Under the Banyan Tree: Rajas, Compassion Fatigue, and the Women’s Gita

Why do we sometimes act against our own best intentions—say the sharp thing, make the hurtful choice, or spiral into burnout even when we deeply want to do good?

In this episode, Kamala Rose and Nischala Joy Devi sit “under the banyan tree” with Bhagavad Gita Chapter 3, verses 36–41, exploring Arjuna’s question to Krishna: What impels a person to act, even to do harm, “as if urged by some force”?

Together they unpack:

• Rajas guna as the restless force behind desire, anger, and overaction
• How this same energy fuels both life and violence—from spring blossoms to the battlefield
• The slippery slope from mental agitation to tamas, inaction, and even war
• The difference between true compassion and compassion fatigue—“caring too much for too long about what we cannot change”
• How daily yogic practice, self-awareness, and discernment (viveka) help us clear the dusty mirror of consciousness

Drawing on women’s lived experience, the hosts weave in examples from family life, activism, and spiritual figures like Mahatma Gandhi and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. This conversation is an invitation to hold righteous anger, deep care, and wise action together—without burning out or checking out.

Transcript

Kamala Rose: 0:43

Namaste. Welcome to a woman's Gita podcast. I'm Kamala Rose, and I'm Nish to La Joy Davie. Thank you for making time to join us today. We are discussing Bhagavad Gita, chapter three on karma yoga today, and we have taken the approach of the timeless dialog under the banyan tree, where here we have two women meeting to discuss the complexities and the big ideas in the Bhagavad Gita, and today we're picking up at chapter three verse 36 This is a beautiful and I think vital part of the Gita that we'll be discussing, where Arjuna speaks and asks a question of Krishna. He says, By what are is a person impelled to act, and not only act, but to do evil, to do bad action, selfish action in the world, even though unwilling, Krishna, as if urged by some force. Why does this happen? Yeah.

Nischala Joy Devi: 2:02

even against our will,

Kamala Rose: 2:05

even against our will, even if you, even if your plan is to do the right thing, even if you completely intend to follow the path right in front of you. Why do you sometimes go the other direction, and to the point that you surprise yourself, and you end up making problems for yourself and others. Why? How does this happen, Krishna?

Nischala Joy Devi: 2:33

How many times have we done that? We start to, we say, I'm going to be really nice, and we go into a situation, and all of a sudden we say something, and we just want to take and clamp our hand over our mouth and wish we could pull it back out and not have said it, but this is what happens, the distance between the mind and the tongue gets very, very small and it just drops down and comes right out, or our actions, whatever it is. So I think this is a really interesting sloka for all of us who are trying to have a little bit of self control over how we act and think and talk,

Kamala Rose: 3:19

so we're looking at this idea that this is on the subject of karma, karma yoga, and Arjuna has just heard Krishna's case for self-transcending action. He says, "Get be above it, be beyond it, be bigger than the personal action. Arjuna, so Arjuna has heard this, and he's now asking a question. What about those times when you are compelled to do something that doesn't line up with this ideal of dharma that you're talking about? And I think from a yogic perspective, we have to remember that this question comes in context of teachings on karma, so what does anger or rajas, what does this force that we're Krishna is going to be describing here, what does this have to do with the subject of karma, and this is the cause of yoga. It's yoga is the solution to karma, and so we're looking very carefully at the mechanics of what happens in our actions. Why is it not simple? What about this complexity? Even though you plan a certain route, what is it in the psychology that makes you do something else, and this something else then affects the bigger picture of karma? It now creates outcomes that will influence all further action. So this sort of view that the Gita takes of the scope of karma yoga and why Arjuna's question is so important here,

Nischala Joy Devi: 5:06

and this is why sometimes, and I've seen this with siblings, one will hit the other one, and then the other one will go crying to mom or dad or whoever's around, and they'll say so and so hit me, and then you say, well, what did you do to them to make them hit you? So this is it, goes back to this, and says, okay, here I am in a situation, and how do I stop this rajas from coming through this. This over action, and I think it has to go back to our daily life. We can't expect yoga to show up in a situation like this when it hasn't shown up all day, when we've treated people a certain way, when we've treated ourselves a certain way, when we haven't reigned in those, those may be unkind thoughts, they will then come out later in a stronger, even stronger way. So, I think this is part of the, the answer. How do we, how do we stop this? How do we quell this desire to act unkindly, what do we do? And I think this is a wonderful, and I not always do I see in the Gita why Arjuna asked these questions, but in this particular case, I think it's right on that he's asking this question. So, should we listen to what Krishna has to say.

