Discovering the Feminine Perspective: Insights from Ancient Wisdom

Join us on a journey through the timeless teachings of the Yoga Sutras, as we explore the profound connection between Spirit and Nature. In this episode, we delve into:

• What is a Feminine Perspective?: Understand the unique insights and interpretations that a feminine lens brings to ancient texts.
• Translating from Sanskrit: Uncover the nuances and challenges of translating sacred Sanskrit verses into modern language.
• Nischala Devi’s Interpretation of Yoga Sutra 1.2: Explore Nischala's captivating translation and its deeper meanings.
• The Interplay of Spirit and Nature: Dive into the symbiotic relationship between Spirit and Nature, and how they coexist harmoniously.
• Verse 4.24: Brahman is the Offering: Reflect on the profound significance of this verse and its implications for our spiritual journey.

Tune in to deepen your understanding, embrace a new perspective, and enrich your spiritual practice. This episode promises to be an enlightening exploration of ancient wisdom through a fresh, feminine lens.

Transcript

Unknown: 0:02

Namaste. Welcome to a woman's Geeta podcast, a modern discussion of the Bhagavad Gita, by and for Western women. A woman's Gita features discussions on the Bhagavad Gita, the timeless classic of Eastern wisdom reinterpreted from the perspective of two female teachers. Your hosts are Nischala Joy Devi, and Kamala Rose, who have dedicated their lives to the yoga tradition. At a time when women's voices are finally emerging, a feminine perspective of the wartime treatise could not be more timely.

Nischala Joy Devi: 0:42

Namaste, Welcome and thank you for joining us for a woman's Gita, the Bhagavad Gita by and for Western women. This is the podcast. I'm Nischala Joy Devi.

Kamala Rose: 0:56

And I'm Kamala rose.

Nischala Joy Devi: 0:59

Today we're going to share a little bit of our process with dealing with the war setting in the Bhagavad Gita. But But first, before we do that, we're gonna just give you a little insight into the Mahabharata. komla Would you like to do that?

Kamala Rose: 1:21

I'd love to thank you, Nicola. Namaste, everyone. As you may have heard on our previous podcasts, the Mahabharata is mighty epic of a story. It's one of the great Sanskrit epics, that tells of, you know, our history and how we got here as human beings, very old, very sacred poem. And in the Mahabharata, in the center of it, we find the Bhagavad Gita, and much has been said about the placement of the Gita in the middle of this story of two cousins, or two, two factions of cousins going to war over a kingdom. And this is where we find the Gita. Just to give you a little setting or scenario to this, so you said we have the two factions of one family who are fighting for the throne of an ancient city called Hustin of Pora. of the Kuru dynasty, the cow Rivas, whereas we know them, the bad guys have usurped the throne, from the good guys the fond of us, and have forced them into exile. The pond of us being the good guys that they are accepted their exile, they accepted the terms of negotiation, anything in order to avoid a bloody war, when they return from their exile, and try to make arrangements to share the kingdom that what they all of these cousins have inherited. They're met with incredible resistance, and no one it seems, who is able to find a diplomatic solution? Our Juno's cousin, who's named Krishna is called in from a neighboring kingdom to help serve as a diplomat. And Try as he might define common ground, but between the two parts of one family, they are not able to come up with any type of diplomatic solution. Some of you may have heard the story of the pond of us suggesting to the cow Rivas led by Dr. Yoda Na, who we're to understand as being almost an incarnation of anger and aggression, who has a wonderful line in the film, I enjoy being angry. So he is that that part of all of us and a part of humanity that is not going to let it go, the pond of us ask, look, just give us a small village each of us so we can fulfill our cushy Satria or warrior Dharma, of being being rulers of some people. Let us do our work. Just give us a small place out in the country, that we can help some people rule them and change this, you know, take care of some people and do Yoda none all of his anger and frustration says we will not give you as much land as fits on the head of a pen. We will not stop until you are all dead. Right so this is this is where we are when we open up our Bhagavad Gita does is we've come to a battlefield, what we are to understand as an inevitable battle, all diplomatic solutions that Krishna has tried to help them work out, have come to know fruition. And as Chapter One of the Bhagavad Gita begins, we we have the scenario where Krishna is driving our Joonas chariot. And Arjuna asks Krishna who is serving as his charioteer, a very symbolic position for him to be driving his chariot. He asked him to drive the chariot in between the two armies, so he can look at the faces of all of the soldiers who were there, all of these faces of the men who will lose their lives on that battlefield. As Krishna drives the chariot, into the middle of the field, he finds a place that's just under a banyan tree, he parks the chariot, and he shows Arjuna, here's the men who are going to die today. And this is where Arjuna is caught up in a crisis of conscience, and says, There is no way I can fight these men, because I see in front of me, my guru, because Satria guru of martial arts teacher Drona, and he sees his grandfather Bheeshma. And he says, there's no winning if I have to kill them. This is where the Gita pauses. And we're we have this image that the conch shells have already blown. So it started. And here comes this chariot into the center, but somehow under a tree also. And everything stops, right. The Bhagavad Gita is 700 verses long, and it takes about an hour and a half to chant the whole thing if you're good at it. So we're to understand that they stopped for an hour and a half, in the middle of a battlefield, paused, everybody there with their weapons ready to go. All of these men have shown up before dawn ready to go, and then paused. While these two men speak, this is the scenario that we read our Bhagavad Gita in. And I know something that initial and I would like to talk about today.

