October 27, 2024 • 54 mins
In this episode of A Woman's Gita, hosts Nischala Joy Devi and Kamala Rose explore the profound paradox within the Bhagavad Gita—the tension between the violent backdrop of war and the yogic principle of ahimsa, or non-violence.
Main topics include:
- The emotional and moral crisis of Arjuna during the Mahabharata war
- Arjuna's internal conflict as a Kshatriya warrior torn between duty and non-violence
- The relevance of Arjuna's struggle for spiritual seekers in the modern world
- The concept of the "dark night of the soul" and its transformative power
- Navigating violence, compassion, and personal responsibility through the teachings of the Gita
- Practical insights on balancing ahimsa with real-world complexities
- Using despair as a catalyst for spiritual growth and resilience
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:02):
Namaste. Welcome to a woman's Gita podcast, a modern
discussion of the Bhagavad Gitaby and for Western women. A
women's Gita featuresdiscussions on the Bhagavad
Gita, the timeless classic ofEastern wisdom, reinterpreted
from the perspective of twofemale teachers, your hosts are
(00:24):
nistula Joy Devi and KamalaRose, who have dedicated their
lives to the yoga tradition at atime when women's voices are
finally emerging, a feminineperspective of the wartime
treatise could not be moretimely.
Kamala Rose (00:42):
Namaste, Welcome to a woman's Gita podcast
discussing the Bhagavad Gita byand for Western women. I'm
Kamala rose
Nischala Joy Devi (00:53):
and I'm nischala Joy Devi.
Kamala Rose (00:56):
Welcome. Great to have you all with us today. We
are continuing our discussion ofchapter one called Arjuna,
vishadha, yoga, last time weleft off on the cast of
characters, and I'll start byreading some of the verses that
(01:16):
we find here in chapter one.
Conch shells have been blown,bells, drums and horns are
sounded, announcing thebeginning of the kurushetra War
mountain in a great chariot,Krishna and Arjuna sound their
horns, and each celebratedwarrior in turn announced their
(01:38):
participation in the war withthe thunderous sound of
intention, the resonating soundof conch shells across Earth and
sky. Arjuna, in full glory,ready to begin, asks Krishna,
his charioteer, to drive hischariot between both armies so
(01:59):
he can see the faces of thosewho have come to fight. Arjuna
saw fathers, grandfathers,gurus, uncles, brothers, sons
and friends, and was overwhelmedby profound compassion upon
seeing his kith and kin crestfallen with a heart heavy with
(02:22):
despair. He spoke to Krishna.
Here's some of our openingverses of chapter one, and today
we're going to discuss the nextpart, which is where we learn
about the term vishadha, thedespair or the despondency of
(02:44):
Arjuna.
Nischala Joy Devi (02:48):
One of the things that struck me when both
of reading and trying tointerpret this first chapter is
how it goes from a very excitedlevel of with the kettle drums,
with the the conch shells, etc.
It really shows that we'retrying to pump this up. We're
(03:14):
trying to make it exciting.
It's, to me, it's almost likethe beginning of an Olympics
game where they have all theparades and everything to get
everybody all excited and showwho the cast of characters are,
etc. Except those are games.
This is war. That's the bigdifference. And so here we take
it from a level of what needs tohappen in this situation where
(03:41):
the land has been taken and notgiven back, and the war is then
staged. For this reason, whoeverwins gets the land. However,
that's on a very large scale. Ithink what we have to do is
start taking it back, as theGita is showing us, from this
(04:02):
display of arms and display ofstrength, we then begin to come
back to the humanness of this.
And I think that's where sloka128 through 130 comes in, we
(04:23):
begin to now see that this, thereality of war, the reality of
killing, has now affected ourmain character, Arjuna,
Kamala Rose (04:40):
and for our listeners, Arjuna in the
Mahabharata is a very upstandingwarrior character. I think he
could best be described assomeone much like Hercules a
semi. Mythical character, knownfor bravery, known for showing
(05:06):
up with the appropriate responsewhen, when it was needed. So
he's a, he's a very he's a veryexperienced, a very tough
warrior, and he's been raised inhis life to, you know, to be a
warrior, that when it's time toshow up and do the right thing,
(05:27):
he's there, and that's whatmakes this crisis of conscience
even more significant.
Nischala Joy Devi (05:33):
Didn't he even make a special kind of bow,
an arrow that shot was like aballistic missile that then
divided the one divided intomany, isn't wasn't that also
part of that?
Kamala Rose (05:47):
Yes. In fact, during the Pandavas time in
exile in the forest that hadhappened previous to the
Mahabharata War, Arjuna spentthe 12 years of exile traveling
around the Himalayas and infact, meeting with several
(06:09):
divine personages, includingShiva, who gifted him this
incredible weapon that shoots insomething that we would think of
today as a cluster bomb. It goesin 1000 different directions and
right? So, so as a Hercules likefigure who was those in western
(06:33):
mythology, we know Hercules assort of the image of the hero,
someone who's ready to undertakethose difficult tasks and bring
back that knowledge and insightto the you know, to his people.
So yes, initially, he did earnseveral extraordinary what we
(06:53):
are to understand our celestialweapons that he was going to use
in this war.
Nischala Joy Devi (07:00):
So I think what it shows to me as we talk
about all this, and I go back tothe yogic point, because that's
where I come from. I come fromyoga, and the totality of yoga,
and what it looks like to me isthat he had a real clear
delineation between his thoughtsand his emotions. So his
(07:24):
thoughts are going more withKrishna and thinking, oh yes,
this is a righteous war. This issomething that has to be done,
and he's okay with that. That'show he's trained his whole life
to be a kshatri, to be awarrior, and this is now his
duty. That's how the thoughtsthink. That's the thought
(07:45):
process. But what we see besitting right beside that are
his emotions. And his emotionsare very different, and we can't
see his emotions. We can't hearhis emotions, but we can see the
effect that his emotions aretaking on him. And I think this
(08:07):
is again, something that we alllive with in our daily lives.
Our thoughts tell us to do onething, but yet our emotions
another, and sometimes wedescribe it as a gut feeling
this doesn't feel right in mygut. Or some people say it
doesn't feel right in my heart.
My heart doesn't want to dothis. So we have this constant
(08:28):
struggle. And I see that very,very clearly in this particular
group of slokas. And the slokassay, Arjuna said, O Krishna, at
the sight of these my kinsmenassembled here, eager to give
battle. My limbs fail and mymouth is parched, my body is
(08:54):
shaken and my hair stands onend. The bow slips from my hand,
and my skin is on fire. I cannothold myself steady. My not mine
seems to whirl. I see omens ofevil. Even reading it, you may
(09:17):
find a little bit that yourbreath is taken away, because
what he's describing here is howthe emotions affect the body. So
what we feel, we may not alwaysfeel the emotion, but we feel
(09:37):
the experience of how it's beingplayed out in the body. And for
to move to a modern way ofthinking, this is what we would
consider, and it's almosttextbook sympathetic nervous
system reaction, or what manypeople call fight or flight. And
(09:57):
for. Sure this particular areaof the Gita, those words are
perfect, because this is exactlywhat he's faced with. Now, does
he fight, or does he flee? He,at this moment, wants to flee,
because then we go on to see, Isee many ill omens. I do not
(10:21):
understand what good could comeby killing my own people in
battle. So you see that theemotions are now taking over,
and the emotions are playingwith the body, and the body is
playing with the emotions. Andhe said, goes on, I do not
desire victory or Kingdom oreven pleasures. Of what avail
(10:43):
are these Kingdom enjoyments oreven life itself to us? So he's
willing to give up everything,because we have this basic
emotion in us that is both ourSavior and our Slayer, and
that's fear. And when we come upagainst this fear, what decision
(11:09):
can we make? It takes over. Wesee here how it's talking to him
and saying things to him. Mybody is shaking. My limbs fail.
My mouth is parched. How many ofus have had that you get dry
mouth? Suppose you're a publicspeaker, and you're trying to
(11:31):
get up and speak, or not apublic speaker, I guess, and
getting up to speak, that's whathappens. Your mouth gets dry
because you're nervous, you havethis sympathetic reaction. My
bot, my hair stands on that.
This is typical. If you, any ofyou have a cat, you can see this
(11:52):
in a cat, their back hairs standup when they get upset or
excited. This is with my dogs.
This happens with the dogs too.
Yeah, this, but we can't see itbecause we don't have that kind
of hair. But if you look at thehair on your arms, it will do
that.
Kamala Rose (12:09):
So here would you?
