Price Of Dishonour: The Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, Verse 34

Join us as we explore the Bhagavad Gita. This week, we will be diving into Chapter 2, verse 33. In these weekly lectures, we focus on specific ancient teachings that we can all apply to our day-to-day lives and personal spiritual journey!

Transcript

We are studying the Bhagavad Gita. Each week we are looking at a different verse. This week we are looking at chapter 2 verse 34. We have a playlist. Of all the previous classes. If you want to go back and listen to any, I highly recommend listening to the first one because that's where we really give the full background of the battlefield where we find Arjuna and Krishna. On the battlefield. In Sanskrit is called Kurukshetra and Kurukshetra actually means the battlefield of the heart or of the soul. And it's portrayed as almost like a civil war. Just take whatever town you live in, Split it in half, And put all kinds of people on each side that you know and love, And now you're supposed to fight, And how hard that is. But what it really represents on a metaphysical level or on a spiritual level. These are like the two sides of your brain. Or of your body and mind. Of all the parts of us that kind of. Are at war with each other. There's a part of us that really wants to live our happiest, Truest life. We want to live our Dharma. Calling and we all have a feeling of it like there's something in me that says I know. That my life is supposed to be a bit brighter or a bit clearer or a bit easier. And not that we're supposed to avoid challenge. But it's like we can sniff when we're a little off path. Like, It's funny, In Christianity, They talk about sin. And what sin really means is that we're just off the mark. That's all. Because we know when we're on track. You know, That even if it's hard, It feels like us. It feels authentic. It feels, This is important. To my soul's path. But as soon as we're off path, Everything is harder. And it's not only just harder, It's like. We're not even able to access our are true gifts. Like, It's like we're kind of lost in space, You know, And we're just. . . We feel powerless, We feel aimless, And then other people kind of take over. And that's really what this battlefield is. And the story right now is all about Arjuna. Arjuna is the hero. Arjuna is every single one of us. Krishna. Is his advisor. And that advisor, You can imagine Krishna as God, As an external wisdom that you access. You can also feel it as your own highest wisdom that is part of you that maybe gets lost in the shuffle. But essentially Arjuna. Has asked Krishna to drive him out in their great white chariot, Out into the battlefield so he can see what's going on. And this is kind of like us. You know, Every so often we get a need to go out and actually look at everything we're dealing with in life. And Arjuna looks around. And he just. . . Kind of freezes and says, I can't fight all these people. It's too much. I love these people and these people taught me and this and that and all of those things sort of represent our ancestral ideas, Our past, All that kind of thing. So essentially Arjuna slinks down in the chariot and says, I don't wanna fight, I give up. So for the last. Few months we've been looking at Krishna saying you must fight Arjuna you must and what he's really saying is You must engage in life. You cannot give up. You cannot just give up. Relax and do nothing. Last week we talked about the dangers of inaction. Because if you were to imagine, So the battlefield on the one side is Arjuna and his brothers and everyone who support them. They are the rightful heirs to the throne. That they are fighting for. But through many, Many stories that you can read in the great epic, The Mahabharata. Evil uncle and his hundred evil sons took over the kingdom. And ran it to ruin. Everyone suffered. So within us, Arjuna and his brothers are all of our clearest powers. The powers of clear sight, Courage, Love. All the things like our highest site where we really see what our true dharma is. The Hundred Cousins and Their Blind Father. They represent all of our struggles. Our lack of self-worth, Our fears, Our habits, Our karma. And by karma, I mean our karma. Unprocessed patterns that we just unconsciously continue. You know, We just unconsciously continue these patterns. And of course, The goal is to realize them so that we can come out of them. And actually kind of start walking a straighter path. And of course, What happens if we stop engaging in life? What if we stop engaging with our inner courage and our insight and our intuition? Those hundred cousins take over. If we don't engage. We will simply just fall into those old habits, Those old patterns of feeling weak, Lost, Unintelligent. So this is where we are. Arjuna and Krishna. The whole book actually now takes place. Time has frozen in the battle while Krishna speaks to Arjuna. So I'm just going to back up a little. So I'm reading from Stephen Mitchell's version. Blessed are warriors who are given the chance of a battle like this. Which calls them to do what is right and opens the gates of heaven. But if you refuse the call to a righteous war. And shrink from what duty and honor dictate, You will bring ruin down on your head. Here is the verse for this week. Decent men, For all time, Will talk about your disgrace. And disgrace, For a man of honor is a fate far worse than death. I'm going to read it. Couple of other versions. Moreover, Men will ever tell of your disgrace, And to a man of honor, Ill fame is worse than death. Why do you think Krishna is saying this to Arjuna? What's the first thing that you think? Of when you hear that. Moreover, Men will ever tell of your disgrace. And to a man of honor, Ill fame is worse than death. Sounds horrible, Eh? And weird. Sounds like the Klingon way of life was based on this passage. 