Nischala Joy Devi: 8:07

That was a great synopsis. Thank you. You know, when you when you're talking like this, Kamala, the one of the things that strikes me because I actually had the privilege of visiting the cruise ship TWRA, in India, on one of my trips there, and it doesn't look like much. It's just a field, it could be a soccer field, or a bass era football field doesn't really look different to us today, versus 1000s of years later. But born in those days was very different than it is now. It was more of an occupation, in that people came, and then they fought and then they went home to their families. My question is, where were the women? From my experience, women try to find other solutions. And in that trying to find other solutions, there's a lot of compromises. And there's a lot of trying to understand the other person's view. If they in fact, did go home every night. Did they talk to their wives and mothers and daughters about all of this? Or was it something that because of their cause shattered dharma? That wasn't really discussed? It wasn't part of what was happening at that time. And then the next question is, what did the women think? As these men went off each day, and they wrung their hands possibly at the front door, wondering if this person that they loved who was exiting the front door or would make an entrance again, at the end of the day, what was going on with them in their spiritual quests, and their agonies and they're wondering. So I think there's so much more to it, when you look at it from a humanistic and even feminine point. Women can be very diplomatic. But because they were not seen as someone who could be an authority, who could be an advisor, they weren't called upon. So in my mind, this could have been avoided. That may not be the popular opinion. But I just feel like there has to be an end to us going through this senseless destruction of human life. For material possessions, it has to stop. Now, here we are 5000 years later, and still doing it. It's got to stop. I remember that beautiful story, I think it was about the Greek Greek women whose husbands would not stop fighting. And they all withdrew to the hills, and would not come back until their husbands said, Okay, we'll stop fighting. And of course, the main thing I'm sure is the husbands got hungry, and no one cooked for them. But also, they had no one have sex with. And I think that probably drove them to stop the war faster than anything else. And believe me, I've thought of organizing that among my women friends, to try to get some of this violence to stop. Maybe that's the way it happens. So what I don't know what do you think about that? Kamala?

Kamala Rose: 12:05

Well, a couple things. First of all, I agree that there are many other solutions are there there could have been other solutions, especially if if we're looking at solutions that women would come up with. I wanted to tell you that this week, there was a wonderful example of an of an alternative to war that I saw. If any of you are watching the, the prequel of Game of Thrones house of Dragon there are two women who are at war in with each other in this war. One of them did something amazing this week. Right? She, this is one of the Targaryens. She instead of going into hand to hand combat and MORTAL BATTLE, one army against another. She did a display of what's called soft power and sent a few people into the opposing camps city and started to spread rumors that you know, we're so hungry. You know, those people in the castle they're eating all the food, aren't we hungry? Aren't we hungry? And they made a groundswell of the people. And they said yes, we are hungry. All these big powerful people are eating all the food. Yes, and they pounded their fists and a civil unrest started to happen. The the queen who started this delivered many boatloads of fresh food to them. And this one the people over to her side and destabilize the situation in a way where very few people lost their lives. But we're talking about winning hearts and minds rather than bloodshed. It was a great example of what's called soft power, the power of the feminine Missy, and the feminine and the feminine and winning through food, foods, not bombs.

