Beyond Self-Interest: The Path of Buddhi Yoga

In this episode of A Women’s Gita Podcast, hosts Kamala Rose and Nischala Joy Devi dive into Krishna’s definition of yoga as presented in Bhagavad Gita 2.39. Exploring the concept of Buddhi Yoga, they discuss how to transcend self-interest and cultivate a deeper sense of interconnectedness in daily life. Through personal anecdotes, scriptural insights, and practical wisdom, they guide listeners in understanding how spiritual practice is not separate from the material world—but rather, an essential part of it.

Tune in to discover how yoga can transform not just your inner world, but also your engagement with others, helping to break the bonds of karma and live with greater purpose.

Key Talking Points:

• Krishna’s definition of yoga in Bhagavad Gita 2.39
• Understanding Buddhi Yoga—yoking oneself to wisdom and higher perspective
• How the Atman (eternal self) and Dharma (duty) are interconnected
• Debunking myths around "annihilating the ego" in spiritual practice
• The importance of balancing spiritual wisdom with action in the world
• The role of meditation in slowing down reactions and cultivating compassion
• Practical ways to integrate spiritual insight into daily responsibilities
• How retreats and spiritual immersion can help in re-entering the world with clarity
• Breaking the bonds of karma through selfless action and interconnected awareness

Join us as we explore how Buddhi Yoga offers a timeless and practical approach to living a more conscious, compassionate, and spiritually fulfilling life.

✨ Subscribe and share this episode with fellow seekers, and don’t forget to leave us a review! Namaste.

Transcript

Lilavati Eberle: 0:02

Namaste. Welcome to a woman's Gita podcast, a modern discussion of the Bhagavad Gita by and for Western women. A women'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 nistula 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.

Unknown: 0:42

Namaste, I'm Kamala rose

Nischala Joy Devi: 0:46

and I'm Nischala Devi. Thank

Kamala Rose: 0:48

you so much for joining us for this episode of a woman's Gita today, we're going to be picking up on such an important verse shloka, we're picking up where we left off. And our last podcast discussing now Krishnas definition of yoga. Nishila, would you like to start with reading us our translation of 239

Nischala Joy Devi: 1:15

you have been given the essence of self knowledge now here the practical wisdom of yoga through which bonds of karma can be broken.

Kamala Rose: 1:28

And I'll read this one in this original Sanskrit, yesha te Bihi ta Sankey, Bucha nu Buddh to ya, ya, Partha, karma. Bandham prahasyasi, right? So we're working with, we're working with a couple of key words here, and the essence of self knowledge, which in the Bhagavad Gita is called Sankhya. Many of our yoga students are going to be familiar with that word which is, which is important, as, let's say, the theoretical framework of yoga gives us, you know, the vocabulary and the world view of yoga. And Krishna says, Now hear the practical wisdom of yoga. And here he says, buddhir yoga, to be Mom, should renew, listen carefully to the practical insight of yoga. I think it's worth noting before we move on so much that this practical wisdom of yoga that we're talking about in the Gita is we're going to be Krishna is going to weave together for us a different definition, I think, than what we're used to, if we're students of the yoga sutra and of this idea of theoretical yoga philosophy, which is also known as Sankhya, this karma yoga that Krishna will be describing is really taking what we've already covered in the Gita, right the these main subjects that have been woven together through chapter two, the transcendence of the Atman, the first subject, the higher self, the spirit, the soul, the absolute transcendence of the self. And then right before this verse, we had a dialog on Dharma, where Krishna spoke to Arjuna about his important role to play in the world. Now that we get to verse 39 we're really bringing those two threads with us, the thread of the transcendent Atman and the thread of our role in the world, our responsibility to the world, right? So when he says, You've given us, we've been given the essence of self knowledge or Sankhya, and he's given us a theoretical framework that there is a transcendent self, and there is a world of nature, of the body, the personality, the psyche, right? That we live within we are both spirit and nature. Now we're going to hear how to apply this the practical wisdom of yoga, through which the bonds of karma can be broken. You. So this yoga that Krishna is speaking about, he says, here bud, here Yogi to be Mom, should renew, listen to how to practice this yoga, which he defines clearly in this verse as a. Yoking oneself to the buddhi, which is one of the components in Santa, right? Buddhi is the insightful mind. It's the reasoning mind, the intuitive mind, the wisdom faculty that is able to have a greater perspective than the ego or the sense of individuality, right? So by yoking oneself to this part of the mind, we're able to get a bigger picture, right? This is the yoga that's described here in verse 39

