Remembering Who We Are: The Gita as a Guide for the Kali Yuga

In this episode of A Women’s Gita Podcast, Kamala Rose and Nischala Joy Devi step into Chapter 4 (Jñana Yoga) and explore what it means for Krishna to “remind” Arjuna of an ancient, forgotten yoga—and why that matters now, in the chaos of the Kali Yuga.

They reflect on:

• How desire, karma, and selfless action from Chapter 3 flow into the wisdom of Chapter 4
• Krishna’s transmission of yoga through Vivasvat, Manu, and the royal sages—and what this lineage teaches us about stewardship of sacred knowledge
• Why remembering, not acquiring, is at the heart of yoga: the Self as deeper than mind and intellect
• The responsibility and humility of being a modern yoga teacher or practitioner in a capitalist culture
• How the Gita meets us exactly where we are—whether we are devoted, skeptical, confused, or heartbroken

This conversation is especially for yoga practitioners and teachers who sense that yoga is more than wellness or fitness—and feel called to carry the tradition with integrity, depth, and love in turbulent times.

Transcript

0:39

Welcome to a Woman's Gita podcast. I'm Kamala Rose. I'm Nischala Joy Devi. We appreciate you making time to be with us here under the Bodhi tree as we continue our dialog. Last time we left off at the end of Chapter three, which is the chapter on karma yoga, and we've we've been with Arjuna with the very serious, relevant question

to every modern yogi: 1:08

What do you do when the mind suddenly changes? And we've been exploring the nature of desire. So these last verses before we pick up today in chapter four, we have 3.42. It is said that the senses are more powerful than the body, the mind more powerful than the senses, and the intellect more powerful than the mind, more powerful than the intellect, is the most powerful, the self. 343. Thus, knowing the self as superior to even the intellect buddhi, overcome all selfish desires by dwelling in the true self. At the end, this is the end of chapter three, and we are back to our original concept of karma yoga. All karmas, powerful or strong, become impotent as we approach our essential nature, the true self. So that practice that continually refines the self, and we're coming in with this inquiry and Krishna's teaching on renouncing desire, not renouncing our place in the world, but renouncing the desire that's attached to action. So it's with this spirit that we meet chapter four, which is Gyana Yoga, and in this chapter we're going to continue this dialog. I think the Gita beautifully weaves together many points at the same time, and chapter four opens with Krishna's teaching on avatara, and he continues speaking to Arjuna, renounce desire, and then he says, "This immutable yoga, what I've just taught you about releasing your attachment to the to the desire for outcomes, this immutable yoga I proclaimed to Viva Spot. Viva Spot told it to Manu, and Manu declared it to Ishvaku. Thus received it from one another. It was learned by the royal seers, and in the long course of time, this yoga was lost here on earth. It's this ancient yoga that I declare to you today, Arjuna, because you are my friend. Truly, this is the greatest secret. So we're seeing something very interesting happen here. That Krishna's continuing the dialog by saying,"This is nothing new. I'm teaching you, Arjuna. This is the way it's been. This is the way that people lived in the world harmoniously and did. They lived in accordance with Dharma in everything they did from ancient times. When Krishna says that he proclaimed this knowledge of karma yoga to Vivasvat, this is the sun. I'm saying I taught the sun, which is a potent example of what it means to give without attachment to outcome. The sun gives equally to all, reserves nothing, is pure generosity, and so the son then taught it to Manu, the first man, and then Manu teaches it to his son, and we have this story of transmission through generations of fathers teaching sons of the way ancient knowledge was preserved, but Krishna says,"But it was, but over the course of time, this chain was broken, and people forgot. That's why you're having this crisis right now. You're not sure what to do." Because the knowledge that I'm teaching you right now has been forgotten by humanity, so let me tell you again. Let me remind you. So he's speaking to Arjuna as this is a smriti. Let me give you a reminder of the way it is, because I. I love you, because you are my friend, you are my devotee. We have love between us, and so I'm going to tell you the most precious secret here on the battlefield. This is how we start Chapter Four. The idea of bringing or remembering knowledge that has been given, I think this is a wonderful concept, and even the word remember to bring the members back, to bring that back, to to form it once again, because so much that we have learned, we've forgotten, or we've incorporated it into our lives to a point that we don't see it as separate anymore. So all this that we are being told, we are being taught, has to somehow being be brought back to us, and I think this gets into the busyness of our lives also. That when we take the time to actually be still, that's when a lot of this will bubble back up. If we keep being busy doing this and that and the other thing, it's very difficult for that to come back up because the mind is so dense at that point with thinking about shopping lists and who do I pick up and where do I do this and where do I get that done, so that it goes back to the same thing that the Gita's been telling us, the Christians been telling us: go go inward, go be quiet, have that time, and then from there we can go out once again. Also, when we he's speaking about how he gave the teachings to all these great saints and sages, I think we have to remember at this time that we're in right now that there are very few saints and sages that we see anyway. They may be in the Himalayas. They may be someplace hidden. And is it time? This is a question we can ask ourselves: Is it time that we step forward as being the ones that bring this sacred knowledge forward? I think this is the purpose of