Nischala Joy Devi: 14:28

You know, when you say that, it sounds so logical. It sounds it sounds so simple. And also in in in our modern, more modern day, even though he was in the mental body. I feel that's what Mahatma Gandhi did. He took the feminine principles and use them to do what no one else could do with all the war and all the loss of lives. Fight In the British, what did he do? He just marched. He marched, he marched to make his own salt to get his own salt. He didn't fight, even when they were hitting him. He encouraged them, no hit me again, because your superiors are watching, you'll get in trouble. This to me is someone that you put up like that, that you hold, whether it's soft power, whether it's feminine power, it's hard power is caring. It's realizing that war is not going to get us anywhere, that old expression to the victor go the spoils, nobody wins. And I don't know why we can't remember that over and over and over again. We see it today, you turn on the news, our hearts are heartbroken to see people and this in the casualties. And the I think of the mothers that go home, and their sons aren't there anymore. Their husbands aren't there. Their fathers aren't there. The sadness, the sorrow. So having a book that's supposed to be spiritual, giving us the message, that it's okay to fight is a very hard concept for me. I don't want to label myself how I act in the world, all I can say is I try to move forward with love in my heart. And yes, there are people that may not deserve that love, if you look at it on a human level, but if you look at it on a divine level, don't withdraw it from anybody. Everybody deserves that love. So bringing in the war really was a reason probably that even though I started thinking about writing a translation, many years ago of the Gita, every time I would pick it up, and I'd look at that first chapter, I closed the book and put it back on the shelf. So my thought process in this, my feeling in this is to extract the golden gems from this incredible book, and leave the war behind.

Kamala Rose: 17:41

And on that, as someone who does have many members of my extended family who have served in the military, my father and my grandfather both served in the military during war time, and fortunately, all of my family have survived. I also have cousins who attended West Point, you know, so they're really fitting into this upper echelon, Khachatryan class sort of people and, you know, it's really made me look at, at the Gita in a in a different way. I mean, personally, I my feelings are very much aligned with yours. Michelob. But understanding that there have been many times in human history where the powers that be have deemed this war as inevitable, in a way. Right, we obviously question whether that's true or not. But assuming in one way that that it is that irreconcilable differences have led to opposing forces to a battlefield, just like we find Krishna and Arjuna. I think part of the, the purpose of the Gita containing this is is that they wanted to make something available that show that there was an ethical way to wage war. There, like you said, In the beginning, this was different than today. There's no unmanned assault from trailers in Idaho that are bombing in the Middle East. We're talking about hand to hand combat where people go home at night. It's an instructional text on one dimension of the Bhagavad Gita is an instructional text to warriors to leaders to warriors to all these men in power, that if you must wage a war, it shouldn't be done this way. It should be done with consideration to the other side. It should be done with the the rules of war today we have the Geneva Convention When was the

Nischala Joy Devi: 20:01

first Geneva Convention? The Bhagavad Gita? Yeah, yeah.

Kamala Rose: 20:06

Right. So there's a right way to do it, there's a respectful way to do it. And this Gita had this job to teach the Kings, the princes, the rulers, the governors, that if it must be done, it should be done this way. Not not a free for all, not anything anybody wants to do. And in that way, I have a certain respect for that. And you know, because of my family and knowing that they are following those sort of guidelines in their own conduct, and feel that incredible sense of duty and patriotism, to be able to defend those that they love,

Nischala Joy Devi: 20:47

and protect.

Kamala Rose: 20:50

I think you and I are very much coming from the point of view of being women and myself as a mother. I, you know, a long time ago, had very strong feelings against the first Iraq war. And you know, did you know an awful lot at that time in protesting and activism. And being the mother of a son, I've always considered that that was something that I wanted to ensure never never happened to him.

