I miss her—the soft rumbles that led to slow snores, her steady warmth, her size big enough to hold onto when the world felt unsteady. Nili Bear was the runt of her litter, but she grew into a determined and bulked Queen, ruling over our lives with a quiet, gentle authority.

Our favorite mornings were the foggy, still ones, when the world seemed wrapped in a dream. We’d wander through the silence together. I’d pick the yellowest lemons from a neighbor’s tree, teasing her with one before showing her a fresh tennis ball. Her eyes would light up, that unmistakable spark of joy.

Nili Bear was more than just a dog—she was a kind and noble soul, wiggling her butt up to strangers and kissing their feet like royalty bestowing blessings. Everyone called her “kind.” It was the word that defined her, the word etched in every memory of her. Even as she dragged her hind paws in her later days, it felt like she was blessing the earth beneath her, leaving a trail of peace and grace. Then she’d sit, just far enough to be alone, surveying her kingdom with quiet pride, a queen at rest.

She gave me so much, and yet I can’t help but feel I gave her too little in return. We were mirrors of each other, connected by a gaze, by shared sighs, by the rhythm of our breaths. She loved me so deeply that she loved everything I loved. If I threw a ball, she’d bound after it with unshakable enthusiasm. And when she learned she could carry two balls at once, she’d make me chase her for the third, her playful mischief shining through.

Nili Bear didn’t just walk into my life—she changed it. She filled a space I hadn’t even known was empty, revealing a missing piece of my identity. Together, we wove a cosmic thread that bound us, an unbreakable tether of love and understanding. Even when we were apart, that thread held strong, a quiet comfort that reminded me she was always there.

Now, our threads are knotted, tangled together in a way that can never be undone. She’s gone, but the bond remains, a part of me forever. My Nili Bear, my kind, beautiful queen—you gave me a lifetime of love, and I will carry it with me always.

Catalina Island sat quiet between the Pacific, its hills bare and gray against the fogless sky. Across the mainland, Highway 1 ran toward the beach. Between lifeguard towers 8 and 10, a small colony of seagulls scattered on the damp sand. The sun trembled behind a thin mist, rising from waves barely ankle-high.

By tower 10, the shadow of the structure warmed a patch of dry sand. A plastic ramp ribbed its way down toward the water’s edge, unused, the waves too still to need it. The ocean stretched flat and colorless, its swells rising only to fall in silent breaks.

A girl sat on the sand, hands behind her, legs stretched wide, her toes pressed into the grains. Beside her, a boy hunched over, legs crossed, sifting sand through his fingers. Between them lay a blanket—really a tablecloth—with a bottle of wine sitting on top.

“Should I open it?” the boy asked, pulling the bottle from his leather bag.

“Sure,” she said.

“It’s warm, and there’s sand on the lip. Spit it out if it gets in.”

“That’s a big bottle. Are you sure we’ll finish it?” Her hand reached for the bottle.

“I know how much you love big things,” he said, unfurling one leg to stretch. He smiled but didn’t look at her.

She watched him instead, her eyes tracing his collarbone, visible where his oversized shirt slipped off his shoulder. Her gaze lingered on his brown skin, moving to the stubble under his ear.

The sun broke through the mist for a moment, scattering light across the beach, then disappeared again.

“Come here,” she said, shifting closer, her hand brushing his. Her lips pressed into a quiet smile as she leaned in.

“No. Not now.” His hand pulled away, cold and quick, grabbing the bottle instead. He took a long drink, coughing as the wine went down the wrong way.

“It’s not that I don’t want to kiss you,” he said, clearing his throat. “It’s just… it means something different now.”

“It only means something different because you want it to,” she said. “Nothing’s changed. Only you can prove that, especially to yourself.”

He set the bottle between them, a barrier they both ignored. He knew the wine would loosen them, as it always did. Their bond, so intimate once, now leaned too often on alcohol to smooth the rough edges.

“When are the waves coming back?” she asked, placing a hand on his knee. Her fingers gestured lightly for the bottle.

He stretched out his other leg, leaning back on his arms. “They say a storm’s brewing down south. Should bring a monster set by next week. But they say that a lot. Look for yourself if you don’t believe me.”

“Why would I look? I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“You could look up. Your mother would like that, after everything.”

“Don’t,” she said. Her voice tightened, but her hand stayed. “I was asking because I know how much you like it out there.”

The fog thickened. The seagull colony thinned.

“The water’s warmer than I remember growing up,” he said. “Global warming, maybe.” He handed her the bottle. She took a long drink.

