Applying the Bhagavad-Gita to modern life
We all need philosophy to live better.
The philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita is an accessible starting point for diving into Indian philosophy because it is based upon the many types of yoga practiced to reach the divine. It has influenced other philosophical schools as well as practices and beliefs (and been influenced by them). Here, I don’t deal with the devotion to Krishna advocated in the text because I want to emphasize what the non-religious person can take from it to help achieve eudaemonia. The study of the Gita and Indian philosophy goes well with the study of classical Greco-Roman philosophy. I know it’s in vogue to reject the latter because of white supremacy (as though the Greco-Romans were ‘white’ in today’s parlance), but doing so only indicates to me that the person is hostile to knowledge and truth. This piece connects a small teaching of the Gita to the broader Internet-driven culture.
Beginning with the philosophical concept of ‘yoga,’ scholar of Hindu traditions Graham Schweig (also of the Hare Krishna community) describes it thus:
The term yoga denotes a variety of human practices, disciplines, and even experiences to reach the divine, or a state of perfection that is achieved through rigorous meditational or ascetical discipline. The Bhagavad Gita explains that these many forms of yoga may be practiced to attain a state of transcendent consciousness and ultimately be united with a specific dimension of the divine. Though the word yoga is often used to refer to the human achievement of evolving to higher states of consciousness, the Gita tells us it is more than that. At the highest level, yoga is a secret state of union within supreme love, bestowed by divinity, who is also subsumed in this union. Indeed, yoga is the power of love that transforms the heart and to which even divinity submits.1
Within this framework of the five types of yoga, which I will shorthand as the path to the higher Self, there are five types: discernment, action, knowledge, renunciation, meditation, and love. The first will be my focus here.
Before understanding the yogic concepts, one must understand the three qualities of nature in Indian thought, or the gunas, which make up the physical world: sattva, that which is pure, calm, and reasonable; rajas, passion and activity; and tamas, dark inertia and ignorance. These are also the qualities of thoughts and actions. Rajas and tamas are required to maintain the balance of the universe with sattva, but I also use them to evaluate my behavior. Actions born of tamas and rajas should be minimized in life, as should food with those qualities. I usually fail at this, of course, but the point is always to try to act in a sattvic manner. The Age of Kali (pronounced /kuh-li/, not to be confused with the goddess Kāli) encourages indulgence in rajas and tamas, which prevents the mind from reaching a higher plane. For me, this manifested as a social justice/social media culture standing in the way of spiritual attainment.
The Yoga of Discernment
The yoga of discernment requires developing stability in the face of happiness and suffering to maintain one’s mental equilibrium. Without such temperance, knowledge of the divine is impossible. The verses below are the basis of the rest of this meditation.
Acting the same in happiness and suffering, gain and loss, victory and defeat, then prepare for battle — thus you shall not suffer misfortune (2:38).
Indeed, those wise ones who are absorbed in the yoga of discernment, relinquishing the fruits born of action, who are freed from the bondage of repeated births, go to a place beyond suffering (2:51).
One whose mind is undisturbed in suffering, who is free from desire in all kinds of happiness, whose passion, fear, and anger have departed — such a person, established in thought, is said to be sage (2:56)2
In contemplating the above, the obvious comparison is the idea from classical Western philosophy that reasoning one’s way to a virtuous life is the highest goal of human existence. Humans are distinguished from the rest of the animal world by our ability to reason. This idea transcends cultures; the Greeks, Romans, Hindus, Buddhists, and others independently reached these conclusions.
Interlude: reason & emotion/masculine & feminine
Connecting the above to modern culture, I am vehement and incisive in my critiques of the contemporary left because they are so often hostile to reason, distrusting it as a European construction to justify white supremacy rather than a means to a virtuous life. They are not chasing virtue but the illusion of it.