Nischala Joy Devi: 21:23

I think one of the things that we're skirting around here, which I think your view and my view are both valid, when we look at the caste system. And when we're talking about the war, we're talking about a particular group of people that were trained for that, that's what they are, the only thing we could really compare it to these days, is the is a professional military. So people who go into the military as a profession, not because they just need to do a couple of years or whatever, but this is a profession for them. And they had that also, in those days. And that was called to Khashoggi class, that was the cast that was trained for this at birth, that were probably the ones that were given a little bow and arrow at age three or four, and taught how to do it. And with that, and I'm assuming that their fathers but I know their mothers did was talk about these ethical restraints. It's just It reminds me from the Revolutionary War in the United States, the same that came, and it's said, to not shoot until you see the whites of their eyes. And I spent a lot of time really thinking about that statement, and what it could mean and what it did mean. And to me, what it means is just what you were referring to before, someone dropping a bomb at 40,000 feet, who doesn't know who it's hitting, and you may remain separate from it. You don't even think of them as human beings, you're just dropping a bomb, where as opposed to getting close enough to someone that you can actually see the whites of their eyes, is a whole different decision, whether to shoot them or kill them or not. Because once you look into their eyes, as we know is the window of the soul. Something happens, you change, you don't want to kill this person, who is this person, they're a person like me, they have a family, someone's going to miss them and cry, and have a broken heart. So I think that when we look at that, we have to understand that that's who the Gita is speaking with. Not all of us have been raised that way. Some of us are more Brahmins. The Brahmins do not fight. That's not what they do. What they do is pray. What they do is generate the energy through ceremony, through ritual, to help protect those that fight to help settle these problems. There's a beautiful story that reminds me of this from Mother Teresa. And she, as you know, as everyone probably knows about her, was ceaseless in her service. She served constantly slept very little, ate very little, but prayed a lot. And there was this one woman who had been a nun who had been with her for many, many years, and the Nan had taken to the bed. Ill very ill and the nun felt useless. She said, I've been serving my whole life. And now I'm useless. All I'm doing is taking up the air, and the food of other people. And she then started to pray to die. And Mother Teresa heard of this. And she came to see the nun. And she said, Why are you doing that? Why are you asking God to take your life? And she said, Mother, I'm useless. All I'm doing is laying here in bed. I'm not doing anything. I'm not feeding people. I'm not serving people. Why am I still taking up space? And Mother Teresa looked at her with all compassion, as she always did. And she said, What do you do when you lie in bed like that? Every day, and she said, while I'm lying there, I pray, I pray for you. I pray for the sisters, I pray for the brothers, that they have the energy and strength to continue the service. And Mother Teresa smiled. And she said, Indeed, that's why we have the energy to do the service. Please, continue to pray. That's what keeps us able to do this work, and more important to love to do this work. So I think that we have to really step back and look at ourselves in the Gita. Where are we? Who are we, and perhaps that's why I chose to do the Yoga Sutras first. Because they are written for that class of people, that cast of people, those people that choose not to fight, but choose to use other ways, perhaps even prayer, you know, even in our military is very interesting that they have a slot for people like this, they call them conscientious objectors. And I think those words together really say something, you're conscientiously you're, it's not just, oh, I don't want to do this, I don't think about this, you are consciously objecting to this, this war, to this killing. And they allow these people to not go into combat. Instead, they may have a desk job, or not go in at all. So it's so much bigger than just saying war is bad. War is good. It's who who's involved in it. And to me, Kamala and I have, we've talked about this before, to me, if Arjuna was, in fact, a yogi, which he doesn't see me was this point anyway. And he had spent that time in meditation 12 years, and then an extra in exile in meditation, or spiritual practice, he may have come up with a way to not have to fight. So there's room for everything. There's room for the fighters that were born to do that. And then there's room for those that want to seek another solution, and probably use prayer and meditation as a way to help bring peace in the world.

