism:

"Whatever thou doest, whatever thou dost eat, whatever thou dost sacrifice and give,
whatever austerities thou practisest, do all as an offering to Me.
So shall thy action be attended by no result, either good or bad; but through the spirit of
renunciation thou shalt come to Me and be free." (p.25)

 and

"Fix thy mind on Me, devote thyself to Me, sacrifice for Me, surrender to Me, make Me the
object of thy aspirations, and thou shalt assuredly become one with Me, Who am thine
own Self.”(p.26)  

My question is, why would I want to?  If reincarnation were true, and I had evidence of such, why not just commit suicide in every life that sucked and play the numbers game until I got born into a better life?  Why would I want annihilation of self over acquiring enough merit tokens to play in paradise for a while, then repeat?  Why would I want even paradise over the good things of this life, with infinite reincarnations to enjoy them? 

"Those who are versed in the scriptures, who drink the mystic Soma-juice and are purified
from sin, but who while worshipping Me with sacrifices pray that I will lead them to
heaven; they reach the holy world where lives the Controller of the Powers of Nature, and
they enjoy the feasts of Paradise.
Yet although they enjoy the spacious glories of Paradise, nevertheless, when their merit is
exhausted, they are born again into this world of mortals. They have followed the letter of
the scriptures, yet because they have sought but to fulfill their own desires, they must
depart and return again and again."(p.25)

Of course, if we had evidence that reincarnation were true, then I expect everyone else would be playing the numbers game also.  And how would this work, as far as building a society goes?  Would it even be possible, assuming everyone had evidence that reincarnation were true?   

 The only new things we get in this chapter are four baby steps toward acknowledging that maybe ruling class males are not the only people worthy of being designated fully human:

• "I am the Father of the Universe and its Mother" (p.25)
• "For even the children of sinful parents, and those miscalled the weaker sex, and
  merchants, and labourers, if only they will make Me their refuge, they shall attain the
  Highest."(p.26)  

So I agree that progress comes with small, sustainable changes (to steal Elisheba's phrasing from Peace Corps work) and to have the religious authorities of the day change their doctrines to include women and children and merchants and laborers as at least able to attain salvation is a step forward.  But it's really easy to stop there and wave un-verifiable promises at those suffering instead of offering practical help and human rights.  We can do better than Krishna here, and we should.

End Chapter 9.  Chapter 10:
The majority of chapter 10 is Krishna reciting examples of glorious manifestations of himself, summed up in the last lines: "Whatever is glorious, excellent, beautiful and mighty, be assured that it comes from a fragment of My splendour."(p.29)  The list would make for excellent public chanting, but philosophically it adds little unless I wanted to do an in-depth study of the cultural ramifications of the things Krishna lays claim to.

The points I thought were of note:

"Intelligence, wisdom, non-illusion, forgiveness, truth, self-control, calmness, pleasure,
pain, birth, death, fear and fearlessness; Harmlessness, equanimity, contentment, austerity, beneficence, fame and failure, all these, the characteristics of beings, spring from Me only."(p27)

So Krishna gets the credit for everything good.  But what about other characteristics of being?  What about anger, jealousy, greed, abuse of power, hate, cruelty, despair, waste, and wanton destruction?  I see this in many apologetics: god(s)(ess) gets the credit for creating everything/being everything in a mystical sense, but then the bad is ignored/dismissed as from a rival god(s)(ess)/from human desire.  But you cannot have this cake and eat it too.  If your god is all-powerful, the all-creator, they are also responsible for the bad things, the broken things, and mosquitoes.  If they aren't responsible, then they aren't all-powerful. 

"Therefore the wise worship Me with unchanging devotion.  With minds concentrated on Me, with lives absorbed in Me, and enlightening each other, they ever feel content and happy."(p.27)

If devotees of a god(s)(ess) were indeed, without change and without exception kind to each other and happy, it would be a powerful argument in favor of that god(s)(ess).  But I have never seen that.  People of every religion are just people, and for every religion I know of, there are injustices and cruelties and unhappinesses right along with any good things. 

End chapter 10.  Next time, chapters 11-12.