Bus Drivers, Mothers, Monastics: Finding Dharma in Ordinary Life

What does it really mean to live your dharma when life looks nothing like a scripture story?

In this episode, Kamala Rose and Nischala Joy Devi begin with Bhagavad Gita 3.34–35—“Better to do one’s own dharma poorly than another’s well”—and follow it into the very human landscapes of work, motherhood, monastic vows, and hard personal choices.

Through stories of bus drivers, mothers, and monastics, they explore how our unique mix of karma, samskaras, upbringing, and temperament shapes a path that is truly our own. They speak candidly about entering and leaving ashram life, facing judgment from others, and the moment you realize the container you once loved has become too small.

This is a conversation about recognizing when you’re out of alignment, finding the courage to course-correct, and discovering how any role—no matter how “ordinary”—can become sacred when it expresses your deepest dharma.

In this episode, we explore:

• The Gita’s teaching on doing your own dharma vs. copying someone else’s
• How karma, samskaras, and swabhava shape your unique path
• The tension between job, role, and true purpose
• Women’s evolving access to study, teaching, and spiritual authority
• Entering and leaving monastic life as an expression of dharma
• How a city bus driver turns work into compassion and seva
• Why alignment with dharma deepens meditation and inner peace

Transcript

Kamala Rose: 0:39

Welcome, friends. Thank you for joining us on A Woman's Gita podcast. I am Kamala Rose, and I'm Nischala Joy Devi. We really appreciate you making time to join us for our dialog on the Bhagavad Gita, translating it in a way that we feel is friendlier to women who encounter this text at this point in modern history. Today we're continuing in chapter three, and we're picking up on verse 34 Nischala, would you read that translation?

Nischala Joy Devi: 1:19

334 each of the senses abide in attraction and aversion for the object that it senses. If we come under their sway, they create obstacles to the path of realization. 335 It is better to do one's own dharma poorly than to another to do another's dharma well. If we choose to follow another's dharma, it will breed great fear. It's one of my favorite ones. Yeah, that's one of the key ones in the Gita. It

Unknown: 2:01

is one

Kamala Rose: 2:02

of the key shlokas, and one that we're going to just concentrate on today, because there's, there's so much, there's so rich. And before we get started with our sharing our thoughts on this, I'll, I just wanted to say a great way to find a Gita, to buy a Gita, is to choose one verse and see how it's translated in different ways. I know this is one that you and I worked on to try to retain some of the poetry of the verse, but just as an aside, when you're looking at Bhagavad Gita, this is a great verse to focus in on 335 because it brings together so many of the important ideas that the Bhagavad Gita is focusing its attention and its words upon. Better to do one's own dharma. Let's talk about dharma.

Unknown: 3:07

Dharma is one

Nischala Joy Devi: 3:09

of those concepts that are very difficult to understand from a Western perspective. It seems that in Western society we we do parental lineage, so we look back to see who our grand ancestors are, we look back to see where we've come from, and people that identify with countries, etc. Oh, I'm from an English upbringing, I'm from an Irish upbringing, a German upbringing, whatever it is. Those are my ancestors. This is a very different concept. This is now taking us out of the, the, the physical movement of generation to generation, and putting this back on us. What are we supposed to do? Why have we come here? And I know everybody always asks this, that question, why are we here? Why are we here? Why are we here? I ask it many, many times a week and months, etc. When something happens, and I question the usefulness of myself in this greater realm, and I think that's what Dharma does. It explains to us, why are you here? What, what is your duty? Why did you come here? Because we've all come here to fulfill something, and if we look back and we talk about our karma and our samskaras, those past impressions, when they all gather together and create our now present incarnation, there's something that comes with that, and that is called our dharma, our dharma, our righteous path. What would we do on this earth right now to fulfill that particular dharma, and that dharma then allows us to move on and move upward to another lifetime, perhaps, or even within this lifetime to fulfill different things that we may not have had the structure to do, and I think this is something that especially people who are interested in that, that word that we've been talking about ever since we started the realization of this. Self, the understanding of who we are cannot come until our dharma is fulfilled.

