Wreck in the Moonlight

Caspar David Friedrich, Wreck in the Moonlight (c. 1835)

 

Stoic Snippets 129

About death: whether it is a dispersion, or a resolution into atoms, or annihilation, it is either extinction or change. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.32

IMAGE: William Holbrook Beard, Power of Death (c. 1890)

The Choice of Hercules 18

Gerard de Lairesse, Hercules between Virtue and Vice (c. 1675) 

Epictetus, Discourses 1.17.7

“If he threatens me with death,” one says, “he compels me.”

 

No, it is not what he threatens you with which compels you, but your decision that it is better to do what you are bidden than to die. Once more then it is your own judgement which compels you—that is, will puts pressure on will. 

 

For if God had so created that portion of His own being which He has taken from Himself and given to us, that it could suffer hindrance or compulsion from another, He would cease to be God and to care for us as He must needs do. 

 

“This,” says the priest, “is what I find in the sacrifice, this is God's sign to you: if you will, you are free; if you will, you will blame no one, you will accuse no one; everything shall be in accordance with your own mind and the mind of God.”

 

This is the prophecy which draws me to consult this seer and philosopher, and his interpretation makes me admire not him but the truths which he interprets. 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 1.17

 

At the most practical level, I have found that the biggest obstacle people face in accepting Stoicism is its insistence that we are granted an authority over our own minds and wills. Yes, there may be an aversion to the claim that virtue is the only complete human good, and the corresponding indifference regarding pleasure, wealth, and fame, but the greatest confusion seems to arise regarding a complete responsibility for our judgments. 

 

“A lot of times I don’t really have a choice in what I need to do. My thoughts follow their own path, and my decisions are made for me by the situations.”

 

It seems odd how those who are so confident of their ability to go out and master the world are often so sheepish about mastering themselves. 

 

I am sympathetic, because I do know how powerful the pressure of circumstances can feel, and I regularly doubt my capacity to overcome what is happening around me. And yet the very way I express my worries already reveals where the true problem lies: the external conditions will be as they are, though what I make of them by my estimation is another matter, and the only thing that needs to be overcome is my hesitation to do so. When I say that I can’t do it, what I actually mean is that I won’t do it. 

 

Impressions will indeed present themselves jarringly, and feelings will arise unbidden, and instincts will cry out in protest, but they need not determine my deliberate convictions, unless I freely surrender. To borrow from the Peripatetics, I am confusing material and efficient causes, the occasions about which I act and the agent who is doing the acting. 

 

While my tastes are admittedly eccentric, Patrick McGoohan’s brilliant performance as Number Six in The Prisoner always helps me to recall this strength of the human spirit. I can be indomitable, as long as I focus on what is properly mine to govern. 

 

I will not make any deals with you. I’ve resigned. I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered. My life is my own. 

 

Nature is constantly directing me to my need for self-sufficiency, even as I get entangled in bargaining with Fortune. God made me in his image and likeness, even as I foolishly pursue everything except the dignity of my conscience. 

 

Like the priest who can be a means to receiving grace, while he is not himself the source of that grace, the philosopher can be a means to discovering the truth about myself, while he is not himself the author of that truth. 

 

Epictetus, who can sometimes appear to go off on tangents, is certainly still addressing the original topic here, by comparing the role of such an interpreter with the processes of logic. 

 

Understand that the medium always exists for the sake of a higher purpose, and then a training in dialectic will not feel so clinical and tiresome—the exercise of reasoning is a noble tool for building happiness. 

—Reflection written in 1/2001

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2LcCn1SyVY

Aesop's Fables 50

The Two Fellows and the Bear 

Two Fellows were traveling together through a wood, when a Bear rushed out upon them. 

One of the travelers happened to be in front, and he seized hold of the branch of a tree, and hid himself among the leaves. 

The other, seeing no help for it, threw himself flat down upon the ground, with his face in the dust. 

The Bear, coming up to him, put his muzzle close to his ear, and sniffed and sniffed. But at last with a growl he shook his head and slouched off, for bears will not touch dead meat. 

Then the fellow in the tree came down to his comrade, and, laughing, said: "What was it that Master Bruin whispered to you?" 

"He told me," said the other, 

"Never trust a friend who deserts you at a pinch."

Dhammapada 183

Not to commit any sin, to do good, and to purify one's mind, that is the teaching of all the Awakened. 

Epictetus, Discourses 1.17.6

So I come to this interpreter and priest and say, “Examine the victim's flesh to see what sign is given me.” 

