Become Deathless: The Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, Verses 14-15

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46:46

Become Deathless: The Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, Verses 14-15

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Join us as we explore the Bhagavad Gita. This week, we will be diving into Chapter 2, verses 14-15. 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!

Bhagavad Gita Spirituality Tantra Equanimity Meditation Sensory Experience Equanimity Practice Joy Cultivation

Meet your Teacher

Toronto, ON, Canada

Meet your Teacher

Toronto, ON, Canada

Transcript

And so this is about our sixth class, And it takes place on a battlefield. Our hero is named Arjuna. Krishna is his charioteer. It is also God, Incarnate as his friend Krishna, And he is driving the chariot. And the battlefield, In the physical sense, Is, It's kind of like a civil war between a family, Where all the cousins on this side are against the cousins on this side, And then the rest of the kingdoms sort of took sides. And Arjuna is on the side of good, And the others are on the side of evil. And it is kind of that simple. Like they are presenting it that way, That Arjuna and his four brothers are, They're the aspects of you, The courage, Clarity, Love, Compassion, You know, All that, Those aspects of who we are. And one might imagine them to be, Quote, Higher aspects, Our spiritual aspects of self. On the other side of the battlefield are his hundred evil cousins. Their father is the blind king, Dhristharashtra. And the reason they are presented that way is these are the aspects of us that pull us down. Self-doubt, Hatred, Fear, And the sensory organs, Which is really significant to what we're going to talk about today. How we get drawn from pleasure to pain, And the desire for pleasure, And the aversion to pain, And life suddenly becomes like living inside a pinball machine, As we make this choice because it feels pleasurable, And then sure enough, Bam, The shoe drops and it turns into pain. And then we try to get out of pain, And we go towards pleasure, And then something bad happens, And we just seem to be thrown from pillar to post in life. You know, I come from a deep tantric perspective, And I don't mean neo-tantra, Like sexual. I mean, I deeply believe in the merging of Shiva and Shakti, Of consciousness, And our human experience. So in tantra, It isn't about not experiencing life. It's about experiencing life with the consciousness of Shiva. And so it's interesting to read the Gita from that perspective. What organs are involved in sensory pain? It can be anything. It's a beautiful question. It could be sight, That we only like, What do we like to look at, And what do we not like to look at? You know, It could be something simple, Like only liking sunshine, And not liking snow, Or rain. Or maybe it's feeling, What feels good on my skin, Good, Bad, Cold, Heat. And again, We're going to talk a lot about this today. It could be taste, What things taste good, What things don't taste good, What sounds do I like, What sounds don't I like? And I know this seems odd, Because you think, But don't the senses, You know, Help guide us through life? You know all that? And they do, Kind of. Are there internal organs also? Not generally in the context of this. In here, They're talking about the five senses. They're not talking about our sixth sense, Or digestion, Or anything like that. They're talking about sight, Hearing, Taste, Touch, And smell. And the idea here is that, Let's say I smell something. My body is perceiving something from the outside world. The senses are all about what we're perceiving in the world around us. So my nose perceives something. At this point, There's no pleasure or pain attached to it. It's just perceiving something. Then that sensory organ connects with the brain, And the brain now has a response to that and says, Ah, That is the smell of burning rubber. And now, This is what's interesting, Because at this point, Another aspect of our brain, So for example, In Tantra, They would say that in Kashmir Shaivism, Which I really love, Manas is the part of the brain that says, Oh, That's burning rubber. No, No, Sorry. Manas is the part that interprets it, Which then goes to chitta, Which is like a bank of memory, And says, I've smelled this before. It's burning rubber. And then another aspect of the brain, The buddhi, Like Buddha, Only buddhi, Says, I don't like the smell of burning rubber. I am offended. I am repulsed. This is the interesting part, Is this interplay in the brain that now says, I don't like it. Or you smell something, And it's toast. And suddenly, This goes into manas, Then it goes to chitta, And then it goes to buddhi and says, I love toast. Now I want toast. Right? So that's why it's the external senses that tend to throw us to pleasure, To pain, To like, To dislike, To attraction, Aversion. That's basically what they're talking about. So Arjuna has asked Krishna to drive him into the center of the battlefield, To let him look upon the opponents. And as he looks around, He sees all these aspects. Now in the physical world of