Kamala Rose: 5:48

What you're describing as a way of fitting into the world, a way of fitting into the greater whole, is, I think, a purpose that many of us seek, and definitely, as you said, those who are seeking the self or this type of knowledge that yoga promises, transcendental knowledge of who we really are, and understanding that story, not only personally in an interior level, which, of course, is important, and where the yoga practices point us is is working us through a method that leads to the realization of the self to knowledge of the self, direct perception of the self, but when we now are reading the Gita and encounter a term like Dharma, which is going to put that self in relationship with the greater whole and ask us, then why am I here? It's such an important question to ask, why am I here at this place at this time around these people, right? So Dharma brings up those bigger issues about belonging, I think the people that we belong to in the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna belongs very deeply to the place where he is. He belongs on that battlefield. He is with all of his kin. It's the story of him and his people, and all of their activities, all of those samskaras, and all of that activity of karma that led up to that point in this battle, right. So, there's a very personal sense of belonging for him to this place. I think, as modern readers of the Bhagavad Gita, we have to discern, as you said, where, where my, where's my sense of belonging? Where are my battlefields, and because we all do belong to places by our for bearers and also by the people that come from us, right? If we have children or not, and the families that we build in our lifetimes, and I think it really brings a spotlight into the way we choose to spend our time in our lives, the activities that make up our day, the ideas that we pursue, the people that we give our hearts to the actions that we take and why, in the bigger sense of dharma, from the classical Sanskrit, is going to mean a lot of things, right? Dharma comes from dura to uphold, so there's a sense that this sense of purpose and belonging uphold something, a deeper rhythm, a deeper harmony that we can understand as like gravity, in a way of fundamental principle of the structure of the universe, so sometimes it's translated as law, as religion, as righteousness, or all right, it can have a very wide definition. I think we're looking right now at what it means to seekers, what does dharma mean to us in context of those who seek yoga's goal of realization of the self?

Nischala Joy Devi: 9:54

I think it's important to remember it's not just a path, we all have a path, everyone, as soon as you're born, you have a path, and, and sometimes it's really clear you're born into a family of carpenters, and chances are they will instill that in you in a very young age. That's really not what dharma is. That's what we're not talking about. Dharma has a higher aspect to it. It's there's a righteousness to dharma. This, you have come here for the purpose of realization, but also serving the humanity at the same time, a truly dharmic act. Action is one that is selfless. Again, we're talking about this, this, this idea. It seems that everything that we do, once we make a decision to start on this glorious path, everything comes together in that same way. It's almost like that Irish blessing, may you always have the wind at your back, and I think that when you're in your dharma and living the way you, you were meant to, there is a wind at your back, and there is an ease by which that this comes, and I think all of us have, at one time or another, maybe, maybe it's just a few of us looked around at our parents and said, Why, why did I, why am I with them? They're in my case very nice, kind people, but had no idea how to deal with a child like they got a child who saw auras, who child who was extremely sensitive. They didn't really know what to do with the child like that. And I kept thinking to myself, as I got older, why was I born in that in that house? Why was why wasn't I born to parents that knew yoga and did all that and all that, and as I looked at my dharma, I realized that that's what exactly what I needed. Those are the kind of people I need. They were not, and I'm going to use this, maybe a strange term, they weren't intrusive, they let me grow in the way that I needed to grow. There was no formal religion, so I didn't have to adhere to any rules or regulations in that way, and I was allowed to just experience that because they were kind and they in a way got out of the way, so I could do that, so I think that we have to understand that when we talk about dharma, it's not just on a practical level, it's like the idea of guru, there's a sat guru, and then there's the upper guru, the everyday guru, and then there's the true guru, and I think it's like this: once you have tread up that past, perhaps in other lifetimes, you are now granted the idea of coming back and fulfilling your dharma. My question, though, comes in about Arjuna when you're talking about Arjuna a minute ago, because he, his dharma is obvious, he's standing on the battlefield, yet he wants to do something else. So I think this sloka is really perfect for his predicament at this moment, he would rather be let them all go and be kind and be, but that's not his dharma, that may be someone else's, that may be a Brahmin's dharma who meditates and does rituals and scriptures, etc. But for a warrior, this is his dharma, yeah,