Contrary to what contemporary culture has us believe, reason is required to temper emotion, and raw emotion by itself is not a way of Knowing oneself or the world. Of course, the two are intertwined in the mind. However, the culture trusts emotionally tinged perception as the primary way of moving through the world and discards reason and logic (see also: logicbros). It is not a source of fundamental truths but of self-delusion, and it isolates us from others. It is also inextricable from leftist social media culture. We would all do well to unplug from areas of the Internet that encourage tribalism.
Some branches of philosophy consider such rejection of reason to be the work of maya, who is said to do the bidding of the supreme gods in showing humans a world separate from that of the divine realm (the material plane). Transcending this maya is essential for enlightenment. I find it amusing and telling that maya is a manifestation of the sacred feminine, but this does not somehow diminish the feminine in import. While I once thought it was incredibly sexist to represent maya as a feminine force, I now understand that it’s a metaphor for material reality.
Maya can be analogous to prakriti, roughly translated to nature or the reality observed by the consciousness. Its opposite is purusha, referring to one’s reasoning capacity, also translated as ‘man.’ Reason and consciousness are masculine, while nature and emotion are feminine.3 I sincerely feel this truth because these two tendencies fight within me. Life was miserable when emotion won all the time. But, reason without emotion is impoverished and lacking in empathy. Recognizing this, Indian philosophy also has sophisticated theories of emotion and aesthetics in the concept of rasa.4
Shiva and Shakti (translated to power and represented by the divine feminine) are manifestations of purusha and prakriti, representing the balance of masculinity and femininity. It’s important to note that prakriti/maya being feminine doesn’t mean women are somehow inferior. But reason had to win over the constant turbulence of raw emotion to find a good life. Even in therapy, depressed people are taught how to develop their reasoning capacities to temper anxiety. The trick is understanding that the material world is a distraction from higher goals even as we live in it. Representing reason and emotion as masculine and feminine is offensive to modern sensibilities, but it is borne out in life if one looks around.
One form of Shiva and Shakti is Ardhanarishwara, the half-woman lord. This is a representation of how both need each other to exist harmoniously. Obviously, one cannot reject the world entirely and go live as an ascetic in the forest, so maya is required for consciousness to exist (for what is it without a reality to observe?). That’s where the yoga of discernment comes in.
Attachment to the body
One whose mind is undisturbed in suffering, who is free from desire in all kinds of happiness, whose passion, fear, and anger have departed — such a person, established in thought, is said to be sage (2:56)
Per what I learned from the Gita, I’ve come to see the leftist identity paradigm as a kind of maya because it foments attachment to the physical body and its outward appearance over the development of the mind. Seeing myself as an oppressed brown woman is an obstacle to reaching a higher Self. It made me attached to my body and the social capital it could accrue in a world that rewards immutable identity and beauty in women instead of virtue. I see this as less a matter of men rewarding women for shallowness and more a result of women competing with each other for social positions. I’ve met enough men who would prefer a woman with depth to distrust the idea that women are vapid because men somehow want us to be so. No one forces us to compete, and it’s more for social power than mates.
The primary reason I’m so hostile to social media, and Instagram in particular, is its encouragement of an intense attachment to youth among women such that we are unwilling to accept aging. We’re constantly scrutinizing our bodies and worried about how others see it, particularly other women. We become determined somehow to stop the effects of time on the body because we can’t let go of the phase of life in which others desire us. It’s as though we’re addicted to feeling the desire of others, not just their approval. Everyone wants to be desired, but at what cost? This attachment to others’ desire and our own to appear young leads us to waste precious time on the phone that would be better used to cultivate virtue.
If everyone who spends most of the day on their phones were to spend more time introspecting and reading, we’d be more satisfied with ourselves and less angry. The Gita teaches that satisfaction within the self is necessary for reaching a higher consciousness and for freedom from the cycle of birth and death. If one believes in the concept of a soul, time is better spent honing the mind to prepare for death.