Would you call this a, I wouldprobably call it a meltdown,
organic attack. Yeah, some ofthe terms that we use today to
describe this kind of I alwayscall it a crisis of conscience,
also that, like you said, theemotions have now taken over,
(12:30):
and even though your mind knowssomething else, you're unable to
relegate the emotions to aninferior position in
consciousness, right? Theemotions have come up and taken
over, and there's literallynothing you can do about it
(12:52):
except look at it and accept thepain and the fear.
Nischala Joy Devi (13:01):
Yeah, that's accept it. Accept if you know
some yoga practices, I thinkthis is where the savior of yoga
comes into this. Because thething is, okay, so what we're
looking at now as we're lookingat this, the hair standing on
(13:23):
and shaking, the sweating of thepalms, he can't hold on to the
bow anymore, so you say, okay,that passes, but this does not
pass. This is something that hasbecome ingrained in him and will
continue throughout the battle,even if his mind is certain it's
(13:43):
the right thing to do, he willstill keep reacting with this
emotional level. And what thenbegins to happen is we will get
into what we call now as PTSD.
They didn't really know it thenand in this way, but this is a
freezing of those emotions thatthen returns over and over and
(14:04):
over, especially when we relaxlike at night, when we go to
sleep, we see the service peoplecoming back with this from the
war, because they're also goingthrough a lot of what Arjun is
going through here.
Kamala Rose (14:24):
This is a whole area in our yoga community of
working with trauma informedpractice and understanding that
in the complicated world that welive in today, so many more
human beings have seensituations like this, whether
(14:44):
personally on a battlefield as asoldier or living in a situation
that has been overtaken by waror by natural disaster. So many
people in the world today arefleeing from their homes. Yes,
and unable to stay in the placewhere they had set up roots. And
(15:06):
the kind of trauma anddiscomfort on so many levels,
it's, it's, um, it is. It isexactly like this, where your
hands, your hair stands on end,and your mouth dries up, and so
many are forced to continue tolive this way.
Nischala Joy Devi (15:26):
I think it takes also a lot of the romance
out of it. I think war can beshown as very romantic until
you're actually there and seeingthe unbelievable destruction
that it can have also, I thinkone of the things that's causing
this experience with Arjuna, andcauses it with us also, but not
(15:52):
on the same level, hopefully, isit's really not natural to kill
another human being. It's notsomething that is inherent in
us, and we really have to goagainst our natural order of
protection, especially as women,we're engineered to protect, and
(16:16):
in that protection, the killingis not something that we do now,
if we're defending something ordefending our children or our
home in a very personal way, itmay be a necessary evil in that
respect, but we have to Bring inagain, the pinnacle to me, of
(16:41):
yoga wisdom, and that's ahimsa.
Where does that fit here? Where?
Where can we wrap our heartsaround the idea that, on one
hand, we're killing, but we'rewhole, upholding the Ahimsa at
the same time, the ability tosee that divine in everyone,
(17:06):
that knowing that if you hurtanother human being, you're
hurting yourself, it's very hardto reconcile those two points.
Kamala Rose (17:17):
It is very hard to reconcile those two points. And
I know this is one reason thatso many have found difficulties
in understanding and reading theGita, understanding why, why it
would be set in a wartimesituation like this on a
battlefield, and How Krishnacould continue to encourage
(17:41):
Arjuna to fight, even though hesays it would be better if I
were killed unresisting. It's itis the great paradox of the
Bhagavad Gita and I, we'vediscussed this so much, and
there's so many, there's so manylayers to this that you know. We
(18:03):
know that all of the Pandavasand the cowrivas, everyone there
on that battlefield has beendesensitized to killing, has
been raised to see themselves asthat last great hope in some
way, to, you know, to restorepeace to you know, to do the
(18:24):
right thing, whether by the forthemselves, in the case of the
cowrivas, or for the greaterwhole, in the case of the
Pandavas. So we are confrontedwith the idea of violence, which
to us reading it as as modernyogis, is absolutely contrary to
(18:46):
our first Yama of ahimsa. Soreconciling This is one of our
first projects in encounteringthe Bhagavad Gita, and I think
that comes from understandingwhy are junas having this
reaction?
Nischala Joy Devi (19:06):
Yeah, also, I'm I agree with that
completely, and I also have alittle part in me that's a
little mischievous, andwondering if they actually put
this in so the yoga portion is,so becomes the star in a way. So
(19:30):
we're dealing with, let's thinkof what could be the worst thing
we can think of? Okay, let'sstart a war, and let's kill all
our relatives and friends, andthen we'll teach them yoga. It
reminded me almost, and I don'tknow how true it is, but this is
(19:50):
what we're told about PompeoPompeii, that they were there,
they were gambling, and theywere doing all kinds of i.
Things like like that were notin in Dharma. I'm going to use
that term, although they don'tuse it. And then Mount Vesuvius
erupted and killed them all. Sowe get these stories constantly.
(20:18):
There must be a reason for it.
They're trying to tell ussomething, that it doesn't have
to be that dramatic. I don'tthink, but usually it is, that
what we're doing can be improvedon. We can, we can learn to live
more in the way of dharma, inthe way of spirituality, if
(20:40):
there were certain things thatwe just followed. And I think a
hymn says one of those to the bebe able to not just not hurt
another being. I think it's toosimplified. It's it's really to
have compassion and love foranother human being, not just to
(21:04):
withhold the violence. So hereand I see Arjun exhibiting some
of that when he's talking aboutit by destroying families.
They're unroot, uprooted, andcan no longer fill their fulfill
their dharma. So we're we'reseeing him say these things. So
(21:24):
there's something in him thatmay have come through, if not in
this lifetime, from anotherlifetime. I think even just
being around this in India, Ithink this is what attracts
people who are on the spiritualpath to India, even though
there's so much else in Indiathat's not necessarily
(21:46):
spiritual, but there's thatunderlying essence that just by
being there, it transforms us.
Kamala Rose (21:58):
Well, when you when you bring up that idea of of
India and all of the complexityof India with this deep
spiritual foundation, yet thisincredible multi faceted world
of both high spirituality andextreme suffering coexisting, I
(22:21):
think that gives us sort of ataste of what we're looking at
here. It's a very complicatedemotion that Arjuna is
experiencing. He is looking atthose whom are he's known his
whole life. He's looking at hisgrandfather, Bhishma, the great
patriarch of the both thePandavas on the cowrivas, and
(22:45):
he's looking at his martial artsinstructor, Dronacharya, again,
who trained both part both sidesof the cousins equally. And
Arjuna loves these teachers. Heis of the same blood as as
bishma. And I think upon seeingthat the war will not be over
(23:12):
until bishma is dead, is a factthat overwhelms him and
overcomes him when I look at thesituation of Arjuna here, I
think, I think it is absolutelythis complicated, that there is
a deeply spiritual dimension,and there are also so many
(23:36):
layers that Look at the, youknow, the suffering of the
kingdom and looking at all thatthey've been through, looking at
the inevitability of this war,looking at the inevitability of
the violence that he and otherswill have to beget, looking at
the outcome of what will happen.
We talked before that all of theLords and high ranking
(24:01):
Kshatriyas are present in Indiaat that time, are present on
that battlefield, consideringwhat will happen to the families
of these men, to the villagesthat each of them support is, is
an overwhelmingly complicatedgroup of feelings. And, you
(24:21):
know, in this way, I think thatarjunas Fear is is so far beyond
anything personal, while he'shaving a personal response to
it, I think he's able to see tohave a fear for the future and
to to look in and extrapolatewhat will happen if this action
(24:45):
continues. What will happen ifhe is a willing participant in
breaking what we would all, Ithink, in all belief systems
killing family. Is a more of acardinal sin, something,
something way outside of therules of warfare. So I think
(25:07):
when he sees these elders thathe respects to an enormous
degree, I think it puts, I thinkit casts a huge shadow on
everyone's action on thatbattlefield, that they might
just be breaking something, adeeply spiritual covenant that
(25:31):
they could break by killingfamily. And it's in this way
that I, you know, I feel thathis despair is both incredibly
intimate and personal, but atthe same time, he fears for the
welfare of the world and whatwhat further actions might be
(25:55):
spawned or generated from thisaction,
Nischala Joy Devi (26:04):
there's a couple of points that I just
wanted to go back to that you,that you made, that I thought
were very interesting. Youbrought up the whole martial
arts that he was being trainedin martial arts, and it's
interesting, and I don't knowhow much it's changed over the
years, but I do know that mostof the really what we call
(26:29):
reputable martial arts centersthere, they always teach that
this is Not to be done for theis not to be done in action.