Kamala Rose: 14:01

and I think this is something that it can be very confusing to modern readers. Is for Arjuna, Krishna keeps steering him back. This is the thing for you to do. This brings together what you're talking about, that higher calling, that belonging to the war, to your people, to your world and your job is all has all come together for Arjuna, because it was a different time, a different culture, and according to the tradition, things worked better than it was easier to fall in to your dharma, and here we are in modern times, where it's a huge question. Am I doing the right thing? Am I doing the right job? Is this, you know, is this my dharma? The best I can get is a job at a warehouse, at a Walmart, because times are hard, and so we have to be able to differentiate often our jobs and the things that pay the rent from our dharma, our true purpose and sense of belonging to the world, right. So I think that's important, that when we're navigating a text like the Bhagavad Gita, there's there is a level of knowing where the text is coming from and what it means in history, and also being able to take the step to make it personal and understand what would that mean for you today as a woman, and something we've spoken about many times is that. This is unprecedented in terms of women's dharma being open to read and study a text like this to make the choice to become yoga teachers to become a professional in the subject dealing with philosophy and religion. Women aren't allowed to speak on this subject. Historically, we're at an open point in history,

Nischala Joy Devi: 16:08

like the way you said that, or an open point that at any moment could also close again, which

Kamala Rose: 16:15

truly,

Nischala Joy Devi: 16:16

which happens, you know. Also, I think sometimes we get stuck in a job that, like you were talking about, may not be something that we see as our dharma, but can't we then make it our dharma? I think that's what, because get back to that old fun expression, if life gives you a bunch of lemons, make some lemonade. That we just sometimes we just have to do things that we really don't want to do, or that we don't feel is in alignment, but by certain tweaks after doing enough spiritual practice, we can make it our dharma. For instance, let me just a sweet little story that happened to me. I was working in a natural food store early in the, in the natural food store history, and I was bagging. I used to bag all the fruits, dry fruits and nuts and stuff, and this man came in every day to get a sandwich, and he was so happy every day he came in, he was just happy, he got his sandwich, he got his drink, and he left, and he's happy, so in my mind I imagined that he was independently wealthy and had nothing else to do, and just came in and got a sandwich, and then went out, and that's why he was happy. I couldn't imagine why anybody else would be happy in that time. And what? So one day I followed him. I wanted to see what he did, and I was shocked to see that he got in to the driver's seat of a bus, a big city bus, and his route was downtown, which was not an easy place. And so the next day he came in, and I asked him, I said, So you drive a bus? He said, Yes. I said, You seem always happy. Why? I said, It's not an easy job. Why are you happy? And he got a big smile on his face. He said, 'You see it as a bus, I see it as my home. He said, 'And everybody who comes on is a guest in my home, and I welcome them. And you know, may notice that I stop longer at this stop. The reason is, there's a senior center right there, and I know they can't walk fast, so I wait for them, and sometimes even if it's icy, I go out and help them. I named him Buddha, the bus driver, because to me what he did was extraordinary, not ordinary, extraordinary. He took an ordinary job, not something people would get all excited about, and he made it extraordinary. He, he molded it to his dharma, and it became compassion, love, understanding, and extraordinary seva service. So I think that there's so much more that we could do to bring ourselves into our own dharma that maybe we're lacking, maybe we're slacking in a way,