family, There are people on the opposite side that are grandfathers and teachers, Because he was raised with his cousins because his father died. So he knows all the people on the other side. But of course, The battlefield isn't a physical battlefield between people. It's a battlefield of our own heart, Of our own experience in life. When do we choose what we might think as the higher path, As opposed to choosing this pleasure-pain pinball machine kind of idea? And this is when, When he looks upon the pleasure-pain sensory organs and all that stuff, He's like, But they're so familiar. They're my friends. They're my family. I've lived with them for decades. I can't kill them. I can't get rid of them. I don't even care how good my life, How good you say my life would be. I don't want to give up those sensory pleasures and the drama of life. I don't want to give it up. It's so familiar. And so at this point in our study, Arjuna has just given up and he's looked to Krishna, Recognizing him as the teacher and God that he is. Now, Krishna also is your highest self. It doesn't have to be an external God or Krishna of a Hindu faith. Krishna represents your highest self, Your innate divinity, Having a conversation with the physical being you are. I have an eternal divine aspect. I also have Katrina, Who has a personality and has a life and has been given particular circumstances to live within. These are different. They come from the same source, But they're different. So Katrina's experience of the light of this life is fraught with all kinds of, I really want to accomplish this. And then, Oh, How come that didn't work out? And how could you say that to me? That hurt my feelings. Whereas my eternal self is just always here. Doesn't matter whether I'm happy, Sad, Six years old, 96 years old. And so essentially, This is a discussion between our physical personality and our highest self. So today we're looking at chapter two, Verses 14 and 15. Now, Like I said, You don't have to have a book or anything. I'm just going to back up a little bit so that we have a bit of context as to what Krishna is saying to us. So this is Krishna speaking to Arjuna. Never was there a time when I did not exist, Or you, Or these kings, Nor will there come a time where we cease to be. Just as in this body, The self passes through childhood, Youth, And old age, So after death, It passes to another body. So the next two stanzas are what we're going to look at today. Physical sensations, Cold and heat, Pleasure and pain, Are transient. They come and go. So bear them patiently, Arjuna. Only the man who is unmoved by any sensations, The wise man indifferent to pleasure, To pain, Is fit for becoming deathless. I'm going to read another version of this. This is from Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's interpretation and commentary. Okay, So here's verse 14. And this is a little bit wordier. That's why we really like the Stephen Mitchell version. Contacts of the senses with their objects, O son of Kunti, Arjuna, Give rise to the experience of cold and heat, Pleasure and pain. Transient, They come and go. Bear them patiently. Then verse 15. That man indeed whom these contacts do not disturb, Who is even-minded in pleasure and pain, Steadfast, He is fit for immortality. O best of men. What rises in you when you hear that? You know, Does it feel peaceful and easy, Or does something in you think, Well, That doesn't make any sense. I'd love to know what that brings up in you. I know what it brought up in me. A bit of confusion. Trying to be non-reactive. He sounds like he has a beautiful soul choosing right from wrong. It feels like rising above the fray. I ask because when I first read this, I thought, But isn't this what life's about? Why are we ignoring pleasure and pain? It's one of those things that could be very simplistic, But then how to achieve, That is a good question. If we are dying and getting born again, Why do we need immortality? That's a good question. That something exists beyond the senses and beyond form. Is it a bit like unconditional love? Yes. We'll talk about that. It feels like verse 1. 3 of the Yoga Sutras. It always takes me to Bob Marley's redemption song, Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, None but ourselves and free our mind. Can you read the Stephen Mitchell one again? Sure. Physical sensations, Cold and heat, Pleasure and pain are transient. They come and go, So bear them patiently, Arjuna. Only the man who is unmoved by any sensations, The wise man is indifferent to pleasure, To pain, And is fit for becoming deathless. Sort of like equanimity. Exactly like equanimity. So, If we go with equanimity, Equanimity is like picturing the ocean, That you are the ocean. And if you dive deep into the ocean, You know, You are held by this huge, Peaceful feeling. And if you go up to the top of the ocean, You'll see these huge waves and swells as the ocean, The top part of the ocean, Is affected by the weather. And sometimes the waves are high and sometimes there are deep swells and they're up and they're down. And very often when we are attached to pleasure, Pain, Good, Bad, All these things, It's