Bhagavad-gita 13th Chapter Glimpse

In this episode, I speak with Syama about Chapter 13 of the Bhagavad Gita. This chapter marks the beginning of the third and last block of six chapters. As we have mentioned earlier, the first six chapters are mainly about the self, about us, whereas the middle six chapters focus more on our consciousness source and how we can connect and relate to that. In these last six chapters, there will be more technical analysis of the distinctions between the self, its source, and matter.

Transcript

Hello Yogi!

Welcome to my podcast.

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

So welcome,

Sham.

We are here again today for Chapter 13 of the Bhagavad Gita.

Thank you.

Very happy to be here discussing these things.

Thank you.

First of all I would like to give you a brief recap of what we left on Chapter 12,

Which was a very important chapter.

It was speaking about Bhakti Yoga.

Can you say something about it?

Yes.

So the last chapter,

Chapter 12,

Is the ending chapter of the middle section of the Bhagavad Gita that is about Bhakti Yoga.

And the chapter itself is also called Bhakti Yoga.

That chapter began with Arjuna asking Krishna if it's best to worship the all-pervading aspect of God,

Or to worship God's personal form as Krishna.

And Krishna says that both paths will ultimately give you enlightenment,

But it is easier,

As our teacher says,

User-friendly to worship Krishna in his personal form,

Because you can't really think of something that's all-pervading,

Unmanifest.

So Krishna begins to give the outline,

The ideal practice,

Which is giving your heart and soul entirely,

Which is something very difficult to do,

Because we are so distracted and we have other desires than our best interests.

Yeah,

But also sometimes just lives happen.

Like,

For example,

Now there is this very sad and terrible war in Ukraine.

And of course,

There are many other wars going on in the world that are not taking so much attention from media,

Unfortunately.

But you know,

When these tragedies are happening,

Like just in front of you,

It's kind of hard to think,

Oh,

But we should just love God,

Everything is going to be fine.

Like,

It's kind of hard.

Can you say something about it?

Yeah,

But this is the same thing,

Actually.

It is another distraction.

Not that you shouldn't be concerned about the war,

But we need to do it in a way that it's in line with our inner practice,

To not let the war be a distraction from our inner practice.

We have to see how it's.

.

.

You need to approach this from inside out,

Not being,

How you say,

Out of your own center and just reacting to external phenomena.

You need to step back and be grounded in yourself and in your relationship with the divine.

And then you can,

Out of that you can express and concern and offer help and so on.

Yeah,

That's very beautiful.

And I heard just recently,

Padmanabha Swami,

He was saying in one of his classes that a suffering where you can actually get a teaching out of,

It's not a real suffering,

Because you learn out of that.

And I think it's such a beautiful concept.

Yes,

Yeah,

He often repeats this book of Viktor Frankl called Man's Search for Meaning,

Which is one of the survivors of Auschwitz,

Who wrote this book.

And as you can imagine,

It's the worst situation you could possibly be in.

But he was able to find meaning in that.

And that is the most important thing.

You can have a comfortable life and not learn anything and you can have a life of suffering and you can learn a lot from that.

Of course,

You can also have a comfortable life and still learn things.

It's about your.

.

.

It's up to you.

You can also suffer and not learn anything from it.

So the most important thing is to see,

To find meaning and to learn.

Yeah,

And this is a real enrichment of ourselves.

And it's very beautiful.

Thank you.

Okay,

So now let's step on chapter 13.

And yeah,

What is happening there in this new section that we are going to the last six chapters of the Bhagavad Gita?

Yes.

So the first six chapters were about the Self and the middle six chapters,

As you said,

About Bhakti,

But mainly about the object of Bhakti,

Which is Krishna,

The object of devotion.

And here in these final six chapters,

It's about both and about nature,

Where God and soul meets,

You can say.

So Krishna,

Arjuna is asking about the body and about consciousness and how to understand what is what.

Because if we are going to devote ourselves to the divine,

To our consciousness source,

Then we need to kind of be clear on what are we,

What is nature,

What is our source?

