Sitting down to eat my dinner of homemade lentil burger (the recipe from a purportedly Ayurvedic cookbook) I examine the unread items on my bookshelf. Something to keep me from feeling that I must turn on the television and watch Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader or whatever other shit reality TV turns out to be the least horrible thing on. After rereading the introduction to Frank McCourt’s memoir, I can’t commit. Nothing on my shelves is currently appealing, but I am bizarrely possessed to read this one, particular four-line passage from the Bhagavad Gita that I am sure I remember, and marked in the margins with a blue pen—but can’t find. I spend the better part of the evening jumping in and out of the chapters, or “teachings,” as they are called. It takes me all night.
Krishna says,
What use is so much knowledge
to you, Arjuna?
I stand sustaining this entire world
with a fragment of my being.
Why did I want to find it so badly? Not sure, though I have been feeling small lately.
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