 

He takes and opens the flesh and interprets, “Man, you have a will unhindered and unconstrained by nature. This is written here in the flesh of the sacrifice. 

 

“I will show you the truth of it first in the sphere of assent. Can anyone prevent you from agreeing to what is true? No one. Can anyone compel you to accept the false? No one. Do you see that in this sphere your faculty is free from let and hindrance and constraint and compulsion? 

 

“Is it any different in the sphere of will and impulse? What, I ask, can overcome impulse except another impulse? And what can overcome the will to get or will to avoid except another will to get or to avoid?" 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 1.17

 

What a lovely parallel Epictetus presents here, between the priest’s divination in reading entrails and the philosopher’s interpretation of human nature. The modern mind will be dismissive, as it has no use for what it calls superstition. The classical mind understands completely, as it is open to the complementarity of reason and faith. 

 

As much as I disliked it at the time, I learned quite a bit from dissecting a frog and a pig at school. A bit later, I learned even more from being shown how to skin and butcher rabbit, trout, and deer. The “disgusting” factor can be overcome with a burst of willpower, and then there remains a curiosity about how all those bones, muscles, and organs are made to work together. 

 

How incredible a design, how beautiful a creation! Once I can treat any catch with due respect, I can also develop a deference to any beast that might make me his supper. In the end, we all end up as food for something else. 

 

I don’t know if there are secret signs in the innards of an animal, just as I don’t know if there are veiled messages in the patterns of the stars. I do know, however, that a dissection of my own soul, through the process of self-reflection, reveals the inner structure of who I am. 

 

At first it may be shocking to stare within oneself, and perhaps I am afraid of what may lie buried beneath, but the interpreter calmly helps me to identify the various aspects of my humanity, and I begin to discern the hidden order. 

 

It may sound like some mysterious prophecy, and it yet it comes from a careful examination of the parts. There are the various desires that pull this way, and then the diverse aversions that push back that way, surrounded by layers of habits, and then I find the brain and the heart, so to speak, the reason and the will, which have the power to rule themselves absolutely, unhindered by any appetites, if only they so think and decide for themselves. 

 

What can form a judgement except the act of judgment itself? What can determine a choice except the act of choice itself? 

 

The interpreter has assisted me in divining that I am a creature made to know and to love, and that from my nature I possess the freedom to control my own character, whatever else fate may throw my way. 

 

If I think about it, isn’t that really the core message in so many of the ancient myths and legends? Seeking to dominate fortune brings only misery, while seeking to govern myself is the path of liberty. 

—Reflection written in 1/2001

Abandoned Places 29

Romain Veillon, Secret Garden

Nature 31

Sayings of Publilius Syrus 44

When gold argues the cause, eloquence is impotent. 

Epictetus, Discourses 1.17.5

Why, pray, should the interpreter put on airs? 

 

Even Chrysippus has no right to do so, if he is only expounding the will of Nature, and does not follow it himself: how much less his interpreter. 

 

For we have no need of Chrysippus for his own sake, but only to enable us to follow Nature: just as we have no need, for himself, of the priest who offers sacrifice, but because we think that through him we shall understand the signs which the gods give of the future, nor do we need the sacrifice for itself, but because through it the sign is given, nor do we marvel at the crow or the raven but at God who gives His signs by them. 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 1.17

 

I used to think that taming inordinate sensual desires was the greatest challenge to my happiness; it is one thing to feel a passion, but another to be enslaved by it. I now recognize an equally dangerous obstacle, the nagging lure of vanity; it is one thing to receive fame, but another to deliberately seek it out. 

 

Why get so distracted by looking good, when the real task at hand is being good? 

 

If the teacher’s first calling is to interpret the truth, then he is bound to its service. Why, then, would he try to make himself the center of attention? He gladly defers to the order of Nature, and he is content to play his small part within the glory of the whole. Any honors he might win are dedicated right back to the dignity of the message, not exploited to feed the ego of the messenger. 

 

The real teachers prove this commitment by the selfless deeds that follow through on the noble words. He will stumble, of course, as we all must, though he then gets right back up and tries again. 

 

I am wasting my time if I listen to a Chrysippus, or an Epictetus, to be charmed by a force of personality, or to bask in some light of association. If he demands my adulation and asks me to kiss his ring, I am well advised to head for the hills. 