It's to be done in reaction. AndI think that that's something
that's happening also here, thatthere's when in martial arts,
(26:53):
they come in, they shake eachother hand first, and then they
understand that there are rules.
So it's a lot of it that's beingprojected here, but I don't see
much of the other side of itthat we will stop if it gets to
a certain point without fulldestruction. And you know, it
reminded me something happenedsome years ago. There was a
(27:16):
really horrific civil war in oneof the African countries. I'm
sorry the name slips me at thismoment, but what happened is
exactly what they're predictinghere, that most of the men were
killed and the society was justalmost destroyed because of it.
(27:37):
The women were left with thechildren with no means of really
being able to make money andsupport themselves, and now they
had a country filled withorphans, and they didn't know
what to do. So the UN came inand suggested that countries
(27:58):
start to adopt these childrenand give them homes. And a group
of women, again, the women gottogether, and they talked about
this, and they said, you know,the young are our main commodity
for the future. They're the onesthat will bring this country
into the next century this theseare the ones that will support
(28:20):
it. If we send them away, ourcountry is doomed. So they
thought, what could we do? Andthey came up with this
extraordinary solution, and thatwas that each woman would take
one or two of these orphans intoher home. She already probably
had three, four or five childrenof her own. So she said, What's
(28:43):
one more or two more? And that'show they solved the orphan
problem. The children remainedin the country with women who
became their mothers, and thecountry is now prospering. This
is what I wonder, why can't wecome up with solutions like
(29:03):
this? Why do we have to havedestruction? Why does that have
to happen? But it seems to bethe way things go.
Kamala Rose (29:16):
It does seem to be the way things go. And I think
that role of of men in militaryaround the world and the those
being the people who are holdingthe power to make decisions, it
was a such a clear example inthe story that you told. It
(29:40):
could have been Rwanda. I'veheard so many extraordinary
stories about I didn't
Nischala Joy Devi (29:45):
want to say because if someone was
listening, they said, no, no,no, that's not the one correct.
Could have been. It could havebeen Rwanda. But it just touched
me that they understood thatthey were giving away the. Most
precious part of their country,and they didn't want to do that.
So there's always othersolutions. I think, if we go
(30:09):
back to this split mind withthese thoughts on one side and
the emotions on the other, whenthe emotions get strong like
that, they cloud any clearthinking that we might have.
They don't allow the heart toexpress another way. And I think
this is, this is part of whathappens. So bringing in the
(30:32):
yoga, the non violence, the nonharming, the loving, if we put
it in positive terms is reallywhat has to happen here, and as
we see as we go along, it willhappen eventually, but the war
also still happens.
Kamala Rose (30:52):
Well. Another way of looking at Arjuna state of
mind is that the the vashata, orthe despair, despondency
vishadha comes from the root Vwhich is to take apart and shot,
which is to sit. So I think thatthat split between the mind and
(31:17):
the emotions here that we have,you know, we have a state of
being that all of us can relateto in one way or another, of
feeling, feeling overwhelmed andexceptionally complicated in
ourselves, unable To, unable tohandle the scope of the
(31:41):
emotions. And I think there's anargument that says that when
this happens, we really can'tavoid it. We have to look at
what this vashata, despair,depression is telling us. And in
the I think the case of Arjunais so is so instructive in the
(32:03):
way that we have someone who ishaving a completely unexpected
reaction to a situation thathe's been in many times. I'm
sure he himself was verysurprised that this meltdown or
this panic attack happens atthis 11th hour once the war has
(32:24):
actually already started. HeHe's shocked almost by his own
reaction. And I think these aretimes that we have to learn to
look at what's causing thesefeelings. Look at why we're
having this and in manyspiritual traditions, Despair is
(32:46):
considered to be a profoundteacher. States of overwhelm and
depression can teach ussomething important about our
conscience. They they help us toalmost tear off a fresh sheet
that anything that was going onprior to that is not working any
(33:10):
longer right. Arjuna entered thewar. Everyone blew their conch
shells, including Arjuna andKrishna, ready to begin.
Psyched, ready to begin. Arjunis in a state we could even call
it a holy despair, because itdoes change his heart from going
(33:31):
along as a soldier as everyoneelse on the battlefield is, and
he realizes that whatever ishappening here is not the way it
ever happened before, and itchanges him. And I think the I
think the sense of holy despairor despondency transforms us. It
(33:54):
gives us a chance to say, Wait aminute. Wait a minute. What?
What is my heart responding to,what is my emotions responding
to? Why is this happening? Andit gives us depth that helps us
not only to understandourselves, but to understand
other people and the commonhuman experience of this kind of
(34:18):
despair and despondency, and itclears a way for us to reframe
things. I think that thisvashata is a it's an in between
state, right? He goes from beingmentally prepared to mentally
(34:39):
unprepared, and then at the endof the Gita, he is mentally
prepared again. So in this,especially in this opening
dialog, we find, we find thiswonderful symbolism of the
Bhagavad Gita between two armiespoised for battle in the space
in between the. In the you know,in the central space. Sometimes
(35:04):
the central space is calledliminal. It means he was not who
he was before, and he is not yettransformed into someone else.
Liminal spaces are the betweenand the betwixt, and it's like
everything goes up in the air.
Everything that you knew beforeis up in the air, and it gives
us time to reconsider goingforward. Mystics praise this
(35:25):
type of space as a place wheregenuine insight can happen,
where we're very receptive tolearning. So I think what you're
saying nishchala, is soimportant that I think that this
state of vashata really opensArjuna to the teachings of yoga.
We've talked about this manytimes that sometimes people
(35:50):
overlook or say that the firstchapter of the Gita is just
transitional from theMahabharata, and not much
attention is placed on it. But Ithink, I think there's something
very profound to be said aboutthe this state of being that
opens one up to learningsomething new, something that
(36:13):
they didn't know before. I
Nischala Joy Devi (36:17):
want to get back to something that you said,
that you in passing, but whatyou were describing when a
spiritual seeker goes throughthis, I think this is often
called Dark Night of the Soul,and that came from Saint John of
the Cross, who was a greatmystic. And I, I think that
(36:41):
there's a place for that, and ithappens naturally a lot of times
when you're moving, like yousaid, from one stage to another,
what's missing here that's thatthat monks and spiritual seekers
have are tools. We have ways. Sousually a person doesn't go
(37:06):
through this real dark night ofthe soul until many years into
practice, and then all of asudden you say, Well, I can't
meditate anymore. I can't prayanymore. I don't know what's
going on. The outside world iscoming in. I can't think my just
what he's talking about. My mindis confused, etc, etc, but what
(37:29):
we have, and I remember stTherese of Avila writing about
this. She was also a mystic,that she would sit there, day in
and day out, with her handsfolded, looking like she was in
prayer, and wanting to just runout and scream, but knowing that
it would pass. And I think thisis something that we can't let
(37:54):
ourselves go into the depth ofdespair, because often you don't
come out of that, or if you comeout you leave, whereas if you
have the tools to remain justwith your nose above the water
level, you're still breathing,but you're not ready to go back
(38:16):
to it yet. That's, that's thethe middle part, I think that
you're describing, and that'ssomething that I think many,
many spiritual seekers have gonethrough. Matter of fact at our
ashram, we always knew howpeople felt, because they'd walk
around with dark night of thesoul by saying, st John, we go,
(38:38):
okay. We know where you are andbut we also knew that it would
pass. I don't think Arjuna knowsthat here. I think his
despondency is so deep becausehe doesn't know what's going to
happen in that war. He doesn'tknow if he's going to get
killed, he doesn't know if he'sgoing to kill people, and then
(38:59):
what, what do you do with thatafterwards. Okay, you see all
these bodies. You won the war.
Yay, you won. But it stays withyou for the rest of your life
that you killed these people.
You killed your kith and kin.
You look across the table at aholiday, they're not there
anymore. You walk down thestreet and you see where their
(39:23):
house used to be. They're notthere anymore. So you start to
re play it in your mind, wasthis the right thing to do, and
was it right then? But was Willit be right again? I think
that's the question. Will thisever happen again? And maybe not
to Arjuna in this situation, butto us, it does. Life keeps
(39:45):
repeating itself until we get itright.