So it's all just not like a jumbled thing.

We need to kind of see clearly.

So that is what these final six chapters are about.

So Krishna begins by,

He calls the body as the field.

It's the field of activities.

So you can say like this world is a field of activities,

But also our body is a field of activities.

You can see like the world is an extension of the body,

In this sense.

And the soul is in the body and is aware of the body and acting in the body.

But there is also another knower of this of this field,

Which is the Paramatma,

Our our source,

Consciousness source.

And Krishna is explaining that the Paramatma is aware of all bodies,

And the soul is only aware of its own body.

So I'm aware of my body,

You're aware of your body,

Which also here means mind.

That's another important distinction,

Because often when we hear expressions like mind over matter,

And what we say consciousness over matter and the mind we see as part of matter as well.

But subtle matter.

So I'm aware of my field,

Which is my mind and body and the world as I experienced it from my vantage point.

And you are aware of the world as you experience it from your vantage point.

But the Paramatma is aware of all bodies,

So all spheres of activity.

So it's nicely stated by Anna in a book called Dear God,

This is Anna.

She says,

We all have our point of view.

But the difference between us and God is that God has many viewpoints.

So you can say God also has his point of view,

But he can also see everything from every angle.

Yeah,

This is when we say like,

God is everywhere.

Yes.

That's also another verse in this chapter is saying that God has ears everywhere.

Meaning that if you pray to God,

He can hear you because he has ears everywhere.

I would like to focus on a verse today here that it's actually five verses,

But they are lumped together,

Because they form one unit.

It's like a list of aspects of knowledge,

And also ways to culture knowledge.

So this is very interesting.

So it means all these aspects are centered around one central hub,

Which is devotion to your consciousness source,

Devotion to your own source.

And that is also knowledge in itself.

So it means that the other aspects listed here,

They will come from this central hub.

If you devote yourself to your source,

Then you will develop all these other qualities.

But of course,

In a sense,

It is good to know what the other qualities are,

Because they tell you something about how you should approach this central hub.

So I was thinking we can go through these and see what comes up.

Yeah,

Sure.

So the first one is Ammanitva,

Which means humility.

Of course,

It's something we discuss often.

Yeah,

Important topic.

What comes to your mind just when you hear the word humility?

Well,

I've been hearing about humility in the past years so much that it just come to my mind that humility is something that many people think is common,

That some people have.

But actually,

It's so,

So,

So,

So rare.

Like often,

You think,

Like I've been called,

Oh,

She's so humble,

Because maybe I've done something kind,

You know,

But that's kindness.

That's not humbleness.

I know myself,

I'm not humble.

And,

You know,

Like,

More I go and seem to humbleness and the real meaning of humbleness,

And more I see like it's so,

So rare.

And sometimes it's even like into people who you who don't actually look humble in our eyes.

But if you see actually the intention that's behind their action,

Then you think,

Oh,

That was a real humble action.

But it was not so easy to,

To recognize it.

So I think humbleness,

It's kind of not misunderstood,

But sometimes it's taken for granted or it's taken cheap,

And it's not.

I just think it's super rare.

One thing I've heard you say many,

Many times also is that you can't really like work on being humble.

Like try to be humble.

Yeah,

It's just a natural happening process.

It's like growing up,

You can just work on becoming 20 when you are eight years old,

You know,

Because you want to be a grown up.

You're just happening with time and you have to wait.

There is no other way.

You can just become 20 when you are eight.

But then of course,

Then the question comes,

You know,

Like,

So if we can't become humble or work on being humble,

Then she would just be arrogant and proud.

No,

No,

No.

Like,

Of course you have to try to be a better person than you were yesterday or something like that.

Or I mean,

Like for example,

If you cultivate compassion,

Like maybe I see every day a beggar outside the supermarket and I ignore him.

Then I go home and I feel guilty and I said,

Oh,

Maybe I should have give one or two euro.

Then the day after I give one or two euro,

But then he's there every day.