We are also acting in our hyper-consumptive society for the ends of status accrual and not to reach eudaemonia. We are attached not only to our bodies but also to our jobs and other souls donning a particular outfit in the form of their physical bodies. That is not to discourage loving one’s family and friends, but when grieving for those who have died, it is imperative to remember that the body is temporary, a grain of sand in the ocean of existence. For the modern woman, this attachment to the body manifests as chasing perfection through consumption. I am not immune to it; we are very attached to our youth and attraction as a source of social status, and it’s near-impossible to let go. Despite all my philosophical practice, I’m still not detached from my body. I have those expensive creams to stave off the inevitable. I’m working on accepting it.
Attachment to the fruits of one’s actions
Indeed, those wise ones who are absorbed in the yoga of discernment, relinquishing the fruits born of action, who are freed from the bondage of repeated births, go to a place beyond suffering (2:51).
Acting without attachment to the fruit of said action is easier said than done, but we should still strive for it. This appeared as an attachment to the fruits of labor at work and an obsession with achievement to get the kind of recognition I never got as a child. Of course, this is also a waste of time and reasoning ability, so I put these philosophical ideas into practice.
I can report that after putting significant effort into letting go of the fruits of my actions, I am detached from my career and no longer put in 110% so I can make rich people richer. I am not under any illusion that I ‘own’ a stake in whatever organization pays me enough to spend my spare time thinking. Those bonuses and shares are carrots to create the illusion of control. My profession does not describe anything about me, and if Americans need to detach from one identity, it is that of our professions. Much of our misery is tied to our identities being derived from work. Burning down capitalism isn’t realistic, but burning your professional identity to ashes certainly is. Indians, by the way, need to learn this lesson more than any other group. We’d be happier for it.
Who would you be if your job didn't define you and if you didn’t draw satisfaction from your achievements? Once again, this afflicts women the most acutely because we’ve been rewarded for following rules in a system that requires conscientiousness. Perhaps we should pay more attention to our families, communities, and brains.
Krishna advises Arjuna in the Gita to act for the benefit of society following his dharma as a warrior. Acting according to your dharma doesn’t mean merely working. Beyond a certain point, work becomes an end in itself for our egos rather than to earn money to support our families. I cannot blame people for being concerned with their stock portfolios. Still, only avarice drives people to build their wealth beyond what can be spent on their families over two generations. When the attachment to money becomes all-consuming, we’ve gone off the deep end, and virtue becomes impossible.
Being unattached to the fruits of one’s actions means discerning where your control stops. We have control only over the action, not its outcome. Attachment to the fruits of one’s actions is a source of misery and is the root of our attachment to material comfort.
Emotional indulgence and control
Acting the same in happiness and suffering, gain and loss, victory and defeat, then prepare for battle — thus you shall not suffer misfortune (2:38).
This verse describes the sage-like person as free from anger, passion, and fear. It’s no coincidence that I moved away from social justice ideology when I picked up the Gita and meditated on this idea. The call to equanimity isn’t unique to Hindu philosophy; it is found in Buddhism and Greco-Roman thought, particularly in the Stoic tradition. I’ve been learning how to find the middle path of wisdom amid turbulence while doing dialectical behavioral therapy, which has roots in Buddhism and Stoicism. Cognitive behavioral therapy teaches how to change behavior and better control emotions. Still, many therapists these days practice emotional indulgence of their clients over helping them improve their reasoning capacity.
Krishna describes intense emotion as a river that can carry a person away. I hurt people by weaponizing emotion and hurt myself by assuming the worst of every person’s actions. This alienated me from people, especially my loved ones. Social justice culture is tied up in this fast current of negative emotions. The application of reason is suspicious; people are always out to get you, and the worst interpretation of others’ actions is always the default. Finally, adverse events are always the fault of others, and we don’t examine our role. The locus of control is externalized, leading to a disempowered orientation even as the ideology claims to empower.
Additionally, this culture encourages the narcissism that lives in all of us. Many control it well, but the default culture among young people activates that narcissism in the name of justice, so one can’t see it. Bullying becomes righteous, so a woman doesn’t have to contend with how her behavior in the name of justice hurt people (and yes, it’s always a woman being the most vicious in this context because we evolved to be adept at relational aggression). I was once that woman, and maybe I’m compensating for it through writing. It is those who leave the cult who are its loudest critics.