Kamala Rose (39:54):
I think it's worth noting that the all of the
Pandavas, all five of thePandavas. Survive the war, and
they have heavy hearts for therest of their lives. They live
conflicted with this yessituation. It was not just as
simple as getting over it andgetting getting with the war, as
(40:15):
as it may appear, it weighedheavily on their hearts, and
even though Arjuna,Yudhishthira, the other Pandava
brothers, do find their peaceand participating in the war,
eventually, they their heartsare heavy, and they do live with
that residual sense of guilt andit this. This really shows me
(40:41):
that a very a profound motivatorin this fear is, I think that
this fear is born out of a senseof compassion for the family,
and, I think a sense ofcompassion for the world that is
starting to stir in Arjunaagain, this, I think it's not a
(41:05):
personal fear. I think he'sbeyond the personal fear of
battle, but I think he can seethe the future of what's going
to come. And in arjunasworldview, the way he sees the
world on a you know, on afunctional level, on a
philosophical level, on aspiritual level, on a duty
(41:28):
level, you know, all of this,all of his worldview, is really
wrapped up in his identity as asoldier and being The one to
show up to set things right. Andwhen this collapses, when this
begins to break apart, when hesees his grandfather and
(41:51):
teacher, he's it's like his hisentire way of seeing the world
begins to falter. He feels itbreaking. He tells us that would
this not cause the world as weknow it to end if soldiers
didn't do their duty, because inthe world view of Arjuna, this
(42:14):
and all of the soldiers on thatbattlefield, the Kshatriya
class, and all of the classes ofhuman beings are part of a
larger cosmic order. Andeverybody doing their parts, the
priests doing their parts, thesoldiers doing their parts, the
merchants and the servants,everyone doing their parts
(42:35):
maintains a certain order, acertain Dharma to the world. And
so I think he's confronted withthe idea of not doing his duty,
and then the ramifications ofdoing his duty that are also
outside of his duty because he'skilling family. So I can see his
(42:56):
world view cracking, and I cansee him barely able to he that's
why he keeps asking. Tell mewhat is the right thing to do if
I act, this happens. If I don'tact, this happens either way.
His worldview is collapsing. Hefeels he's destroying the legacy
(43:16):
of his ancestors. They'redestroying the world, and if
they destroy the world, and theybreak this kind of a cosmic
covenant that is the foundationof their society, what will
happen to the future? We seethem saying, Who would want to
survive a battle like this? Isee only inauspicious results.
Nischala Joy Devi (43:42):
Yet. What would happen if that, if that
world did collapse, a new onewould come, and it might be a
better one. So I think sometimesthe fear of the unknown, or the
fear of what could come stops usor makes us do something like
(44:03):
this. To me, when I look atthis, this world, world that
they created, is not a worldthat I would want to be in
necessarily. Why not createanother world? Why not create a
world that they don't have thatin? So perhaps, like you were
talking about with the darknight of the soul. Perhaps, if
(44:24):
that world did go away, if hedid hit rock bottom with that,
and a new world was created,they're always talking about a
new world order things likethat, where people actually love
each other and are more kind toeach other. So I just wonder
about that also, there has to besome kind of personal fear in
(44:46):
him. This, what we're talkingabout is not a reaction to
others. This is a personal fearthat you feel your your being,
is being destroyed or could bedestroyed, and your. Or ego, if
I can use that word, we reallyhaven't talked about it. It's a
very complicated word becausemost people don't really
(45:08):
understand what it means, andI'm not sure I understand what
it means, but I'll use itanyway. In this case, the ego is
trying to protect itself fromdying. So yes, there is the
bigger picture, but there's alsosomething personal going on
here, because, and I think thisis part of the despondency he
(45:31):
was trained not to feel this asa warrior, yet he is feeling it,
and his mind is not betrayingHim as maybe as much, but his
emotions are and his emotionsare saying, I'm scared this is
real. I could really get killedin this. And then what happened
to my wife, or wives in hiscase, and children, right? So
(45:58):
it's there's so much in thischapter that I'm not sure why
people pass over it, because Ithink it really sets the tone
and allows us to understand whothis very complicated character
is not simplistic at all, asyou're pointing out, he's very
complicated, And in it, we cansee all these parts of him, but
(46:23):
this is this reaction that he'she's saying, and then we have to
look at the last line in this,because Arjuna, having spoke
thus on the battlefield, casthis side of his bow and Arrow
and sank down on his chariotseat. I think this is where the
seat comes in. You were, youwere using the translating the
(46:47):
word seat. It's right hereagain. He chariots seat, his
mind overcome with grief. Andcan't you just feel that? I
mean, I can, I can feel. Andhere you are struggling. What's
right, what's wrong, which isthe best, which is not the best.
(47:07):
Help me. That's why he askedKrishna to be there in the first
place as an advisor.
Kamala Rose (47:14):
Which is we are, which is So, which is a again, I
think this is such a beautiful,complicated moment, because it
does open up Arjuna to ask thatquestion, please. I do. I don't
know the right thing to do. Icannot tell what the right thing
to do is anymore, where I usedto be firm in my duty. Now I am
(47:37):
not sure. I really cannot tellwhat the right thing to do is, I
think you're so right toemphasize that it is both a
personal, deeply personal, yetat the same time, existential
state of being that he's in, andwho of us cannot understand this
or identify it with this in someway in the world that we live in
(48:01):
today. One might argue thatwe're in a very similar state of
being where everything is, youknow, the it's a bit upside
down. Everything is kind of upin the air. We're dealing with
the climate catastrophe. We'redealing with wars all over the
world, unprecedented sufferingin the world, and the technology
(48:24):
to watch it on television or onthe internet every day, and to
live in a world where suchsuffering exists, I think we
would, we would not be the Thefeeling sentient seekers that we
are if we didn't respond in someway to the the feelings of
(48:47):
overwhelm from our our worldsituation and that it is, at the
same time, very personal. I'mnot sure what to do. I'm not
sure what to do, how to fixthis, yeah, and this is how I
can I relate to Arjuna that it'sjust too big for one person to
(49:11):
to fix it or do the right thing.
He cannot resolve what the rightthing to do is. And it's in that
spirit that he's he sits down.
He cannot. He puts the bow down,yeah,
Nischala Joy Devi (49:25):
and give up.
I give up. Yeah. Maybe
Kamala Rose (49:28):
it would be better to just be killed unresisting
rather than take an action thatis contrary to what duty
dictates.
Nischala Joy Devi (49:39):
What you're saying is very interesting. As
you were talking, I had thisvision of what happens when we
are being reported to theseterrible wars. So what happens
you you hear these astronomicalnumbers, these how many people
troops got killed, right? Wedon't you even say here. Humans.
(50:00):
We call them troops, because ifyou call them humans, it brings
it a little bit closer. They'rethey're human, they're they
could be our sons and daughtersand mothers and fathers. So that
that's the overview that theyfirst give us. And then after a
while, people are not reactingto it anymore. They're not
feeling it anymore. So what theydo is exactly what the Gita did,
(50:24):
which is, I think, isfascinating. It hones in on one
particular person, and you heartheir story of what happened
when the bomb dropped. You heartheir story of their child being
hurt or having to hidesomewhere. And for that one to
one allows us to have thatcompassion. It brings it back,
(50:47):
because this is just one personthat we can see in front of us.
And I think this is what theGita did. It gave us Arjuna to
be able to see what this battleis all about, whether we see it,
as you said, esoterically, or inreality on the battlefield or
within us, something ishappening, and we can't get it
(51:12):
from looking at the kettle drumsand the massive armies on either
side. We have to get it fromthat one single person that is
perspiring, that is shaking,that's hair standing on end.
That's how we have to get thisdialog. And
Kamala Rose (51:32):
if we can remember that as sentient beings in the
alive in the world today, thatthe feelings, the complicated
feelings of despair anddespondency that we often carry
as individuals could very muchin the same way, probably we can
(51:52):
assume very much in the sameway, are arising out of a sense
of compassion for the world, asense of experiencing an
unprecedented moment in historyand dealing with that so to
follow your advice, to not go sodeep that we're we lose
(52:14):
ourselves to the despair, but tosee the transformational state.
And we thank Arjuna for teachingus that.
Nischala Joy Devi (52:25):
We don't want to really leave you at this
point, but we have to end butlet's do something a little bit
positive. So since we've beentalking about all this
despondency, et cetera, beforethe next podcast, go out and do
something nice for somebody andmake that also somebody
(52:46):
yourself. So do two nice things.
Do one nice thing for someoneelse, one nice thing for
yourself at least, and then wewon't have the despondency in
that way. So we thank you forjoining us again today, and hope
to know that you're joining usnext time, and we say Namaste,
Kamala Rose (53:08):
Namaste, friends, if you'll help us, and any
questions that you'd like us toanswer or focus on in our
podcast, if you could leave thatin our comments. And we hope
that you'll you'll subscribe toa woman's Gita by and for
Western women and men on yourfavorite podcast platform.