Nischala Joy Devi: 5:39

I think the other thing that it's doing to to me, like on a mystical level, when I look at it from that perspective, it's almost like we are from our small self. Once we realize there's so much more, we begin to put this web out. And there's a web that spirituality and the practices make stronger. And what I hear Krishna saying here is you have to go from the inside and from the outside. It's almost a simultaneous movement. So as you move in, you're also changing the way you affect and are affected by the world. And to me, this is very, a very important point, because most of the time spirituality, or let's call it, religion, is compartmentalized. So we do it on Sunday or Saturday or Friday, whatever the holy book prescribes, but the rest of the time we're not really thinking about it. We're off somewhere else. And it brings back to me the idea of cultivating the spirituality that we were taught as monastics, and one of the things we were taught. And I know this is true also for Christian monastics, because I've spent a lot of time also with in that milieu that we are reminded constantly of this connection, of this of who we are, both spiritually and physically. For instance, we had prayers for everything. So when we took a shower, we had a specific prayer that we said. So we were taking care of the body at the same time, we were taking care and reminding ourselves of the spirit and the essence the same thing, before we ate after we ate, when we were washing the dishes, every single thing had a connection to it, not just as a rote thing for us to memorize, but to remind us constantly that we we step with two feet, one in the spiritual world And one in the physical world. And here, to me, this is what Christian is really trying to bring together and saying, don't just think it's only when you go and meditate, or only when you do this. This is all the time. Everything that you do becomes spiritualized. Everything that you do becomes part of not only your dharma, but the way you live every day in the world. So this, to me, is a very, very important aspect of it for all of us to remember when it says you have been given the essence of self knowledge now hear the practical wisdom of yoga. And to me, what it means is take that, the essence of self knowledge that you've been given, and bring it into the practical of everyday life.

Kamala Rose: 8:55

I think the practical of everyday life the way we live. I think there's, there's so much in this verse that's so instructive. The practical wisdom, I think the practical wisdom here that I am gleaning is the practical wisdom that can only be discerned by the higher mind, right, by a higher perspective, right? We know from sankia those three components of the mind, buddhi, the highest aspect of the mind, we could say, the mind that thinks in terms of we and us and all right, this is the part of the mind that has the capacity to glimpse or to behold the transcendent Atman, right? It's the, it's of the sattvic nature. It's clear it's transcendent and inclusive. It's an inclusive of all Exactly, yeah, right. And then we have ahamkara, which is the eye maker, right, denser and made of. Of personality and individuality, the sense that I exist separately than the other things around me and the other people around me, right? And the densest yet is Manas, which we can call the conscious mind, the nervous system, the workings and coordinator of the five senses, right? So this verse really is speaking to the inner work, right? What we're doing internally in karma yoga, and that is the effort through meditation, to lift above what is solely an individual and come into a greater sense of belonging to a whole, right? A practical wisdom, as you say, where we're all connected, where we are all dependent on each other. I think being able to look at situations from this point of view, right? We're able to look more at what's good for all of us? Yeah, what's the right thing to do for all of us, not just for me, not just my own personal self interest and maintaining my own personal karma, right? We can look beyond that into a larger sense, where we are all connected and we are all one, this practical internal work, I think, is what is being defined here, as Buddha yoga, an internal union, or yoking. To that perspective,

Nischala Joy Devi: 11:41

I agree with exactly what you're saying. I think that. I think this is what's so unusual about yoga, and why it's why people don't understand it, because there's nothing really like it in most traditions, the fact that you are giving given a set of practices that lead you to a certain point. It's not just prayer, it's not just meditation. We're we're looking at every all the three that you've talked about, the booty. There's practices for that, there's practices for the Aham car. There's practices for the modes. Everything that we have has, there's a practice to allow it to purify, and when it purifies, then we can use it in its totality. There's none of the the essential dichotomies there. And I guess I think particularly when we're talking about the sense of, I the ahamkara, the I think a lot of people misunderstand it. And I remember at one point I was somewhere, and there was a surgeon who was a neurological surgeon, and he went in, he started talking about the booty and or the hunger, sorry. And he said, you just have to go in and annihilate it, get rid of it completely. And I remember being there, just being shocked and saying something like that. And obviously, from a surgeon's point of view, that's what you do, but from a Yogi's point of view, it's a purification. So you're the personality that comes out of that is not taken away. One of the things that I think people misunderstand is even if you become realized, you don't lose your personality. Your personality is still there. It's just now you have a sense of knowing that you didn't have before. So the personality is it's refined, but we still maintain it. Otherwise we'd all be walking around like robots, all the saints would all be the same. And if you've ever read about them, you know they're all different, and they're all a little bit according to our values in this plane of consciousness, a little bit nuts, because they just that's just who they are. They just go off a little bit. Ramakrishna used to dress in all kinds of clothes and sneak into the women's baths and all kinds of things, because he wanted to know what does a woman feel like, so he would do all these things. So I think that when we get back to this, we have to understand that it's a purification of the senses. It's not a destruction of the senses. It's not even an inhibition of the senses, but it's that purification that then when we look at the sunset, it's a very different sunset than we looked at before.