 

I think it no accident that the best teachers I have had, the interpreters who were true to their vocation, never sought to glorify themselves, to sell any sort of image. There were others who published books with fawning blurbs and posed pictures on the cover, and went on lecture tours to delight in the applause, yet everything seemed to be about putting on a show. The ones who really made a difference always bowed to something far greater. 

 

The wise man, therefore, is like an emissary or a mediator, and those who are drawn close to him are in turn lifted up to a higher ground. His own significance can then diminish, as when John the Baptist stepped aside for the one whose sandal he was not worthy to untie. 

 

What use is the priest who dwells upon the ritual without directing it toward God? 

 

What purpose is there in the study of logic without the end of improving character? 

—Reflection written in 1/2001 

IMAGES: 

Hieronymus Bosch, Saint John the Baptist in the Desert (c. 1489)

Geertgen tot Sint Jans, Saint John the Baptist (c. 1490)

Wind on the Hill

"Wind on the Hill"

A.A. Milne (1882-1956)

No one can tell me,
Nobody knows,
Where the wind comes from,
Where the wind goes.

It's flying from somewhere
As fast as it can,
I couldn't keep up with it,
Not if I ran.

But if I stopped holding
The string of my kite,
It would blow with the wind
For a day and a night.

And then when I found it,
Wherever it blew,
I should know that the wind
Had been going there too.

So then I could tell them
Where the wind goes . . . 
But where the wind comes from
Nobody knows. 

Solitude

"Solitude"

A.A. Milne (1882-1956)

I have a house where I go
When there's too many people,
I have a house where I go
Where no one can be;
I have a house where I go,
Where nobody ever says "No";
Where no one says anything—so
There is no one but me. 

Independence

"Independence"

A.A. Milne (1882-1956)

I never did, I never did,
I never did like "Now take care, dear!"
I never did, I never did,
I never did want "Hold-my-hand";
I never did, I never did,
I never did think much of "Not up there, dear!"
It's no good saying it.
They don't understand. 

Stockdale on Stoicism 18

. . . That was revealed to Solzhenitsyn when he felt within himself the first stirrings of good. And in that chapter, the old Russian elaborated other truths about good and evil. 

Not only does the line separating them not pass between political or cultural or ethnic groupings, but right through every human heart, through all human hearts. He adds that for any individual over the years, this separation line within the heart shifts, oscillates somewhat. That even in hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead to good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains an un-uprooted small corner of evil. 

There is some good and some evil in all of us, and that's Stoic doctrine. 

In that same chapter, Solzhenitsyn comments: "If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being, and who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"

I just want you to know that I connect with that. . . .  

—from James B. Stockdale, The Stoic Warrior's Triad

Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ 3.42

That our peace is not to be placed in men

1. "My Son, if you set your peace on any person because you have a high opinion of him, and are familiar with him, you shall be unstable and entangled. But if you betake yourself to the ever-living and abiding Truth, the desertion or death of a friend shall not make you sad. In Me ought the love of your friend to subsist, and for My sake is every one to be loved, whosoever he be, who appears to you good, and is very dear to you in this life. Without Me friendship has no strength or endurance, neither is that love true and pure, which I unite not. You ought to be so dead to such affections of beloved friends, that as far as it in you lies, you would rather choose to be without any companionship of men. The nearer a man approaches to God, the further he recedes from all earthly solace. The deeper also he descends into himself, and the viler he appears in his own eyes, the higher he ascends towards God. 

2. "But he who attributes anything good to himself, hinders the grace of God from coming to him, because the grace of the Holy Ghost ever seeks the humble heart. If you could make yourself utterly nothing, and empty yourself of the love of every creature, then should it be My part to overflow unto you with great grace. When you set your eyes upon creatures, the face of the Creator is withdrawn from you. Learn in all things to conquer yourself for your Creator's sake, then shall you be able to attain unto divine knowledge. How small soever anything be, if it be loved and regarded inordinately, it holds us back from the highest good, and corrupts." 

IMAGE: Mattia Preti, St. Paul the Hermit (c. 1675) 

Epictetus, Discourses 1.17.4

Is this then what you call great and admirable—to understand or interpret Chrysippus? No, no one says that. 

What is admirable then? To understand the will of Nature. 

Very well: do you understand it of yourself? If so, what more do you need? For if it is true that all error is involuntary and you have learnt the truth, you must needs do rightly hereafter.

“But,” you may say, “I do not understand the will of Nature.”

Who then expounds it? They say “Chrysippus." 