like living on the top of the ocean. We just feel like we're high, Then we're low, And then we're high, And then we're low, And then we're high, And then we're low. Because we forget that we are the whole ocean. Because it isn't about not experiencing the highs and the lows. But imagine the difference between being on top of the ocean, You're being, You know, You're on the waves. And suddenly there's this huge wave coming up and you're sure it's going to overtake your boat. And you're terrified. And then maybe it does overtake your boat. And now you're scrambling in the water and you're scared and you're worried and you don't know what's going to, And then you pop up to the surface and you're like, Oh, I'm alive, But I don't know where my boat is, You know. How often life can feel like that? You know, When we think of the things that when we're attached to the transient nature of life, Suddenly we have a windfall financially. And we're on top of the world. We're like, Yeah, I've got all this money and I can finally pay the bills and I can finally get those things I wanted. This is so great. I'm so excited. And then maybe you spend the windfall because you've just been in such a desperate need for it. And it's a real need. And then all of a sudden the money's gone. And then all of a sudden this happened. Now we can't pay rent again and we're drowning. And we're hoping for another windfall or hoping that maybe we can get the raise or hoping that somebody can find a job or hoping, But we're constantly on top of that water. And, You know, The hard thing is, Is ever since we were little, We were told this was normal. Right back to watching Disney movies, The drama, The drama triangles of life, The drama triangle is you have the victim, The persecutor, The savior, And how often we're always watching movies about this drama triangle to the point that deep down, We think this is normal. We think this is what life is about. Not only do we think this is what life's about. We think this is what a passionate life is about. I am living, Man. I am so much in love and I so hate that person. And I so believe in this and I want to end that. And yeah, We're just, And we've been taught that this is living and anything less than that. You're just some weird stoic yogi living in a cave somewhere. And it's really, Really interesting. We think it's about hypervigilance looking for the next problem and who to blame for it. 100%. This is social media and the news and Hollywood and it's like, And, You know, It's funny earlier, Someone asked about, You know, Is it all the senses? And you think of what these eyes take in, What our ears hear, And imagine all of that going into your brain and stimulating your nervous system. Highs and lows and highs and lows and highs and lows. And we wonder that we're exhausted, That we maybe didn't even do anything someday. Maybe all we did was doom scroll, You know, On social media or listen to the news or talk to that person who's upset about something. And we are exhausted. What if this isn't the only way to live? What if there's another way? And what if the other way is truly blissful? So this is where this teaching asks us to look at two different kinds of happiness. On the one hand, We have the happiness of our senses, You know, That taste of chocolate in my mouth. Oh, The feeling of sunshine on my face. Oh, You know, Or the feeling of having someone that I can make love with. And it's just, Oh, Yeah, Like, That's what it's all about. The problem is, Is that happiness comes and goes. What if the chocolate doesn't taste good? Or what if there's no chocolate? Or what if it's raining, Or snowing, Or cloudy for weeks on end? Or what if you're arguing with your partner, And it doesn't feel loving? Or maybe we don't have a partner, But we wished we did. All of these experiences exist in that realm. All of them. The happy and the sad. And that does something funny to our nervous system. Always being pulled up and down and all over the place. There is another kind of happiness. And it is inner joy. Ananda, The Sanskrit word ananda, Bliss. And this is the joy deep in our hearts. This is that depth of the ocean. And this is where it's not happiness. It's like the joy in our soul. Imagine if you could remember that you are this divine being. To really tap in to your eternal self. Your eternal being. It's like remembering that you came to earth to have a human experience. Imagine if you always remembered your eternal self. Always remembered it. It's like, Imagine you have a life, Let's say you live in Canada. I live in Canada. And I decide I'm going to go for a trip to Spain. And I go to Spain. And for whatever reason, Maybe there's really great things that I experience. This is nothing against Spain. I've just been thinking about Spain lately. But then maybe somebody steals my wallet. And then maybe something else happens and the B&B ends up having cockroaches in it or something. And at the time, I'm going to be like, Darn it, This isn't how I planned it. It would have been so much nicer if this had just all flown, You know, And been easy. But in my deepest heart, I know I'm flying home. Like I'm not going to