“This wine’s better than the cheap stuff you usually bring,” she said.

“I thought the occasion deserved it.”

“It’s good. Tastes like fruit and nuts.”

“It is fruit and nuts.”

“I know. Just saying it out loud.”

A swell broke, and the ocean smoothed over, mirroring the empty sky.

“Did it hurt?” he asked, turning the tiny shell in his hand. His voice was soft, uneven.

She didn’t answer right away. Her knees came up, her chin resting on them. Her feet burrowed into the sand, burying a memory she didn’t want to unearth.

“Is this about me not telling you first, or because it happened at all?” she said.

“It’s both,” he said. His words came fast, like they might slip away if he didn’t catch them. “I worry about what it means for us.”

“It doesn’t mean anything if we don’t let it,” she said. “Let’s move on and enjoy what’s left.”

“I can’t just move on,” he said. “My mind won’t let me. It’ll twist this into something worse.”

“You’re being dramatic. I told you, I’m fine.”

“You’re lying.”

“Maybe. But so are you. You’re the one who leaves. The one who stays quiet. You want meaning in everything, even if it means losing part of yourself to find it.”

“If we forget it, what’s left to learn? How do we grow from this?”

She stretched out beside him, her arm tucked under her head. “We’ll forget it,” she said. “As long as it doesn’t happen again.”

He stood, brushing sand from his hands. “The waves will be bigger by then,” he said. “I’ll surf a new swell.”

“And I’ll be here,” she said, lifting the bottle to her lips. “Watching.”

The wine warmed her throat, the grit of sand still clinging to the glass and her tongue. The ocean broke again, and the fog swallowed the horizon whole leaving them in out there.

Amber is offering food

Jessie has a secret agenda but she is spaced out and has a zit
A – try blinking, have some lasagna?

J- huh? oOo … too oily.

A- You seem to having either something or nothing on your mind?

J- it’s staring you in the face.

A- eat a bite

J- it’ll pop

A- then what?

J- you have cover up ?

A- no, I have lasagna

J- o ya that lasagna

Hoofstuk 1

 Three .308 bullets looked like seeds in the right hand of Stoffel. His are the biggest hands I have ever seen. Fingers thicker than Wildebeest sausages and hands rougher then sandpaper.  He was the only man on the reserve that could wrangle the hippos and lift an Eland by himself on to the back of his bucky. Stoffel’s thick Afrikaans accent never made sense to me. I always replayed his words in my head to makes sense of his directions. His dedicated workers tell stories of how he was caught by the rioters in Soweto. He was held down and forced to swallow hot shrapnel during Apartheid, when he was a cop, on the wrong side.  I have been training for three weeks with Stoffel for this day. Three long weeks of shooting at a small 1-inch-thick metal disk, lodged into the side of an undulating quartzite sandstone hill at the far eastern ridge of the reserve. The first two times I shot the rifle I bruised my right eye with the scope.

“Ey-bow, look here little Boer-a. You only have three shots, otherwise pack your kit, and be gone.” Stoffel pulled out a pack of Marlboro’s, and a beaten pack of matches from his breast pocket on his dirty sweaty shirt. I could tell he wasn’t done giving me instructions because he didn’t mention what I was suppose to bring back. He lifted the tab on the match book and bent a single match back, pressing his thumb against the match head and with one motion flicked it along the coarse surface on the exterior and lit his cigarette. With his exhale, he lifted his chin and looked upward so that the hot African sun filtered through the smoke and onto his face. He took his left hand and removed his hat and wiped the sweaty Karoo dust from his forehead.

“Bring me a Blessbok, three to five years of age, nothing else!”. He put his hat back on, took a quick thought, exhaled a third of the cigarette and dumped the three .308 bullets in my hand. “You have a knife, Little boer-a?” I nodded yes with much excitement. “Good, clean the carcass and carry it back to the farm”.  Stoffel exhaled the last of his cigarette and slipped the rimless bottlenecked Winchester rifle off of his shoulder and into my hands.

I walked for two dusty miles through the Karoo. Spotting three different herds of Blessbok. I sat in the shade under a mature green acacia tree and observed their behavior, studied their route, and anticipated their future direction. I slowly walked towards them, keep a distance of more than a hundred yards.

I found my spot against the edge of a tall bundle of spear grass. I took off my shirt to place it under the gun to give me more stability for the shot. I laid down against the earth, pulled back the bolt and loaded my first bullet. Pushed the bolt forward and closed the carriage, placed the butt of the rifle against my right shoulder. I took a deep breath and pulled the trigger.