Kamala Rose: 14:49

I think that's very much worth emphasizing, especially in terms of this. You know, the beginning of this verse speaking about Sankhya, which is. An old one of the six darshanas of Indian philosophy, very old. Probably dates prior to but copula wrote the Sankhya karaka around 500 before the Common Era, right? So it's, we're looking at something that's very old. It's been interpreted by so many men over so many 1000s of years, and it's almost like we have a ranking system like the Buddhist better than the ahamkara, that's just better than the Manas, which is better than the senses. In fact, the Katha Upanishad, where that we spoke of earlier with the chariot metaphor, just flat out, says the booty is better than the ahamkara is better than the Manas. And right as Westerners, we hear this in a in such a way of ranking, and we think right as as young spiritual aspirants, we can internalize that in a in a way that can be not so helpful, where it turns into annihilating the ego, killing the ego, eliminating the ego, right? And for people who have been on the path for so many years, I think it's worth debunking this myth that there's any way to kill the ego or to eliminate this. Or can we become selfless? Yes, we can become selfless in our actions, but losing the personality and the person who you are is certainly not what this means, right? Really just means rising above and being not subtracting from but adding to, right? We're adding everyone to our point of view, instead of simply only myself, right? We're adding all people into, really the motive for our actions and we're taking, we're taking that wider web point of view, again, to to remember these threads that Krishna has been weaving for us, the transcendence of the Atman, that transcendent Atman in all beings, yes, and the responsibility to act in the world in a way that is authentic and and in line with our nature, right? So I think you said earlier, nishilla, so accurately, that we're looking at more of a blending. I think we have to look at befriending the ahamkara, right, including the ahamkara, which is not always easy, right? Yes, it's not always easy to get oneself on board with a, with a you know, especially when you want something, right? You really want it. You want it to work out that way. You're very pushing hard for that to happen, right? To look up and think, but what's best for everyone? What's best for what's best in the timing, right? What's best for all of the multiple strands woven together in time? It might be a different answer than what you want, and this is really where we are acting out of a sense of a greater good and a greater a greater sense of identity and belonging to the world.

Nischala Joy Devi: 18:38

I think that's so important to understand what you just said, Because I two things can happen simultaneously. And I think this is we've come we're sort of going to the physical world. The two two objects can occupy the same place, the same space at the same time. That's not true in the spiritual world. They can so we can be working with and recognizing our inner self at the same time recognizing how we're acting in the world, whether to unite or to separate, because it has to be done at the same time. And I think this is what happens, is we spend so many years in the material. We go to school, we go to college, we go to university, we go to specialty schools, and we haven't thought about our spirit. And then all of a sudden something happens, and we say, oh, I should probably start thinking about who I am, other than being doctor, nurse, garbage collector, plumber, whatever I am, we can't drop the material, although some people do, they'll go into a monastery for a period of time. But those are those days are pretty much gone. Most people aren't doing that. Anymore. So what we're doing then is we're picking up the spiritual after we have, well, developed the material, but not giving as much energy to the spiritual, because we just don't have the time anymore. We've given so much of it so and then we say, well, I don't really experience and not really experience the aspect of spirituality, because we haven't strengthened it enough. We haven't made it as familiar as the physical is. And I think that's one of the things of yoga, is to slowly draw us in. We begin with the physical, and then we slowly come in to the place where you're comfortable, not only even more than comfortable, you're yearning for that quiet stillness within. And you know at that point, when you start yearning for that, that the material has not encroached in the spiritual. You know that it has stayed where it belonged, and you can visit it anytime you want, and now bring the spiritual into it. And I to me, that's really the goal of living in the world as a spiritual and physical being at the same time. And yoga seems to have the ways to do that.