this podcast: 8:21

is to inspire all of you to be able to read this, understand it, and those of you that are teachers start teaching this because this is eternal dharma. This is something that we all have to be in for the whole world to be uplifted and move forward. So this is a very, very crucial chapter in my my thinking because we have. It's not just talking about karma yoga. It's really embodying it at this point and moving us forward and showing us showing us the a bigger picture of that, I think when we, you know, as teachers, we we are serving a larger calling by preserving wisdom and providing education. It's something I come back to again and again and again that of all of the things that are of value in this world, I'm reminded of the dialog with Maitreyi in the Upanishads when her husband Yagdivalkya says, "I'm off to the forest. I leave you everything, and she says, "What is of value here if you would leave it all behind and go in search of what are you in search of? Tell me about what you find valuable, right? So, I I think this is absolutely one of the most precious and timely verses in the Gita because it it it calls us to the question of stewardship. I mean, to consider the impact that yoga has had on your life, as in in becoming not only a system for well being and balancing our pranas and all of this, but a such a sound philosophical system. You know the the the system of Indian philosophy, and I have the utmost reverence for the whole of the Vedic tradition. I think we've both gained so much from our long relationship with this. So I think when I read these verses, I. Think about that the the the work that took place in India for 1000s of years. That this knowledge in the Bhagavad Gita is like a distillation of that. That's kind of the role the Gita plays in the whole corpus of the Vedic text is to be that synthesis place where we can all meet and these ideas can come together for us. I I totally agree with that. I think that there's the the interesting part of all this, and Krishna alludes to it. At certain points, all this knowledge went underground when depending what was going on in society, and I think the miracle right now, to me, is that in the midst of the craziness of our society, if I can say it like that, and I'm sorry if I'm offending anyone, this knowledge is staying above ground, and I think this is something that we have to really appreciate. That the times are such that the knowledge itself, with its wisdom and understanding, is coming and staying here because we need to remember who we are in the midst of all this, we need to come over. We need to bring people into this. We need to have them remember who they are and who everybody else around them is. So this is this is what's interesting to me to see how in times before it has gone under, and now it's staying above. And I think the as being a modern practitioner and looking at it from we're looking back at the ancients, but I think the the the best way to do it would to bring it bring it forward so it now is in the modern time, and that's I think we're trying to do that with some languaging, etc. to make it more relatable because otherwise it's going to go under again, and we'll be left in the darkness of the Kali Yuga without this this rope, this the savior of this knowledge, without the guide that was designed for the Kali Yuga. Exactly, because that's what the Gita is. And you know, I recall a potent essay written by Annie Besant, where she speaks of imagine the battle of Kuru Shetra and Krishna and Arjuna on the battlefield. Imagine Krishna seeing it all, seeing the outcomes, seeing where we are right now, seeing the future of India, seeing the globalization that follows, seeing what we're experiencing now and beyond, and this is what she reminds us is the Gita, because you know there's so many ideas coming together here. You know the idea of divinity, the big picture of philosophy, action, dharma, karmas, lots coming together here. So I think your point is so important that we almost have permission to put things in a bubble. Like I'm not quite sure who Viva Svat is, so maybe let's just put this over here. Exactly. I don't quite. I don't quite get this, but it's all right. It's all right. I think what's important is that it's it's being read and interacted with. It's being discussed because I I know of no other texts that that that bring together the the internal yogic work. That sort of ultimate honesty that yoga brings us towards, that ultimate ahimsa, while at the same time asking us to navigate the messiness and brutality of everyday life with these sublime truths that are drawing from the best of the Vedic tradition, the Gita's bringing in the best of the