Chapter 1

Three weeks of training to hunt, training to shoot a .308 caliber Winchester, learning to gut and cut a carcass on the spot, was finally at and end. It was time to put my training to the test. Stoffel wasn’t thrilled when Mr. Forsyth gave him the instruction to train me. It had become apparent in the three weeks of training that I never grew on Stoffel. His demanding nature and frustration with me culminated in the bruising of my right eye, from lack of proper instruction and guidance. In the first week it felt as if he didn’t care that I was handling a loaded rifle, I could have carelessly fired it in his direction. I had come a long way since the first week.

We stood at the edge of his farm at the back of the reserve, it was a furiously hot South African summer’s day. Well above 32 degrees Celsius. Sweat dripped from our brows, and down our backs. He was proud of his heritage and he wore his Boer hunting hat, as a symbol of his peoples legacy. He had the dark death weapon hanging across his right shoulder and three bullets in his hand. Stoffel was never a man of words, I hear that he had a horrible encounter in Soweto during apartheid when he was a cop and that this horrific attack left his throat mangled and his voice distorted. Still Stoffel pulled a cigarette from his blue and green lined shirt, and lit it with one motion, with a small but powerful flick of his monstrous thumb.

He told me quickly, that all I have is three bullets to kill an adolescent Blessbok no more than five years old. That I was to clean the carcass on the spot and carry it back to the farm. He had finished his cigarette in three exhales, and on the last he lifted his head towards the sky, paused, watched the sun beam through the smoke and onto his face. His eyes I could tell were expecting me not to succeed. He handed me the bullets first then the rifle.

I walked through the reserve towards a grove of acacia trees. The grove itself was usually teeming with wildlife, and was at an elevation for a vantage point. I sat there fearing failure, having to pack up and head home after months of hard work and isolation. I decided it was not going to be an option for me. I wanted nothing more than to prove Stoffel wrong. I spotted a herd of Blessbok a klick away. I started to filter through my memory of how to accurately measure the age of a Blessbok. That each ring around the horns was a sign of two years. I slowly approached the heard, not gazing in their direction making sure to avoid eye contact. I kept my body language very minute, and found a spot at the tail end of a long line of spear grass. I positioned myself, and patiently sized up each Blessbok until I found the right one. Without hesitation I pulled the trigger.

Isahluko 1

One bullet. Maybe two. Not three. I looked down into the wooden bowls that are Stoffel’s hands. The exploding African sun shimmered off of the three .308 caliber bullets in his clammy palm. I could barley understand his voice, and I had to replay his voice in my head to make out him saying something about only getting three bullets to kill a young Blessbok. He made sure that I heard him say that this was my only chance to prove myself to him, that if I couldn’t accomplish this feat, that I was not cut out for this job, and I would be sent home.

December 9th, 2012. I walked for more then two hours tailing a herd of Blessbok to arrive at this spot. The day was infinite, the sun never moved and I was dripping in adrenaline. I took of my shirt, which was caked in red Karoo dust and wet from sweat. I wondered if the Blessbok could smell my excitement as I stripped. A curious horned bill lurked near in sky above.

I laid down half naked against the hot Karoo and placed the gun over my bundled shirt. The herd of Blessbok was in a moderately dense bush savanna, feeding on large Red-bushwillow fruit, and Silver cluster-leaf. I was positioned towards the opening of the savanna along a footslope covered in Magic guarri, Fever trees, and Skukuza thickets.

I observed the herd through the scope of my Winchester, watching each individual Blessbok and took note of the age by counting the rings on their horns. I took a series of deep breaths, while saying the Gantri Mantra three times. I loaded my first bullet and without hesitation I pulled the trigger. I could hear my heart beat in my fingertips. My ears were hot from the sound of the shot.

The Blessbok fell on her side. A moment later she stood back up. I grabbed a second bullet off of my bundled shirt, loaded it and targeted the bullet through her heart. The herd scattered across the savanna in all directions. I gathered the gun, the extra bullet, and my shirt. I counted my steps to her, a solid one hundred and forty meters. I pulled my knife from my sheath, grabbed her warm snout and sticky nose. Put the knife to her throat and made a large slit to drain the blood from her being. Just as Stoffel taught me. I then decapitated her, gutted her entrails and de-limbed her. I slung the gun around the front of my chest, put the extra bullet in my pocket, picked her up by her shoulders where I de-limbed her and piggy-backed her to Stoffel’s farm.