Kamala Rose: 19:42

well, I think that brings attention to the very attitude that we bring to our lives, and if we go through life with regrets or a sense of dissatisfaction about being somewhere and right, we, I feel like it's, we should, we all deserve to do a job that makes us happy, that we can find that sense of personal meaning in, and the fact that we're at a time where these things are under consideration, and we have so many choices of how we can dedicate our time, our energy, our education, our efforts, our hands. We have a lot of openings. In the past, people did not have choices. Women, especially, did not have choices about these sort of decisions, and so I think part of bringing gratitude into our livelihoods is by recognizing the privilege and the opportunities that we have, like your friend, the Buddha, the bus driver, the privilege to host guests all day long, a simple reframe of mine,

Nischala Joy Devi: 21:06

exactly,

Kamala Rose: 21:07

Ratipak Shabbat, and I'm to go from something that seems like a hard job that you would retire at the end of the day and say that was hard to be renewed by that, so both of us are teachers. We found the dharma of teaching as a way of expressing that that kind of imperative that dharma has to it. It must be done, and in this shloka that says better to do one's duty, one's own duty poorly than to try to do someone else's perfectly. And there's a lot of ground in here, there's a lot of heart space or territory of inner knowing to be explored here, I know. I came to teaching by my family. My father was a teacher, and always, always on education, right? And my son is a teacher, so I do have mine, is also an ancestral family line, and my father was a scholar of the Upanishads, so I feel like I picked up his, his threads, and my son is dedicated to history, and I've also passed on those threads to him, so it's interesting to consider the many levels of this, and I do feel this is, you know, so important to explore this, because we don't just make a decision one time in our lives, right, and I think these are decisions that that find you, and if you get off course, they also remind you throughout your life, it's a little nonlinear.

Nischala Joy Devi: 23:08

Not only did we take on teaching, I think. I think what's so interesting for the listeners at this point is that remembering that both of us, both Kamala and myself, were both monastics for many years, and I think that's one of the questions I get asked a lot. Why did you, when you had everything in a very affluent society that you lived in, give up everything for what, and my answer is always for everything. I give up for everything. I don't feel like I had given up. I felt like I got more, and I don't, and I've seen. I saw many people in the beginning coming and going from the ashram, from the monastic, and I think this is something that seems romantic to a lot of people, but is actually a very, very difficult path, actually one called the path against nature, because you are really trying to lessen the physical impact or the worldly impact, and move to the spiritual, and it's something that you really need to be called for, and that's that's one of the words for dharma, if it's not your dharma, and you go in for other reasons, which a lot of people do, they go in because they had a bad relationship, or their children left home, or they didn't want to go to college, and they wanted to do something else, usually within a short time they're gone, because it's not their dharma, it's not because they're weak, it's not because they couldn't do it, it's just not their dharma, and when it is, you wind up staying 1820, 22 years or lifetime, because that is your dharma, and even when you leave, at least in my case, I let Kamala speak for herself, but I had taken eternal vows. They weren't lifetime vows, they were eternal vows. So, even though formally I do not call myself a monk or. Just like one, or perhaps to the outside world, even live like one. I am in fact still that person that took eternal vows, so it's something that it's beyond the senses, it's beyond the effort of wanting, of needing it's it's the effort that it's almost painful if you don't do it, that's how it becomes it's it's it's so powerful that you're you're fighting, you use the word gravity earlier, it's if you're fighting gravity all the time because something is pulling you and you're trying to go the other way, so dharma is something that, in my experience and my understanding, becomes stronger and stronger and clearer and clearer the more you reach dhyana, the deeper in meditation you get, the clearer your dharma is, and it becomes so strong that you have no choice. It's like a whirlwind pulling you inward, and you have to do it. You have to do it.