(53:30):
Namaste.
Unknown (53:34):
Thank you for joining us for a women's Gita with
nistula Joy, Davie and Kamalarose. We would like to express
our gratitude for the ongoingsupport for a women's Gita
podcast and book from yoga givesback a non profit organization
dedicated to the underservedwomen and children of India.
Please join us again for ournext episode coming soon.
(53:58):
Namaste. You.
Namaste. Welcome to a woman's Gita podcast, a modern
discussion of the Bhagavad Gitaby and for Western women. A
women's Gita featuresdiscussions on the Bhagavad
Gita, the timeless classic ofEastern wisdom, reinterpreted
from the perspective of twofemale teachers, your hosts are
(00:24):
nistula Joy Devi and KamalaRose, who have dedicated their
lives to the yoga tradition at atime when women's voices are
finally emerging, a feminineperspective of the wartime
treatise could not be moretimely.
Kamala Rose (00:42):
Namaste, Welcome to a woman's Gita podcast
discussing the Bhagavad Gita byand for Western women. I'm
Kamala rose
Nischala Joy Devi (00:53):
and I'm nischala Joy Devi.
Kamala Rose (00:56):
Welcome. Great to have you all with us today. We
are continuing our discussion ofchapter one called Arjuna,
vishadha, yoga, last time weleft off on the cast of
characters, and I'll start byreading some of the verses that
(01:16):
we find here in chapter one.
Conch shells have been blown,bells, drums and horns are
sounded, announcing thebeginning of the kurushetra War
mountain in a great chariot,Krishna and Arjuna sound their
horns, and each celebratedwarrior in turn announced their
(01:38):
participation in the war withthe thunderous sound of
intention, the resonating soundof conch shells across Earth and
sky. Arjuna, in full glory,ready to begin, asks Krishna,
his charioteer, to drive hischariot between both armies so
(01:59):
he can see the faces of thosewho have come to fight. Arjuna
saw fathers, grandfathers,gurus, uncles, brothers, sons
and friends, and was overwhelmedby profound compassion upon
seeing his kith and kin crestfallen with a heart heavy with
(02:22):
despair. He spoke to Krishna.
Here's some of our openingverses of chapter one, and today
we're going to discuss the nextpart, which is where we learn
about the term vishadha, thedespair or the despondency of
(02:44):
Arjuna.
Nischala Joy Devi (02:48):
One of the things that struck me when both
of reading and trying tointerpret this first chapter is
how it goes from a very excitedlevel of with the kettle drums,
with the the conch shells, etc.
It really shows that we'retrying to pump this up. We're
(03:14):
trying to make it exciting.
It's, to me, it's almost likethe beginning of an Olympics
game where they have all theparades and everything to get
everybody all excited and showwho the cast of characters are,
etc. Except those are games.
This is war. That's the bigdifference. And so here we take
it from a level of what needs tohappen in this situation where
(03:41):
the land has been taken and notgiven back, and the war is then
staged. For this reason, whoeverwins gets the land. However,
that's on a very large scale. Ithink what we have to do is
start taking it back, as theGita is showing us, from this
(04:02):
display of arms and display ofstrength, we then begin to come
back to the humanness of this.
And I think that's where sloka128 through 130 comes in, we
(04:23):
begin to now see that this, thereality of war, the reality of
killing, has now affected ourmain character, Arjuna,
Kamala Rose (04:40):
and for our listeners, Arjuna in the
Mahabharata is a very upstandingwarrior character. I think he
could best be described assomeone much like Hercules a
semi. Mythical character, knownfor bravery, known for showing
(05:06):
up with the appropriate responsewhen, when it was needed. So
he's a, he's a very he's a veryexperienced, a very tough
warrior, and he's been raised inhis life to, you know, to be a
warrior, that when it's time toshow up and do the right thing,
(05:27):
he's there, and that's whatmakes this crisis of conscience
even more significant.
Nischala Joy Devi (05:33):
Didn't he even make a special kind of bow,
an arrow that shot was like aballistic missile that then
divided the one divided intomany, isn't wasn't that also
part of that?
Kamala Rose (05:47):
Yes. In fact, during the Pandavas time in
exile in the forest that hadhappened previous to the
Mahabharata War, Arjuna spentthe 12 years of exile traveling
around the Himalayas and infact, meeting with several
(06:09):
divine personages, includingShiva, who gifted him this
incredible weapon that shoots insomething that we would think of
today as a cluster bomb. It goesin 1000 different directions and
right? So, so as a Hercules likefigure who was those in western
(06:33):
mythology, we know Hercules assort of the image of the hero,
someone who's ready to undertakethose difficult tasks and bring
back that knowledge and insightto the you know, to his people.
So yes, initially, he did earnseveral extraordinary what we
(06:53):
are to understand our celestialweapons that he was going to use
in this war.
Nischala Joy Devi (07:00):
So I think what it shows to me as we talk
about all this, and I go back tothe yogic point, because that's
where I come from. I come fromyoga, and the totality of yoga,
and what it looks like to me isthat he had a real clear
delineation between his thoughtsand his emotions. So his
(07:24):
thoughts are going more withKrishna and thinking, oh yes,
this is a righteous war. This issomething that has to be done,
and he's okay with that. That'show he's trained his whole life
to be a kshatri, to be awarrior, and this is now his
duty. That's how the thoughtsthink. That's the thought
(07:45):
process. But what we see besitting right beside that are
his emotions. And his emotionsare very different, and we can't
see his emotions. We can't hearhis emotions, but we can see the
effect that his emotions aretaking on him. And I think this
(08:07):
is again, something that we alllive with in our daily lives.
Our thoughts tell us to do onething, but yet our emotions
another, and sometimes wedescribe it as a gut feeling
this doesn't feel right in mygut. Or some people say it
doesn't feel right in my heart.
My heart doesn't want to dothis. So we have this constant
(08:28):
struggle. And I see that very,very clearly in this particular
group of slokas. And the slokassay, Arjuna said, O Krishna, at
the sight of these my kinsmenassembled here, eager to give
battle. My limbs fail and mymouth is parched, my body is
(08:54):
shaken and my hair stands onend. The bow slips from my hand,
and my skin is on fire. I cannothold myself steady. My not mine
seems to whirl. I see omens ofevil. Even reading it, you may
(09:17):
find a little bit that yourbreath is taken away, because
what he's describing here is howthe emotions affect the body. So
what we feel, we may not alwaysfeel the emotion, but we feel
(09:37):
the experience of how it's beingplayed out in the body. And for
to move to a modern way ofthinking, this is what we would
consider, and it's almosttextbook sympathetic nervous
system reaction, or what manypeople call fight or flight. And
(09:57):
for. Sure this particular areaof the Gita, those words are
perfect, because this is exactlywhat he's faced with. Now, does
he fight, or does he flee? He,at this moment, wants to flee,
because then we go on to see, Isee many ill omens. I do not
(10:21):
understand what good could comeby killing my own people in
battle. So you see that theemotions are now taking over,
and the emotions are playingwith the body, and the body is
playing with the emotions. Andhe said, goes on, I do not
desire victory or Kingdom oreven pleasures. Of what avail
(10:43):
are these Kingdom enjoyments oreven life itself to us? So he's
willing to give up everything,because we have this basic
emotion in us that is both ourSavior and our Slayer, and
that's fear. And when we come upagainst this fear, what decision
(11:09):
can we make? It takes over. Wesee here how it's talking to him
and saying things to him. Mybody is shaking. My limbs fail.
My mouth is parched. How many ofus have had that you get dry
mouth? Suppose you're a publicspeaker, and you're trying to
(11:31):
get up and speak, or not apublic speaker, I guess, and
getting up to speak, that's whathappens. Your mouth gets dry
because you're nervous, you havethis sympathetic reaction. My
bot, my hair stands on that.
This is typical. If you, any ofyou have a cat, you can see this
(11:52):
in a cat, their back hairs standup when they get upset or
excited. This is with my dogs.
This happens with the dogs too.
Yeah, this, but we can't see itbecause we don't have that kind
of hair. But if you look at thehair on your arms, it will do
that.
Kamala Rose (12:09):
So here would you?
Would you call this a, I wouldprobably call it a meltdown,
organic attack. Yeah, some ofthe terms that we use today to
describe this kind of I alwayscall it a crisis of conscience,
also that, like you said, theemotions have now taken over,
(12:30):
and even though your mind knowssomething else, you're unable to
relegate the emotions to aninferior position in
consciousness, right? Theemotions have come up and taken
over, and there's literallynothing you can do about it
(12:52):
except look at it and accept thepain and the fear.
