Namaste.
In today's Bhagavad Gita series,
We will speak about confusion on the spiritual path.
You know,
For so many of us,
We're confused about how to do our duty properly.
Should we quit our job?
Should we not?
Should we break up in a relationship?
Should we stay with the person?
How should we react with our family?
How should we react with our friends?
So there is a sense of confusion about how to do our duty or what is referred to as Dharma.
And this confusion most of the time stems from the mind.
The mind goes into emotions,
Anger,
Frustration,
Anxiety.
And these emotions cloud our judgment and affects the way that we look at the world.
It affects our discernment.
And without discernment,
We'd make choices that we end up regretting later.
And we see the same confusion in Arjuna as he is faced with all of these millions of soldiers on the battlefield.
He does not know if he should fight.
He does not know if he should run away.
What he should do.
And so for the first chapter,
He gives all of the reasons as to why he should not fight.
And at this point,
He's talking to his charioteer,
Krishna,
Who represents that higher self.
So he's giving many excuses to his higher self,
To that divine self,
Saying,
This are the reasons why I should not fight Krishna.
But what's interesting that we see is that Arjuna's mindset shifts in chapter two.
He says in chapter two,
Verse seven,
With my heart overcome by weakness and my mind confused about my duty,
I urge you to tell me clearly what is good for me.
I am your disciple and I take refuge in you,
Krishna.
Please teach me.
So here we see that Arjuna acknowledges that he's confused,
But at the same time,
In a state of humility,
He turns to Krishna and asks for help.
You see,
A lot of the times on the spiritual path,
That first chapter of the Bhagavad Gita represents each one of us before we enter the spiritual path.
We are like a rat in a rat race going around in a circle,
Thinking that we understand what is best for us.
But after a long time of confusion,
After a long time of operating from the ego or the mind,
We finally turn to our higher self and say,
Please,
There has to be something more than this.
This represents the moment where we go on the spiritual path.
This represents the moment of humility,
Where we acknowledge that the ego might not hold all the answers.
And so in that space is when we seek a teacher,
When we seek a meditation or a scripture,
Or various spiritual techniques to help us to finally understand and gain clarity of our path.
You see that humility has to come.
Without humility,
It's going to be very,
Very difficult.
There's a beautiful story of a disciple that goes to a teacher and says,
How does grace work?
And the teacher says,
You see,
Grace is a mystery.
But at the same time,
Grace can also be described as a river.
A river flows from the top to the bottom.
It never goes from the bottom to the top.
So it flows from the mountaintops to the valleys.
In the same way,
When we stand on the mountaintop of the ego,
Grace does not reach us.
Only when we become humble and we go to the valley,
Does grace flow upon us.
So in the same way,
When we start to become humble,
When we start to understand that there might be more to life than just following the ego,
Grace descends on us.
And in that grace,
We come across teachings,
Practices and teachers that ultimately help us to find clarity and discernment about how to do our duty in the proper way.
With that,
I hope you have a wonderful day.
Much love and take care.