Kamala Rose: 26:58

A whirlwind is a good image and I think that's something that the tradition of the Bhagavad Gita gives us as dharma, as a force of harmony in the universe, connected to universal order, connected to something bigger than yourself, and I know this was the case for me was feeling connected to a greater sense of harmony that I had an obligation to a responsibility to be a part of upholding when I was a young mother, I had a young son at that time and I grew up in a home where the ideas of yoga were around me, right. It's very familiar to me. And after I had my son, I suddenly was stirred that I needed to make some sort of spiritual peace, because I was a mother now, and he needs to be baptized. Right, it's a very natural rite of passage that happens for mothers. That now you're thinking about the big picture, now you are responsible for another person, and the world that that person lives in. You feel responsible for that too, and I know that was very front of mind, front of heart for me at that time, that I needed to look for some sort of deeper spiritual meaning, and I would not be able to find that in a Christian church, so I went to my local ashram, and I found a tremendous awakening experience, and it felt effortless. It felt so easy just to step into a way of being that was very natural to me. Always just concerned about existential questions, and looking at existential texts like the Bhagavad Gita, and I felt very certain that the right thing for me to do was to use whatever my, my mind or my neuro diversity, or whatever, however we would term that today, whatever my Swabhava, my character was well suited to a very simple life, and I was lucky that my son was interested in going to live at his father's house, he was remarried and had a nice place for him to live, so everything worked out very easily, like you said, the you have the tailwind at your back, and I stayed very happy at this as a guiding teacher for many, many years. I felt like I lived in the library, and I couldn't be happier than teaching and learning, and learning and teaching, and I felt responsible for teaching people meditation, if we were going to save the world and fix all the things that are wrong with this world, a place for my son to live in, this was the best use of time and resources, and you know it made sense to me until it didn't, and we also have that in common, that we spent many years living within a very structured, interiorly focused situation that we quite. Terry put ourselves in and enjoyed for a long period of time, and we also came to a reckoning about that and made other decisions for ourselves. Tell, tell us a little bit about how you made that decision.

Nischala Joy Devi: 30:55

Well, I think it's very interesting too that we both have come to a very similar place from very different aspects. My father never graduated past eighth grade. He had to work. He was, they were poor, first generation in this country, first child born in this country, so that came from that, and but again, everything, if, if you have the vision, everything can be a teaching, and to see his inner wisdom, to see his kindness, even in the lack of full education, taught me that I didn't need to go to study, that was the opposite, that I knew that I felt like I had this power of osmosis that I could be around these teachers and absorb their knowledge by meditating. I really believe that I don't really have to go after most of the books. The books to me confirm what I already know rather than teach me what I have to learn, and that's just a little quick twist on the original, but I always felt like I should study more, I should learn more, I should do this, and then I realized that I am, so that's, and I think this is a very important thing for for us to be showing you that there's different ways according to your dharma to get to that same place. Kamala had a very different, she had a more academic, a more studying, more a yana kind of experience. Mine was more mystical. I just got it from people, I would watch them, and I'd figure that out. So, how you have to find your own way. I think that's really the thing you can't do. What Kamala did, you can't do what I did, because you're not us. And I think that's the uniqueness, and why it has worked. Also, she had a child that was her decision, she wanted that experience, her soul, her spirit needed that experience for some reason, and I think that we have to also let everybody know we don't know why we're just observing, we're seeing. Aha, okay. That led to this. This led to that. The formation of something. I, on the other hand, chose not to, because I thought to myself, no, I'm going to be wandering all over the world. It's not fair to a child to do that, and besides, then it takes energy away from what I want