I come and inquire what this interpreter of Nature says. I begin not to understand what he means and I seek someone to interpret. The interpreter says, “Let us examine the sense of this phrase, as if it were Latin.”

—from Epictetus, Discourses 1.17 

Just as I can get frazzled by the steps of a winding logical proof, barely containing the urge to scream out loud, I can also start to personally resent a philosopher’s dense writings, being tempted to toss the darn book out the window.

After taking a deep breath, I see that this happens because I have abandoned my sense of perspective, and I am failing to approach the argument as a means to an end, a tool by which I might hopefully become a better man. 

A chain of syllogisms is ultimately an opportunity to direct myself on how I should live, and a grueling volume is a challenge to work in harmony with Nature. Without setting my eyes on the prize, the words are just words, signs without anything signified. 

I did not slave over the works of Aristotle or Aquinas to merely become fluent in Aristotle or Aquinas; I wanted to follow their example in how to be a servant of the true, the good, and the beautiful. That is what makes the headaches and the heartaches worthwhile. 

Beyond a few fragments, the writings of Chrysippus are now lost to us, but it would do me no good to rediscover them all in some dusty basement, if I did not offer them reverence for the right reasons. The pursuit of virtue and the embrace of Providence are the proper goals, for which Chrysippus is but an aid. 

Can I figure out this world without the help of Seneca, or Epictetus, or Marcus Aurelius as my guides? It might be possible for another man, but it is not possible for me. I require the assistance of such interpreters, and even then, I must often turn to friends who are far wiser than myself to further unravel the ancient teachings. 

What a painstaking and tedious chore it seems to be! Perhaps, but nothing precious ever comes easy, and a strenuous apprenticeship in the basic skills of philosophy is a condition for becoming a master in peace of mind. The promise is what makes it pleasing. 

I should not feel overwhelmed by studying the subtleties of a term, or examining how propositions are opposed, or becoming practiced in the forms of syllogisms, for big things always start out with little things. 

—Reflection written in 1/2001 

IMAGE: It's not as hard as it looks . . . 

Hans Holbein, The Dance of Death 40: The Gamester

 

Ellis Walker, Epictetus in Poetical Paraphrase 24

XXIV. 

If you would be invincible, you may;
I'll shew you a certain and ready way.
You can't be conquer'd , if you never try
In any kind to get the mastery.
'Tis not within your pow'r to bear away
The prize; 'tis in your choice not to essay.

Vanitas 52

School of Leonhard Kern, Sleeping Child (c. 1680)

Sayings of Ramakrishna 140

The vulture soars high up in the air, but all the while he is looking down into the charnel pits in search of putrid carcasses. 

So the book-read pandits speak glibly and volubly about Divine Knowledge, but it is all mere talk, for all the while their mind is thinking about how to get money, respect, honor, power, and so forth, the vain reward of their learning. 

Epictetus, Discourses 1.17.3

“Yes,” they say, “but the bushel is a mere thing of wood and bears no fruit.”

 

True, but it can measure corn.

 

“The processes of logic, too, are unfruitful.”

 

This we will consider presently: but even if one should concede this, it is enough that logic has the power to analyze and distinguish other things and in fact, as one might say, has the power to weigh and measure. 

 

Who asserts this? Is it only Chrysippus and Zeno and Cleanthes? Does not Antisthenes agree? Why, who is it that has written, “The beginning of education is the analysis of terms?” Does not Socrates too say the same? Does not Xenophon write of him that he began with the analysis of terms, to discover what each means?

—from Epictetus, Discourses 1.17 

 

Though I do my best to be a loyal follower of philosophy, I must shamefully admit to some occasions when I have proclaimed logic to be boring, or accused it of being cold and lifeless, or condemned it as useless for daily living. At least I can be more forgiving of such frustrations in my students when I have grappled with them myself. 

 

And it is precisely my own confusion about a situation that causes me to become so arrogant and dismissive. 

 

I may say that working through the problem does not interest me, yet my absence of interest is only a reflection of a stubborn refusal to open up my mind.

 

I may feel impatient with the difficulty of analyzing a proof, and then I fail to grasp that the fault is in the weakness of my will, not in the inherent order of truth.

 

I may be in a passionate and poetical mood, so caught up in expressing something profound that I forget how it is my very capacity of reason that even makes it possible for me to distinguish meaning and value. 

 

Like anything else in life, logic reveals its purpose when it is considered within the context of the whole. If I just think of mathematics, for example, as a pointless collection of numbers, I will never recognize how it celebrates the beauty of Nature. If I just think of logic as a series of squiggly symbols, I will never see how this tool of comprehension stands behind the appreciation of everything worthwhile in this world. 