100%. I like to think that this passage is that we all have a part to play in this circle of life, That if we don't play that role, If we don't walk your dharma, You are living in your karma. Totally. Sounds a little like the pain of being misunderstood. Warning not to be a coward of life, To show up for himself and join the human battle of elevation and transformation. So what's interesting is. . . Because this battle is. . . Happening. In Kurukshetra, In the heart. Who will really speak ill of Arjuna? If he withdraws. Who truly suffers the most in all of our lives when we don't act in accordance to our truths? We do. Exactly. It's us. To imagine this for a moment, To realize that it's us that will speak poorly about ourselves if we shrink away from whatever engagement we are required to have in life. So to hear this again with the idea. Of that we do it. Moreover, Men will ever tell of your disgrace. And to a man of honor, Ill fame is worse than death. So the idea that others will speak of a disgraced man of honor is the worst thing. We suffer first and then also those around us. It's like the battle of the ego, Totally. Because I mean, I don't know about you, But when I. . . I can be so filled with regret. Every time I did something that was against my highest wisdom, I kind of die inside a little bit. You know, Something just disconnects me. Whereas when I act in accordance to my real truth, I feel so good. I just feel so. . . So wonderful. So the first thing I want to look at is how When we think about self-abandonment. Because that's what we're really doing. Ourself, Our soul, Who we truly are. Has a journey to take. And sometimes we find ourselves in situations where we actually abandon self. Because of our fears. Think of what that does to us inside. Think of what that does. It's like we're abandoning our own conscience. We're abandoning our own deepest truth. And what happens when we do that. What happens to our energy. Our vitality. It drops, Even if it only drops a little bit. It still drops. As soon as we don't act in accordance to our highest calling, We become confused. We don't know what to do. We don't know what we should be doing next. Suddenly all we care about is what other people think and what will make them happy. And we've completely lost our own plot. You know, We stop trusting ourselves. We start to stop trusting that we'll even follow through or that we'll even protect ourselves. And a lot of times this can create like. Almost a numbness inside, And depression, And all kinds of anxiety. So it's interesting when we really think of that, When we think of. . . Then we compound that with. Why didn't I just say the thing? Why didn't I leave that job or that relationship sooner? I knew, I knew from this day that I should have left. Why didn't I? And again, This class isn't about, You know. Being self-deprecating and beating ourselves up. We're already beating ourselves up, That's the point. But we don't want to tell ourselves a lie. Because sometimes that's what happens. Maybe you would need to be honest about something. You know, Maybe you do need to change a situation so that it's actually healthy for everybody involved. But we don't. And what do we tell ourselves? Imagine if we were so honest in those moments and we actually said, You know what, In this moment I'm just going to abandon my truth and go along with what everyone else says. We don't say that. We don't say, I realize I'm abandoning my truth. Instead we say I'm just waiting for clarity. Maybe we truly are. There might be a time for that. Maybe we aren't. Maybe we're stalling. We do know the truth. You know, I remember. Carolyn Mace in one of her books she wrote about dark nights of the soul and she said sometimes the dark night of the soul these moments when you really are lost in life if you feel like you just got unplugged from the universe and you just don't know what to do next She said, Oftentimes what has happened is you have asked a question, You've asked for guidance, And you've gotten an answer, But you didn't like it. So you're kind of waiting for a second option. But there is no second option. There's just the first one. Or maybe we tell ourselves that we're not going to engage because, Well, I don't want conflict. I don't want to cause trouble. I'd rather just bury this pain inside of me than risk a conflict outside of us. And again, If you're in an extremely abusive situation, It might be best to not poke the bear. But to not forget about it. And still try to make changes is important. Sometimes we tell ourselves, Well, I'm just being practical. There's no reason to bring this up. And we just tell ourselves that, Oh, No, No, It's because I'm deaf. I'm so responsible and I'm so practical. Is that really the truth? Or we tell ourselves, I'm just keeping the peace. I like peace. I like things to be easygoing. And I just don't want to rock the boat. I don't want to be that person. I don't want to be hard to get along with. And it's just not worth it. You've got to pick your battles. Or we might say, You know what, I'll address it later. Or, You know, We'll just forget about it this time, But if it happens again, Then maybe I'll say something. Then maybe that'll be it. Then I'm definitely leaving. Then I'm definitely gonna make some change. This is the challenge. We tell ourselves all these stories. But deep down, We still