Nischala Joy Devi (13:01):
Yeah, that's accept it. Accept if you know
some yoga practices, I thinkthis is where the savior of yoga
comes into this. Because thething is, okay, so what we're
looking at now as we're lookingat this, the hair standing on
(13:23):
and shaking, the sweating of thepalms, he can't hold on to the
bow anymore, so you say, okay,that passes, but this does not
pass. This is something that hasbecome ingrained in him and will
continue throughout the battle,even if his mind is certain it's
(13:43):
the right thing to do, he willstill keep reacting with this
emotional level. And what thenbegins to happen is we will get
into what we call now as PTSD.
They didn't really know it thenand in this way, but this is a
freezing of those emotions thatthen returns over and over and
(14:04):
over, especially when we relaxlike at night, when we go to
sleep, we see the service peoplecoming back with this from the
war, because they're also goingthrough a lot of what Arjun is
going through here.
Kamala Rose (14:24):
This is a whole area in our yoga community of
working with trauma informedpractice and understanding that
in the complicated world that welive in today, so many more
human beings have seensituations like this, whether
(14:44):
personally on a battlefield as asoldier or living in a situation
that has been overtaken by waror by natural disaster. So many
people in the world today arefleeing from their homes. Yes,
and unable to stay in the placewhere they had set up roots. And
(15:06):
the kind of trauma anddiscomfort on so many levels,
it's, it's, um, it is. It isexactly like this, where your
hands, your hair stands on end,and your mouth dries up, and so
many are forced to continue tolive this way.
Nischala Joy Devi (15:26):
I think it takes also a lot of the romance
out of it. I think war can beshown as very romantic until
you're actually there and seeingthe unbelievable destruction
that it can have also, I thinkone of the things that's causing
this experience with Arjuna, andcauses it with us also, but not
(15:52):
on the same level, hopefully, isit's really not natural to kill
another human being. It's notsomething that is inherent in
us, and we really have to goagainst our natural order of
protection, especially as women,we're engineered to protect, and
(16:16):
in that protection, the killingis not something that we do now,
if we're defending something ordefending our children or our
home in a very personal way, itmay be a necessary evil in that
respect, but we have to Bring inagain, the pinnacle to me, of
(16:41):
yoga wisdom, and that's ahimsa.
Where does that fit here? Where?
Where can we wrap our heartsaround the idea that, on one
hand, we're killing, but we'rewhole, upholding the Ahimsa at
the same time, the ability tosee that divine in everyone,
(17:06):
that knowing that if you hurtanother human being, you're
hurting yourself, it's very hardto reconcile those two points.
Kamala Rose (17:17):
It is very hard to reconcile those two points. And
I know this is one reason thatso many have found difficulties
in understanding and reading theGita, understanding why, why it
would be set in a wartimesituation like this on a
battlefield, and How Krishnacould continue to encourage
(17:41):
Arjuna to fight, even though hesays it would be better if I
were killed unresisting. It's itis the great paradox of the
Bhagavad Gita and I, we'vediscussed this so much, and
there's so many, there's so manylayers to this that you know. We
(18:03):
know that all of the Pandavasand the cowrivas, everyone there
on that battlefield has beendesensitized to killing, has
been raised to see themselves asthat last great hope in some
way, to, you know, to restorepeace to you know, to do the
(18:24):
right thing, whether by the forthemselves, in the case of the
cowrivas, or for the greaterwhole, in the case of the
Pandavas. So we are confrontedwith the idea of violence, which
to us reading it as as modernyogis, is absolutely contrary to
(18:46):
our first Yama of ahimsa. Soreconciling This is one of our
first projects in encounteringthe Bhagavad Gita, and I think
that comes from understandingwhy are junas having this
reaction?
Nischala Joy Devi (19:06):
Yeah, also, I'm I agree with that
completely, and I also have alittle part in me that's a
little mischievous, andwondering if they actually put
this in so the yoga portion is,so becomes the star in a way. So
(19:30):
we're dealing with, let's thinkof what could be the worst thing
we can think of? Okay, let'sstart a war, and let's kill all
our relatives and friends, andthen we'll teach them yoga. It
reminded me almost, and I don'tknow how true it is, but this is
(19:50):
what we're told about PompeoPompeii, that they were there,
they were gambling, and theywere doing all kinds of i.
Things like like that were notin in Dharma. I'm going to use
that term, although they don'tuse it. And then Mount Vesuvius
erupted and killed them all. Sowe get these stories constantly.
(20:18):
There must be a reason for it.
They're trying to tell ussomething, that it doesn't have
to be that dramatic. I don'tthink, but usually it is, that
what we're doing can be improvedon. We can, we can learn to live
more in the way of dharma, inthe way of spirituality, if
(20:40):
there were certain things thatwe just followed. And I think a
hymn says one of those to the bebe able to not just not hurt
another being. I think it's toosimplified. It's it's really to
have compassion and love foranother human being, not just to
(21:04):
withhold the violence. So hereand I see Arjun exhibiting some
of that when he's talking aboutit by destroying families.
They're unroot, uprooted, andcan no longer fill their fulfill
their dharma. So we're we'reseeing him say these things. So
(21:24):
there's something in him thatmay have come through, if not in
this lifetime, from anotherlifetime. I think even just
being around this in India, Ithink this is what attracts
people who are on the spiritualpath to India, even though
there's so much else in Indiathat's not necessarily
(21:46):
spiritual, but there's thatunderlying essence that just by
being there, it transforms us.
Kamala Rose (21:58):
Well, when you when you bring up that idea of of
India and all of the complexityof India with this deep
spiritual foundation, yet thisincredible multi faceted world
of both high spirituality andextreme suffering coexisting, I
(22:21):
think that gives us sort of ataste of what we're looking at
here. It's a very complicatedemotion that Arjuna is
experiencing. He is looking atthose whom are he's known his
whole life. He's looking at hisgrandfather, Bhishma, the great
patriarch of the both thePandavas on the cowrivas, and
(22:45):
he's looking at his martial artsinstructor, Dronacharya, again,
who trained both part both sidesof the cousins equally. And
Arjuna loves these teachers. Heis of the same blood as as
bishma. And I think upon seeingthat the war will not be over
(23:12):
until bishma is dead, is a factthat overwhelms him and
overcomes him when I look at thesituation of Arjuna here, I
think, I think it is absolutelythis complicated, that there is
a deeply spiritual dimension,and there are also so many
(23:36):
layers that Look at the, youknow, the suffering of the
kingdom and looking at all thatthey've been through, looking at
the inevitability of this war,looking at the inevitability of
the violence that he and otherswill have to beget, looking at
the outcome of what will happen.
We talked before that all of theLords and high ranking
(24:01):
Kshatriyas are present in Indiaat that time, are present on
that battlefield, consideringwhat will happen to the families
of these men, to the villagesthat each of them support is, is
an overwhelmingly complicatedgroup of feelings. And, you
(24:21):
know, in this way, I think thatarjunas Fear is is so far beyond
anything personal, while he'shaving a personal response to
it, I think he's able to see tohave a fear for the future and
to to look in and extrapolatewhat will happen if this action
(24:45):
continues. What will happen ifhe is a willing participant in
breaking what we would all, Ithink, in all belief systems
killing family. Is a more of acardinal sin, something,
something way outside of therules of warfare. So I think
(25:07):
when he sees these elders thathe respects to an enormous
degree, I think it puts, I thinkit casts a huge shadow on
everyone's action on thatbattlefield, that they might
just be breaking something, adeeply spiritual covenant that
(25:31):
they could break by killingfamily. And it's in this way
that I, you know, I feel thathis despair is both incredibly
intimate and personal, but atthe same time, he fears for the
welfare of the world and whatwhat further actions might be
(25:55):
spawned or generated from thisaction,
Nischala Joy Devi (26:04):
there's a couple of points that I just
wanted to go back to that you,that you made, that I thought
were very interesting. Youbrought up the whole martial
arts that he was being trainedin martial arts, and it's
interesting, and I don't knowhow much it's changed over the
years, but I do know that mostof the really what we call
(26:29):
reputable martial arts centersthere, they always teach that
this is Not to be done for theis not to be done in action.
It's to be done in reaction. AndI think that that's something
that's happening also here, thatthere's when in martial arts,
(26:53):
they come in, they shake eachother hand first, and then they
understand that there are rules.
So it's a lot of it that's beingprojected here, but I don't see
much of the other side of itthat we will stop if it gets to
a certain point without fulldestruction. And you know, it
reminded me something happenedsome years ago. There was a
(27:16):
really horrific civil war in oneof the African countries. I'm
sorry the name slips me at thismoment, but what happened is
exactly what they're predictinghere, that most of the men were
killed and the society was justalmost destroyed because of it.