Upanishads, the most sublime realizations of forest sages who dedicated their entire lives to ultimate nonviolence and the revelations that were born from this, like Maitreyi and Gargi and the Upanishads, the wise women who were part of those dialogs, the Gita is bringing these together for this Kali Yuga and designing this to give us something where we'll read. Oh, it was was for. It was forgotten, but I'm remembering it now because when you read it yourself, you realize this does make sense to me. I know this. I I think that's really so important. We've we've talked a little bit of time before and how time is really a relevant situation, but here we're again. Sometimes people pick it up and they say, "Well, why should I look at something that happened 1000s of years ago? But I think that we have to remember that was physical that had happened. These timeless teachings are not something that happened 5000 years ago. They're happening right this moment, and how we look at the world, how we treat our neighbors-the ancient wisdom-is what we're looking for. We're not looking for the the staging of it. We're looking for the wisdom that's that's so prominent in it, and and what they're trying to tell us. And you know, we, I think especially those of us that are teachers, have the encrypted in our teaching is the Dharma to bring this forward. Otherwise, why are we doing this to have this great depth of understanding of who we are? Not on the physical, not even mental, emotional, but who are we as spiritual beings in a world that doesn't see that right now? They can't see the spirit. They're too clouded by everything. They're still back in chapter one of the Gita, chapter two, where they're talking about Fighting, so if each of us could just pick this up and just do a little bit of this dharma, world would change. The world would be a different place. Yeah, and I think what you just said initially. This is why it's important that we first of all can open the Gita anywhere, right? And we can give ourselves permission and not understand it all, because there are a number of things happening here. And truly, some of the verses are sublime. Some are are more challenging to understand. But what we're reading here is a dialog from someone who is suffering, asking questions, to someone with answers. And I know it's always been my experience that the Gita will meet you exactly where you are. Yeah, if you open to the middle and you just open and find the place that your eyes land, rather than starting in chapter one or trying to understand chapter two before you go on, right? These are this is a philosophical treatise. This is a this is a magnificent piece of work, in my opinion, of bringing together many different ways of seeing the world, making them all okay, and providing a very genuine, unique path in and of itself. The Gita, I think, is a you know it reconciles. It accepts all different kinds of people, and it reconciles differences. And I think that's also an important text that we need in the world today. Is one that leads from an equality of all beings. I think that's a big takeaway from the Gita that if we, I, I would love to live in the world where, when you looked at the Gita, the overwhelming message was equality, yeah, because that's really what the teachings say in here about samatha, samadarsana, right, and being able to see inequality for all people, and also deal with the parts of ourselves that that see some people less than equal. I think it's a realistic text for navigating the terrain we're in right now, and can show us the places sometimes we're tending to bypass those big issues, and other places where we need to lean into pictures of collective care. And in these verses, we're talking about a long-term stewardship of wisdom. Yeah, what a beautiful idea to sit with in the world where truth is becoming so relative. Yeah, truth is becoming relative. You know, there's so many aspects to this. Sometimes I feel. Like the Gita is more like the blind man and the elephant story, and I think we we have to be careful. That's I love looking at it as a whole and going to it separately, both. But when you look at, to me, when you look at it a whole, your your eyes are open, and you can see the whole elephant. Otherwise, you start to think maybe it's just the trunk, or just the legs, or the fan of the ears, and we forget we we get tripped up in some of the things in it, depending how we look at it. It's I I have to go back to the sutures because that's sort of something I'm even more familiar with, and when when one moves into chapter three, which becomes more esoteric, we lose a lot of people as we're moving there to learn about yoga because people say, "Well, what does