When I arrived, Stoffel smiled. I have never seen him smile. He then covered me in her blood, instructed me find and cut out the liver, and eat it raw. It tasted of grass, and was still tepid. He chanted something in Afrikaans with his eyes closed.  He turned to me and told me that he wasn’t expecting my success. I was invited into his home for a beer, and he offered me a cigarette.

The woods here are unlike that of where I grew up. Mature slender figures that rise up higher then the southern palms of Huntington Beach that raised me. The apical meristems of these trees adorn each trunk like crowns. The souls of these trees pull towards the sky reaching out through space, to the distant corners of our shared world. Their awkward limbs and perfect unfurled leaves effortlessly sway to the chocked sound of the Bay’s fog horn. Throughout the day a brisk cool wind rustles each leaf and chills the sun kissed bark. The dancing of these trees is accompanied by the crashing of foamy northern pacific waves. Each swell gushes along the shore of Baker Beach and upwells nutrients back into itself.

Red tail hawks circle above me, above them turkey vultures, and above us stars beyond our reach. All three are always looking down into my eyes, and down on to the hundreds of retrofitted barracks that make up the Presidio. These housing units once housed soldiers, sergeants, generals, and their families for more then a hundred years. The one toned units make this neighborhood blend in to the woods, bark of the pine, cypress, and eucalyptus match the soil beneath adding to invariant walls of these abodes.

I imagine that off the shore of Baker Beach, upon a boat, if someone were to look upon these quarters that their eyes would have a difficult time distinguishing one from the other. Each apartment is unique with its inhabitants, just as each tree is unique with it’s own forest dwellers. Both harboring tunnels, valleys, and rivers of emotion. That leave each body through breath or rising smoke.

Beneath the ground that these houses are built upon, are hundreds of thousands of living organisms that maintain the chlorophyll in each leaf. Each morning a thick layer of fog settles on to the thicket of these topiary trees. The Bay’s heavy dew created by the fog weights down each leaf until it bows and surrenders an individual water drop, which then falls hundreds of feet into the canopy cover and dissolves into the fertile soil.

I have brought you here, the last of your crew, in my quarters to show you, what it is that I am after. Once you have seen and have heard what it is that you can do for me and my crew of the “Ocean’s Sheath”. I will let you decided what you think it is that we want to hear from your mouth.

Some years ago when I asked the crew to transfer Captain Bleeds’ chandelier to my private quarters and gallery, I wasn’t expecting thee stench of gun powder, rum, and blood from that day’s battle to have followed it. It’s intricate sketching’s of mystical stories from the America’s, on smooth varnished South American Bloodwood was a genuine piece of original art work. It was never my wish to know its origin, but merely my need to have it hanging above me, lighting my true prizes. A reminder that I fear no darkness and I alone instruct the light we see on this unforgiving ocean. It is that formaldehyde stench of death that made me seek out plants from my unusual adventures to mask its hollow smell.

I had these glass panels made by a small Venetian man after we sank his merchants ship in the Atlantic between Seville & Cadiz, the Azores Islands. In exchange for his life he taught two of my men to create glass from any sand my ship touches. I replaced the slave greased wood that was the stern of this old English slave ship with these glass panels you see surrounding my quarters and that of my officers. They open at angle creating slits so that fresh air can come in, and during rain they collect drinkable water for the crew. These sweet and aromatic plants that hang along the side of these glass panels are on swivels and are suspended by pulleys to keep them stable even in the worst of storms. Among the hundred or so trees and plants that grow in my quarters around us and lingering behind each fresh scent of jasmine, the sapling ferns, Fire Lilies from the Cape of Good Hope, herbs, mints, and barely. Even over the aging rum barrels and my personal distillery in the corner to your right, is the mocking odor of rotting souls I delivered into the blue locker.

This navigational desk that stands 2 meters wide and 3 meters long between you and me, is fashioned from five figureheads of ships that my crew and I put beneath the sea. The musty smell of decades’ worth of the salty fog has imbedded deep into the planks that made up those figureheads.

Feel it. Feel the beaten carved wood that led those dead men across the unknown, feel the concave missing chunks from impacts of hot musket shots, or blasting cannon shrapnel. Can you smell the souls of cowards and hero’s that blanket my maps? Death himself knitted a cloth for me to eat and navigate upon, perhaps I am an instrument of his. Along side my compass rose and the sextant beside it.

