Jivana Heyman 17:49:56
Hi everyone, its Jivana I just want to come on for a moment and thank our sponsor offering tree. They're an all in one easy to use community back business that saves you time, energy and money as a Yoga teacher. Offering tree allows you to create a website in less than 30 minutes. Plus you get a discount to accessible Yoga. Just go to offering tree.com backslash accessible Yoga to get your discount today. Okay, here's our episode.
Anjali Rao 17:50:27
Welcome to the love of Yoga podcast. I'm your host, Anjali Rao. This podcast explores the teachings of Yoga for self and collective transformation. We dive into how spirituality and philosophy can ignite social change. I share conversations
with folks who are on the front lines of justice and liberatory movements,
thought leaders, change makers, and healers.
Hello, everyone, welcome to this episode of the love of Yoga podcast. I'm your host, Anjali Rao. This is our last podcast for the year. And over the years it has been so wanted to share something a little different. We typically have conversations on this podcast. This time, I wanted to share some teachings from one of the source texts of Yoga, the Bhagavad Gita in the hopes that it will be of service to you all, as we close the year. This composition has been a source of inspiration to me personally, ever since I learned to chant it as a child. And I turned to it often, especially during times of distress, or when I need an anchor. The Bhagavad Gita or the divine song, just to share some context is said in the Mahabharata. One of the great epic poems originally spanned and complex yarn, chronicle of sorts of the challenges faced by the people between the years 600 BCE and 400 BCE. This time is contested, but we will be sure that it was around this time. The Mahabharata is many stories 1000s of them, all interwoven with each other, and spans many generations. Mahabharata, or Jaya, as it was originally called, is a story about the different branches of the Kuru clan. The characters are complex, complicated, compelling. There is every human emotion and experience in this epic, anger, lust, jealousy, greed, grief, shame, pleasure, courage, devotion, love, all of it. All the major characters wrangle with questions that have plagued humanity since time immemorial? What does it mean to do the right thing? How can one live a life meaning joy and purpose? does it communicate some of the core concepts from the Vedas such as Dharma and karma? While I will not go into too much of this brilliant epic, I highly recommend reading it at some point in your study as a Yoga practitioner. I will also share a couple of resources in the show notes so make sure you take a look. The Mahabharata has many dimensions. It has a narrative of history has allegories and physical ponderings woven throughout the Bhagavad Gita comes into the story when war is inevitable between two sets of rival cousins, the five brothers band of us and the 100 cousins account of us. It is a conversation with a new conversation. Dhritarashtra the blind king, was the father of Kauravas, cannot be actively engaged in this mighty battle and asks his advisor Sanjaya to report what is going on in the battlefield. That Sanjay is one of the most ancient journalist he becomes a war journalist, a witness of the fierce battle who comes back to his king and narrates all the happenings, including the conversation between Krishna and Arjuna. Thus, the Bhagavad Gita is a conversation within a conversation. Krishna, who is the mutual cousin and wellwisher has tried to broker peace between the two factions, that has been staunchly rejected by the Roadrunner, the eldest The Kauravas and the Crown Prince of the land. It's the first day of the battle. The first was starts with the two words Parmokshetra Kurukshetra, which means Darmok Shedra. The field of action, the land of action, which is also the land of the gurus, Kurukshetra it's an important one to consider, because the entire composition revolves around this one particular concept about what is the right action to take. Dhritarashtra asks his minister Sanjaya O Sanjaya tell me what is happening in the land of Dharma which is also the land of the Quran. Sanjaya then goes on to describe the armies from both the sides were ready to go into battle. conscious of being blown drums are being beaten the mood and the tempo is being set for Rajas action. Krishna is the chariot of Arjuna is a third brother of the Pandavas. He is the archer one of the most gifted in the land. After this description, Sanjay says I see Arjuna requesting Krishna to guide the chariot to the center of the two armies, so he can see clearly who is fighting. Now Arjuna knows that the other side is none other than his beloved teachers, relatives, cousins and friends, but he wants to see them clearly. The narrative then shifts to a conversation between Krishna and Arjuna. Krishna takes him to the center Arjuna is completely dejected and says to Krishna, how can I kill my own people? What uses victory if I defeat defeat my beloved kinsfolk? How can I gain pleasure from harming those who have been my teachers? My uncle's I cannot do this or Krishna. My whole body quivers, my mouth is parched, my lips feel weak, and he drops the ball the great gun diva in despair. Thus ends the first chapter, which are the Yoga of the Bhagavad Gita. I have many favorite chapters in the Bhagavad Gita, and the teachings of Krishna do not begin until the second chapter. But I saw love this first chapter, as it really is an important one for the times we live in today. So I want to share five lessons from this chapter, as it is often overlooked, in the face of what comes next. Now, these lessons are the power and the essential reality of an intentional pause. Arjuna is confused by what he needs to do and how this war can be a dharmic. One, how can harming one's own people ever be a good thing? He wants to act with discernment and care and ensure he's on the right path. So he pauses when completely in anguish about what's to come war. He doesn't run away. It doesn't just do something. It doesn't react impulsively. He notices his body reacting and he asks for a pause.
Jivana Heyman 17:58:18
Hi, everyone, I just want to pop in here really quick, and remind you about our sponsor offering training. As Yoga teachers, we our own business managers, website, designers and producers, it's a lot. And offering tree offers an all in one platform that makes it easy to succeed while we're doing all the things. And I just like to say that through this partnership with the love of Yoga podcast offering tree has shown that it's committed to supporting accessibility and equity in the Yoga world. Offering tree is a public benefit corporation. And they're driven by a mission of wellness accessibility, which we share with them at accessible Yoga. As an offering tree user, you'll get to join a supportive educational community. And you'll also get free webinars with top experts in wellness and entrepreneurship. And of course, you get a discount. So go to offering tree.com backslash accessible Yoga to learn more, and to get your discount. Okay, let's go back to the episode.