Kamala Rose: 6:43

Let's, let's progress. Yes, let's please. How about if you read the next one?

Nischala Joy Devi: 6:49

337 Chris, this is Krishna now speaking. The adversary here on earth is personal desire and anger, which arise when the all-consuming Raja Guna, the restless quality of nature, is dominant.

Kamala Rose: 7:12

Yes, yes. So we're in the language of Sankhya, we're talking about the gunas

Nischala Joy Devi: 7:23

here, the

Kamala Rose: 7:24

quality of change, of instability, of transformation, of passion, everything that is in motion is

Nischala Joy Devi: 7:39

rajas, right, so all action, whether good, bad, or neutral, is all part of the Rajaguna in that way. And what we do also in our society, we encourage the Rajaguna. We really say to someone, just sit quietly, just be still, just be still for a few minutes. Then we say, okay, what action do you want to do? What do you want to do next? What do you want to do next? We're always moving toward the next, not allowing ourselves to become, probably since our time outs when we were kids, we haven't really done a lot of that, and that's exactly what's needed to be just still for a moment to calm that Raja Raja Guna and see how can we react appropriately to this situation.

Kamala Rose: 8:33

I think you know having that personal accountability and a way of looking at one's own actions with a, an objective and responsible lens is always, it's always the practice, and what we're, what we learn from this verse, and, but I always, I'm also looking at it in the bigger picture of karma, and this this force that is compelling not only each individual and each individual's reactions to every situation that that individual encounters, but that force that's also compelling nature to change and the spring to start to awaken and that same Rajo guna that is compelling all activity in, you know, whether it's the plants and vegetables that are the animals or the people, whether it's our thoughts or the movements of the moon. What is it that impels or compels movement? And you know, so I think this is so interesting to, to take that, you know, very personal look, and then zoom out and take that philosophical look at Krishna's argument that what is what is making it difficult to follow this path of karma yoga is the very thing that's producing life, it's the very thing that's making the buds on the trees come out right now, so you know he says here that this force manifests in the individual as anger, as karma and croda, as desire and anger, and, and these, he says, these are our enemies, these are. The things that he'll explain are blocking the path, will not let you go, recognize them for what they are, and I think just identifying them here, and as, as an obstacle, or as an enemy, says to me that this is a deep teacher.

Nischala Joy Devi: 10:59

Yeah,

Kamala Rose: 11:00

this is going to show you some, just going to grow you up learning to deal with this and understand this and be better with this.

Nischala Joy Devi: 11:14

Also, the idea here of the selfish versus the selfless, we get gets us back into karma and karma yoga, even. And I think what happens with people. I was smiling when you mentioned the movements of the planets, because we just had this major alignment, and many things happened that we wouldn't have expected otherwise. Also, lunar clips, and all these things that are happening, that even though we gaze up at them from the earth, we forget how much they actually affect us, because just looking at the oceans, we can see how the tide is affected, affects the oceans well. Certainly, it affects us too. We're much smaller than that. So, what the tendency is when people get into this Rajaguna is to clamp it down, and what that does, it sets us back into the Tamaguna, which is the state of inaction, and we have to then force ourselves back through to the rajas again. So it says seesaw back and forth, back and forth, even using substances to calm us down, to take us into that state of tamas. What we're looking for is moving into the sattva in being able to understand the power of the rajas, at the same time not letting it rule us, letting us be the ones, because we need rajas, we wouldn't get up in the morning without rajas. We need that, that movement of energy, but it needs to be mollified. It has to be there. Has to be some kind of way that we can use it for the betterment and toward our enlightenment. And I think that's really the conundrum. People don't understand that you need to move forward to the sattva, not backward to the tamas. I'm just using backward and forward, it's really not backward and forward, just a way of describing it. But this is really what I, I feel this is about, is how can we bring that, that sense of sattva into us that sense of everything is okay even if it's not okay,

Kamala Rose: 13:49

so I think that's such an important way to look at it, that I think each of us has to balance that, I think this, what Krishna is teaching here is just giving us a really good objective overview that all beings are going to deal with this. What you said about how that that Rajo guna settles into Thomas, and this is where we see, you know, what was anger starts to fall out now into physical violence and war, and very much the case here on our battlefield, very much the case in the wars in our world.