Take this leaf. It is Coca Exotica, from my personal garden in this gallery. It is a prize from our recent conquest from a Colombian sugar transport in the Bahamas. It is similar to the Bay leaves of England, but you’ll notice something peculiar and different about you, after you chew on it for a minute. Notice is unnatural flavors, its chemical and pharmaceutical similarities. I ration each of my men 10 leaves a week, with a bottle of strong cinnamon rum from a fine distillery on New Providence Island.

Unlike many of the Captains that you and my men have followed, I don’t expect much out of my crew. Just their loyalty in times of battle, and their strength to deliver us there.

The bevel corners of these quarters are unique to all of the seas. In my years of taking what I want, it was this ship that has brought me the greatest of pleasure and these quarters I have forged to resemble my passions. As an adventurer and buccaneer scientists who is more then capable of surviving in turbulent and violent regions, I make empirical observations during battle that has gained me the knowledge, over arm chair academia in civilized European cities. What I have done here in these quarters would upset Kings and make Queens want bed me.

Once you get use to the wretched smell of Death, the sweeter the incense burn, the more pungent the vanilla orchids across the gallery smell in the early evening, and the guilt that follows you with each life you take as a freeman, is sooner forgotten with each coca leaf and sip of rum.

It is here around you in these worn leather bound log journals that smell of opium resin, where I keep my collections of data from Her Majesty’s Royal Navy’s intelligence, along with the Spanish Naval intelligence. Four years of voyaging and wagging war against their world. I have kept myself 20 knots a head of them, just by observing and documenting their stupidities in the hundreds of log books that line my library. Do you know what I love the most about not serving a crown no more?

My ability to take away that, which it wants the most.

So I ask of you, will you help me and my crew pursue our course finishing this war agains the crowns? Will you give me the information on the Urca D’Lima?

Or am I to feed you to the crew?

The thermostat in the bay has been turned up this fall. Twain said, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco,” but it is apparent this fall that the heat is here to stay. It was appropriate that the weather the weekend of Treasure Island was equal to a warm day on a pirate’s cove in the Bahamas. On its sand, a treasure chest full of acts that livened up the soulless Bayside Pirates and soulful lively Dharma filled Bayside Shamans that came out in force to dance the two days and two nights away to music that will follow us in the spirit world.

This intimate artificial island is in the middle of the San Fransisco Bay, and was used as a military base with Federal intent, as well as hosting capital-driven industries. Its dredged banks have tall trees and hillsides that slide into spectacular views of the SF skyline and the hillsides of the East Bay. It served as a port between SF and Alameda Island as well as an island stopover for the bay bridge.  It is now being remediated with conservation efforts by Bayside environmental residents, and warrants a handful of tourists that are eager enough to venture on to it for it’s views, and dull factory and military history.

The festival was on the upper outer left side of Treasure Island facing west to the rapture that is the SF skyline. I walked in and my gaze fell upon the thousands of heads that bobbed and weaved through the festival grounds. I was greeted by hula hoopers, a man with dreads making bear sized bubbles, and a ferris-wheel decked out in hippie lights. The Bay showed up in force. The diversity that makes the bay a haven for free thinkers was violently on display as festival goers wore their freedoms lightly along with their love for music on their sleeves.

Leading up to the festival, I was shocked at how many peers, friends, and colleagues hadn’t heard of the festival, or even half of the acts. I too was eager to see new names along with their new sounds. It was apparent upon my arrival that this festival is very intimate and it made me feel comfortable to be on this Island, part of the lively bunch of misfits, techies, and yogis that is the essence of the Bay’s Dharma.

I have to start with Big Grams, THE set that took my breath away. They encouraged me to be unconscious with my dancing, their melodies rhythmically intertwined me with the crowed in a daze of familiar Outcast beats by Antwan “Big Boi” Patton and the electronic mysticism of Phantogram, made up of Josh Carter and Sarah Barthel. I learned that together we could “beat the drum” to their “Drum Machine” and that everyone in and around me made the ground shake like it was our first night in Zion. You couldn’t find a soul in the crowd that didn’t know the lyrics to “Mrs. Jackson,” a throw back that needs to be replayed more often by all you readers.

If you ever have the chance to see Big Boi, I hope you are graced with his upmost respect by singing with you the “special thing” we all have going on with “Mrs. Jackson.”

