Bhagavad-Gita 10th Chapter Glimpse

In this episode, I speak with Syama about the tenth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita. In this chapter, called the Yoga of Divine Manifestation, Krishna reaches the peak of his teaching, and then he starts going down to earth again to ground the knowledge in everyday experience. The peak is expressed in verses 8, 9, 10, and 11.

Transcript

Hello Yogi,

Welcome to my podcast.

I'm Aiko and on this show we explore ways to put spiritual theory into sustainable practice.

Hey Sham,

We are here again speaking about the Bhagavad Gita.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It's always a pleasure.

So where did we live last time?

Can you give a short recap about chapter 9?

Yes.

The ninth chapter was called the Yoga of Hidden Treasure and the hidden treasure is Bhakti.

Krishna says in the beginning of the chapter that he's telling Arjuna this knowledge because Arjuna is free of envy.

So that's a very important topic there.

We kind of asked the question,

So does it mean that you have to be free of envy to read this chapter?

Well,

No,

But it's said there just to keep in mind that if you're free of envy then you will really understand what is said there.

But just reading it will give you the tools to work on envy,

Which is a deep rooted problem we all have.

And we make a distinction between envy and jealousy because I first was very confused,

I thought we were talking about jealousy,

But jealousy is something different,

Right?

Yes.

Whereas jealousy is that you simply see something that someone else has and you also want that.

But envy is you see that someone else has it,

But you can't have it.

So you don't want them to have it either.

So you're kind of ill-willing,

Sort of wishing others not well,

Rather than being a well-wisher.

And there are very simple practices given for uprooting envy.

It's a very simple practice of bowing down,

Like giving respect,

Acknowledging other people,

Acknowledging nature,

The source of nature,

And so on.

Good.

So what is here in this new chapter,

Chapter 10?

So here Krishna begins to say in the beginning that he's going to tell Arjuna something superior to what he has been telling until now.

And we've been hearing a lot until now.

So he's going to go deeper into Bhakti.

Then he's going to go back to things that he has been saying before,

Like similar things,

Like in the seventh and the ninth chapters we've heard like examples of Krishna talking about his own manifestations in nature.

And he's going to do that again here after he has been giving this kind of peak knowledge that he hasn't been sharing before.

So it's kind of like in the second chapter where he first goes very high,

And then he kind of goes back to kind of ground that knowledge in something that we can see in the here and now.

And we mentioned last time there are also four very important verses,

The Chatusloki,

Right?

Yes.

So those are,

That is the peak.

You can actually say it's the peak of the whole Bhagavad Gita.

So here we're kind of at the top of the mountain and we're going to go down again to kind of ground ourselves.

Okay,

So how does it go?

Yes.

So it's number eight,

Nine,

Ten,

And eleven,

And the first one says,

Aham sarvasya prabhavo matta sarvam pravartate.

And Krishna is saying that he is the source of everything and that everything springs from him.

And those who understand this and who are imbued with emotion for Krishna,

They will worship him with,

Grounded in this knowledge.

And in the ninth verse,

It's talking about such practitioners gathering and enlightening one another about Krishna,

And deriving deep satisfaction from this.

Then in the tenth verse,

It talks about how Krishna is giving something called buddhi yoga to such people,

Like enlightening their intelligence from within.

So that is like when you already have knowledge about many different things and wisdom,

But with this special buddhi yoga,

You kind of make new connections within that knowledge.

You kind of see it in new ways.

You connect to the different pieces of wisdom that you have and you make new connections.

So that is buddhi yoga.

Can you give some examples?

We're going to practice this a little bit here in this episode.

So we will find out.

And then in the last,

In the eleventh verse,

Krishna says that he removes the darkness of ignorance with the light of knowledge.

So that is a further installment.

He is like,

There is more to,

There is like more to know there to kind of achieve a relationship with him.

And he will enlighten you as to that.

So after having spoken these four verses,

Then Arjuna becomes very excited.

And he praises Krishna as the source of everything.

And he asks Krishna,

How can I meditate on you?

And this is where Krishna then kind of goes down again to the things we can see here in this world.

So for example,

He says,

Mri-ganam cha-mri-gan-droham.

Among animals,

I am the lion.

And here we should remember,

Like in the previous chapter,

That Krishna said,

I am in everything,

But I'm also not in everything.

So it means he is there in as much as you see it in that way,

In as much as you're able to see it that way.

So it means that you can't just,

For example,

Hang out with a lion.

I think that you will understand God by that.

And we will get back to this also.