Nischala Joy Devi: 14:28

Yes,

Kamala Rose: 14:29

and you know what was, what was still more subtle in the mental sphere, it now comes down into the heavier, more dense Thomas, and we see the world that we're living in, and the world that Arjuna and the Kauravas are living in, the very reality of dealing with the complexity that you know the world is, is, is a lot, and it is complex, and all that we can do is try to make our sense with right now. When you said that about coming to Satvic Center, I think it's, it's so much not about ignoring, but it's knowing that you can't fix

Nischala Joy Devi: 15:20

it. Yeah, yeah.

Kamala Rose: 15:21

And how can we be with this extraordinary amount of suffering, and our hearts are stirred by the compassion of seeing our fellow human beings around the world, the fellow women suffer.

Nischala Joy Devi: 15:36

Yeah,

Kamala Rose: 15:38

and. To be a world away and to try to make some some logical action in response to this, this is compassion, is the action that stirred awake to alleviate the suffering that we see, but we can also overdo it, and we can care so much that we drive ourselves crazy because no one of us has the amount of control that we can really do anything about it, and stop the bombs from falling, you know. Calling the senator is not going to stop that, but it doesn't stop us from doing what we can where we can, which is so individual. I mean, only each of us knows the life that we're living and the conditions that we face every day, and I think we have to choose our battles, and, and when we, when we do this through the lens of what the Gita is teaching, we have to be certain that the, you know, Krishna is warning about these enemies of karma and krodha anger is going to make you sick. You're going to hold on to that for too long. We've got to find some way to move this to a more stable state. We'll, you'll be distracted, you'll be irritable all the time, and and it sinks into fear. So I think I think just the practical real life of living with the knowledge that Krishna is sharing here, that finding equilibrium in a world that's on a battlefield is going to be a yogic act.

Nischala Joy Devi: 17:24

Yes, yes,

Kamala Rose: 17:26

and this is the beauty of the Gita, is it does not say just ignore that war, it says find a way to participate authentically, help it, help it be better than,

Nischala Joy Devi: 17:42

yeah, I agree. You know, it's interesting. As you were talking, though, I also remembered if everyone else can go on a trip down memory lane with me to the beginning of the Gita, where Arjuna did slip into this tamasic state, he did. He finally said he put down his bow, and he said, I will not fight. So this rest of it is trying to get him not just out of the tamasic state, but through the rajasic state, even to sattva. So here we, what you were saying was so true, because if we experience that in from the rajasic point of view, we're going to make more trouble, we're going to cause things to move into compassion. At least in my experience, you have to move into sattva, because sattva allows us to stand in the center and watch what's going on, rather than immediately take part in it, looking, stopping what's going on, what's the appropriate thing to do, what is are my capabilities of being able to do that, and if worse comes to worse, and you realize there's nothing else you can do, we can always have compassion, and that's that's something that's needs to be more of in this world, but it comes from the compassion in Rajas, we're thinking we're always right in sattva, we realize there is no one right, it's the situation, and how can that be done more gracefully, more compassionately, more lovingly, without harm, and I think this is this to me, these last few slokas of this chapter really brings us back to that, what do we want? What do we want for our quiet times, but also what do we want when we walk out into this world that was created possibly by people who were in that rajas guna that did want that experience, but if it's not your experience, how do we live in the world like that? I think this is what many people are asking themselves at this point, so this this war that's going on when the Gita is beginning to take shape in our external world, also, which causes me one to study it more. What does he actually say about it? So the next sloka 3.38 as fire is enveloped by smoke. Work as mirror by dust as an embryo by the membrane, so this knowledge of pure consciousness is hidden by selfish desires. I think that's amazing to hear something like that. What do you think?