get so bent out of shape. I'm not going to end up having an existential crisis because things didn't go my way. Because I know I'm getting on a plane and going home to my comfy couch where I like to have coffee and read a book. Can you imagine living life like that? That you always remember that you're eternal. You always remember that you are a divine being. So then all of a sudden, If something really wonderful comes across your, You know, Maybe it is, Bar none, The most beautiful day. You know, It's winter here in Ontario, But maybe I love skiing. And today the sun is shining, The snow is perfect. It's perfect. And I go out and I just have the most glorious day skiing. And then the next time I decide to go skiing, I get out there. But I don't know, I'm not a skier, So I'm going to say wrong things here. But for whatever reason, The snow's not quite right. Maybe it's icy in spots or maybe it's too, There's too much powder. And then suddenly the sun goes in and it's covered in clouds and this really cold wind starts up and your face is just frozen right off. Well, If we are bound to our pleasures, If our pleasure and pain rules us, That our pleasure and pain determines our mood, The pleasure and pain determine our experience, Then we are a slave to the transient world. That's a tough way to live. It's a really painful way to live that my experience of life could be dependent on the weather. Personally, I think I have a really high inner set point, Like temperature-wise. I love heat. I love, Or low, I don't know which way you want to go. In the summertime, It could be 40 degrees Celsius and I could lay on a rock soaking up that sun like a lizard. Whereas my children are walking ovens. Those kids, My son walks around all winter in shorts and a t-shirt, Minus 30, Doesn't matter because he has such a high internal temperature, The cold is blissful to him. Summer is tortuous. So I might tell you that, You know what, I only like summer and I really only like about a month of spring and about a month of fall because then it starts getting too cold. So in here where I live, I live in a snow belt, So we've probably got five to six months of winter here. What if I actually walked around for those five to six months a year a little angry, A little sad. Every time I had to get my coat on, I had the mental thought, Ugh, I hate having to get my coat on and my boots and ugh, God, When's winter over? Four months till spring. Ugh, What a miserable way to live, Miserable. And this is where it says that for a person to truly enjoy life, To truly, We talk about being on a spiritual journey, Can we deeply connect with our eternal self and be ambivalent about the cold or the heat? And I don't mean, You don't, It's not like you don't have to have, You can't have a preference. Do I love a sunny day in July? I sure do. Do I really kind of not enjoy having to go outside in the blistering blizzards and my face is freezing off? Not my favorite. It's not that we can't have an opinion. The question is, Does it change your state of being? Does it change your inner equanimity? Does it change your inner state of mind? This is what they mean about being ambivalent or how does he say it? So here, The wise men, Indifferent to pleasure, To pain. Can you imagine actually living life indifferent to pleasure or pain? And again, What they mean is they're not just giving up all experience of life. You are deeply connected to eternal joy. You are deeply connected to expansiveness. Let's apply this in a really real way. Let's say you're in a relationship and your partner has done something that's really upset you. Maybe it really hurt your feelings. It really triggered you. Maybe you feel betrayed. There's something. Now, If we are slaves to pleasure and pain, If the pleasure and pain dictates our mood, Dictates our frame of mind, Dictates what is possible inside of us, How are we going to react? We're going to freak out. We're going to get super emotional. We're going to be just out of our mind and we won't be able to think clearly. Essentially, What happens when something bad happens, We contract. Our ego is hurt. Our brain is just offline and we are just, Oh, We're in fight or flight and we're just ready to win, Whatever it is. Imagine you are always connected to your inner joy. You know you're a divine being here having an experience. Your partner has done something that really hurt you. It's just an experience. It's just part of the relationship. Something happened. What would it take to not contract, To stay expansive? As Carla said, To stay in an unconditionally loving space. What would that feel like? It's almost like the human response of self, Coupled with the divine self, Indifferent, Creates a beautiful alchemy of life. It feels so peaceful. Exactly. Can you imagine that whether your partner does the most beautiful thing or something that really bothers you, Your inner sense of self doesn't change. So when this thing happens, And don't get me wrong, We're all human. The reason that I even know they did something wrong is because I feel hurt. I feel pain. I feel something. I feel triggered. I feel six years old and somebody hurt me in the