But like,

We can stop here for a little bit,

Like,

And see how,

Like the specialty,

For example,

Of the lion among animals,

Like it is like universally said that the lion is the king of the jungle.

Like if you watch like documentaries,

You see them on the savanna,

They are like ruling.

It says,

Jasaram makaram chasmi.

Among fish,

I am the shark.

And then,

Can I move to bigger things in nature,

Like among mountains,

I am the Himalayas.

Among ocean,

Sorry,

Among bodies of water,

I am the ocean.

Among purifying elements,

I am the wind.

Among seasons,

I am the spring.

And then most importantly,

Because to experience all these things,

We need consciousness.

So he says,

Among living beings,

I am consciousness.

We have been speaking of this quite a bit before.

That like,

Like it is,

It is like the beginning of everything.

In a sense,

Because everything that you experience,

You're experiencing through consciousness,

Which is the power of experiencing itself.

And then we also have another interesting one,

Vada pravada tam aham.

It's among people who speak,

I am vada.

And vada is a Sanskrit term for the type of discussion where both parties are trying to figure out what the truth is.

So it's not that they are coming with a preconceived notion what the truth is and trying to convince the other.

Yes,

Most discussions are like that.

That's very beautiful and almost rare.

Yes,

It's very rare.

It's like,

Wow,

You know,

If you find out,

Then you're like,

You're in a good company and a very healthy discussion.

Yes.

And like,

Especially today,

You're like,

If you go on social media and you see like how discussions are going there,

Is everyone just like throwing stuff at each other?

It's like,

Yes,

Because they hide their face behind the screen.

Then they just ready to put all their frustration to know this wrong,

How you do that.

It's very ugly actually to see it.

Yes.

So like to kind of give like comparative words in Sanskrit when it comes to discussions,

The other two are called jalpa and vitanda.

So jalpa is when both parties have,

It can be more than two,

But both parties already have their idea of what is true and right.

And they are just trying to convince the other.

And like,

Even if the other person has better arguments,

The first one would just go home and try to find,

You know,

Like he won't like really challenge himself.

He would just try to find more ammunition for his own position,

But he's not ready to give up.

Just waiting the time until he stops speaking,

That is his own turn to speak his point.

Exactly.

That is like the exact principle there.

Then there is an even worse one.

It's called vitanda.

That is when like,

You don't even have something that you're trying to convince the other about.

You're only trying to say how the other person is wrong.

It's like a heckler kind of just kind of picking apart the other person and just.

.

.

Yeah,

I was just talking to my friends some days ago and we were just saying like how lately people are just repeating what they hear like in media or in post even,

Which is even lower.

And they don't really know what they're talking about.

Like for example,

With the vaccines or all these things right now,

They really don't know what they're talking about,

But they read something and then just they repeat as a parrot.

And they just point the finger to someone else and say how they're wrong and this is so sad,

I think.

Yeah,

I remember seeing a funny comic about that.

Like someone sitting by their computer and saying like,

Okay,

I'm going to do my own independent research.

And they just like Google up to try to find some argument that supports their own opinion.

And as they say,

Like,

That's it.

I got it.

Yeah,

Exactly.

Yeah,

Okay,

So then we have.

.

.

And like all the things I've counted up here that Krishna says like are manifestations of him.

There are a couple that are different from the others.

Because as I said,

Many of them are like you will only.

.

.

They will only benefit you as much as you actually see Krishna in them.

By benefiting here,

I mean,

In the absolute sense,

Of course,

It can be beneficial to him,

Mount Everest.

Like it's good for your health and all that.

But I mean,

You won't be getting closer to God by doing that unless you are.

.

.

You want to get close to God.

Exactly.

But there are some that are like kind of spiritual in themselves.

Like Shrotasam Asmijhanavi,

Among rivers I am the Ganges.

Ganges is like spiritually purifying,

Even if you are just taking a normal bath.

Yeah,

Actually my uncle who is kind of skeptic about all these spiritual things,

He told me that there are.

.

.

The scientists are researching on the Ganges to find out because it has a real purification process like in material terms speaking.

Like it purifies water from pollution by itself.

And this is something that doesn't happen regularly by nature.

So they're trying to study and figure it out what is happening there.

That's very interesting.

Yeah.

Gotta look more into that.

And then the other one is Giram Asma Ekam Aksharam.

So among things that can be uttered,

You know,

Like by our mouth,

Like ahh,

Hmm.

Among such things,

Like all words basically,

And all the other sounds and noises.

Among all such things,

Krishna is Om.

That is a spiritual utterance.

If you just say Om,

That is spiritual in itself.

You don't even have to think that Krishna is that.