Kamala Rose: 20:59

It's.. it really, it really is such a clear and yogic description of consciousness being obscured, which is it's the, it's the main reason we have yoga, is to solve this problem, that consciousness is not clear, the lens of perception is foggy, you're not seeing it clear, you're not getting it right. So, as fire is obscured when the smoke arises around it, when a mirror, we can't see the reflection because it's dusty, right? Rajast makes it dirty, right? It obscures the view. Wisdom is not accessible at this time, and you know, this is this is the skill that has to be developed, is to keep that lens clear, and to be able to tell what what's going on. I think when you were speaking about compassion, I think this is something that we have to understand. This is where the Gita is coming from, a place of compassion. It doesn't always come out and say thus be compassionate, Arjuna,

Nischala Joy Devi: 22:11

right?

Kamala Rose: 22:11

We have to read into the story and know that the stirring, as you mentioned, that he dropped his bow and fell tamasic on the ground, and you had to be brought back up and challenged. Come on now,

Nischala Joy Devi: 22:27

yep,

Kamala Rose: 22:27

get on with this. It's this is your karma, this is your people, this is your situation. You can't check out Arjuna,

Nischala Joy Devi: 22:36

check out,

Kamala Rose: 22:38

and right, so that stirring of his heart, this is the premise of the Gita. This is the stirring of compassion that brings about this dialog, and but in order to have compassion, we have to have wisdom, we have to be able to see and to discern, have Viveka, what's the right thing to do, and so this is where we're picking up the, you know, all of the previous lessons, and the, you know, Krishna's self-transcending action and Buddhi Yoga, and giving us the yogic point of view that you practice to keep the lens clean.

Nischala Joy Devi: 23:18

Yeah,

Kamala Rose: 23:19

you don't check out, you're not trying to get away from it. You just need to see it clearly, be able to recognize what it is. In 39 Krishna says that the knowledge, even of the wise ones, is obscured. Right, so even when you had a realization, you won't remember it when the mirror is dirty by this eternal enemy of rajas having the form of desire which is as an insatiable fire, so this fire that can't be put out that is compelling us, as though nature herself is compelling us to want the wise yogi should be aware of this, should know that when excessive raja shows up and you get cranky and you got a sharp tongue, he'd heed this,

Nischala Joy Devi: 24:23

yes,

Kamala Rose: 24:25

he'd heed your signs, and you know, again, we have to, we have to dig some on this battlefield to remember that the point of yoga is ahimsa and so heeding the warning of desire is very important for the yogi, because only unskillful action follows.

Nischala Joy Devi: 24:54

Yeah, yeah, constantly the enemy of the wise. I think that says it all. I, you know, I think we sometimes have to go back and reevaluate. I don't think we do this enough. I should say, for myself, even, what is it I want? Where is has the compass strayed at all from the direction I want to go in, and I think this is a really good way of looking at it. How do I treat people? How do I treat myself? Am I sharp if I am, say. Something that's not kind, oops, that should be the signal something's going on. Back up, take a little time of introspection, take a little time of discrimination. What's happening? Why did I react that way? And from that it seems to quell it when you identify something or put it, put an identification or a label on it, it tends to calm it down for some reason, whereas before it didn't think it was being noticed and it ran all over the place. So, just looking at it and saying, wait a minute, stop. What's happening right now? What's going on in my life, why am I acting like that? Something must be wrong. So, this then we tie in the discrimination with the compassion, and I think it has to be the two sides of the same coin, because we can't just have, like you were saying before, we can lose ourselves in it if we're too compassionate, we forget, but if we have the discrimination and the compassion working together, it can help us slide into that sattvic state. Also, pulling back, we, we tend to think that action is the only correct way we have to remember that action has to be tempered, otherwise it's like a little puppy that doesn't know where to go, it starts running everywhere, has to be tempered, and I think this is this is the idea here, but when I see something that says the insatiable fire of desire, constant, constant enemy of the wise. I realized that this is going to be something we deal with, no matter how elevated we get, until we actually leap over and no longer have that experience of mind in that way, so there's a lot here, and it brings me back, and I'm sure you also, to practice right. If we don't practice, we don't have anything to relate to other than the outside world, and if we only relate to the outside world, they're encouraging us to be more and more rajasic, right? How many more of this can we drink? How much more of this can we eat to make us more and more stimulated? So it all comes back to that, the inner and the outer to make the inner so strong that that's what we identify even more than the outer,

