Bhagavad-Gita 12th Chapter Glimpse

In this episode, I speak with Syama about the 12th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita called the Yoga of Devotion. Arjuna asks the beginning whether it’s best to meditate on the all-pervading unseen spirit or to meditate on God’s personal form. Krishna answers that either method will afford perfection, but meditating on his personal form is more straightforward and natural.

Transcript

Hello Yogi!

Welcome to my podcast.

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

Welcome again Sean to chapter 12 now of the Bhagavad Gita.

Yes,

The yoga of devotion.

Yeah it's very beautiful and it speaks a lot about Bhakti yoga,

Right?

Yes,

Bhakti means devotion.

So in English the yoga of devotion in Sanskrit is simply Bhakti yoga.

So what did we say last time?

Do you want to spend some words about chapter 11?

Yes so that was about the universal form,

Krishna showing himself.

And I remember being kind of doubting whether I'd understood in this chapter,

But of course there are many levels of understanding.

So of course I can get some kind of insight but then there is much more to learn as always.

But this thing that I mentioned about Krishna showing himself as the universe and Arjuna not getting really inspired but only being afraid.

Of course he was amazed and it was a sacred kind of fear.

And I guess it goes into Krishna's argument overall.

Like it kind of adds to his credibility of course.

But it was not that that made Arjuna follow Krishna's instruction in the end.

It is more the fact that he is Krishna's friend and that they have love for one another.

Because I made the point that sometimes we are not satisfied to just believe that God exists,

We want to see him.

But then if we see him we can think,

Oh maybe that was just an illusion.

And then I heard a lecture by our teacher the day after where he made a similar point that kind of felt like it confirmed what I had thought there.

Because he was saying how people,

They kind of complain when they hear how long it's going to take to attain perfection in this path.

Because it may take several lifetimes.

And we may think several lifetimes.

We don't even know if we have more lifetimes than this one.

Like maybe that's all just,

You know,

Mumbo jumbo or something.

So he was saying,

Because our goal is to play with God.

And some people complain,

So we can't play with God until we have attained perfection in several lifetimes.

But then he said,

But you can play with God now.

Like try it out.

But then if you see like it seems like it's working,

You're actually getting some reciprocation,

Then you may think that's just a hallucination or an illusion.

So you need to kind of not overthink these things too much.

You need to be both kind of realistic and optimistic at the same time.

And like be open for the possibility that God can hear your prayers and respond to you even if you're not on a high level yet.

Yeah.

Because anyway,

God is merciful and he can come and go wherever he wants.

He can go to the most miserable,

Quote unquote,

Miserable person on earth and just show himself and give mercy.

Mercy is not that you deserve mercy.

Mercy is just coming to you,

Right?

Yes.

And it's also said that if you kind of interpret things happening in your life as kind of God's hand moving in your life,

Moving things in your life,

Even if that's maybe not objectively true and it's your subjective understanding,

Still that's beneficial for your practice if it inspires you.

Yeah.

Because anyway,

You keep your thoughts and your belief and your faith in God just by seeing your life.

I mean,

Ultimately God is everywhere.

So there is a very like strange line between this reality and understanding.

Yes,

Exactly.

Like,

Yeah,

Like ultimately God is in everything.

And what we mean like when it's God personally is that he's really like personally paying attention to you and not just that it's,

You know,

That it happens to be God doing something in passing,

Sort of,

But that he pays attention to you like when you pay attention to him.

That is kind of the point.

Yeah,

Very beautiful.

So now how chapter 12 unfold?

What is happening?

And actually Arjuna is saying to Krishna,

Is asking to Krishna.

Yes,

In the beginning Arjuna is after having seen the universal form and he's seeing,

He's a personal friend of Krishna,

So he sees him like kind of like in the shape of a human being.

But he has had all these astonishing experiences now.

He saw Krishna turn into the form of the entire universe,

The form of time.

And he's asking here because like that was frightening for him.

So he's kind of asking a general question.

Is it better to just kind of worship the peaceful,

Just like the divine spirit,

Just like the kind of unseen spirit that is permeating everything?

Just like meditate on that or to meditate on Krishna's personal form?

And Krishna says that in whichever way you will attain perfection,

Whether you meditate on the kind of impersonal force or if you meditate on him personally.

But it's going to be easier to meditate on him because it's kind of abstract to try to meditate on something that you can't see,

Something that can't be seen or like conceived of in any way.

Can you explain more this concept?

The unseen?

Yes.

So it's said that God has three features,

The feature of a personal form,

The feature of,

How do you say,

That he is everywhere but in a localized way.

Like he's in every heart,

For example.

It's like one truth but it's in the heart of everything.

It's in your heart,

In my heart,

In the heart of a plant,

Wherever that is.