It's just gonna be spiritual even if you accidentally pronounce it.

Yeah,

When I was living in India we went to visit an Ayurvedic,

Very very nice Ayurvedic doctor and he like brought us around his garden and show all his plants and this and that.

And we went in a room where he was going to give a short class and he said we can start with chanting the mantra Om and we all chanted and then he pointed to someone and asked,

What do you feel?

He say,

Nothing.

And then he asked someone else,

What do you feel now?

And there was some kind of quiet moment and he say like,

Nothing.

And he say,

Exactly,

Om is clearly in your mind and that's why we chant the mantra Om before classes and things like that.

Wow,

That's powerful.

I remember our acquaintance Gopal,

Cause he told about when he was studying Sanskrit at university that sometimes when the teacher was pronouncing some of the Sanskrit words it actually,

He could feel how it was moving something in his heart.

Like it was,

There is some kind of subtle kind of part of our body that kind of resonates with Sanskrit.

When it's pronounced as it is kind of.

The power of the sounds and it's all about vibrations.

So according to science the world came out from some vibrations.

So yeah,

It's powerful.

Yeah,

So then Krishna ends the chapter by saying,

Cause he has been counting up many things,

I just named a few here.

He mentions many things.

I've mentioned mainly things that everyone can relate to but there is a lot in there that is related with Vedic mythology and symbology and things like that.

Like for example there are a list of qualities like intelligence and fame,

I believe.

And Krishna says,

Among women I am these qualities.

It's like seven qualities and it is described by the commentators that those qualities are personified as goddesses basically.

And some commentators also say that those qualities are best expressed by women most often.

But it's also like an encouragement for men to cultivate certain female qualities.

Yeah,

So you could see here when we bring up these things we make connections.

That is the buddhi yoga.

We are enlightening one another about Krishna.

And then there is also jnana-dipa.

Other than connections we can make between things we already know but in a new special way there is also new knowledge that can come in and that will light up our path to our ultimate self-realization.

So to make it very clear,

Like these four very important verses,

What they are saying.

Yeah,

So to reiterate first of all,

And of course as we always make the point we're not trying to push this on anyone.

No,

No,

Absolutely.

However,

You want to conceive of a higher power.

If you want to conceive of a higher power this is one way.

Krishna is saying he is the source of everything in the universe.

Everything comes from him and those who are absorbed in that understanding will worship Krishna with affection and they will gather together and enlighten one another about Krishna.

So that means like the wisdom that they have gathered here and there they will make new connections especially when you get together with others.

You know like you say like I have learned this and the other person says I have learned this and then they will kind of shed light on each other's perspectives.

It's like sometimes you can hold a diamond and turn it around and see it from different angles and it will look different.

Of course there is the classical story of the elephant and the people around the elephant holding different parts of the elephant and saying oh like the elephant is like this.

That story is often said to talk about how religious people are usually blind.

For those who haven't heard the story it's let's say five blind people gathered around an elephant.

One person is holding a tusk,

One person is holding the trunk,

One is holding the tail and so on.

So each will say an elephant is like this and they describe like whatever they can feel.

So each person is holding some part of the elephant and they think that's what an elephant is but an elephant is all those things and more.

But that story can also be taken in a good way that you get together.

This is like what we talked about before about the ways of speaking,

The ways of discussing.

You know like if one person is and of course they will all be totally right and what they you know because I mean they would be totally convinced because I mean I feel like a tusk is like this it's like something kind of bone with a sharp tip and the other one is holding the tail and he's saying oh it's something kind of hairy.

Hairy again.

Soft.

Yeah.

So then this vada to kind of discuss to ascertain the truth rather than trying to just convince each other about your own opinion is when you get together and you say like I experienced the elephant like this and the other says and I experienced it like this oh wow.

So you can kind of enlighten one another about the entirety of the elephant.

But still like you're all blind but you have a lot you can enlighten one another about with the senses that are working.

So the fourth verse is when you not only enlighten one another by telling each other what you experienced like by touch and so on like your side of the elephant this fourth verse is talking about when by a miracle they are all actually able to see.

Beautiful so what's the next chapter about?

Yes that's gonna be very exciting because you know Krishna has been talking about all these things like I am you know Mount Everest I am the ocean but in the 11th chapter he's gonna show it to Arjuna so that's that's incredible.

Cool good looking forward to read it and yeah see you next time.

See you thank you.

I hope this episode fulfilled its purpose of inspiring you if you like it feel free to share it give a review or a rating subscribe and if you have any questions please get in touch at aikoyoga reiki.

Com namaste