Kamala Rose: 21:18

And this is why I think retreats are important, yep, that we can have a prolonged period of time to focus on meditation, leave the world, leave your job behind, leave thing, leave the the world of everyday life behind for a period of time, even to spend some time in an ashram, right? It gives a great perspective and teaches you the skills, right? But so we're very clear here in the Bhagavad Gita, the purpose of this yoga, this buddhi yoga that Krishna is teaching, is to live it in the world. Is to bring it into our sense of civic responsibility and the role, the unique role that each of us has to play in the world,

Nischala Joy Devi: 22:04

and the spiritual world has really discouraged us up until very recently, even though it's written 1000s of years ago, you're really discouraged from bringing the spirit back in. You're encouraged to stay in those ashrams, to stay in those monotonic convent to keep that flow go. Flow going. I remember, how many times have I told, been told you can't have a foot in two different boats, because if you do when they start to move apart, you can guess what happens. And I was told this over and over and over again, but yet, in the world, you have to live like that. If you don't live like that, you've lost

Kamala Rose: 22:53

and this is the great innovation of the Bhagavad Gita, is bringing together that worldly life with the inner sense of monasticism. I completely agree with you that we this should be emphasized at the beginning of one's, you know, one's experience in an ashram is, you know, consider this a, you know, a very semi permanent situation, right? And a place where you can learn some things that will teach you how to find that authentic nature of yourself so that you can live your life. You can play that part. I completely agree that this would be a great contribution on behalf of the ashrams of the world, to tell people, to instruct them in the ways of this Gita, that your your role now is to help the world to become a better place. You know, this was, this was big for me that, you know, I saw that I had helped the people in the ashram as much as I could. And these insights are really for they're for the world. They're to make the world a more spiritual place. And I think that one of the reasons that our warriors in the battle of kurushetra have gotten into this mess in the first place is so much of that spiritual engagement and that spiritual identity has been forgotten, right? It's been corrupted by the the wants and the desires of the world, right, represented by the cowrovas. Right, even in this situation as the Pandavas are looking to do the right thing, it's look how difficult it is for them to fight, to do the right thing, when the when the society, which I think is represented by the cowrovas, is so corrupt, right, it's difficult to hold that spiritual ideal. So retreat and guidance. Right a time away can be very helpful, and then to re enter with the spiritual perspective. So we can make this world a better place for everyone, and bring that spiritual thought into all parts of life. I think this is the kind of practice that we're all looking for today, something that that does reflect the world we live in, and that we can alleviate suffering in all in all parts of our lives.

Nischala Joy Devi: 25:33

It seems a bit confusing sometimes, at least if you read enough, I guess this is why they tell you to stick with one teacher and one scripture, because if you read enough, it starts to contradict itself, and you hear, no, you have to stay. If you want to be spiritual, you have to stay at ashram or monastery or convent or something like that. And then the other says, This is not the time for that, for spirituality. This is the time for material and morals, but not necessarily spirituality. And we start hearing all these contradictions. And then the other thing is, we give a lot of the responsibility of our spiritual development as individuals, but also as the world to top spiritual leaders, and they can't do it. They can't do it for us. First of all, are they of high moral character? Well, that's always questionable, but even if they are, they can't do it for us. This is something that I think we hear over and over again in all the scriptures. You have to do it yourself. You have to actually put the time in to connect with those places that weren't being connected before. And I, most people, have a very difficult time with this. I hear it all the time. You know, I go into people will say to me, I go in to meditate. I come in out, and I'm feeling really in my spiritual realm, and suddenly I have to deal with the dog pooped on the carpet, or I have to deal with the kids spilled the milk, or whatever it is, and it takes them out of it so abruptly that they start to feel that they don't want to go back. And I think this whole idea of not making it different than your everyday life, but letting it coat your everyday life. Let it be a part of it. Instead of screaming at the kid or rubbing the dog's nose in it, just take a few deep breaths and maybe go back into the meditation room again and figure out how you're going to handle this, not like you always did, but as this new form that's coming forward with the balance of the spiritual and the material, because the material and the spiritual are really not separate, it was just we have an illusion that they're separate, but the spiritual and the material reflect each other. And I think this is something that we forget. We forget we think, Oh, the priest will take care of it, the rabbi will take care of it, the Amman will take care of it, the Dalai Lama will take care of it. No, they can't. They can't. It's not. That's not how it works. They can help you, they can guide you, but they can't do it for you, and that's what we have to remember