Big Boi assassinated this set and had me along with everyone else in his tight gripped rap verses that hit each rhythmic cycle of Phantogram’ soothing duets, their street beats and psych pop. Phantogram gets me going on their own and this collaboration with Big Boi is undoubtedly a gift for all hip-hop and electronic lovers, trip hop, and a jest for the true meaning of what Phantogram are.

I was truly a “Goldmine Junkie,” throwing up the treasures of their sound to the crowd with my body, I found that regardless of age, race, religion, and drug preferences, all of us “Fell in the Sun,” with “Big Grams” in our pockets. In our fall, we all felt a burning within us that created our own alchemy for creating our own gold.

Sound Tribe Sector 9 is so funky you might wear down your shoes and tread the floors you’ll be dancing on into dust. This psychedilea hip-hop, jazz funk band has everything and more that a band should have, meaning that they play instruments. The fruit of their hard work and sweat vividly brought the sun down on Saturday night and awakened the light in our third eyes, creating an awareness in our minds of what music has fled away from: the beauty of listening to live music with talented musicians kicking ass on their solos, and jamming their hair follicles out. Members – Hunter Brown, Zach Velmer, David Phipps, Jeffree Lerner, David Murphy were so composed and keen on sharing their collaborated music with us, that I too felt like I was on stage with them making music just by dancing with them in the crowd. The spectacular rainbow of lights that accompanied their show on stage, warmed on our faces, and I felt all the colors I was hearing on stage. I feel like I was inducted into the Tribe of Sector 9 and their sounds will live forever in the Bay, as it resonated with the setting of the sun and the inspiration they delivered in all hearts present, to this incredible encounter with their groovy eruption of skillful and tasty tunes.

I dig deadmau5 more than many other DJ’s, and its my opinion that he has big ears for making some cosmic house tunes. His music helps me see past our planet into the stars beyond, the boundless spacey elements found in his heart raising melodies is a call to arms and legs to come to breath and dance. “I remember.” deadmau5, known for his iconic mouse helmet, found his slice of cheese at Treasure Island. I witnessed a patron rage so hard he decided to take a nap in front of the sound stage… he passed out, in the wasteland that is EDM and house music. deadmaus5 kept us moving with his performance, setting fire to the crowd’s feet, keeping us warm as the Bay cooled us off. He actually cared about his crowd taking time to entertain us with a man in a shark outfit chasing him around the stage as he calmly drank a corona and went back to spinning religious beats into our minds and down into our hearts. deadmau5 made us passionate in his mixes and shared the pristine absurdity and awesomeness that house music is.  My friend AJ and I were awestruck with his set, his lightshow, his stage setup, and most of all… his desire to create that he brought gracefully to light when he performed for us.

Treasure Island is a very cozy intimate festival that makes you feel familiar with your surroundings regardless of you being from the Bay or not.  It has everything you would want from a festival: great food, overpriced booze, a Ferris wheel, sexy yogi hula hoopers, dazed drug techies, a lineup that has a bit of everything for everyone, and a free shuttle that takes you too and from the festival into the heart of SF near the Civic Center Union Plaza. If you’re in need of a festival that has a Do Lab presence and small clique of burning man attendees, along with pockets of EDM bounce house lovers, Treasure Island is the pirates life for you.

“Sri Aurobindo considers the message of the Gita to be the basis of the
great spiritual movement which has led and will lead humanity more and more to its liberation, that is to say, to its escape from falsehood and ignorance, towards the truth.”
-The Mother