this have to do with my life? What do I care if I have powers or not, or whatever? Whereas it's just trying to say to you, this is what will happen if you continue on the practices. And I feel the Gita has that same aspect to it. We can look at it as a higher text which oversees our spiritual awakening. We can see it as a text that shows us how to treat our neighbors, and then we can also see it as a text that tells talks about how we treat our own bodies and our minds. So there's, and we can go to it, whichever stage we're in at the moment, and find something. So there's a totalarian wisdom in it that is at many different levels, and I think this is something that someone who's just starting with the Gita has to be really aware of that they may open to a place that is way beyond where they are at that moment, or it may be perfect for that moment, and to not despair that it doesn't relate to you as you are. Turn the page; it may relate in the next page or the next two pages away. I guess what I'm trying to say is, if it has survived this long to give us this wisdom, it may take us a little bit to find it in there, but to be very patient and perseverance furthers in this case. Yeah, I don't know if that makes sense. No, I think it makes. I think it makes a lot of sense. For example, I love to tell people just go right ahead to chapter six. Just jump into chapter six. If you're a yogi, land there. Don't you can get back to the other parts later, but this is the that's the where we're going to sit down and we're going to follow our breath and we might find some of the practical wisdom that we're looking for. But I think it's so true that we have an idea of what the Bhagavad Gita, the Yoga Sutras, what these texts are that might. It's shocking. Then you you open to a page you want to share with your class, but you're not sure what that means. Exactly. It's so cryptic. The sutras-it's-it's not easy, and that's why people love your translation so much. Is it is it actually there? It's all usable and it's all relatable, and but we we also have to be reminded that yoga is coming to us from a foreign culture that most of us would never have been exposed to the cultural aspects that were being spoken about here-a continuity of transmission from the dawn of time. Wow, we don't have that, you know. Anyway, there's a number of things that we are meeting in this text. The Yoga Sutra is so completely profound, and I mean, both of these texts-they're-they're from people who were full-time yogis that lived. I mean, the Git is for a different audience, but the tradition that we're speaking about here was developed and perfected by people who had-they didn't have a life, yeah. They had only yoga. They had only meditation. They had only that period. Yeah, and we're reading the words of perfected sages who yes, whose words were so powerful that they're handed down to us. So. I also feel there's a thing that we should not try to bring it down to our level, and try to remember that this is these are extraordinary states of beings, given you know spoken about by extraordinary humans, extraordinarily bright humans who left this, and we today, right? To come back to where one of the points you brought up in the beginning is, I think processing this knowledge that well, I'm part of holding it now. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Here we are invested in this dialog with the ancient world, and we, as if we are teachers and we're representing the yoga tradition, I think you and I agree very strongly that it should be the capital Y yoga that we are representing. It's not just a form of fitness. This is, you know, the the intellectual and spiritual work of mighty, mighty people. That I I think, you know, it comes up against capitalism in a very cringe way, and that's where it falls on each of us to be able to represent. represent the tradition in a way that I think is accurate and meaningful and transmits some of its depth, without also thinking, because that's a heavy burden to bear. To say, here's me. What do I know? I don't know who Viva Swat is, and I'm carrying this forward. This very important thing. I'm part of this stewardship, and it's easy to feel like an imposter. How did I get handed the torch? And I mean, I think both of us would say, if yoga found you, then you're meant to be here in the conversation. I think so. You know, if we go back and look again at 4.3, I think the one word sticks out to me. It keeps coming back to me, and it says this same ancient yoga is now being taught to you because of your dedication to the path. To me, that that really holds something. It really, it says in a good way. It puts the responsibility back on me, having the ability to