Unknown: 34:09

to put it in, so

Nischala Joy Devi: 34:10

we're giving you these examples, because dharma is one of the most difficult things to explain, it's so you so esoteric, it's so fine, it's like a spider web, it's just if you pull it too hard it may break, yet when you're in it, you know it, there's a confidence, there's a strength and a power not to exert on other people, but within yourself you walk in that power, you feel that power because you're doing what you're supposed to do, whether you're driving a bus, teaching, quoting from the Bhagavad Gita, teaching in school, whatever you're doing, garbage collector, it doesn't matter what the title is, it's who are you bringing to that, what is your dharma in that, that's that's to me where the power comes, and then from there you're catapulted into the next level of consciousness that you're choosing to be part of, but remember there's also the other side of it too. It's not all fun and roses. There's a lot of people that will reject you because of it. There's a lot of things you won't do because of it. You won't go. Out and get wild, maybe in the evening, because you want to have meditation the next morning, and your friends aren't going to like that. They're going to say,"Oh, she's boring, he's boring, I don't want to be with them anymore. What do you do? You have, if that's your dharma, you have no choice. You say it's more important for me to meditate in the morning, so nothing's easy.

Kamala Rose: 36:08

Well, this is a such a rich dialog. I, I felt as, as much as I felt drawn into the ashram and into a life of study, I also, I felt drawn to be a mother. It entered my mind one day, and I, I made quick arrangements to become a mother. I didn't know that's how you got pregnant. What did that was? Yes, it was. It was a little bit of a Garp situation, yes, and I, it is, it's been, I've always seen it as my dharma path, my unique path, as, as being the mother of this person, and although it was very difficult from inside the ashram to remain involved and deal with another family. I was so committed to his education and being present and being a part of that, and I faced a lot of blowback, like you're saying. I, a lot of people did not understand how a woman could leave their child, and we, I had a very mean stepmother involved in this, who would always speak poorly of me. She abandoned her child, and it couldn't have been farther from the truth. And you know, so we.. it's not an easy path. I think that's important, that you know a lot of people think that spirituality and spiritual life is supposed to be a bed of roses, effortless and without any obstacles at all, when in fact it's just the opposite, but I think in order to withstand those obstacles and to persevere, and to continue on, we need to have that sense of purpose and belonging to what we're doing that makes everything worth it, and it, it, it reframes all of our experiences into teachable times, right? It's not about it's not about doing the right thing in some pre-known way, it's about having the courage to navigate the line, especially when it's confusing and it's not easy to see what the, what the ethical ought is in the situation like with Arjuna here on the battlefield, it's not easy to see what it is. It has to be a dialog and a decision, decisions that only you can make.

Nischala Joy Devi: 38:57

Yeah, and there's a lot of judgment in it too, because when you're looking from the outside, it's hard, like you were talking about people judging you for doing what you did. Sometimes it's actually not possible to do anything else. There's just.. there's just a force. I don't know how to explain it, that you know it may be against society's norms, but there's a higher level of society that you're listening to that has different norms, and which one is going to be your choice. I think the other thing that we have to really remember here is that when you are in your dharma, when you are performing your dharma, whether it's well or poorly, it doesn't matter. Well, we prefer well. This then counter balances the meditation, so if you're not in your dharma and you sit down in meditation, it's going to be much more difficult to get into deeper states, because there's a, there's an energy or power, whatever you want to call it, that you're fighting, instead when you're in your dharma, it's the same energy that then transfers into the meditation that allows you to move it to higher states of consciousness, so it's that infighting with within you that one wants to go higher, but one wants to reject the dharma and choose a. Other dharma. Instead, I don't really want to be a street cleaner. I'd rather be a fashion designer. Well, you don't have the aptitude for a fashion designer or the talent for a fashion designer, but you can put everything into picking up people's garbage if that's what you want, and I think this is what we don't realize, it's not the action, it's the attitude behind the action that makes it dharmic or a dharmic.