There is the phenomenal metaphysical world, Brahma, in which we live within, breathe within and die within. We find ourselves questioning our identity and beingness within this phenomenal metaphysical world through the earliest Vedanta Hindu texts that speak to the Absolute Unity of Being, and Reality without a second form. Throughout our lives the questions we ask ourselves about the universe around us only become more convoluted, more complex, and can leave us feeling fragmented, lost, and disgruntled for having asked these questions. Each and everyone of use battles on the field of “Kurukshetra” with our conscious and unconscious endeavors throughout life, our daily actions, our daily beliefs. Seeking answers to our actions, drawing lines in our search for right and wrong, for a union with a higher from of consciousness, and within it, our True soul. Aurobindo shares with us the deep spiritual concepts in the Gita, to help us through the reunification process with Krishna (the divine being who enters history in the Gita to rescue humanity from adharma), through the philosophical conversation of the yoga’s, between Arjuna’s deepest questions about his own being and Krishna’s True form of Absolute Unity of Being; on the field of battle before the start of the Kurukshetra War. Through Arjuna’s deep observations of his coming actions and participation in the war, he questions the merit in his own Truth, only to find the answer for action by absorbing the revelation of the Gita, by joining Krishna in his truest eternal form. This paper will focus on my relationship of the renunciation and integration into the Divine Will found in the teachings of Sri Aurobindo’s work of the Bhagavad Gita that he found in his personal life, in relation to my own search of meaning with the Gita’s teachings of first two yoga’s, Karmayoga, and Jnanayoga. I see us all in the chariot with Arjuna, and that we all can use the yoga’s in the Gita to run away from our fears created by ourselves towards the unification of our self and the Divine light and Will of Krishna.
The Gita is useful because it shows us an approach to initiate our spirit in indicating itself in what we choose to actively participate in, and what we can learn from it, that it is a value to humanity, the cosmos, and their future. The Bhagavad Gita is a conversation for all ears, hearts, and minds to want to absorb into, for it is the very essence of transformation of the conscious soul through invoking the unconsciousness of our being by the way of the different yoga’s teachings, so that we can discipline our modes of action and imagination to move away from the a power of process, Prakriti (field of phenomena, including the mind), which includes our form from “tamas” (Lethargic), into “rajas” (Energetic), then towards “sattva” (Light). Out of these influences of the yoga’s found in the Gita, Arjuna is lead into the union with the truth of all being, into Purusha (pure spirit, the only conscious reality, and consciousness itself).
It is through the jnanayoga and karmayoga in the beginning of the Gita that Krishna explains the process in which we are able to begin to renunciate our selves into that of the Divine Will.
Bhagavat (“blessed one”).
Krishna is usually referred to as Bhagavat (Lord, Krishna) his presence implicates that reality is not an abstract condition but living in Being. As the Lord of the Divine he plays his flute to call out to all physical beings to awaken out of the attachments of the physical world and absorb into the love and light of the Divine Will. The Gita is an “Upanishad” text that stems from the Pancaratra tradition of the ancient Bhagavata sect, and it is unique for its emphasis on an integrative approach to synthesizing the many diverse views of Hindu philosophy, Vendata, Samkhya, Yoga, and Brahmanism, all into our own forms of personal devote for worship to the Supreme God Head, Krishna. The text is made up of transformation through a three pronged path, like that of Vishnu’s trident, to reach liberation and union with Krishna by the ways of karma-yoga (Yoga of Self Transcending through Action), jnana-yoga (Yoga of Wisdom), and bhakti-yoga (Yoga of Devotion & Love). The first two yoga’s are the main premise to the first part of the text, where bhakti-yoga, (devotion) is that last state of realization that is higher than the other two within the Gita.
Karmayoga, the yoga of Divine action is insistent upon the renunciation of desire, then the purification of the subjective principles of our work which leads to action and the turning of the self towards the Divine existence and finally liberation. Karma is the result of previous deeds and thoughts, and Arjuna is reminded by Krishna in the beginning that it is his duty to fight because it is his karma that makes him a Ksatriya. Arjuna is in search for a right reason to act within his karma and as a warrior on the battle field. A mind must concentrate on bringing the senses under its control by viewing itself as an instrument of the Divine intelligence and then use its organs under the proper force for action, action for karmayoga. For me the renunciation from many different acts that in my own life that do no lead to a spiritual consciousness, are acts of karmayoga. By having a relationship with the Divine, I try to focus my acts to be part of the will of the Divine. I have been giving meaning to my everyday acts towards the Divine in my relationships, and trying to be conscious of my acts through a Divine Will. My new found inner being of compassion was invoked by new colleague’s karmayoga and their dedication to being part of a Divine Will that serves the universal energy. The essence of this self control is action done as Karmayoga, the non-attachment of ourselves in our work, without clinging the mind to the objects of sense and the worldly rewards of our efforts.

These offerings are born out of work, and each guides
mankind along a path to Brahman. Understanding
this, you will attain liberation. The offering of
wisdom is better than any material offering, Arjuna;
for the goal of all work is spiritual wisdom. (pg. 121, Easwaran)

The importance of this verse to me is that it supports work done in service to the Divine, it reaffirms the credence that the Gita promises. That by offering yourself to the Divine and using Karmayoga with the other yoga’s to guide your actions it will encourage one to work towards spiritual unification. Krishna believes that by telling Arjuna this, that he can begin to see a Truth in the workings of the unification with the Supreme God Head, that we do divine work not as ours, but as his workings through us. Karmayoga is used just as the other yoga paths to lead us to the liberation from the phenomenal existence and to a departure into the union with the Supreme Being. I believe that one must be willing just as Arjuna is to surrender their will to that of the Divine Will. The merging of our own ego into the union with the Divine, lets us purify and surrender into the guidance of the Divine and out of ones own ignorant guidance of self gratification through feeding of their ego.
I see it that once one has come to the self realization of the great universal Energy through Karmayoga, one can begin to meditate (jnanayoga) on Krishna, so that they can renunciate and purify their mind to that of the Divine Will. Their direction of their choices and acts is more consciously intertwined with the Supreme Will (Divine Will) and the universal energy.