Kamala Rose: 28:21

Well, we know that Arjuna did not spend 12 years in meditation, not in fact, he went on a search for the greatest weapons ever known. He has, he gets one weapon called Bosch dupatta. And as far as I've read, or you know, or been interpreted that in my brain from what I know, it sounds like a world ending nuclear weapon that he has on him. Right, the rest of the war is hand to hand combat, right. There's no guns. There's no cannons. No before that, right. There's mesas and axes and sorrows and arrows, but it's all very, very close. And Krishna doesn't say when are doona says I will not fight he's trying to be a conscientious objector to the war. But Krishna very famously says to him, CLI br moss Maga ma part nighta de vie. eupa pa dia de should drum her Daya Tao or volume TIAC devote dished up oranda PA, which he calls them a unik and says Pick up your poet arrow and get on with this bloody war. What do you think about that?

Nischala Joy Devi: 29:54

I would change teachers. That's what I think. I think that's one of the things bothers me also, is this shaming, and this verbal abuse that we find there, I find that very disruptive, that it would certainly not spur me on to do at any task, let alone fighting. If someone was verbally abusive to me or shaming me, again, I think we have to go back to Krishna Seeing Arjuna as a Cassandra Arjuna starting to want to be or seeing himself as a Brahmin. That wasn't who he was. And the question then comes is another question that comes up from me is, how much do you trust a teacher? How much do they know really who you are? And I know a lot of people and this is a whole other topic for another session. But can we really rely on someone else to tell us what our dharma is? Isn't that something that we have to figure out ourselves because we're the only ones that have to live with the consequences for the rest of our lives. No matter what a teacher tells you. Even if it's something forget, Ward says, leave your husband leave your job. No one should make that decision for another person, no matter how high they are, no matter how evolved, they are, you ask questions to have the person decide their own faith, their own karma, and how they want to proceed with it. So there's so much there, that doesn't mesh with the way I perceive spirituality, in the in the more modern times. And I think also, that's part of the women's view, women have been told what to do, since the beginning of time, they no one ever thought that we had the ability to make decisions on our own. Until now, recent times, I don't mean just this moment, but until recent times, I remember my mother couldn't even get a charge card, without my father signing for it. And her name wasn't on it, it was Mrs. So and so. So

Kamala Rose: 32:39

as recently as the year I was born, in 1970, there was no financial independence for women, there was no charge cards, there was no having your own vehicle, there was no being able to sell your own vehicle, there was no being able to take financial matters into your own hands as a woman. And, you know, we certainly talked about this already how important financial freedom is to be able to make your own choices. And this is really what we're talking about here with this story is that these are men's decisions. Right? These are decisions that only men are allowed to make. It is this is all in the realm of the the male males between males. And you know, something I think we we understand and have a certain respect for as women is that I think men have a sense of, you know, violence and fighting in them. That's different than women have. And in fact, one of my takes on this on the story is that this whole idea of doing the right thing by winning this battle, it seems to me an ethical metric that's a little unfamiliar to me. I mean, I believe in doing the right thing, but it for me, this kind of taps into a deeper a deeper storytelling narrative. And it's it's one that it's foreign to me as a woman, you know, fighting a battle, because it's the right thing because honor should be upheld because the right king should sit on the throne. We're on a paradigm of justice. That, you know, some ethical ought must be done. And that's why we're here on this battlefield. It's, uh, it has to do with a justice setting things right. You know, the good guys absolutely need to win this war. And we're to understand it's for the welfare of humanity. At, but never do I hear talk about the little people. And I don't hear about the I don't hear about the people in the village. I'm not hearing about the lower classes and how this is affecting them. I hear absolutely nothing about that. And this, I think is where my mind goes is how is this playing out for the people. I can imagine with all of this, all of the drums that are rattling, and all of the armor that's being put on and there's all the food is going to these folks, to these men on the battlefield and to feed their horses and their elephants. And I'm, I'm sure, just like in House of dragons, there's a lot of hungry commoners who are losing their meals to this war. And I think, for me, that's where my mind goes in a wartime scenario, it really doesn't have to do with this justice of who should be sitting on the throne. It's more about don't we care about the impact of the lives of all of the people who were there? Like you said earlier? What about the wives?