can't get away from our own truth. We can't get away from our own self that's saying, Why am I not acting in alignment with myself? And we don't use those words. I don't know. What does it feel like for you? When we're out of alignment. For me, It feels like. It feels like I've just lost myself. You know, Sometimes it can be because I get really angry at somebody or something and I get spinning almost in their vortex, You know, And I've sort of lost my own thing and I'm not speaking my truth or whatever. But we all experience that differently. Feels like drowning, Right? How often do we feel like that? And sometimes, Not only do we feel it mentally, We feel it emotionally, And then even sometimes our body kicks in. You know, For me, My body kicks in with a big ol' migraine, Just to really Make sure I'm listening. This makes me think of how hard it is to change. It is the unknown, And that's scary. Another aspect of this teaching is they use the word honor. To a man of honor. Ill fame is worse than death. Honor in this case, Like honor in a yogic perspective. It's not so much like, Oh, What other people think of me. Honor's like congruence. You know that my insides match my outsides. How I believe is how I act, That they're knitted together. That there's what I think, What I say, How I act, They're all together. This is honor. When someone is an honorable person. You know that they are in full alignment and you can trust that. If they say it, They mean it. Imagine having this honor inside of us, That we knew. That we were always acting in accordance to our truth. And I don't know if you're like me, But for me, It's like there's certain parts of my life that are definitely in alignment with my truth. And then there's these other ones that I just struggle with for some reason. Could be self-care, It could be. Diet movement, It could be voice, It could be who knows what it is. It could be finances, It could be work, It could be. . . What we are choices in life. But it's interesting to look at the ones that are out of alignment. To kind of say. Where did I become disjointed? When did I lose the connection between my inner truth and how I act. Because when we are in this honorable state, When we are in this pure connection. How do we feel? Prana flows through us. Our nervous system is so calm. We aren't walking around terrified all the time. We have this sense of presence. Because we're. . . We're whole. Like there's nothing, We're not running from anything, We're not needing you to believe something about me. When I was dating. So for anyone who's new, I got married when I was 23. And I was married for 20 years. And then I started dating, You know, For the first time in my 40s. Basically ever. And the weirdest thing about dating was that. . . And I think someone must have said this or something and I used it. But people would come on, Go on a date with you, But you wouldn't actually meet the person. You would meet their representative. You would meet a version of them. That they wanted you to see. And if you continue to see them and you continue to date them and get closer, Slowly the representative will fade away and you'll have a chance to meet the real person, Which could make or break the relationship. But it's always interesting when you haven't actually gotten past the representative. But this is what happens. When we live out of alignment with our truth. We always live with this representative. That I want you to think that I'm really spiritual. I want you to think that I really have my life together. I really want you to think that I live according to my truth. So I'm going to create this external self. That acts a certain way, Says all the right things. And I'm just gonna hope like crazy that you never find out the truth. Well, This is exhausting. And the crazy thing is, We actually did it. Have a representative to ourselves. That we actually do it to ourselves. We tell ourselves something that's not true. Like a lot of people don't. Intentionally lie to you. They're simply telling you. What they're telling themselves about them. They need to lie to themselves because they can't stand the incongruence. Of their beliefs and their actions. This sounds really judgmental. Sounds kind of mean, Especially if we're in a place of real struggle and drowning. Before our class, I talked a lot about how I've had this. Struggle with iron deficiency and anemia for 30 years. And that struggle created. All kinds of other issues. You know, Whether it was fatigue or inflammation or struggles with digestion and all these different things. But I always knew something was wrong. I always knew that there was something amok. And was it frustrating and, You know, Kind of. . . Heart crushing every time I kind of felt like, Why is this happening now? Why is this happening now? Totally, And that's how we can feel when we're drowning. What Krishna is saying to Arjuna is, Just engage now. Start now. It doesn't matter what happened in the past. It doesn't matter what's going to happen in the future. We can bring ourselves into alignment right now. So whatever it is that's coming across your plate, Whatever struggle we're having. That we really sit quietly with it and we ask ourselves, What is my truth in this? How would my authentic soul act here? The people around me want me to act. But what is in alignment with my soul? And then just do it. And then we slowly start to knit ourselves back together. Literally like one stitch at a time. And then the great thing is, Every time we do it, It like compounds. Every tiny act where we're acting in our own truth, In our own alignment, We become a