(27:37):
The women were left with thechildren with no means of really
being able to make money andsupport themselves, and now they
had a country filled withorphans, and they didn't know
what to do. So the UN came inand suggested that countries
(27:58):
start to adopt these childrenand give them homes. And a group
of women, again, the women gottogether, and they talked about
this, and they said, you know,the young are our main commodity
for the future. They're the onesthat will bring this country
into the next century this theseare the ones that will support
(28:20):
it. If we send them away, ourcountry is doomed. So they
thought, what could we do? Andthey came up with this
extraordinary solution, and thatwas that each woman would take
one or two of these orphans intoher home. She already probably
had three, four or five childrenof her own. So she said, What's
(28:43):
one more or two more? And that'show they solved the orphan
problem. The children remainedin the country with women who
became their mothers, and thecountry is now prospering. This
is what I wonder, why can't wecome up with solutions like
(29:03):
this? Why do we have to havedestruction? Why does that have
to happen? But it seems to bethe way things go.
Kamala Rose (29:16):
It does seem to be the way things go. And I think
that role of of men in militaryaround the world and the those
being the people who are holdingthe power to make decisions, it
was a such a clear example inthe story that you told. It
(29:40):
could have been Rwanda. I'veheard so many extraordinary
stories about I didn't
Nischala Joy Devi (29:45):
want to say because if someone was
listening, they said, no, no,no, that's not the one correct.
Could have been. It could havebeen Rwanda. But it just touched
me that they understood thatthey were giving away the. Most
precious part of their country,and they didn't want to do that.
So there's always othersolutions. I think, if we go
(30:09):
back to this split mind withthese thoughts on one side and
the emotions on the other, whenthe emotions get strong like
that, they cloud any clearthinking that we might have.
They don't allow the heart toexpress another way. And I think
this is, this is part of whathappens. So bringing in the
(30:32):
yoga, the non violence, the nonharming, the loving, if we put
it in positive terms is reallywhat has to happen here, and as
we see as we go along, it willhappen eventually, but the war
also still happens.
Kamala Rose (30:52):
Well. Another way of looking at Arjuna state of
mind is that the the vashata, orthe despair, despondency
vishadha comes from the root Vwhich is to take apart and shot,
which is to sit. So I think thatthat split between the mind and
(31:17):
the emotions here that we have,you know, we have a state of
being that all of us can relateto in one way or another, of
feeling, feeling overwhelmed andexceptionally complicated in
ourselves, unable To, unable tohandle the scope of the
(31:41):
emotions. And I think there's anargument that says that when
this happens, we really can'tavoid it. We have to look at
what this vashata, despair,depression is telling us. And in
the I think the case of Arjunais so is so instructive in the
(32:03):
way that we have someone who ishaving a completely unexpected
reaction to a situation thathe's been in many times. I'm
sure he himself was verysurprised that this meltdown or
this panic attack happens atthis 11th hour once the war has
(32:24):
actually already started. HeHe's shocked almost by his own
reaction. And I think these aretimes that we have to learn to
look at what's causing thesefeelings. Look at why we're
having this and in manyspiritual traditions, Despair is
(32:46):
considered to be a profoundteacher. States of overwhelm and
depression can teach ussomething important about our
conscience. They they help us toalmost tear off a fresh sheet
that anything that was going onprior to that is not working any
(33:10):
longer right. Arjuna entered thewar. Everyone blew their conch
shells, including Arjuna andKrishna, ready to begin.
Psyched, ready to begin. Arjunis in a state we could even call
it a holy despair, because itdoes change his heart from going
(33:31):
along as a soldier as everyoneelse on the battlefield is, and
he realizes that whatever ishappening here is not the way it
ever happened before, and itchanges him. And I think the I
think the sense of holy despairor despondency transforms us. It
(33:54):
gives us a chance to say, Wait aminute. Wait a minute. What?
What is my heart responding to,what is my emotions responding
to? Why is this happening? Andit gives us depth that helps us
not only to understandourselves, but to understand
other people and the commonhuman experience of this kind of
(34:18):
despair and despondency, and itclears a way for us to reframe
things. I think that thisvashata is a it's an in between
state, right? He goes from beingmentally prepared to mentally
(34:39):
unprepared, and then at the endof the Gita, he is mentally
prepared again. So in this,especially in this opening
dialog, we find, we find thiswonderful symbolism of the
Bhagavad Gita between two armiespoised for battle in the space
in between the. In the you know,in the central space. Sometimes
(35:04):
the central space is calledliminal. It means he was not who
he was before, and he is not yettransformed into someone else.
Liminal spaces are the betweenand the betwixt, and it's like
everything goes up in the air.
Everything that you knew beforeis up in the air, and it gives
us time to reconsider goingforward. Mystics praise this
(35:25):
type of space as a place wheregenuine insight can happen,
where we're very receptive tolearning. So I think what you're
saying nishchala, is soimportant that I think that this
state of vashata really opensArjuna to the teachings of yoga.
We've talked about this manytimes that sometimes people
(35:50):
overlook or say that the firstchapter of the Gita is just
transitional from theMahabharata, and not much
attention is placed on it. But Ithink, I think there's something
very profound to be said aboutthe this state of being that
opens one up to learningsomething new, something that
(36:13):
they didn't know before. I
Nischala Joy Devi (36:17):
want to get back to something that you said,
that you in passing, but whatyou were describing when a
spiritual seeker goes throughthis, I think this is often
called Dark Night of the Soul,and that came from Saint John of
the Cross, who was a greatmystic. And I, I think that
(36:41):
there's a place for that, and ithappens naturally a lot of times
when you're moving, like yousaid, from one stage to another,
what's missing here that's thatthat monks and spiritual seekers
have are tools. We have ways. Sousually a person doesn't go
(37:06):
through this real dark night ofthe soul until many years into
practice, and then all of asudden you say, Well, I can't
meditate anymore. I can't prayanymore. I don't know what's
going on. The outside world iscoming in. I can't think my just
what he's talking about. My mindis confused, etc, etc, but what
(37:29):
we have, and I remember stTherese of Avila writing about
this. She was also a mystic,that she would sit there, day in
and day out, with her handsfolded, looking like she was in
prayer, and wanting to just runout and scream, but knowing that
it would pass. And I think thisis something that we can't let
(37:54):
ourselves go into the depth ofdespair, because often you don't
come out of that, or if you comeout you leave, whereas if you
have the tools to remain justwith your nose above the water
level, you're still breathing,but you're not ready to go back
(38:16):
to it yet. That's, that's thethe middle part, I think that
you're describing, and that'ssomething that I think many,
many spiritual seekers have gonethrough. Matter of fact at our
ashram, we always knew howpeople felt, because they'd walk
around with dark night of thesoul by saying, st John, we go,
(38:38):
okay. We know where you are andbut we also knew that it would
pass. I don't think Arjuna knowsthat here. I think his
despondency is so deep becausehe doesn't know what's going to
happen in that war. He doesn'tknow if he's going to get
killed, he doesn't know if he'sgoing to kill people, and then
(38:59):
what, what do you do with thatafterwards. Okay, you see all
these bodies. You won the war.
Yay, you won. But it stays withyou for the rest of your life
that you killed these people.
You killed your kith and kin.
You look across the table at aholiday, they're not there
anymore. You walk down thestreet and you see where their
(39:23):
house used to be. They're notthere anymore. So you start to
re play it in your mind, wasthis the right thing to do, and
was it right then? But was Willit be right again? I think
that's the question. Will thisever happen again? And maybe not
to Arjuna in this situation, butto us, it does. Life keeps
(39:45):
repeating itself until we get itright.