Kamala Rose: 28:47

when I come out of meditation. I've taught this for many years to treat that period after meditation as a very liminal space, right? I love the I love the practice from what's his name brother David the gratitude monk, who who teaches so beautifully, as soon as you blink your eyes open, right, be be surprised and grateful at everything that your eyes fall on. I think there's almost an in between practice that's needed there to give the mind time to adjust right to not the, not the, you know, the the ordinary, mundane that's so known and right right to see that, that that that dog that's walking across The floor and sniffing at something that might mean work later, right to to come out of that space with gratitude. And I think this is really a place for for looking again at that union with the booty, that higher mind that we're all you know, to bring this the idea of interconnection and gratitude. Attitude into our world when we open our eyes to consider the ways that we're interconnected, right? To connect, interconnected with the dogs, with the children, with the plants, with the earth that supports us. And really make a practice, right? That's a very much a practice of teaching the buddhi right, teaching the mind to think from there and contextualize everything in terms of its interconnection to oneself and oneself as being dependent on others. Because this is right. We're getting at some very important ideas here. The last part of the shloka says that by doing this, the bonds of karma can be broken. And I think that, I think that by elevating the mind to the place where it's not an intellectual concept that we are all connected. We can teach ourselves to cease acting out of self interest and act out of a higher principle of what's best for all of us. And I think this is for me. This is what this shaloka really speaking to is this is how the bonds of karma are broken, is we're able to ascend mentally beyond personal self interest into a sense of selflessness in the world.

Nischala Joy Devi: 31:38

So I think the other thing is, we have to realize there's, there's lots of options to every given situation. So for instance, if we come out of meditation and we see that our dog did something in the middle of the rug, there's ways of looking at and you say, there must be something going on. She doesn't usually do this. Maybe she's not feeling well. Instead of going to she did this against me, and now I have to clean it up. We there's to me, there's a synapse, there's a timing that slows down. It was interesting that we're doing a research on this in Bangalore. I was visiting there one one year, and they actually found that when you do deep meditation, that the motor skills actually slow down. You walk slower, you speak slower, you eat slower. Everything changes because you're giving space in between the thoughts, which normally we don't do. We just we just go, and it's like a song or a beautiful piece of music. The more space there is, the slower and more relaxing it is, the less space, the more the pace is fast. So what meditation helps us to do is have that gap. So we can have a little bit more compassion for the dog in just or whatever it is, I'm just keeping on this dog metaphor, but we can have more compassion for the dog and realizing maybe something's wrong. Same thing happens if someone's rude to you on the phone, instead of have a quick reaction. You pull back and you say, Wait a minute. Maybe they're having a really bad day. Maybe this is something that's not good for them. So to me, that's how it all interweaves. The physicality slows down when we do spiritual practice, the material body actually slows down. So as we continue it, we start to see that everything's changing around us. And one of the ways that I've in the past described this is if you take a plant and you water it, you have to let it sit there for a few minutes and let the water seep down. If you move it right away, it will spill out. And I think that's the same with us. When we come out. Try to have kamu, you were describing it, have that period of transition. There's a time of transition between coming out, and that's where the chanting at the end or sending prayers to the world for peace or something like that, helps us do that transition. So we don't have that abrupt reaction. Why do you do that? We just have the calming and saying, Okay, this happened. It doesn't usually happen. There's a reason for it. Let me think about that's bringing the booty back into it. We're looking at the logic instead of going with the emotions. Yeah, I think, I think that's what he's trying to say here. And I think that's one of the most practical and useful advices that we can get with yoga,

Kamala Rose: 34:57

because it's we're talking about our reactions, right? Right, the minute to minute, the way we live in the world. And I'll just be straight up with you. We're talking about dogs, and I have three of them, and I've cried over a dog poop on the floor, right? I've lost it first thing in the morning. And so nobody's perfect. This is really this is about learning how to be in the world in a way, as you said, That's compassionate understanding, like you said, some maybe something's up. Maybe I didn't wake up early enough to let everybody out. Maybe it's just, I think it highlights that we're, not only are, you know, we're all connected, but our karmas are intertwined, right? We are dependent on each other. They are dependent on me to take them out and walk them and to provide structure for them, just like children. You know, we have as women, especially, we have many who depend on us. And this is kind of, this is who we are. So many of us in our world. We are the people who so many depend on. Right? So we, I think this, I think for women, being able to look beyond oneself is a skill that we know how to do, right? Transferring this into seeing, seeing the spiritual practice that it is might be, you know, a step. I hope that is helpful to our sisters out there, who do so much to help so many people. And here, Krishna says there's a huge virtue to that, to be able to see beyond oneself and beyond one's own personal interest,