 

Where I cannot apprehend an identity, there will be nothing to admire. Where I cannot untangle truth from falsehood, I will be unable to commit. Where I cannot proceed to a conclusion, there will be no moving forward. 

 

Logic is actually quite exciting, if I do not take it for granted, and if I can remember what it provides for me. My attitude will make all the difference. 

 

Don’t underestimate a humble measure like a bushel, and don’t look down on the power of dialectic. Each of these gives form to the content. 

—Reflection written in 1/2001

 

Stoic Snippets 128

Adorn yourself with simplicity and modesty, and with indifference towards the things which lie between virtue and vice. 

Love mankind. Follow God. 

The poet says that law rules all—and it is enough to remember that law rules all. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.31 

IMAGE: Hans Makart, Allegory of the Law and Truth of Representation (c. 1884)

Chuang Tzu 2.3

If we were to follow the judgments of the predetermined mind, who would be left alone and without a teacher? Not only would it be so with those who know the sequences of knowledge and feeling and make their own selection among them, but it would be so as well with the stupid and unthinking. 

For one who has not this determined mind, to have his affirmations and negations is like the case described in the saying, "He went to Yüeh to-day, and arrived at it yesterday." It would be making what was not a fact to be a fact. But even the spirit-like Yü could not have known how to do this, and how should one like me be able to do it? 

But speech is not like the blowing of the wind; the speaker has a meaning in his words. If, however, what he says, be indeterminate as from a mind not made up, does he then really speak or not? He thinks that his words are different from the chirpings of fledgelings; but is there any distinction between them or not? 

But how can the Tâo be so obscured, that there should be "a True" and "a False" in it? How can speech be so obscured that there should be "the Right" and "the Wrong" about them? Where shall the Tâo go to that it will not be found? Where shall speech be found that it will be inappropriate? 

Tâo becomes obscured through the small comprehension of the mind, and speech comes to be obscure through the vain-gloriousness of the speaker. So it is that we have the contentions between the Literati and the Mohists, the one side affirming what the other denies, and vice versa. If we would decide on their several affirmations and denials, no plan is like bringing the proper light of the mind to bear on them. 

All subjects may be looked at from two points of view—from that and from this. If I look at a thing from another's point of view, I do not see it; only as I know it myself, do I know it. 

Hence it is said, "That view comes from this; and this view is a consequence of that," which is the theory that that view and this—the opposite views—produce each the other. 

Although it be so, there is affirmed now life and now death; now death and now life; now the admissibility of a thing and now its inadmissibility; now its inadmissibility and now its admissibility. The disputants now affirm and now deny; now deny and now affirm. Therefore the sagely man does not pursue this method, but views things in the light of his Heavenly nature, and hence forms his judgment of what is right. 

This view is the same as that, and that view is the same as this. But that view involves both a right and a wrong; and this view involves also a right and a wrong—are there indeed, or are there not the two views, that and this? 

They have not found their point of correspondency which is called the pivot of the Tâo. As soon as one finds this pivot, he stands in the center of the ring of thought, where he can respond without end to the changing views—without end to those affirming, and without end to those denying. 

Therefore I said, "There is nothing like the proper light of the mind." 

Epictetus, Discourses 1.17.2

“Yes,” says one, “but the more pressing need is not logic but the discipline of men's thoughts and feelings,” and the like.

 

If you want to hear about moral improvement, well and good. But if you say to me, “I do not know whether you argue truly or falsely,” and if I use an ambiguous word and you say to me “Distinguish,” I shall grow impatient and say to you, “This is the more pressing need.” 

 

It is for this reason, I suppose, that men put the processes of logic in the forefront, just as we put the testing of the measure before the measuring of the corn. And if we do not determine first what is the bushel and what is the scale, how shall we be able to measure or weigh anything? 

 

So in the sphere of thought if we have not fully grasped and trained to perfection the instrument by which we judge other things and understand other things, shall we ever be able to arrive at accurate knowledge? Of course, it is impossible. 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 1.17

 

“Don’t get me wrong, having logic classes is great, but we really need to ask how necessary that material will be for our students to become successful professionals and good citizens.” 

 

Not a single curriculum committee meeting can pass without someone making such a statement, as a seemingly friendly way of telling the humanities faculty they are not so important. I have even learned to predict at which point in the agenda it will inevitably make its appearance. 