schoolyard. I feel something, But I'm equally strong in my eternal self and I'm able to take a deep breath and say, I feel so hurt right now, But I know I love you and I really want to talk about this and sort it out. When we have this deep eternal connection, We're able to dive in to the painful times and we're able to dive in to the beautiful times. In fact, We're actually able to experience pleasure at a deeper level because we can also experience pain at a deep level. We're not afraid of either one. We're not afraid of one ending and the other one coming. We're not experiencing pleasure and then terrified that it's going to be taken from our grasp. We're not in pain, Waiting for it to pass. We're just experiencing life and that's what this one's all about. I find it really fascinating to deeply think about understanding that pleasure and pain are the same and they're nothing. They're just experiences. Maybe don't think about relationships. Think of something in your life that maybe really matters to you or maybe there's some aspect of your life that does tend to throw you under the bus. Maybe it's your bank account. Is that it? Can we feel the eternal sense of self? Whether there's enough money in the bank or not enough money in the bank? You talk about transient. Money is literally currency. It's meant to flow. It flows up, It flows down. Maybe it's fitness or weight loss. I come from a long line of women who struggle with their weight. I went on my first diet with my mom when I was 14. We went to Tops. Take off pounds sensibly. I wasn't even heavy. I just was raised in the 70s and 80s where Twiggy was the goal and well my bones were bigger than Twiggy. But what's interesting is so then life went on and I got married and had babies and the farm and stuff and my weight got higher and higher and higher. And then somewhere around when I was about my early 40s I don't even know what happened. There was a lot of stress in my life. I was divorcing. I was going through a pile of stuff. I was selling my train station which is where I taught everything. And for whatever reason weight started dropping off of me. It started falling. I would wake up in the morning and it's like I was missing parts of my body. And at my lowest weight at that time I was 90 pounds less than I am now. 90 pounds less. There was nothing to me. People would come up and hug me and they would be like afraid because I was so frail. I was so fragile. And this was a very interesting experience to me because suddenly I deeply had the knowing that things like weight go up and they go down. It has no bearing on who I am inside. There might be reasons to prefer one or the other but it changes over a lifetime. And there is something about cultivating your sense of self, Cultivating a joyful life, Cultivating happiness that is not transient. And then allow all the transient things to go up and down. Allow relationships to come and go. Allow them to be difficult and then easy. Allow money to come and go. Allow fitness to come and go. Allow health to come and go. All the big things. Can you imagine like even something like health? Health is a really big deal because you can just be bumbling along in life, Doing your thing, Complaining about that and thinking that this is really important, The thing you just read. And then all of a sudden there's an accident or an illness or something and everything you were complaining about, Everything you were worried about disappears because of this incident, This change in the health. What if on top of this struggle it also made you depressed? What if suddenly you had all kinds of anxiety? What if suddenly you were like, Well, This isn't what my life's supposed to be. I'm supposed to be healthy and strong and young and fit and wealthy and whatever and beautiful. Imagine someone who had prized themselves in their beauty suddenly had an accident and there was scarring on their face or whatever. Imagine. And it sounds so harsh, But there is still joy. There is just as much joy inside of that person as the next person who doesn't have that scar or that person who has money. I mean, How many people do you know that have piles of money and they're absolutely miserable? And then there's other people who struggle with money and they're absolutely miserable. Then there's people who have piles of money and they're super happy, Giving, Joyful, Grateful people. And there's people who struggle with money and they're happy, Grateful, Joyful people. Like there's really something about this peace inside. I think what I really love, Because my number one struggle with this was my tantric belief system, I guess, In that I do believe that this world is meant to be experienced. It's meant to be enjoyed. It's sort of that Osho quote where the goal of life is to be like Zorba the Greek only to live life with the presence of the Buddha. He used to call it becoming Zorba the Buddha. And what's interesting is there's a Sanskrit word here called titishka. And it means to bear with patience. In the reading, It's here when they say physical sensations, Cold and heat, Pleasure and pain are transient. They come and go. So bear them patiently, Arjuna. This