This same woman bullying people in the name of false justice is also usually obsessed with social media and addicted to the phone; it is intertwined with social justice culture. The tenets are simplified and spread like wildfire, activating negative emotions. We are manipulated into being suspicious of all people. If I encountered a Trump supporter on a dating app today, I would swipe right and give him a chance (gasp!) because I no longer think political choices determine a person’s moral values. But, as men and women diverge politically, they have a more challenging time finding each other.
Emotional indulgence also manifests in how women and men relate to each other romantically. I’m shocked my relationship didn’t fall apart in the early days because I was always angry. I screamed and cried about things that were out of my partner’s control and weren’t his fault. I behaved in a self-absorbed manner. I was never willing to be wrong. The most ubiquitous behavior I find in women around me is an unwillingness ever to admit fault or apologize, another example of narcissism. We endlessly demand apologies from everyone else because every harmful action or word can be excused through a disempowering ideology. This is foundational to feminism today, and that’s why I reject it so strongly after being a foot soldier for almost two decades. We are so obsessed with our self-esteem that we denigrate others and become collectively self-absorbed. This is no way to live. Women need philosophy even more than men, and it is disappointing that I have not met a woman who wants to discuss philosophical concepts, but I constantly meet men who do.
The yoga of discernment is required to reach a state of transcendental love beyond the worldly concerns that have an iron grip on our consciousness. Contemporary culture wants us to obsess over what people think (even as we claim we aren’t) and never to be satisfied with ourselves. Philosophy can help you live better, but it takes work and deep thought. There is no shortcut to living a good life; you won’t find it online.
Schweig, Graham M.. Bhagavad Gita: The Beloved Lord's Secret Love Song. United Kingdom: HarperCollins, 2007.
Ibid.
At least one person will accuse me of essentializing gender with this statement, but this is generally the construction in the source texts.
Most often seen in the literary and performing arts.
This is so good 👏👏 The constant dopamine look can show up as spiritual materialism as well, where people use yoga and other practices to justify themselves and not look within. Most of the people I know doing ayahuasca in Peru are not really that interested in enlightenment. It is so easy to sell enlightenment as yoga poses, beautiful people in their 20s and abundance. No one wants to say that enlightenment comes with a lot of grief and shadow work.
Building a consistent spiritual practice is not for the weak.
This is a rich post with much to engage with. I admire that you go beyond describing the social justice culture and social media narcissism that frustrate you, and describe some of the practices(therapy) and ideologies (Hinduism, Stoicism) that give you stability and improve your relationships.
My impression of the Bhagavad Gita is a focus on balance and maintaining homeostasis. I entirely agree that most women would benefit from more reasoning and philosophy to control the sway of their emotions. On the other hand, I know a lot of men who would benefit from getting out of their heads and spending more time dancing, socializing, and appreciating aesthetic pleasure.
I also agree that women have born the brunt of the downsides of social media with the fetishization of youthful beauty, or “that Instagram face.” I wish we had better language around intellectual and artistic seduction. I’m constantly telling my friends that I have an intellectual or literary crush on so and so. It’s not sexual — they can be men, women, straight, or gay — but it is a kind of seduction. I would love to feel desired for something I wrote rather than a selfie.
In the spirit of balance, my concern with too much of a focus on philosophy and reasoning is that it can take us down a path toward solipsism and distrust, where we are constantly questioning ourselves and others’ motives.
Something I admire about both social justice ideology and Christianity (in theory), though I subscribe to neither, is their focus on caring for others. Or ideally: caring for each other.
Like you, I also grew up without recognition from my parents or family, which pushed me down a path of endless striving for extrinsic incentives. Philosophy and therapy helped me diagnose the problem. But only reciprocal social solidarity — mutual attention, mutual care, shared purpose — helps me transcend it.
As always, I appreciate you sharing your reflections with such honesty.