The Terrain

In a recent Bhagavad Gita class, we were finishing the twenty-six qualities that make man God-like. It took us almost the full six months it could have if we only read one a week. The final trait or quality was “Lack of Conceit.” It seemed straightforward enough, but I did not know the verbal gems that awaited in its midst.

“A self-admiring person is apt to refrain from further effort. He falls into the pit of inertia….”

They had me at pit of inertia. It made me laugh out loud and then state that I believe I have spent a great deal of time in that very pit.

I have mulled it over repeatedly in the past week and it still delights me every time I think or utter “pit of inertia.” Show of hands, how many have fallen in there, wallowed in there or built a condo on its shores? More importantly, how many of us had no idea what it was named?

“Just go straight along this road and keep going. Take a hard left at pride goeth before the fall and you’ll fall into the pit of inertia. Then have a rest. You’re sure to know some of the other folks hanging out there!!”

How often does hubris take the wheel? We learn something, achieve something and the back patting begins. We are high fiving ourselves all over the place and reveling in the joy of our accomplishments and cleverness. Somewhere in there we forget where the road that brought us here is located and we believe we got here all on our own. We are standing alone on the mountain top, or so we think, but if you look down you will see the space below you is precarious and not as stable as had been hoped. Really more of a precipice.

The Gita kicks in here again in the next paragraph and mentions that when we are on” the mountain peaks of pride” the mercy rains of God cannot gather. Thene we are reminded that those rains more readily collect in the valley of humbleness.

I like to think that the valley of humbleness is the last stop before one barrels blindly into the pit of inertia.  It is a fine line from where I am standing.  See you there.