In every atom,

But like localized everywhere,

But localized at the same time.

And then there is this,

Which is called the Brahman,

Which is just a formless and everywhere,

Like not centralized anywhere,

It's just everywhere without limits or shapes or it's just an all-pervading reality.

That can be meditated on in an abstract way,

Whereas the other two features you can kind of conceptualize and see a form in your mind's eye.

So Arjuna is asking which is the most,

Which one is the best,

Basically.

And Krishna says,

Well,

Like they all work,

But meditating on me personally is more,

We can say,

User-friendly,

As our teacher says.

Because we are familiar with seeing forms,

But at the same time this is a spiritual form.

So it comes in a,

You can say that it's familiar and transcendental at the same time.

So it's helpful.

Like then there is of course,

You could say you could fall in the trap of thinking that it's something ordinary,

Since we are used to ordinary forms that come and go.

Like any form in this world that shapes,

It's also going to go away at some point.

So it's good to have knowledge of the other two aspects also at the same time as you meditate on this personal form,

That you meditate that this is also the source of this all-pervading Brahman aspect of God and also the source of the localized aspect of Paramatma that is in everything,

In everyone,

Everywhere.

Yeah,

Maybe for those who don't know,

We can explain what Paramatma is.

And another question I have is like,

As we are speaking about Bhakti Yoga,

The form of Krishna,

Which we're talking about,

Is his form as Krishna or as Brahma?

It is his form as Krishna,

Since the Brahma is called formless.

You can say it's a form of Krishna,

But it's more like a play on words.

Paramatma is this localized aspect,

So it's in the heart of everything,

Always accompanying everything.

Like,

Let's say you've had unlimited births and as the soul goes from body to body,

Then the Paramatma is always accompanying it.

There has been a metaphor given to kind of explain the three aspects of God,

And it's that if a train is coming from far away,

And first you may just see the light,

The front lights of the train,

Let's say it's coming in the night or something like that,

So you just see the light.

So that's the Brahman.

And then when it comes closer,

You see the form of the train.

But then once the train arrives,

It opens and you see all the people coming out.

So when you start seeing the form,

That's like the Paramatma,

And then when you see everything,

It's Bhagavan,

Or the personal feature of God.

So again,

Arjuna is asking,

Is it better to meditate on the light,

Or on the simple form,

Or on the full,

With all that it means,

A train?

And Krishna is saying that it's all good,

But you will have the best understanding of what a train is once it arrives and it opens and people are coming out and you can see everything that's going on in a train.

Then what happens in the chapter?

So that goes into having said that it's the most user-friendly to meditate on Krishna's personal form.

And he says that what he recommends is that you just fully devote yourself to that,

Put your heart and soul in that,

And just place your heart and soul in that,

And wherever your heart goes,

Your mind will go,

So you will just meditate effortlessly.

But if you cannot do that,

Because that is.

.

.

If you have practiced from before,

Like in previous lives maybe,

Then it's going to happen more effortlessly in this life.

You will already have what we call Samskara,

The deep impressions that will just draw you there.

But if you cannot do that,

If you're more in the beginning of your practice,

Then you simply try to do that,

And when the mind wanders away,

You bring it back.

Let's say you sit down for a mantra meditation practice every morning,

Then you will notice that after a while you're thinking of something completely different than the mantra and you didn't even know how.

.

.

You got there.

Yeah,

How you got there.

So you have to kind of like.

.

.

Sometimes I have fun with that.

I try to backtrack.

It's like,

How am I thinking of this right now?

Then I think,

Okay,

I'm thinking about this because I was thinking of that,

And that's because of that.

And I may even realize at the end of such a.

.

.

Of this effort of trying to remember that it was actually something related to the mantra,

But that kind of sidetracked me completely,

And that took me far,

Far away from what I was supposed to meditate on.

But you kind of do that,

You bring your mind back,

And here it's good to know that this is completely normal,

The nature of the mind.

It shouldn't be seen as a failure or as a surprise that you find yourself.

.

.

You should see this as the norm and you should,

Rather than being disappointed that you drifted off,

You can be happy that you came back.

Because at one point you'll realize,

Oh,

I'm not hearing the mantra.

And then with time,

Slowly,

Gradually,

This out thought will become smaller and smaller.

It's just a process.

And then,

You know,

If you kind of train your mind by welcoming yourself back to the mantra,

And once you realize that you have drifted off,

Then it becomes more of a positive process than trying to like,

Oh no,

I drifted off,

Now I have to really whip my mind in shape and get back.

I mean,

I guess that also works,

But I think you will build.

.

.

You will have a better ground for building these deep impressions of the mantra if you do it in a way that's attracting the mind positively,

Like welcoming the mind back,

Congratulating your mind for coming back to the mantra,

And then kind of try to ground yourself in the mantra once again.