Kamala Rose: 28:21

well, I think this skill that we is this essential skill again that we learn in yoga is a level of self awareness and self objectivity that is really required to be able to heed our natural tendency to rajas, which will manifest as anger, and because of desire, everyone, we, when we know that this is the resting state of human beings, that we are all compelled to eat and reproduce and sleep, seek shelter. We all have a basic needs that make us wake up in the morning and go to work, so you can make enough money to buy food and keep this cycle of participating in life going right. This very fundamental fact that being alive requires effort, and you know we're these verses are asking the question, Cana, by what is this activity compelled? What, where's it coming from? And Krishna's answer is, this is nature, it's the gunas, it's property, it's nature, it's compelled in and of herself.

Nischala Joy Devi: 29:39

Yeah, the

Kamala Rose: 29:41

wise can have a level of objectivity with that, that we can accept that my physical body and the movements of my consciousness are also in that realm of nature.

Nischala Joy Devi: 29:55

Yeah,

Kamala Rose: 29:55

it's a big leap, I think, for for most people to say, wow, the changing nature of my thoughts and the changing nature of leaves falling are really the same thing. It's just changing all the time, and I think yoga teaches us that essential observational skill that isn't, in my opinion, it's not so much a spiritual awareness, it's a, it's a mental mindset of just being aware of Purusha, being aware of Prakriti, where we're just able to observe the screen. Of the mind and understand it as by nature changeable and build on that and build then therefore I don't need to take myself so seriously, right, but I want to say too that often I think one of the ways that that idea is interpreted is difficult, I think, especially for women, because we kind of think that, like, okay, well, now that you get it, that it's all impermanent, shouldn't you just end it, you know, or don't believe any of

Nischala Joy Devi: 31:21

it. Yeah,

Kamala Rose: 31:23

but you know it's not that simple, and you know we have psychology, and that's a lot of what we're talking about here in these verses. Is in 40, Krishna is talking about the senses, the mind, the intellect, the indriyas, the manas, and the buddhi, talking about how the mind is brought together to create individual personality, and so this is the realm that kama and krodha, anger and desire are manifest in us, and it's just not as easy as saying,"Oh, anger is impermanent, let's not pay any attention to it, because you know if your eyes are open in the world today, every single day we get shocking news, for example, about women who've been harmed,

Nischala Joy Devi: 32:20

yep, and

Kamala Rose: 32:21

who have been denied the life they deserved in 1000 different ways, and it is infuriating, and it's unjust, and I think the answer isn't just to say, oh, calm down, it's okay. How can, how can we make this right in a way that's sustainable and that will really make an impact, and I think that's one of the things that brought us both to yoga gives back is we can make a difference through education, we can help to change actual real girls' lives,

Nischala Joy Devi: 33:00

yeah,

Kamala Rose: 33:01

through providing education, and so thinking carefully. I think that's the discernment and the compassion. How can I, in my state of inflammation over injustice that I hear every single day, and you know, even seeing leaders in our own yoga community that are so complicit in harming women, this is difficult too. There's a lot of things we can be rightly inflamed about, yet I can't live with that weight 100% all the time. I think this is something I know all too well, is you just go, well, just don't think about it.

Nischala Joy Devi: 33:53

Yeah,

Kamala Rose: 33:54

and that's what leads to compassion fatigue, because you can't not hear

Nischala Joy Devi: 33:59

that one, that's good. I like that.

Kamala Rose: 34:02

Have you not heard this thing about

Nischala Joy Devi: 34:04

tea? No, I haven't heard that. Okay, good. It's

Kamala Rose: 34:07

caring too much for too long, for too many about things you can't change.