Nischala Joy Devi: 36:20

No. I imagined that she's standing at the door, the sun has set is starting to get dark. And she's wringing her hands, as she's watching all the other soldiers come home and doesn't see her son, or her husband? Does she care? If it's righteous or not? Does she care? Know her heart is breaking? And then what happens to her? afterwards? widows are not well loved, especially at that time in India. What happens to her? What happens to her livelihood? How does she gets food? All this? And does she go and claim the bloody body of her husband and son. So I think that we get caught up in the rah rah, and the shriek horns and the conscious and all that and all the excitement of war, the bands, the marching bands that we have nowadays, et cetera, that was very important during the Revolutionary and civil war that helped keep the troops together. But what about the other people that have the sadness, and you're left with a bloodbath of people that someone loves them? It bothers me too, when they announce these days in modern times, that 2500 troops died, or five troops died or 50 troops died. And I'd say, don't call them troops. There's somebody's family. There's someone's loved ones. Call it what it is. These are people that were killed. So it's really a dichotomy, the essence and the beauty of the teachings embedded in something that's distasteful to many of us in modern times, and my guess is, if I could go back and talk to those wives and mothers, it was distasteful even then. So

Kamala Rose: 38:48

we know one person, sorry, no, I

Nischala Joy Devi: 38:51

was just gonna say our job is to extract the wisdom and mollify the war in some way.

Kamala Rose: 39:00

Absolutely. I'm like Eunice Shula, I might my early experiences with the Gita, I would open up the text and I would say I'm not sure what's going on here. And you'd end up closing it. But over time, you know, you come to understand the, you know, this ancient war and the cause for this war. And following the eight teen days of battle, that go on after the Gita after the hour and a half break that happens in order for Krishna and Arjuna to discuss Arjuna is crisis of conscience. The battle lasts for 18 days, and I'll remind our listeners that there were millions of men on the battlefield, really all of the Lord's and right to the So it's a feudal system. So you have lords and rulers up top, those are the courgettes areas. And then you have all the, the little people that work for them, right. And all of the big muckety mucks are there. They're all all of these big lords and all their armor and weapons and elephants, they're all there. And we learn at the end of this battle, that there's literally only a handful left.

Nischala Joy Devi: 40:31

Yeah, that's the sad part.

Kamala Rose: 40:33

I mean, just devastating. And as we've been talking about, we think of their wives and their daughters and their sisters, and the people who are depending on the financial support that they give, and the ability to eat, have shelter. It that would that would have changed for all of the women connected to the men who died and it was millions, it was a wipe out. But we get the wonderful perspective of Gandhari who is the wife of Dhritarashtra, the blind king, when she marries Dhritarashtra, she puts a blindfold she blindfold herself, and she's no longer able to see anything. So for solidarity for her husband, in solidarity with her if he can't see I should not be able to see also. So at the end of the 18 days of this bloody war, when, as I said, there's just a handful the pond Avas are still alive, dear Yoda, Nas bleeding to death over here. Just a small handful of people are still alive. And Gandhari, who is still blindfolded, is given sight. She's given supernatural sight or clairvoyance, to be able to look on the bloody battlefield. You can imagine the horror, the first thing that she's seen first visual image in, you know, probably 2535 years is the death of all 100 of her sons. And all of the rulers of Bronze Age, India there. And to her horror, she describes what will happen to their wives, what will happen, you know, I am their mother, look at my pain and anguish of losing everything. Right? This is the Mahabharata is so wonderful because it is not one thing, it gives us many voices. Many perspectives from which to see this. Right Gondry as the mother of 100 of the soldiers that died gives us the voice of this pain and suffering at the end of the war and the devastation. So war is so final. And I think this is yeah, and so disruptive and destructive of everything. And I think in our many, many dialogues on this subject, I, my mind always comes back to one of the examples in that's also part of the Krishna mythology. If you're if you've heard the story of Mohini. And in the story of this comes from an much earlier story, then the avatar or incarnation of Krishna, this is earlier much earlier when the earth was quite primeval. And it's the time of the korma or tortoise of Uttara. And this is the story of the churning of the ocean of milk. On one side of a rope are the angels on one side are the demons and they're pulling this rope back and forth, back and forth, and the tension between them is what makes the world turn right in. bringing it forward to the Battle of Kuru. Shout Dre. We have the angels that are the bond of Oz and the the demons that are the cow Rivas, right, the same tension pulling back and forth but in this story, out of the tension comes a beautiful woman. And to cease the bickering between the angels and the demons Mohini a beautiful woman Milton comes out and she brings with her a big pot of food, a wonderful smelling food. And I think we're to understand it has onions and garlic, and it smells so good. And she lures the demons away. She just lowers them away. And the angels received the Amrita, the nectar of immortality, and the demons do not. Right, another example of soft power. That's good. So another example of another way, a problem was solved by feminine influence.