And then I think,

How can I really help this guy or this lady?

And then I think on that and then you work on that,

You know,

At the end of the day,

You try to,

To kind of see what you can do better next time.

And maybe next time I will just talk to him or her or exchange some kind words or give one or two euro whenever I see them.

This doesn't really matter in the action,

More in how much compassion you put in that.

And by cultivate compassion and love,

I think he will become humble for sure.

Yes.

And here,

Here also,

The like reminder of this,

This set of verses here is that humility will come from devoting yourself to your consciousness source to kind of find your find your dharma,

You know,

Your like,

Your like,

Your like meaning and an act,

According to that.

So,

But also,

You will need,

You will kind of need some humility to be able to do that.

So there's like a set might sound like a catch 22.

Like,

I need,

I need humility to devote myself and I need to devote myself to get humility.

But yeah,

But even just thinking about that,

That that will also make you that will kind of engender some kind of humility.

And then like,

When you kind of sense that,

Then you will kind of need to catch that feeling and and yeah,

And use that in prayer.

Yeah,

Self self work,

Like at the end of the day,

Don't just go to bed,

Like try to think,

Okay,

How I approach this day,

What I bring with me and what and to be sincere,

Like maybe I just give one or two euro to this beggar to feel better.

And that's not really like compassion towards the person,

The beggar,

It's more for you to feel better.

And of course,

This also helps like this is better than not doing it.

There's some degradation,

But but at the end of the day,

You have to be sincere with yourself and see this thing and try to improve them without being harsh on yourself.

Like if you realize,

Oh,

Maybe I did that just to feel a better person,

But not really because I wanted to help the back or maybe sports.

But don't don't be harsh on you.

Like,

First give love to yourself.

That's also important.

And then when you realize,

Oh,

Wow,

I was so good.

I realized this by myself,

That I can work on it,

But in a healthy way.

Hmm.

Very good point.

The next word is a dumpy time.

So unpretentiousness.

This is a very big that like it just so many things come to mind.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Please share.

This is so important.

And I know many things come to your mind because we always talk about this,

How people are pretending and how we are pretending.

It's to not be pretentious,

As we say in more common,

Our everyday language to be fake.

And we heard something very interesting the other day from your mom,

Actually,

That told us about why it said in the Old Testament of the Bible to not eat pigs,

I guess we say pork,

But yeah,

To not eat pork.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And just super interesting.

And she said that in the Old Testament,

It's written like it's written also in the,

Like the Muslim.

This is also why they don't eat pig.

And she said that the change happened when St.

Peter,

He was in some pilgrimage in Italy and God just appeared in front of him.

He was starving and God appeared and he told him,

Just eat,

Kill whatever animal comes to you and eat it.

And there were pigs there.

So he had to kill pig and to eat them in order to survive.

But yeah,

The reason why is it was explained that for example,

Humans has five fingers and these fingers are representing and connecting to our internal organs.

So from outside you can actually see inside.

And unfortunately in the West,

We kind of lose all this information and knowledge.

But if you go in Asia,

It's just everything like acupuncture and Chinese medicine and Japanese medicine are all based on meridians and how the body is connected with organs.

So,

And then she said that the cows,

They have the hooves made in a way that you also understand how their internal organs are,

Do they have for stomachs and this and that.

But the pigs,

The pigs have the hooves like the cows,

But their stomachs,

Like not their stomachs,

Their organs are totally different.

They look like being herbivores,

But they are not.

They can eat people.

They can eat babies,

Especially at that time when they were wild.

They can eat anything.

So that's fake.

And for,

Especially for kids and people who are not centered,

Who are not sages and they are affected by everything outside.

They are affected by what they eat also.

Then they shouldn't eat pig because the pig is fake.

It shows something that is not.

So that's why people were not eating pig.

And I think it's just so fascinating that that was the reason.

And of course we still love pigs and when we see,

You know,

Pet pigs,

We want to pet them,

But this is more symbolic thing,

Of course.

Yeah.

You and I don't eat meat at all.