Anjali Rao 17:59:19
Now in the world we live in, we are constantly being asked to move to react quickly, to work constantly. To be busy as to be successful, we are told to be successful, one has to be busy. Busyness is conflated with self importance and success. We have new stuff fingertips, we're constantly receiving stimuli. And at the same time, we're also working have families we have jobs there always go go go. And as many of us are barely noticing how we are in our bodies. The many quieter truths have different lived experiences around us that are constantly drowned out by the noise of the loudest. The ones who have the power and wield the economic political, the cultural Mike's Arjuna's pause is an important reminder for us to slow down enough for us to notice our own in our lives, our own responses and reactions, our own anguish, our own sense of right, right action. The second lesson is talk to a friend and listen to a friend. Now this may seem rather simple, but it's an important point to consider given where we are. Now, good Gita is a conversation like many of the other compositions such as open assurance, the teachings are revealed we are questions and answers between Krishna and Arjuna. When Arjuna is in despair, he turns to his guide and dear friend Krishna. Krishna is rolling. The first chapter is of a silent listener, is a friend who listens, he doesn't jump into respond, but it just provides a safe space for Arjuna to pour out His voice is confusion. on his part Arjuna trusts his friend to show him his own vulnerability, he trusts he will be guided into right action. Now we live in a hyper individualistic world, where the I is more glorified than the We. There is a brittleness to this embrace of me myself, and I wear my successes on my own. They're a result of my own work. And thus, I don't need to care for all about anyone else. This individualistic conditioning is manifested in all the rooms, our work, or relationships, or pleasure practices, even the ways in which we engage with the larger social issues. I cannot change the system on my own, nor can you We both are a part of the system and we need each other. We are part of each other's story. During times of distress, we need our friends to hold us in our grief, and rejoice with us during joyful times. Third lesson, asking questions is integral for skillful action. Now Arjuna asked questions throughout the Bhagavad Gita, which is a rhetorical device to share deeper philosophy, local concepts of Atma and Paramatma. Individual and universal consciousness, right action and Bhakti devotion. In the first chapter, he simply gives into his anguish and says, How can one be joyful in victory if it has been God by harming and defeating once were respected and loved? asking you questions is important? Because it reveals layers of meanings and nuances of contexts. It doesn't presuppose something. It's very much needed in the world we live in, we need to ask questions of those in power, those who make decisions for the systems and the institutions. We also need to ask questions of ourselves, why am I doing this action? Or why am I not doing? Why am I not being moved to a certain thing? Asking questions is removing or noticing our own sense of ego or bloated sense of eye and as an exercise in humility, not as a cliched end in itself, but as a springboard for authentic and skillful response. Fourth lesson, finding the center. Now finding the center does not mean neutrality. One cannot be neutral in the face of oppression. Finding the center means being informed and moving with discernment. Arjuna asked Krishna to take him to the center of two rival armies to opposite sides, so he can see clearly who both sides are. Now this isn't to say, again, that he's been neutral. But it's an important position to take before we decide on the right course of action. We live in an increasingly polarized world, where nuances are lost in the bright flashy attention grabbing by lines and headlines from media and attention seeking power mongers. History is far more complicated. The truth is not one but many. And one needs to find the center between two polarized viewpoints. The extremism of one particular perspective or position is born because of many reasons, and it's dangerous as it closes oneself off to the possibility of other lived experiences. This is true, especially of religions, faiths, and fundamentalism that can arise from being on the extremes of Are these faiths and religions. It's true of what we are witnessing in many parts of the world right now. Finding the center thus is being informed about the histories and identities of the people. It is understanding our own relationship in context to the world we live in. It is seeing both sides who they are, and then understanding our own relationship to both those sides and acting in accordance with that understanding. Which brings me to the last lesson, staying engaged, staying engaged in the seeking of our role, our unique role in the world. The practice is thus in the seeking itself. Arjuna wants to turn away and give up, but does not. He stays on, he moves to the center, he asks question, he pauses, he stays engaged, maybe learn from this anguish moment, like how we should perhaps learn from these moments of despair of the past few months. Maybe learn to pause and ask questions and stay engaged and then act. These are the kernels of wisdom from a world that looked very different. And yet we are all still seeking like Arjuna the right thing to do at the right time. The messages of the Bhagavad Gita are universal and inspiring. It also needs critical insight, as it reflects the times of its composition, and many ways in which it was and is used as a tool for caste and religious supremacy. It's important that we look into all the texts that we study in the context of the times they were composed, and in the times of the context that we live in right now. So I will be delving into how caste race and religion intersects with Yoga in an upcoming course in February, with some amazing guest presenters, like Mr. Michelle, Cassandra Johnson, rudraksh chan, and Pranchi Patankar who will be delving into all the aspects of caste, race and religion and how those impact manifest and shape in spaces of Yoga. Now it's a BIPOC only offering because we, as people of the global majority still have to, and it's an ongoing process of healing, and metabolic metabolic adaptation, metabolic ism of some of the wounds of these systems and called colonialism. I hope you join me. And if you are a white ally, please do amplify and uplift this effort. I wish you all rest, reflection, reconnection to all that nourishes you and your loved ones as we close this year. I'm beyond grateful for you and for all those who have come as guests on this podcast, and who are staying engaged, or in this quest for collective liberation. I look forward to continue to share more illuminating and inspiring conversations as we move into 2024. Thank you so much for listening. Take good care of your hearts.
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Transcribed by https://otter.ai