good judgement comes from experience...

Verse 4.15: All the liberated souls in ancient times acted with this understanding of My transcendental nature. Therefore you should perform your duty, following in their footsteps.

"Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement."

When I initially heard this quote from one of my bhakti mentors a few years back, it left a deep impression in me. How true those words ring!

It is also reminds me of a time when I asked another of my favorite bhakti practitioners a question. Younger and full of enthusiasm, I asked how I could become a better practitioner of bhakti yoga. With great compassion and a lot of love, he replied, "It will take patience and time. You are still young. With age comes many experiences which will help solidify your knowledge and deepen it into realization."

I remember meditating on that answer for quite some time. However, it is only years later that I gained the realization that those experiences don't necessarily have to be my own. By following in the footsteps of my teachers, inspirations and role models, I could also learn from their own experiences - whether they be positive or challenging.

The Gita is reminding us that first class intelligence is highlighted by learning from the experiences of others. Just like an aspiring entrepreneur will read and try to absorb the knowledge that was gained from the experiences of expert businesspersons, similarly the aspiring yogi observes and adopts the methods practiced by those successfully and steadily practicing the path of bhakti.

One of the traits of such advanced practitioners of bhakti yoga is humility. Such inspiring role models seek no recognition for themselves. Therefore, the price to get their company and hear from them is not money but a deep desire. Simply by desiring and making the effort to seek out such personalities, it's astounding how opportunities unfold to learn from them.

So go ahead and seek out the company of such wonderful personalities. After all:

"One's desires and ambitions develop according to the company one keeps."

good and bad

Verse 2.6: Nor do we know which is better — conquering them or being conquered by them. If we killed the sons of Dhṛtarāṣṭra, we should not care to live. Yet they are now standing before us on the battlefield.

I always find it incredibly amazing when things just line up in place. Some may call it coincidence, serendipity or luck, but I am more convinced then ever that it is direct reciprocation from God. The only thing we need to do is wake up and pay attention! Something that I certainly need to work on. :)

I bring this up because today's verse talks about duality and wouldn't you know, I was just listening to a talk on duality this morning. For those who may not understand what the bhakti texts speak of when they refer to duality, it is the aspect of labelling things as good or bad, hot or cold, black or white etc... Duality is something that surrounds us and is a large part of the material experience we are undergoing. There is a beautiful verse in the Vedic text called Caitanya Caritamrita that speaks on duality which I'd like to refer to here. The text is spoken in Bengali and I'll include it since it's so beautiful:

'dvaite' bhadrābhadra-jñāna, saba — 'manodharma'
'ei bhāla, ei manda', — ei saba 'bhrama' (CC. Antya. 4.176)

The translation is as follows: "In the material world, conceptions of good and bad are all mental speculations. Therefore, saying 'This is good' and 'This is bad' is all a mistake."

What I've always found of interest in this verse is the translation to the word 'manodharma' which means "religion of the mind." Have you ever thought that of your mind as having its own religion? Well, it does! And that religion is to categorize things as good or bad. See when the mind is trapped in the illusory conception of life (i.e. seeing everything separate from God), then its only frame of reference is to see everything in relationship to the body. Hence, the religion of the mind is different for every living entity since its frame of reference is itself. "Itself" here being the material body and not the true self- the soul.

It's a valuable lesson to keep things in perspective. We all go through moments, minutes, months and even years of feeling confused, hurt, resentful and misunderstood. When we feel this way it's because we are seeing good and bad in relationship to something that is only temporary - i.e. our material body. We get so worked up, no? Then we feel justified to act in a way that is unbecoming of a true lady or gentlemen.

I've taken to running my own personal experiment. I've stopped trying to label things that are and aren't happening to me as good or bad. Instead, it's simply an "experience". Although I'm still in the initial stages of my research, I notice that my mind isn't as disturbed as it normally is. Instead of boiling up inside and feeling that/it/he/she is good or bad, I consciously try to simply observe the situation, note the feelings that come up (bhakti is not about becoming numb or emotionless!) and try to look for the root cause of my emotions. Every single time, I've come to the conclusion that when I start to label something as good/bad it's because I'm perceiving the situation a certain way in relation to my body. I'm either feeling that I don't get enough credit, honour, glory, am misunderstood....the list can go on forever.