Nischala Joy Devi: 34:13

Yeah, and yeah, I think what you're saying here is the reality of of how we live our lives, and when I, when we look at this, especially 3.40 sloka, and it says the senses, the mind, and the intellect hold the seeds of desire, what, what that says to me is when we look at these things that enrage us, and there's enough now that we don't even have to pick and choose, it's right there, it's everything's right there to to enrage us like that, if there is not, when we talk about Prakriti and Purusha. The Prakriti is showing us this, but if we're not holding on strong to that pole within us, which we have developed over years of practice, we get thrown out. We get it's like going on a merry-go-round that may be going faster and faster, if we're not holding on to the pole, we're flung out, and I think this is what begins to happen, and that's where that, that, that, what did you call it, compassionate

Kamala Rose: 35:32

compassion fatigue,

Nischala Joy Devi: 35:34

compassion fatigue comes in, because it's not really. Real compassion, it's the compassion that we are identifying with the survivors, with the people who are being wronged, instead of having real compassion with them, and the word compassion to be with somebody in pain or pleasure, passion can be either one, but we've got, we've got brought into it, and working in the medical field, I think that's one of the things that we burn out on, because we start to identify with the patients, because we're working too much, and we don't have the ability to strengthen ourselves stronger inside, so when something happens, we just go, we're just bowled over with it, and the problem in that is we didn't help ourselves or the patient in that. Instead, be with them in their pain, do as much as we can, but know that is it's not something that we alone can change in that particular way, so I think here it comes back to the practices, and when I look at the first part, the senses, I don't think we practice prattahar enough in most yoga classes, it's not really part of it, even if they give them a five minute deep relaxation, it's not the same. We have to learn that the senses have two aspects, the outer and the inner, and when we direct them more inward, that means also we're drawn away from the world, at least temporarily, to be able to regain our composure, our balance, our sattva, and then as we move out, we do have the compassion, we do have that understanding, and you know, I look at what comes to my mind are people like Mahatma Gandhi, for instance, where he had a lot of passion that he quelled because he knew that if he got angry and if he started, there would be this major battles going on and many people's lives would be lost. Instead, he drew upon his yogic practices to make him so strong inside that even when he was face to face with a British soldier, he sought love and compassion to that shoulder. Since that soldier, I think that's really what they're getting at here now. There's are there 2000 steps between us reading this understanding it and Mahatma Gandhi. There's probably millions of them, but it's the, it's the path starts to take us. We start to understand by seeing great people who have done great things that maybe there's a way to do it without all the anger, without all of us being cast down, and I think one of the things is consistency, and what you need for consistency is a strong inner conviction.

Kamala Rose: 38:55

Yes, yes, and I'm also reminded of the extraordinary example of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, yes, and the atrocities that have happened to the Tibetan people. Yeah, and every, every time he speaks, every time you read the story of a survivor of the Tibetan genocide, you are so moved by the ability to forgive, yep,

Nischala Joy Devi: 39:23

yep,

Kamala Rose: 39:23

and not, and not in a way that is blind or saying, oh, whatever, bless their hearts, those Chinese, it's doing the deep inner work to remove, you know, to face anger, to see this enemy, to face it, to learn from it, and I think this is where we all have a lot that we can, we can work with, if we see anger as a teacher, and you know, I've one thing I know for myself in this is that you know that there is a tendency that you, you know, if you're a spiritual person, you don't want to look at that, those sort of feelings in yourself, the outrage, and you know, the fact that you could be so petty, you know, and that's what, as you said, this is what leads to fatigue, because you just can't, you can't endure it for so long, care so much for so long, without doing some of the internal work that really looks at your own responses, and it helps you to understand why everyone in the world is. Not a highly functioning, emotionally intelligent individual, they're they're small, they're, you know, they're petty about things, because that's how people are. You see someone like His Holiness, and we see someone who every day, every single day, takes a look at that and diminishes it, and works on it, and has worked on it every day of his life, and will continue until the day he passes, and tells us that only by strengthening the neural networks of kindness of resilient compassion through meditation, are we able to endure the reality of everyday life, and so I think we're right to make sure we emphasize the depth and the inner work that yoga is asking us to do here, and what these verses in the Gita, Krishna says that, that, that these seeds are in the senses, in the manas mind, in the buddhi, right? So we have these seeds inside of us, and this is what confuses us, right? This is the, this is the cause. cause of the confusion of identity. Yeah, that obscures our knowledge. We just can't see it because the mirror is dirty. Yeah,