And yeah,

Of course,

But there are other people who eat meat.

And at that time it was not that you're going in the vegan area in the supermarket,

You know,

Like in the winters,

You probably didn't have other chance than eating meat,

But now we are in another era.

Yes.

And yeah,

Like,

I'm just thinking,

You know,

Because it may sound like it's criticizing pigs for being pretentious.

Yeah,

No.

It's more like they were looking at the world in this very beautiful,

Poetic,

Symbolic way.

Like they see this animal that looks like one thing on the outside,

But it's not like that on the inside.

So then you don't eat that.

Because we are what we eat,

We become what we eat.

We don't want to become pretentious.

It's just like a very poetic way of life.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Yeah.

Beautiful.

Okay,

So continuing here,

Non-violence.

This we have kind of covered now also.

Yeah,

With the Ahimsa concept.

Also the beginning of the Bhagavad Gita,

Did we?

Yes.

Yeah,

We have talked about Ahimsa quite a bit.

Of course,

It's always worth repeating,

Being nonviolent.

Here,

I'm going to keep repeating all the time here,

That the central hub of all these aspects is to devote yourself to your consciousness source.

So that's the only way to become non-pretentious,

Ultimately.

But still,

We need some kind of unpretentiousness also to kind of do that.

So the same with violence.

We will be violent unless we realize our connection with our source,

Because everything else is not really,

We're not really ourselves,

If we're not realizing our connection with our divine source.

And in that state,

We have fear and we think we need to protect ourselves,

Otherwise we will die.

So therefore,

We're going to be violent towards the environment in one way or another.

Just to preserve our own body,

We need to eat,

For example.

So that is an effect of our ignorance about our source.

Yeah.

And then we have patience,

Just we have kind of covered here.

They said we have to be patient.

We're not going to turn 20 by working on turning 20 if we are eight years old.

Simplicity,

That's important.

Not having unnecessary,

Adding unnecessary complications to your life.

Yeah,

I think it's also covered a little bit when I say to be kind to yourself.

Like if you realize you give this two euro to the beggar,

Don't just say,

I think why?

Oh,

I did it for myself,

So I'm a bad person and I shouldn't do that.

No,

No,

Just keep it simple.

You did it for that reason.

Good.

Next time you do better.

Yeah.

And then we have service to the teacher,

Service to the guru.

So we all need the teachers in whatever we do,

And especially in spiritual life,

You will need someone who is practicing spiritual life and is very deeply involved with that.

Our teacher says like a person of consequence,

Like someone who's not just talking,

But who's actually practicing what they are preaching that you can draw inspiration from.

Like when you hear all these things,

You want to kind of see it manifest in someone to be able to believe that it's possible to have all these qualities.

And you need to serve that person.

It says here,

Not because they need your service,

It's just that you want to kind of connect yourself with their mission in this world,

Which is basically to teach these things.

So you serve your teacher by learning these things and by teaching others.

Then we have cleanliness.

What comes to your mind when you hear the word cleanliness?

Just to keep a clean,

Like external and how possible also internal life.

Like you don't want to live in a messy flat or house where you can't walk,

It's full of dust and dirt.

And also you don't want to eat just junk food all the time and be dirty,

Quote unquote.

So inside too.

So that's why also we fast two times.

And today it's a cadacy and we're going to fast today like every cadacy we do.

And we try to keep clean the home.

And yeah,

It's kind of common sense,

But as usual,

Common sense is not that common.

So common sense.

So yeah.

Yeah.

Also important,

Like you said,

They're internal,

Which doesn't mean just internal,

Like bodily internal,

But also mental.

To have like mental cleanliness,

To have a clean mind.

There was an interesting quote I heard once that you can be,

For example,

A vegan,

But then you're eating so much meat mentally.

So let's see here.

We have persistence.

You kind of need to go on,

Even if not everything is going your way or the way you expected it.

You need to go on.

Focus on the goal.

Yes.

Then we have self-restraint,

An important word that's different from repression.