Jnana-yoga (meditation), it is through meditation that we are able to simplify the real and unreal and we than can pursue this distinction more effectively by rendering our minds into a meditative state. The path of jnana-yoga is stated to consist of four principal means: 1. discrimination, between the permanent and the transient its from, the Real and the unreal and that through (2.) renunciation of the soul to the supreme being that one can find the enjoyment of fruit forms of one’s actions; (3) within these actions we find accomplishment consisting of tranquility, and sense of restraint in the from of actions that are not relevant to the maintenance of the body-mind or to the pursuit; (4) the the endless infinite urge toward liberation. Sri Aurobindo found that by integrating the many yoga’s in the Gita and those outside of the Gita that we are able to evolve our consciousness from a top down approach. Through the need to lift rajas to sattva by merging’s one’s will with the Divine Will. The Involution of the Divine in time history, and nature, evolution of the divine through the succession levels found below.
Overmind to Supermind
Mind: Intellect, intution, illumined mind
Life: organisms; vital
Matter: inorganic Material
Transformation of each level by levels above
Coming of the spiritual Age:
Overcoming Materialistic Denial and the Ascetic Refusal -Sri Aurobindo

It is in the early chapters that we find Krishna sharing the decisive practices of jnana-yoga with us, illuminating the self realization of our mind with the practice of meditation on him, in which we can fixate ourselves on the path that the Gita presents.

Those who follow this path, resolving deep within
Themselves to seek me alone, attain singleness of purpose,
For those who lack resolution, the decisions of life are many
branched and endless.” (ln 41 pg. 93, Easwaran)

By being aware of the the upward evolution of our soul to become aware of the spirit, the being; we can then cease to identify itself within the instruments and workings of Nature. We can at once again begin to identify itself with its true Self and being into a spiritual self-existence. We are presented the world through material externality of things, we live within the confines of our actions and reactions through our sense perceptions by thinking, feeling, and desiring; in search for our worldly results. It is by meditation on Krishna that we can separate the wider dealings of these external sensations, so that we can separate ourselves from the satisfaction that our “ego remains in all these disguises rooted of our actions” (McDermott, 119). Jnanayoga in the Gita is the practicing form of Self to become detached of its results. Through meditation, jnanayoga, we are able to free ourselves and unify our consciousness so that “every act is done with complete awareness” (pg.118, Easwaran). By learning to still our mind and focus, we are permitting our mind to run against its true nature of running for sense gratification, taking along with it our reason and will. I believe Sri Aurobindo removed himself by keeping himself in a room during the many last years of his life, so that he was able to fully focus on his evolving consciousness away from the sense gratification of the world found with in rajas, and tamas. He was able to unify with the Supreme God Head so that he could have a reception into himself with the transcendent, in order to create a utilization for the transformation of humanity.
Sri Aurobindo and I both believe that one must open themselves to the Divine, for it is an essential part of integrating these yoga’s, (karmayoga, jnanayoga) for it to be possible to transform ourselves towards the Divine Knowledge. It was Sri Aurobindos goal to share with us the process of the attaining union with the Divine so that we can “constitute the essence of the integral divine perfection of the human being” (McDermott, pg 163).
I have found that by giving our self into the Divine Will’s energy, we can surrender into the true power of these yoga’s, so that it is possible to merge into the joy and peace so we can accept them without question, and they are allowed to grow through us and within us in a progressive way leading to the transformation of our self into the Divine. It is essential for me to note here that in order to fully participate with the Divine spoken about in the Gita, that one must meditate through jnanayoga on this text to be part of it and act through the merits of karmayoga to find just as Arjuna did. That by going beyond one’s own actions and by working through the actions of the Divine will, one is able to self-reflect themselves in the Divine in their own actions. It is only through accepting these revelations found in the Karmayoga and Jnanayoga in the Gita that one can start to surrender their own worldly presence in to that of the cosmos, Supreme Beingness of Krishna.