Kamala Rose: 41:14

Yes, and and that has to be working on the inside like a compass, and when it's not working, you're so right to emphasize that, that it, you're not going to be experiencing very deep meditation because you're not lined up with yourself, that's

Nischala Joy Devi: 41:38

right,

Kamala Rose: 41:39

and I know this is something that happened to me after many years living in the ashram, it just wasn't working. I had to be honest that it was not working, and it affected my health, it affected my sense of well-being. It was difficult to have harmonious relationships, and it was also difficult to articulate what exactly that was, because as you started with, when you take a vow like that, it's a lifelong vow, and you never expected yourself to question the ground beneath your feet, and now all of a sudden that has happened, and if you are to survive, you're going to have to listen, and I think this is why this, the second part of the shloka, is so impactful. It says, better is death doing one's own dharma than trying to do someone else's, it's dangerous when you are no longer in alignment with your core sense of being and belonging to the world. We, we must respond to that deeper pull, and this is what brought me back into the world, and it shows to showed up in the world like a podcast with my friend here and like online courses and websites and all of this, now I have to do a different kind of dharma, but it's all part of a very core thing of teaching, yeah, and so we've both had to make some really tough decisions and change our lives significantly and be open to change and adaptation in dharma and that's that's not easy, you know, as you say that I'm wondering if that's not why

Nischala Joy Devi: 43:40

at least the sennyas vows that I took were eternal, because there's there's a knowledge that everything changes in the universe, and we go.. my easy way to explain is I always say that when they ask me why I left. I said I went into the ashram to be free. I left the ashram to be free, and I think that we.. I'll speak for myself. I needed that time of cocoon. I needed that time that I was being protected from any outside interference, even even the simple thing of having to cook my own food, buy it, cook it, it was all provided for me, so all I had to do was think about my service and my practices, my meditation, etc. That's a big relief at a certain point, though. If you're paying attention, there's some of us, not everyone, that you've gotten too big for it. There's. it's. you're bursting at the seams to let other people know about this, and the container that you've been so comfortable in is now too tight. It doesn't fit anymore, and you have to make the decision. Do you want to continue to shrink yourself back down to fit in that container and stay in that container or move past the container and for me the glory in that was that I don't have to give up the vows that I took because they're internal and they were not too and. Any particular human, they were to the divine in all its essence, so that I think that's a, that's something else. It's, I don't, again, I'm speaking for myself, but I never felt a failure. I felt this was my next step out, this movement out, and to just give a little example, I remember once my guru was talking to a group of the monks, and he said some of you will stay here as seeds, that's how he used it, like your keep seeds from one year to the next to make more vegetables or flowers, and then some of you will go out to the world, because that is your dharma. So, I think that we have to be very clear, and I'm going to use the word vigilant to see, is this still right for us? Am I still growing in the way I want to grow, or has the container gotten too tight and now I can't grow anymore? It's keeping me still.

Kamala Rose: 46:54

That's a really important question. And from the perspective of renunciates, the point is to become smaller, smaller, smaller, and nobody, and so

Unknown: 47:09

it is a,

Kamala Rose: 47:10

I think, it is a mighty expression of Dharma to have the courage to take the turn to move beyond the ashram and I think vigilance is a good, I a good way to think of that, that it's very easy to lose perspective, especially when you're in around the same people all the time, right? I think the global yoga community is vast and far-reaching. There are so many people who are really in need of advanced education, continuing education at deeper levels, and sometimes I just shudder to think that that's all trapped in the insides of ashrams, a world away from most yoga teachers, so and that's where it takes like the Gita really brings up that the dialog, renunciation, participation in the world, right, where we can have this conversation. What happens when it gets too tight, and to have the bravery to step out into the world. The Gita's message is clear. The world needs you.

Nischala Joy Devi: 48:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yep. I think that in the way is to make the whole world your ashram and to make every action that you do align with your dharma and something that improves the world in even a small way, and then your in alignment with everything, especially your dharma. Seems like a good place to stop.

Kamala Rose: 49:09

That's it. I think you said it best. Well, thank you for meeting me here under the Bodhi Tree to discuss our beautiful Bhagavad Gita, and thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in today. Look forward to being with you next time,

Nischala Joy Devi: 49:26

and bring a friend next time. See you then. See

Kamala Rose: 49:30

you then.