is where titishka comes in. But what's interesting is it also can mean holding the voltage of life. The bigger our capacity, The bigger our inner joy, The more voltage we can handle in life. The more pleasure, You know, Something amazing happens and we just let it flow through us. We just surrender completely to it and we just, Ah, It's amazing. And when something difficult happens, We also open ourselves and let that difficulty roar through us. You know, We just finished studying the Radiant Sutras, The Vijnana Bhairava Tantra. Bhairava, This is the essence of life. One of the things about Bhairava, It means the terror of life, The edge, The excitement, But it's not about good or bad. It's about all of it. And when we cultivate this eternal self, We amp up the voltage for all of the experiences and we open, We let the experience happen. It flows through us without any fear of what it even is. Pleasure, Pain, Doesn't even matter. I've been sick for six weeks now watching my fitness schools tank and waiting with equanimity for my physical self to get back front and center. I am bearing this patiently. It is such a beautiful example because imagine the difference, Right? And thank you for sharing that, Sally. Why do we have such attachment to things? Why do we have attachment to fitness goals? And I don't say we don't have to have fitness goals. They're fun. It's fun to train for a 5K. It's fun. I went to the pool to go swimming with my daughter this morning because I love the way it makes me feel. There's nothing wrong with a fitness goal. But why do we have attachment to it? That's what slings us left and right. It's not the goal. It's not the desire. It's our attachment to it. And so one of the things someone asked is, But how do we actually make this happen? How do we actually cultivate that? There's two things that I would recommend. One, It's a philosophical shift. The brain is what determines whether I like something or I don't like something. And then are there any dramatic stories I have about it? Oh, This always happens to me. I don't even know why I live in Canada. I hate the snow. Why don't I just move to Arizona? What's wrong? I have all these scripts that are running like weird tapes in my head. These are important to look at. And then we ask ourselves, What if I lived without drama? Could I live without drama? When somebody does something, Can I be loving and not make it a fight? And this is a philosophical question we have to ask ourselves. Because if deep down, You're like, No, No, I'm not going to let someone walk all over me. I won't do it. I won't let anyone. We have to look at this. I'm not saying you should let people walk on you, But you have to look at the pushback. But why does it have to be dramatic? If you don't want someone to walk all over you, Walk away. I'm not going to walk away either because they've got to know what they did to me. It's like, Okay. So we have to look at the philosophy that we live by. So that's the first thing. Is my goal, Tranquility, Equanimity, Inner joy? Is my goal to not be pulled in all my attachments to pleasure and pain? It's an important question. And then the next thing is a practice of some flavor. Maybe it's sitting meditation, Where you breathe deeply. And you connect with your eternal self. You close your eyes. You withdraw. They call it Pratyahara. You withdraw the senses from the outside world. And you experience your eternal self in meditation. You know, I teach Kundalini Yoga because you have to stay centered while you're doing all these crazy movements and chanting and breathing and everything. And the way through is being within and letting go of all of that. But finding your practice that connects you with that is necessary. Like we do have to practice. This isn't just a philosophical thing, But it's very possible. I'm going to reread the two stanzas one more time. And then if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them. Physical sensations, Cold and heat, Pleasure and pain are transient. They come and go. So bear them patiently, Arjuna. Only the man who is unmoved by any sensations, The wise man, Indifferent to pleasure to pain, Is fit for becoming deathless. I would love to know how this sits with you, Or what you take away from this. Now, May I become fit for deathlessness? For sure. And it's cool, Right? Even the idea of deathlessness for me, It's like forgetting about all the immortality and the reincarnation, Everything. For me, It just feels like being fully alive. May I become fit to be fully alive in this lifetime? I think that's a great goal. Thank you, Val. I'm still confused about immortality. I believe the teaching of reincarnation and yoga is that when we can truly disconnect from our attachments in duality, We escape the cycle of coming back. So the goal in a lot of Hindu teaching is to escape this cycle of life and death. And so this is where Krishna is saying, For you to escape this and just simply live in immortality, But not have to be human again, This is the path. So I think the goal really is about not reincarnating and not coming back to the cycle of suffering. Thank you, Everybody. I'll see you soon.