Nischala Joy Devi: 42:13

yeah. Also, getting back to those 2 million steps, or 2000 steps, I think that can be a little bit confusing to people, and a little bit not inspiring. Try to see what percentage of it, try to look what percentage of it of my life am I really kind, and which part I slip up every once in a while, and this really gets me, and then we start working with that instead of looking at it. Oh, I'm a terrible person, or I'll never be able to do that. Instead, little by little, we start doing that, and your example of the Dalai Lama. I think I'm so grateful we have people like that, that are in our lives, in our world, and I remember I had the great joy of meeting him, and one of the things that he said, which goes right on with which you're doing, you're saying is we, we thanked him for his service in the world, and he said, you know, there's.. I can't remember exact number, something like 6 billion people in the world, and the problem is we see them as other. He said we don't see them as us. He said when we start seeing them as us, everything will change, and in that just simple message he just encapsulated all the philosophies, not just of yoga, not just of Buddhism, but the whole world philosophy of spirituality that we've mistaken, we see people as other instead of as ourself, and then we act like they're other, instead of seeing them wait, they hurt just like I do, they get hungry, they get scared, just like I do, all these things that we start to see, and we look at them, and we know they are us, but this takes a lot of practice, unless you're born that way, which some people are, but most of us, we have to work with it, and working with it each time it happens, don't don't wait until it's a big deal, just one thing, you say something unkind, and you go home, and you think, Why did I say that? What happened? Why did I do that? Because every time you do that, one of those little seeds that was starting to germinate goes back down, and hopefully gets burnt. You don't have that seat again, but unless we are really vigilant with the mind and the senses and the emotions, they run, they run reckless with us. We talked about this, I think it was the first chapter with the horses and the senses, all of that that drags us from place to place. Why are we giving it so much power? That's what we have to ask ourselves. We're the ones giving it power. It's not - it doesn't have power on its own. We allow it to be there. So I think all this comes and then the. Second part of 40 that I have, anyway, it says this, then veils wisdom and misleads people away from the path of realization, and I think that that's that says it,

Kamala Rose: 46:05

that says it exactly right. Okay, this

Nischala Joy Devi: 46:08

is a good place to stop. Just,

Kamala Rose: 46:11

just as natural as sense information. This is exactly what this, what this verse is about. It becomes irritated by rajas on the outside and there's inflammation and it's confusing, it becomes everything, and

Nischala Joy Devi: 46:28

341 says therefore conquer your desire, the destroyer of wisdom and self realization, and that's how chapter three ends.

Kamala Rose: 46:39

Beautiful.

Nischala Joy Devi: 46:40

Yes. Thank you. Thank you for joining us again. We hope that this was useful,

Kamala Rose: 46:45

being here.

Nischala Joy Devi: 46:48

And if you'd like to see us a little bit more, you can visit our websites. We're both teaching, and you can see where and what we're teaching, and maybe join

Kamala Rose: 47:00

us. Yours is Abundant Well being.com and mine is Kamala Rose yoga.com

Nischala Joy Devi: 47:06

There you go, Abundant Calm, and Kamala Rose dot..

Kamala Rose: 47:10

Oh, I'm sorry, no, i.org.org'm

Nischala Joy Devi: 47:13

Okay, let's do it. Sorry

Kamala Rose: 47:15

about that. Okay,

Nischala Joy Devi: 47:16

say it again slowly.

Kamala Rose: 47:17

Let's Kamala Rose yoga.org

Nischala Joy Devi: 47:27

Abundant Well being.com We'll see you next time, or listen to us next time.

Kamala Rose: 47:35

Thanks for joining us.

Nischala Joy Devi: 47:36

Thanks for joining us. Namaste.

Unknown: 47:42

Bye.