In week 19 of the humanities crash course, I read the Bhagavad Gita plus the first two chapters of Saint Augustine’s Confessions and the Rule of Saint Benedict. I also heard music that serves as a good background for the latter two and watched a classic movie that reflects some of the Gita’s teachings.

Readings

Let’s start with the two Christian texts. I won’t comment on the Confessions, since I’ll read the rest of that book in week 20. But I’ll say a bit about The Rule of Saint Benedict. This landed close to home, since I spent my last year of high school in a Benedictine monastery.

The Rule was written by Benedict of Nursia in the 6th century to guide the lives of monks. Monasteries already existed after the fall of the Roman Empire, but they mostly appealed to hardcore religious explorers. Benedict provided guidelines to moderate life in these communities, making them more sustainable. His rules directed monks’ daily routines around basic necessities and prayer, facilities, hospitality, social hierarchy and obedience, and more. It’s like an early employee handbook.

Let’s turn to the Bhagavad Gita. It’s a section of a larger work, the classic Indian spiritual poem, the Mahābhārata. The Gita, or song, is one of its most influential parts. It presents a conversation between Arjuna, a warrior, and Lord Krishna, who has agreed to be his charioteer. Two huge armies face each other. Arjuna, one of the commanders, asks Krishna to drive him down the middle. After he sees relatives, mentors, and friends on the other side, he hesitates to fight. He asks Krishna for advice.

Krishna advises him to perform his dharma — his righteous duty — by letting go of attachments to particular outcomes. Arjuna shouldn’t factor personal gain or loss, but act selflessly.

Krishna outlines Yogas, or paths to realization:

  • Karma Yoga: the path of selfless action; acting without thinking of benefits or losses.
  • Bhakti Yoga: the path of devotion, surrendering to God’s will.
  • Jñāna Yoga: the path of knowledge and wisdom to understand the true nature of reality.
  • Dhyāna Yoga: the discipline of meditation supporting Jñāna, undertaken to cultivate inner stillness and focus.

Krishna unfolds his divine form to Arjuna, leading to the realization that life and death are part of the divine order. Arjuna’s actions are part of the eternal flow. In this way, Krishna provides guidance for living ethically in a world full of conflict. ChatGPT summarized it thus:

  • Fulfill your rightful duty without personal attachment,
  • See the same divinity in all beings, and
  • Dedicate every action, thought, and feeling to the Supreme.

Audiovisual

Music: Gregorian chants — highly appropriate to (and excellent background for) the Saint Benedict and Saint Augustine readings. This early form of music would go on to inform later spiritual and secular works, much like the Rule of Saint Benedict would serve as a template for other social compacts.

Arts: I looked at the art of Fra Angelico and Giotto. I was aware of both from my time in Italy. They’re transitional painters that manifest aspects of both medieval and Renaissance art, and their focus was mostly religious. (Especially Fra Angelico, who was a Dominican Friar.)

A Renaissance fresco painting by Fra Angelico depicting the Annunciation. The angel Gabriel, with multicolored wings and a pink robe, bows respectfully as he delivers his message to the Virgin Mary, who sits calmly on a wooden bench with arms folded, wearing a dark blue cloak. Both figures have golden halos. The scene takes place under an arched portico with Corinthian columns, and a serene garden is visible in the background. _The Annunciation_ by Fra Angelico (1438-1450) via [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fra_Angelico_-_The_Annunciation_-_WGA00555.jpg)

The Annunciation by Fra Angelico (1438-1450) via Wikimedia Commons

Cinema: Elia Kazan’s ON THE WATERFRONT, a classic 1954 film that won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor (Marlon Brando.)

I’d been aware of ON THE WATERFRONT for a long time and had seen clips of some of its most famous scenes. (E.g., “I could’ve been a contender…”) Still, I was bowled over by its realism, script, and naturalistic acting (from Brando.)

Reflections

As with much material in the crash course, this week’s readings dealt with ethical and moral questions — especially the biggie: how do you lead a good life? Saint Benedict provided guidelines for monks. Krishna provided guidelines for Arjuna (and by extension, for us all.)

I perceived parallels between the Gita and Christian teachings. Both advocate surrendering to God’s will and acting selflessly. The chapter of the Gita where Krishna unfolds his divine nature reminded me of the Book of Job: Arjuna is awed and terrified, like Job was.

I asked ChatGPT whether the Gita influenced Christianity, and it said there’s “no plausible historical pipeline.” While there was some trade between India and the Middle East at this time, there’s no evidence of direct influence between either spiritual tradition.

If these teachings emerged independently, that gives them more weight. It suggests they transcend particular cultures. We see these teachings emerge throughout history — including in this week’s movie: Marlon’s character, Terry Malone, makes a tough decision in the midst of a conflict. Like Arjuna, he realizes that doing the right thing entails thinking more broadly than his personal loss or gain.

These are the kind of timeless and universal insights I’m looking to get from the crash course, and this week’s readings delivered.

Notes on Note-taking

But I’m also looking to learn how to learn better with new technologies. This week, I didn’t tweak my note-taking or GPT workflows. But I did try something new.

I’ve used Readwise Reader for a while. It started as a read-later app with superpowers. My favorite — and the reason I started using it — is syncing highlights with Obsidian. But Reader has added lots of features over time.

One is having an AI read texts out loud. Another is adding (DRM-free) ePub files to your queue. Yet another is converting PDFs to plain text. This week, I realized I can combine these features to have books read out to me while I exercise.

Most of the texts in the crash course are available as DRM-free ePubs, either from the excellent Standard Ebooks or from other sources, such as Project Gutenberg. Some work better for this use case than others.

I had good results with the Rule, but couldn’t use the feature at all with the Gita. The version I found online intersperses the English translation with the original Sanskrit. These verses are easy enough to skip when I’m reading using Apple Books, but Reader’s AI doesn’t know to skip them, and I have no way of telling it to do so.

Another weird obstacle is Roman numerals. Reader’s AI pronounces some of them correctly (“Chapter fifteen”), while spelling out others (“Chapter X-V-I.”) This was easy to ignore with the Rule, but a bit jarring. And while the voices are good, they all sound a bit robotic.

So this is a useful trick when there’s no audiobook available. But I’ll still opt for a human-read recordings when possible. (Several audiobooks of texts in the course are available for free as part of Audible’s subscription plan.)

Up Next

Gioia recommends the remaining chapters of the Confessions. I’m glad: I enjoyed the first two and wanted to read the whole book.

Again, there’s a YouTube playlist for the videos I’m sharing here. I’m also sharing these posts via Substack if you’d like to subscribe and comment. See you next week!