make a decision: 28:24

What do I want to do with my life? If I have 24 hours in a day, how do I want to proportion them? Do I want to make time for yoga practice with a capital Y? Do I want to make time for yoga with a capital Y to come into my life and guide me in my relationships and everything I do, and this is the word that dedication keeps coming. We we we we're talking

about this over and over: 28:51

renunciation, dedication, action, and we are the ones that are creating this, whether consciously or unconsciously. Maybe from because it's our dharma, it's our karma, whatever you want to say, from previous lives, from being inspired at an early age, like Kamala was, being in India, for instance, or something like that. But something triggered this; otherwise, we wouldn't even be listening to this podcast. There would be no interest. Lord knows that there's 1000s and 1000s of podcasts that could be listened to, but why choose something like this? Because this is the transformation. This will transform your life into the everyday life as you know it to something extraordinary, and this is why, even if we don't know it intellectually, intuitively we feel it, and that's why people come to this path at this time. So this is just so powerful to to experience this, and also humbling to think that this was given to us now, that we have to take into our life, and then pass that on to someone else, understand it, live it, and then pass it on to someone else, not necessarily in your speaking, but in your actions. That by looking at you, someone would understand a little bit more about the Bhagavad Gita. I. It truly is not an easy. One to segue in a half a yoga class. However, the example of a teacher who shows up present with a caring heart consistently, and who's able to get out of her own way for the hour and a half of class enough to care completely for everyone who's there. I think examples like that are really how we show the yoga tradition, and you know, as as we are able to build that, it makes a place for students to ask us if they are interested. I believe in you know working to have some time in class for meditation or just to close with something from the tradition to to be reminded that what we're doing here is is more than stretching and it comes from somewhere and some people and a larger belief system, and that we're able to touch into that. And you know, in this way, what I know from my own life and my my lifelong education with yoga and coming early to the ideas of the Upanishads through my father as that ideal sort of a very universal image of the divine that didn't require the dogma of our Western Lutheran family, something something elevated, intellectual, in fact, and you know, through many years in the ashrams with a very devotional path, and you know, coming, you know, in my own case, my coming from the devotional path and encountering later what has grown from the academic path, and having the opportunity to study sankhya and you know with Sri Vatsa Ramaswamy, have traditional teachers get into the you know get heavy into the gunas and heavy into the tatvas, and really understand this system has been marvelous, just marvelous. And I find that it never tires of being interesting and providing a level of valid, Meaningful philosophical dialog that helps me to be a better person really actually affects the present day. So, I I think part of being a teacher of this means being a student of this and being willing to dive into the pool, because on the surface it's it's a lot, you know. It's it's surfing on the you know on the waves of an ocean. It always feels like immense because it really is an immensely deep tradition, and it's a lot to shoulder to feel responsible for that and part of carrying it forward, but what you can take from me and Nishula and our life experience is you can try just try your best. You know, you can try your best with who's there, and the more you are inspired and the more you understand it, it comes naturally. People will see it; they'll know, and I think you deserve it. If you're a yoga teacher, I think you deserve a good relationship with this Gita because there's a lot of relevant lessons for this world, these conditions we're experiencing right now. And you know, we realize that most of you will not have the same experience we had of being in an ashram and spending years as monastics, and it's different. It's you have just a different way of living in the world, a different dharma. The I think the main thing that we look at here is the respect that we have for a student coming into class, if they have taken the initiative to actually move into something like this, maybe they have no idea where they're coming. Maybe they think it's because their back hurts. But when when they enter, if you show them the kind of respect and even a little bit of awe that you have for someone actually making that step in this world to come into something like this to to as was it Lao Su said a journey of 1000 miles begins with a sam. Step, it's that kind of thing to have that respect for the student, and also the respect for the teacher, and this is something that I think we've forgotten a little bit in our society, whether it's a school teacher or whether it's a spiritual teacher or whoever it is. There's this. certain level of respect that doesn't benefit them. It benefits us. It lets us understand that here's someone that has the potential to give us a certain amount of wisdom from their experience and their learning, and the more we respect them, the more that channel opens. The more they're wanting to give, the more that they see the receptivity, the more their heart opens and their mind is willing to expel some of this great knowledge. But we don't have that. We don't seem to see that in others. We don't see what their experience is, how much practice they've done, etc. So I think it