Kamala Rose (39:54):
I think it's worth noting that the all of the
Pandavas, all five of thePandavas. Survive the war, and
they have heavy hearts for therest of their lives. They live
conflicted with this yessituation. It was not just as
simple as getting over it andgetting getting with the war, as
(40:15):
as it may appear, it weighedheavily on their hearts, and
even though Arjuna,Yudhishthira, the other Pandava
brothers, do find their peaceand participating in the war,
eventually, they their heartsare heavy, and they do live with
that residual sense of guilt andit this. This really shows me
(40:41):
that a very a profound motivatorin this fear is, I think that
this fear is born out of a senseof compassion for the family,
and, I think a sense ofcompassion for the world that is
starting to stir in Arjunaagain, this, I think it's not a
(41:05):
personal fear. I think he'sbeyond the personal fear of
battle, but I think he can seethe the future of what's going
to come. And in arjunasworldview, the way he sees the
world on a you know, on afunctional level, on a
philosophical level, on aspiritual level, on a duty
(41:28):
level, you know, all of this,all of his worldview, is really
wrapped up in his identity as asoldier and being The one to
show up to set things right. Andwhen this collapses, when this
begins to break apart, when hesees his grandfather and
(41:51):
teacher, he's it's like his hisentire way of seeing the world
begins to falter. He feels itbreaking. He tells us that would
this not cause the world as weknow it to end if soldiers
didn't do their duty, because inthe world view of Arjuna, this
(42:14):
and all of the soldiers on thatbattlefield, the Kshatriya
class, and all of the classes ofhuman beings are part of a
larger cosmic order. Andeverybody doing their parts, the
priests doing their parts, thesoldiers doing their parts, the
merchants and the servants,everyone doing their parts
(42:35):
maintains a certain order, acertain Dharma to the world. And
so I think he's confronted withthe idea of not doing his duty,
and then the ramifications ofdoing his duty that are also
outside of his duty because he'skilling family. So I can see his
(42:56):
world view cracking, and I cansee him barely able to he that's
why he keeps asking. Tell mewhat is the right thing to do if
I act, this happens. If I don'tact, this happens either way.
His worldview is collapsing. Hefeels he's destroying the legacy
(43:16):
of his ancestors. They'redestroying the world, and if
they destroy the world, and theybreak this kind of a cosmic
covenant that is the foundationof their society, what will
happen to the future? We seethem saying, Who would want to
survive a battle like this? Isee only inauspicious results.
Nischala Joy Devi (43:42):
Yet. What would happen if that, if that
world did collapse, a new onewould come, and it might be a
better one. So I think sometimesthe fear of the unknown, or the
fear of what could come stops usor makes us do something like
(44:03):
this. To me, when I look atthis, this world, world that
they created, is not a worldthat I would want to be in
necessarily. Why not createanother world? Why not create a
world that they don't have thatin? So perhaps, like you were
talking about with the darknight of the soul. Perhaps, if
(44:24):
that world did go away, if hedid hit rock bottom with that,
and a new world was created,they're always talking about a
new world order things likethat, where people actually love
each other and are more kind toeach other. So I just wonder
about that also, there has to besome kind of personal fear in
(44:46):
him. This, what we're talkingabout is not a reaction to
others. This is a personal fearthat you feel your your being,
is being destroyed or could bedestroyed, and your. Or ego, if
I can use that word, we reallyhaven't talked about it. It's a
very complicated word becausemost people don't really
(45:08):
understand what it means, andI'm not sure I understand what
it means, but I'll use itanyway. In this case, the ego is
trying to protect itself fromdying. So yes, there is the
bigger picture, but there's alsosomething personal going on
here, because, and I think thisis part of the despondency he
(45:31):
was trained not to feel this asa warrior, yet he is feeling it,
and his mind is not betrayingHim as maybe as much, but his
emotions are and his emotionsare saying, I'm scared this is
real. I could really get killedin this. And then what happened
to my wife, or wives in hiscase, and children, right? So
(45:58):
it's there's so much in thischapter that I'm not sure why
people pass over it, because Ithink it really sets the tone
and allows us to understand whothis very complicated character
is not simplistic at all, asyou're pointing out, he's very
complicated, And in it, we cansee all these parts of him, but
(46:23):
this is this reaction that he'she's saying, and then we have to
look at the last line in this,because Arjuna, having spoke
thus on the battlefield, casthis side of his bow and Arrow
and sank down on his chariotseat. I think this is where the
seat comes in. You were, youwere using the translating the
(46:47):
word seat. It's right hereagain. He chariots seat, his
mind overcome with grief. Andcan't you just feel that? I
mean, I can, I can feel. Andhere you are struggling. What's
right, what's wrong, which isthe best, which is not the best.
(47:07):
Help me. That's why he askedKrishna to be there in the first
place as an advisor.
Kamala Rose (47:14):
Which is we are, which is So, which is a again, I
think this is such a beautiful,complicated moment, because it
does open up Arjuna to ask thatquestion, please. I do. I don't
know the right thing to do. Icannot tell what the right thing
to do is anymore, where I usedto be firm in my duty. Now I am
(47:37):
not sure. I really cannot tellwhat the right thing to do is, I
think you're so right toemphasize that it is both a
personal, deeply personal, yetat the same time, existential
state of being that he's in, andwho of us cannot understand this
or identify it with this in someway in the world that we live in
(48:01):
today. One might argue thatwe're in a very similar state of
being where everything is, youknow, the it's a bit upside
down. Everything is kind of upin the air. We're dealing with
the climate catastrophe. We'redealing with wars all over the
world, unprecedented sufferingin the world, and the technology
(48:24):
to watch it on television or onthe internet every day, and to
live in a world where suchsuffering exists, I think we
would, we would not be the Thefeeling sentient seekers that we
are if we didn't respond in someway to the the feelings of
(48:47):
overwhelm from our our worldsituation and that it is, at the
same time, very personal. I'mnot sure what to do. I'm not
sure what to do, how to fixthis, yeah, and this is how I
can I relate to Arjuna that it'sjust too big for one person to
(49:11):
to fix it or do the right thing.
He cannot resolve what the rightthing to do is. And it's in that
spirit that he's he sits down.
He cannot. He puts the bow down,yeah,
Nischala Joy Devi (49:25):
and give up.
I give up. Yeah. Maybe
Kamala Rose (49:28):
it would be better to just be killed unresisting
rather than take an action thatis contrary to what duty
dictates.
Nischala Joy Devi (49:39):
What you're saying is very interesting. As
you were talking, I had thisvision of what happens when we
are being reported to theseterrible wars. So what happens
you you hear these astronomicalnumbers, these how many people
troops got killed, right? Wedon't you even say here. Humans.
(50:00):
We call them troops, because ifyou call them humans, it brings
it a little bit closer. They'rethey're human, they're they
could be our sons and daughtersand mothers and fathers. So that
that's the overview that theyfirst give us. And then after a
while, people are not reactingto it anymore. They're not
feeling it anymore. So what theydo is exactly what the Gita did,
(50:24):
which is, I think, isfascinating. It hones in on one
particular person, and you heartheir story of what happened
when the bomb dropped. You heartheir story of their child being
hurt or having to hidesomewhere. And for that one to
one allows us to have thatcompassion. It brings it back,
(50:47):
because this is just one personthat we can see in front of us.
And I think this is what theGita did. It gave us Arjuna to
be able to see what this battleis all about, whether we see it,
as you said, esoterically, or inreality on the battlefield or
within us, something ishappening, and we can't get it
(51:12):
from looking at the kettle drumsand the massive armies on either
side. We have to get it fromthat one single person that is
perspiring, that is shaking,that's hair standing on end.
That's how we have to get thisdialog. And
Kamala Rose (51:32):
if we can remember that as sentient beings in the
alive in the world today, thatthe feelings, the complicated
feelings of despair anddespondency that we often carry
as individuals could very muchin the same way, probably we can
(51:52):
assume very much in the sameway, are arising out of a sense
of compassion for the world, asense of experiencing an
unprecedented moment in historyand dealing with that so to
follow your advice, to not go sodeep that we're we lose
(52:14):
ourselves to the despair, but tosee the transformational state.
And we thank Arjuna for teachingus that.
Nischala Joy Devi (52:25):
We don't want to really leave you at this
point, but we have to end butlet's do something a little bit
positive. So since we've beentalking about all this
despondency, et cetera, beforethe next podcast, go out and do
something nice for somebody andmake that also somebody
(52:46):
yourself. So do two nice things.
Do one nice thing for someoneelse, one nice thing for
yourself at least, and then wewon't have the despondency in
that way. So we thank you forjoining us again today, and hope
to know that you're joining usnext time, and we say Namaste,
Kamala Rose (53:08):
Namaste, friends, if you'll help us, and any
questions that you'd like us toanswer or focus on in our
podcast, if you could leave thatin our comments. And we hope
that you'll you'll subscribe toa woman's Gita by and for
Western women and men on yourfavorite podcast platform.
(53:30):
Namaste.
Unknown (53:34):
Thank you for joining us for a women's Gita with
nistula Joy, Davie and Kamalarose. We would like to express
our gratitude for the ongoingsupport for a women's Gita
podcast and book from yoga givesback a non profit organization
dedicated to the underservedwomen and children of India.
Please join us again for ournext episode coming soon.
(53:58):
Namaste. You.
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