If we could only look for the lesson, life really wouldn't be so complicated. I'll end today by relating a small story that my spiritual teacher shared in a class today.

Close to thirty years ago, my guru was living in an asrama and was heading up a project to distribute bhakti texts across North America. The asrama received a new leader in charge and for whatever reason he would take to putting down my spiritual teacher. My teacher related how much this hurt his heart. He never told anyone, but at a certain point in time it was starting to become unbearable (i.e. he felt the situation was really "bad"). However, he was praying to Krsna to please help him and it just so happened the person who was insulting him went away for a few days. During that time, my teacher was asked to give a series of classes on a beautiful bhakti text called the Srimad Bhagavatam.

The story and texts he was asked to speak on were in relation to a great bhakti yogi who was being insulted. There, that bhakti yogi responds to the insults by saying that he is not affected since all the insults are in relationship to his body and not his true self - the soul. So why should he feel hurt or disturbed, since it actually has no meaning! My spiritual teacher felt such relief in these words and in fact from that day forward started to feel grateful to the person who was insulting him!!! He felt that, "This person is helping me to realize that I am not this body." When this person came back to the asrama, my teacher started noticing that this person stopped insulting him after some time. In fact, years later, this person actually came and apologized profusely to my teacher.

I find this experience so inspiring. It goes to show that everything we undergo here in this material world is simply happening to teach us that we don't belong here. The body we are in right now is not our permanent residence and so everything that we undergo that is seemingly good/bad is simply a tool to help remind us of that.

So the next time you feel something is good/bad, try not to engage in the religion of the mind. Instead, look for the beautiful lesson that is actually of value - we are spiritual beings having a material experience.

material experience

Verse 1.30: I am now unable to stand here any longer. I am forgetting myself, and my mind is reeling. I see only causes of misfortune, O Kṛṣṇa, killer of the Keśī demon.

Yesterday we talked about how we are spiritual beings having a material experience. If you were wondering what the material experience is all about, it can be summed up by the phrase "It's all about me." That's the motivating force that drives one when they are entrapped in material consciousness.

The word material has now been tossed around a few times and you might be scratching your head wondering what exactly it means. Let's make one thing clear; I'm not talking about yards of cloth or the stuff you need to read and study! Material in the context of the Gita relates to that which is temporary and seeing the world as separate from its real owner and controller - God.

This material consciousness blinds us to what is actually real and permanent: the spiritual spark, the soul, which is our true self and our eternal, loving relationship with God. By forgetting these two things, we set ourselves up for disappointment again and again in everything that we do.

The problem is that we associate the me that's referred to in our "it's all about me" behaviour to the temporary material body. Since the body is temporary, all our efforts and plans to gratify and satisfy it are also temporary.

I'm sure you've had experiences of this....c'mon, be honest. We have and hear about experiences of this everyday such as the millionaire that's never satisfied. Everyone else wants to be him and he's thinking of how to get another hundred million more. Does he at least get to take it with him when he passes away? No. It's just temporary.

Trying to be happy with the temporary is like trying to convince a fish that it is natural for it to be happy living on land. The natural environment for the fish is in the water. Somehow though, we don't realize that this analogy perfectly applies to us. Our true self, the soul, is eternal, meaning that its natural for us to be searching for permanence in every aspect of our existence. However, the problem is that due to mud-stained glasses and some good old fashioned brainwashing, we are being convinced to think we can be happy with the temporary.

Arjuna right now is exactly where we are - identifying himself only with his body. He'll soon be informed that the first step to getting out of material consciousness starts by realizing that the actual "me" is the eternal spiritual spark that is within all of us, not the exterior covering called the body.