It's not that you repress your desires or urges,

But you can also not just act on them without any discrimination.

You need to kind of like hold your horses and be wise,

Be smart.

Don't get yourself into too much trouble.

Renunciation of sense objects.

It's a difficult one,

But it will happen gradually.

As you do spiritual practice,

You won't be so attached to external things.

Absence of egotism.

Of course,

You will have an ego,

But here's again,

Like,

For example,

We can't just become humble overnight,

But in the same way,

Our ego is not going to go away so easily.

But we don't need to like center our whole lives around our ego.

We know that the ego is there,

But we try to maybe like put the ego to service.

The ego can also be engaged in good things.

And then we have repeated contemplation of the painful shortcomings of birth,

Death,

Old age,

And disease.

So that brings our mind to the Buddha and also to the saying or the term memento mori.

Like sometimes people will have like a skull on their desk just to like remind them of life's impermanence,

Things like that,

So that you don't get too entangled in non-essential things.

Then we have detachment.

And we already spoke of renunciation of sense objects,

But detachment is like more than just stuff.

It's also detachment from having things go your way,

Detachment from wanting people to be the way you want them to be,

Things like this.

Freedom from the entanglement of family life.

Of course,

Family is very important,

But it can also be toxic.

And it's mainly about this equanimity of mind with regard to that which is desirable and undesirable.

So we shouldn't get too excited about things we desire and not get too sad about things that we don't desire because both are going to come and go.

We just need to kind of accept things as they are.

Yeah,

I'm not that good in this.

And then we have the hub,

As we mentioned,

Unswerving exclusive yoga in devotion to your consciousness source.

So that we have kind of discussed here.

So we will go on to the next point here,

Resorting to secluded places.

So you can have a secluded place in your home where you do your spiritual practice,

But you could also kind of go all out and do a retreat,

Go out in the woods,

Rent a cabin in the woods and turn your phone off for a few days and just immerse yourself in spiritual practice.

Then we have disinterest in social gatherings.

So of course,

You won't just become disinterested in social gatherings if you are very into that.

And of course,

A way you can engage that is to do spiritual social gatherings,

Then you're kind of dovetailing that desire.

Then we have steadiness and self-realization.

Of course,

This is also something that will come with maturity.

And then keeping in sight the purpose of philosophy.

So to not just philosophize,

But to know why you're doing that.

Like what is the meaning of all this?

And it is again,

It's all for giving our heart and soul to our consciousness source.

So then it ends by saying,

This is said to be knowledge,

Ignorance is that which is contrary to this.

It's very powerful.

And we could have really talked like for hours about every point in this list.

Yes,

Exactly.

Yeah.

So we had to kind of speed through.

Yeah.

But then I totally suggest the listeners to go through these points and try to understand them deeply in relation to their own lives,

Because it also changes from person to person.

And yes,

That is one very nice thing it said in our teacher's commentary.

He said,

One should look at the points in this list to see how your spiritual practice is going,

Because your spiritual practice is meant to produce these qualities in you.

So you can kind of check from time to time,

Like,

Is it happening?

Yeah,

This is a kind of,

This is the result,

You know,

It's like,

You become like this if you cultivate your spiritual practice every day.

Yes.

So let's do that.

Yeah.

Thank you.

And yeah,

A very brief introduction of chapter 14 for the next time.

Yes.

So chapter 14 is very interesting.

It will go through,

It will present the three modes of nature,

The three gunas,

Which is a very interesting concept.

It's seeing the world as divided into three qualities,

The quality of creation,

The quality of maintenance and the quality of destruction.

So everything is born,

It lives and then it dies.

And this permeates all of nature,

Like,

On all levels.

It's so interesting once you start to experiment with this to kind of try to discern this around you.

Like,

Many people get very,

Very excited about this and can spend decades going into that.

And it is very helpful.

Yeah.

So it's a kind of fun exercise.

Yeah.

Cool.

Thank you.

And see you next time.

See you.

I hope this episode fulfilled its purpose of inspiring you.

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