Nischala Joy Devi: 36:46

and it grows, it develops, it continues. And I think that's even if we come out and yell, it's a lesson, oops. Look at this. One moment ago, I was peaceful. I was OMO mom. I was in there in bliss, knowing who I was, what happened. I walked out and I lost it. I started screaming at the dogs who I adore. Why did I do that? Okay, this. I really need to work on this particular aspect of my life right now. So it's a great lesson. So next time we go back in there that's in our thoughts, I need to make sure that where I go right now will help me when I walk out of this room. So it's a really adapted just constantly, constantly we're adjusting it,

Kamala Rose: 37:42

yeah, and as you said, learning, learning, as we go, right? We didn't, we didn't break any rules, right? Do anything bad, right? It wasn't, uh, you know, didn't, you know, come to physical violence. It was just, you know, it was a right. And then I, I asked myself, you know, who are you? Who do you think you are? That nothing bad, you know, nothing like this would happen. If that's the worst thing that happens to me today, then I would consider this day blessed, right? If that's the worst thing I had to do, right? So we learn, and we learn how to to be at peace in our environments, which are filled with people and pets and uncomfortable situations and situations we don't like and agree with, right? We've got to. And I think it's it we know too that it's not one size fits all. I mean, it's not just the same for everybody we are all mitigating stressful situations, right? Some that are uniquely stressful to you, that would make you blow up, lose it, right? Some that would happen to a good friend and you say, What's the big deal about that? Who cares? Right? So this is where we're learning to work with with who we are and make peace with the present moment, not expecting it to be anything other than what it is. And this is how the bonds of karma can be broken, how we can release that, that sticky stickiness to the way things should be, the way I want things to be, the way I believe them to be, falling out as right. These are, these are well, well worn habits in every in every Yogi's mind and heart, right? And in yoga, we are learning to examine those we're learning to get over ourselves and to to accept the present moment exactly as it is, knowing that it's not for you to control.

Nischala Joy Devi: 39:59

It's not to be. Sure it's for us to bring in who we really are, and that's the only way we're ever going to feel control on this. Because those of us have tried, and believe me, I have many times, to control situations and that you just can't, and after a while, you get frustrated and throw up your hands and say, Okay, but what about if you could do that in the beginning and just say, you know, I can't expect everything to go my way. Maybe I don't see the big picture. Maybe this isn't the right thing at this point. But that alone takes years of practice, usually, to be able to see that you can give it lip service, but to really believe it, it could take a long time, and I think that we have to be careful to not think of this as something that people can just take advantage of us and just keep saying to us, oh, do this. Do this. Because, oh, you're a spiritual being. You should be doing this. We also have to consider, how is this affecting us? Who am I? And then we can see when I go the next day or that day into the meditation room, am I still thinking about that? If I am, then it affected us more deeply, and we have to do something about that. So it's and I I'm laughing, because a lot of people hear this, and they'll say, too much work, too much work. I want to just go out and have fun. I don't want to do this, and I understand that. But also I say to them, this can be fun. I know it doesn't seem like it, but it can be, and because the fun part comes that you can do what you really want to do without experience the consequences that you may have before, because you understand it in a very different way. So it's all growth in learning, if we want to go there, if we want to do that.

Kamala Rose: 42:04

This is the path of yoga, an embodied accepting engagement with the world around us. Right today, we've we've spoken about verse 239 you've been given the essence of self knowledge. Sankhya now hear the practical wisdom of yoga, buddhi yoga, through which the bonds of karma can be broken, right? This is, this is where the Gita begins to develop this new flower of karma yoga. And I think this is all we have time for today, nishala. We'll have to, we'll have to pick up on 240 next time. And I look forward to speaking to you about

Nischala Joy Devi: 42:53

that. That will be fun. It's a fun one coming up. Don't miss this one.

Kamala Rose: 43:00

Thank you all so much for joining us. Appreciate all of our listeners and all of you who are subscribers to our podcast. I hope you'll share it with others, and we'll look forward to seeing you next time. Namaste.

Nischala Joy Devi: 43:16

Namaste.

Lilavati Eberle: 43:20

Thank you for joining us for a women's Gita with nistula Joy Devi and Kamala rose, we would like to express our gratitude for the ongoing support for a women's Gita podcast and book from yoga gives back a non profit organization dedicated to the underserved women and children of India. Please join us again for our next episode coming soon. Namaste. You.