And then Krishna says,

But if you can't even do that,

Like if you find that you can't even try and sit down and do that,

Then do like work that is related to devotion.

There is,

For example,

There is a sacred plant called Tulsi.

So it's like you can plant a Tulsi and try to water it and care for it.

It is a bit of work,

It has some needs,

This plant,

But if that helps you,

Like if you remember that this is a sacred plant and you read books on how to take care for it,

Then this will gradually help you be able to also sit down and try to meditate.

It says if you can't even do that,

Like if you can't even like conceive of something as simple as a plant being.

.

.

Some people might not be like good in taking care of plants.

But of course there is more than that that you could do.

That was just one example.

Yeah,

You can go on a temple,

Just help out there.

Get some vegetables in the temple kitchen.

Just try somehow to do some kind of physical work that's related to something.

It's connected also with karma yoga we already talked about.

Yes.

But that is kind of the next level.

That is,

If you feel that you can't even do this kind of more directly spiritual work,

Because you're just not feeling it,

Then you can do karma yoga.

So that is that you simply work selflessly.

You work for the benefit of others and you're not doing it just for your own gain.

And if you do something like.

.

.

Also you can tie your normal work into this.

You can,

For example,

Have a normal job and you give part of your salary to a temple.

But if you can't even feel that,

If you can't genuinely do that,

Then just start giving.

That is what some of our teachers say,

That you just have to learn this act of giving.

Just give it somewhere,

Just give it to someone instead of just for yourself.

Just give some of the money away.

Yeah,

Through some gift or something like that.

And it's that even like.

.

.

You could even just take a bunch of ashes in your hand and just like stretch out your arm and just like let go of it.

Just to practice that simple movement of your arm that implies giving,

That looks like giving.

So we have to start from somewhere and then perfect the art of giving.

Yeah,

Because giving is receiving,

You know.

We just say that so many times.

Yes.

And the thing is like.

.

.

So you can see this whole progression here as like the first one being,

Like really being,

I say really realizing that giving is receiving.

Because in the first example Krishna gave,

You're simply giving.

He said just place your heart and soul in me.

That is the ultimate form of giving.

And if you can really do that,

You will see that it is the same as receiving.

But if you can't perceive that,

You know,

Then try like the next level down.

And if you can't do that,

Next level down.

So you kind of experiment going down until you find where you actually are right now.

And then you will gradually go up the ladder of giving,

You could say.

Yes,

So here we see also how merciful is Krishna,

Is God,

You know,

Is not that,

Oh no,

If you want to do bhakti yoga,

You have to do this,

You have to do that.

There are so many,

Many things you can actually do according with the level you are,

Where you are.

So it's kind of like telling Arjuna,

Like this is the ultimate thing you should do.

But don't worry,

Like if you can't do that,

It's totally fine.

Just do this.

If you can't do that either,

Just do that.

And you know,

It goes from easier and easier thing.

So it really like show me how merciful is bhakti and how really it's for anyone.

Like anyone can practice in some way,

Then some small way.

And then if their practice is genuine,

They can simply go up next level when they feel ready.

Right?

Yes.

And also,

Like we have kind of hinted at here also,

But which is interesting is that it's not only like vertically going up the ladder,

But also like horizontally on each step that if you can't do this step in this way,

You can do it another way.

Like I said,

Like with the Tulsi plants,

For example,

Like if you can't,

So like for either of the steps,

If there is a certain way you can't do it,

Then maybe there's another way you can do it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah,

It's very beautiful.

Okay.

So just a small introduction for next chapter.

So that is chapter 13 is about,

It's going to get more technical because now we have finished this 12th chapter is the last of the middle six,

Which are mainly about devotion.

Like this chapter is called the yoga of devotion,

But the whole,

This whole kind of block of six chapters are all kind of the chapters about devotion.

So from now it's going to be more technical,

Kind of going back so that you kind of get some grounding.

Like,

Like often,

You know,

Like devotion is misunderstood as something sentimental,

Whereas like knowledge is like something more grounded.

So these like last six chapters is,

They're about kind of understanding how actually deep and full of knowledge bhakti is.

So it is going to focus on how many technical things we have mentioned,

Of course,

Many times the difference of between the soul and the body,

For example,

But now it's going to go into that in more technical detail and also speak about the modes of material nature,

As it's called,

The kind of the creative force in nature,

The destructive force in nature and the main,

The maintaining force in nature is going to come in these upcoming chapters.

Wonderful.

So thank you very much and see you next.

Thank you.

I hope this episode fulfills its purpose of inspiring you.

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And if you have any questions,

Please get in touch at aikoyoga reiki.

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Namaste.

Bye.

Bye.