Nischala Joy Devi: 45:42

So, so much to talk about with this war, I think that what I'm looking for in this world, is we have given the men, we've allowed them their power to see how they do. And I think we're seeing that maybe there could be a different way, why not give the women a little chance to take over for a while and see if we do anything different. And my feeling is, we probably will I, there's a inherent difference physiologically between men and women. And the hormones that drives them, drives them in very different directions. The hormone testosterone is a very aggressive hormone, whereas estrogen is a very passive hormone. And when we manifest in a particular way, biology is not the only thing that drives us. But it is definitely one factor. They've done studies experiments, with little girls and little boys putting out different toys that they would be attracted to, without telling them anything. And immediately the little boys went for the guns and the swords, and the little girls went for the babies, and the dolls. Not to put us in those categories. Not to keep us there. But to know, we were talking about nature before, there's a certain part of nature that does come through. And we can resist it, or we can go with it, and formulate it according to our life and our lifestyle. It's up to us, but to know that biology does exist, and there is something that has this in it. So how you, you know, we get back to that that idea? Is it nurture or nature? Which is it? Is it someone that how they're born, they're born that way. And I hear mothers say, I don't know how she came through me. I don't know how he came through me. They're nothing like us. We're all in the military, and they became a pacifist, or we're all pacifist, and they went into the military, it's, you just never know. So I think the study of the Gita brings up so much of this, of how we move through the world personally, and as a society. That we have to understand all of it, why they did the war. And disease is something we agree with or not, and give it a chance. Let's see how it plays out. Let's see what happens with it. Otherwise, we just give up. So changing it is an option. And I think that's one of the things that we're working on without losing the essence. That's the important thing.

Kamala Rose: 49:03

It certainly has got us talking. And hopefully our listeners will come to their own conclusions as a getting excited about this as we are yes, yes. As you read the Gita to understand that place, that place for talking about war, a dialogue about the ethics of war, and to see that there are other metrics,

Nischala Joy Devi: 49:31

and also investigating this whole idea of the allegory of it. That is really happening with this in us a war. And I think that's for each person to decide, Is there a war going on within you? Are you battling with yourself? Or are you making friends with yourself and taking all the aspects of you all the qualities of you and making you a complete whole human being I think all that will be shown to us as we continue this. Let's just take a few moments before we close to just close your eyes, unless you're driving in a car, and just taking a two couple of deep breaths and let them out, as slowly as you can. And as you do, feel that energy ascending upward. Feel it coming up and flooding your entire being and rising up to the top of the head. And think of yourself the last time possibly you were combative. Maybe someone took your parking space, cut in front of you in line, how did you react? Did you look at them as divine? Or as your enemy? Try not to judge yourself, just observe it. And notice if that's your preferred way of action? Or was that a habit? Something that came unexpectedly Take another deep breath and just observe for a moment always going in questioning, observing, changing, adjusting. That's what keeps us on that spiritual path to knowing ourself. Want to thank you again for joining us today and hope you come back next time for a woman's Gita. Namaste

Kamala Rose: 51:45

Namaste.

Unknown: 51:50

Thank you for joining us for a woman's Gita with Nischala Joy Devi and Kamala rose. We would like to express our gratitude for the ongoing support for a woman's Geeta podcast and book from yoga gives back a nonprofit organization dedicated to the underserved women and children of India. Please join us again for our next episode. Coming soon. Namaste