works both ways. And this respect comes when we understand where this wisdom came from, and how ancient it is, and how someone, someone's, have meticulously passed it down, even when people couldn't read and write. This got passed down, which is sort of amazing when you think of it. Now everything's computerized. You just Ask Chat GBT whatever for some information, and you get it. That's not how it was 1000s of years ago. You had to maybe walk for days and days to find a teacher who knew enough about this sacred text to be able to talk to you about it. Then you brought them flowers. You brought them coconut. You brought them your the humility of yourself. You didn't walk in with your arms crossed and said,"Okay, I've learned from other teachers. What can you teach me? Right? The arrogance was gone. Maybe walking three days gots the arrogance out of you. I don't know, but this this is an honor to receive these teachings. This isn't something casual. This is this is something that has been guarded for 1000s of years for this particular moment for you to pick up that book. It's certainly a point of friction with the capitalist society, as we really have lost so much of our respect for the sacred because everything's so accessible, and the the privilege of white Westerners and a sort of a legacy of empire that we've inherited is really ugly in that way, and I, I think you're so right that to that this relationship, this timeless relationship, that's illustrated by Arjuna and Krishna, teacher representing ancient Timeless wisdom, student, receptive, ready to learn. Because I am, because you are my friend, and this is where Krishna calls him a bhakta. Because you are a devotee. Because you love me. This is why I'm telling you about it. Yes. And so we're have we're we're. This is talking about a a relationship of reciprocity. Their respect is going both ways because these conditions exist is why this teaching can be given. Yeah, why the jnana of chapter four can be given, and I think this is a really important topic in the modern yoga landscape because that capitalism exists and it is the system that is dominant in the world, and the yoga community is a you know is a business like everything. But I would suggest that you know it's also not as simple as that, and that within the yoga community there are many who, like us, are feeling very intentional in our stewardship about what what do what where do we want to spend our time talking about you and me? Is this Gita, and you know, trying to get through the podcast world to see if we could elevate some women's relationship with the Gita because we know how it's helped us. And you know to have a text on yoga that not only teaches you the foundations of meditation and practice, but it deals with real life, and it picks you up when you've lost, and it celebrates you when you've won. It challenges you. It it it invites you in when you are fully devoted and you say Jai Guru, and it still welcomes you in when you say I don't know what I believe anymore. Yeah, the Gita is for this, and I think this is one of the things that kept me up at night in the ashram. Is now I can't. I don't have any voice to teach and share. And I it would drive me crazy if I wasn't able to pass on what I know, because I think that that stewardship requires a relationship, and as teachers looking for students, looking for people who are interested in this arcane subject, esoteric subject, you know, where it's always been small meetings. It's always been the minority that are interested in this, unless they are trying to take the benefits and the branding, and they're trying to do something capitalist with it, but that's not where yoga comes from. Those yogis were rejecting a system, and they came to the ultimate truths that they discovered and preserved for us, not through ego gratification and wanting more and having more, but by having a lot less for a lot longer time, and as you so rightly said, based in a mutual respect, yeah, and a lot of patience, a lot of patience. It takes it takes a while. Nothing happens quickly. Change doesn't happen quickly. I think the other thing is that we have to keep remembering the message here. As with all yogic philosophy, seems to be we're not looking for something outside. We're not trying to create something. This is all within. All we're trying to do is rediscover it, remember it, bring us back to that place where aha, oh, this is where it is, and all the practices are just about that to bring us back to that knowledge that it there's no place to go, and that's I think the the irony of meditation. All the other practices are active, are action practices. Even mantra, even saying mantra is an action. It's it's you're repeating something, you're doing something, but in meditation, there's not. You're still. There's a dynamic stillness, and in that stillness, we start to remember who we are, because obviously we've forgotten most of us, and we're still trying to think that if I get one more thing on the outside, even spiritual materialism, if I get one more statue of Lord Shiva, if I get one more statue of Parvati, if I get one more statue of Krishna, if I get one more picture of the gopis, what what is going to push me over? And we forget it's deep, deep within, and that's why we have consistent practice. We've been given a shovel. It's called yoga practice, and we keep digging and digging until we finally find the gold within. The attitude of cultivation. Yep, absolutely. So this has been a lovely dialog here in Chapter Four, Gyana Yoga. We'll be continuing this next time, and we want to thank you for joining us. And I know we're reminding ourselves at the end of our podcast to say that you can continue to work with us at our websites. I'm at KamalaRoseYoga.org and Nishchula's atabundantwellbeing.com. So thanks for being here, friends. Till next time, Namaste. Namaste.