 

There can be both great benefit as well as great harm in it. It is certainly true that intellectual musings divorced from the development of character are of no use whatsoever, and fancy scholars should surely take note. At the same time, increasing the virtues is quite impossible without also rigorously forming the intellect, and those who reduce education to a mere business for profit are called to reconsider. 

 

How can I choose to do what is good, if I do not first understand what is good? How can I judge between right and wrong, when my power of judgment lacks order and discipline? All the best intentions in the world are wasted without the direction of a sound mind, and I will be hopelessly lost in a flood of particular cases in the absence of any universal laws. 

 

Simply put, theory lacking practice is dead, while practice lacking theory is blind. For a rational animal, there is no worthwhile living without excellence in reasoning. Time and time again, my neglect of this rule has left me profoundly miserable. 

 

A “successful professional?” I then need to correctly and precisely define both success and professionalism. A “good citizen?” Yes, I see how loaded those terms are, and how critical it is that I am working from a thorough account of what my human vocation entails. 

 

Please don’t smirk, or roll your eyes at me, or brush off such matters as being petty and irrelevant. Nothing could be more relevant than this, to get a handle on who I am and where I should be going. The moral concern is at the heart of every other concern, as it sets the ultimate standard for every decision I will make.

 

Weights and measures are such a wonderful analogy. How can I sell you a pound of ham, without a norm for what constitutes a pound? How can you pay me for driving a mile, if we can’t agree on the distance involved? 

 

And how can we say that all we need is love, when we have no tools for identifying the essence of love? It is the mind that offers these tools to the heart. 

—Reflection written in 1/2001

IMAGE: The glory of the British pre-decimal days . . . 

Dhammapada 182

Difficult to obtain is the conception of men, difficult is the life of mortals, difficult is the hearing of the True Law, difficult is the birth of the Awakened, the attainment of Buddhahood. 

Wisdom from the Bhagavad Gita 43

The Blessed Lord said:

32. I am the mighty world-destroying Time, here made manifest for the purpose of infolding the world. Even without you, none of the warriors arrayed in the hostile armies shall live. 

33. Therefore do you arise and acquire fame. Conquer the enemies, and enjoy the unrivalled dominion. Verily by Myself have they been already slain; be you merely an apparent cause, O Savyasâchin. 

34. Drona, Bhishma, Jayadratha, Karna, as well as other brave warriors—these already killed by Me, do you kill. Be not distressed with fear; fight, and you shall conquer your enemies in battle. 

Sanjaya said:

35. Having, heard that speech of Keshava, the diademed one, with joined palms, trembling, prostrated himself, and again addressed Krishna in a choked voice, bowing down, overwhelmed with fear. 

Arjuna said: 

36. It is meet, O Hrishikesha, that the world is delighted and rejoices in Your praise, that Râkshasas fly in fear to all quarters and all the hosts of Siddhas bow down to You in adoration. 

37. And why should they not, O Great-souled One, bow to You, greater than, and the Primal Cause of even Brahmâ, O Infinite Being, O Lord of the Devas, O Abode of the Universe? You are the Imperishable, the Being and the non-Being, as well as That which is Beyond them. 

38. You are the Primal Deva, the Ancient Purusha; You are the Supreme Refuge of this Universe, You are the Knower, and the One Thing to be known; You are the Supreme Goal. By You is the Universe pervaded, O Boundless Form. 

39. You are Vâyu, Yama, Agni, Varuna, the Moon, Prajâpati, and the Great-Grandfather. Salutation, salutation to You, a thousand times, and again and again salutation, salutation to You! 

40. Salutation to You before and behind, salutation to You on every side, O All! You, infinite in power and infinite in prowess, pervades all; wherefore You are All. 

41-42. Whatever I have presumptuously said from carelessness or love, addressing You as, "O Krishna, O Yâdava, O friend," regarding You merely as a friend, unconscious of this Your greatness—in whatever way I may have been disrespectful to You in fun, while walking, reposing, sitting, or at meals, when alone with You, O Achyuta, or in company—I implore You, Immeasurable One, to forgive all this. 

43. You are the Father of the world, moving and unmoving; the object of its worship; greater than the great. None there exists who is equal to You in the three worlds; who then can excel You, O You of power incomparable? 

44. So prostrating my body in adoration, I crave Your forgiveness, Lord adorable! As a father forgives his son, friend a dear friend, a beloved one his love, even so should You forgive me, O Deva. 

—Bhagavad Gita, 11:32-44