little bit more courageous. We become a little bit more connected to our soul. It's like. Imagine your soul, Like we think of the chakras, Kundalini, Prana, All this beautiful energy that makes us up flowing through us. When we aren't in an alignment with our truth, It's like we're cut off from that energy. It's like we're taking action, But it's all on sand. It's just fiddling away. It's just disappearing. But every time we act. In accordance to our soul. It's like we get plugged back into our inner self. And all of a sudden we become energized. And all of a sudden we have courage. And then our intuition comes back and we're able to see clearly the next step. Because that's one of the problems. We feel like, Yeah, But I mean, If I do this, I mean, What's going to happen after that? And what's going to happen after that? And what's going to happen after that? Like, I can't handle that, Which is totally understandable. But what if every step that we take in alignment makes the next step clearer? And easier. And it's like the courage just comes out of nowhere. And by the time you're taking the fifth step in alignment. It's easy. Even if the situation's hard. One of the things I really love about this is that to me it brings our soul into our day-to-day life. You know, What does it really mean to live a spiritual life? Some would teach us that it means attending a service or doing a certain ritual or that kind of thing. But that's like a spiritual practice. What does it mean to live spiritually? What if it means that our soul is participating in our life? That when we're in a difficult situation, It's not just the personalities at play. The soul is there as well. It's even interesting, Honestly, When we're dealing with difficult people. To recognize that they too are a soul. That even though their representative might be saying one thing. They are a soul inside that might be terrified. It might be crying. It might be who knows what. There is something so powerful about this. The other thing that's interesting is when we start really acting from this place, It's a lot easier when other people also act from their place of truth. And even if that truth doesn't work. Isn't what you think is true. Like you can kind of say, Well. I know how hard it is for me to act from my truth. That must have been really hard for them to say. And a whole different level of compassion rises. I truly believe this. The more I live this way, The more obvious straying from the path feels. I recognize it faster and it's easier to stay on the path. There are a thousand evil relatives inside oneself that we are fighting and a thousand evil relatives outside. So we have a hundred good cousins inside ourselves and around. I'm feeling exhaustion. Sometimes I feel soul tired. Well, If it helps. In the Gita, There's only a hundred bad guys. It's just you and your four brothers, Really, That are. . . Super powerful. And it's more like the thousand or the hundred. Cousins. They're not really outside and inside. They're all the same. It's just reflecting each other. You know, The ones on the outside. They have to have something on the inside to reflect. For us to recognize it. And on the inside we have full power. On the outside, We can't change other people. We're not meant to change other people. That's not what Maya is about. That's not why we're alive. But if they help us heal our inner world. Then we have all the power. I saw that there were no choices to choose or avoid any. Living a spiritual life for me is honoring, Listening, Trusting, Choosing to act upon the intuitive voice. That's beautiful. Let's follow along with. . . What for you? Just living a spiritual life. Mean for you? What's a practical shift or a practical focus in your life. Really makes you feel aligned. It really makes you feel whole. That your physical life and your spiritual self are all wrapped up in the same ball. I would love to know. What that feels like for you. The trick is to remember to tune into it. Making art, Giving to others. Bring love to everything I do. Really listening to myself and others. I've started stopping by the park after work to see the dogs and ducks to spend time in solitude with nature before going home. Personally recently. I've actually just started to give myself nothing time. You know, If I'm in between things. Like even after this class. Grab the audio, Upload it, Send it to Tim. So then I can jump in the car and head off to a barbecue. But what if I just sat still for five minutes and breathe? And really let this whole class and all of you guys kind of just weave into my soul. Before jumping again. Something I'm earnestly trying to practice. And I say trying to practice because You know, We spoke about how challenging it is to make change. We are complex interdimensional beings. Making change takes real effort. Breathwork and somatic practices that help me feel my body. It's a bit out of the way, But totally worth it. Last week I saw three turtles within 10 minutes. Oh amazing! Honor my voice within, Shine my light, Give myself permission to do things that I like, Things just for me. Nature is a big part of that. Adam, Thank you for your insights. I think it's not about winning or losing, It's our karma, The Dharma, How we should act. Sometimes we lose many things to save so many things. Losing is also winning in some cases. Totally. Whenever I notice how different the branches of teaching share the same wisdom and it feels so true, I believe we're really on to something larger and universal. I trust you know what I mean. Well, Thanks, Everybody. Hope you have a wonderful day. We'll see you later.