**1) The core question of the entire Bhagavad Gita is: What is right action? Explain briefly what’s happening in the story here; the difference between an action and a path of seeds; and how this relates to our real life.** In-depth Study 1 Arjuna is having a serious personal meltdown in the middle of a battlefield, as he tries to decide what is the right thing to do. He is seeking advice from Krishna, a childhood friend who is driving his battle chariot.  “Seeds” are, of course, anything that we do or say, or even just think. A “path of seeds” is a course of action taken with full premeditation, intention, and acknowledgement after the fact. It is infinitely more powerful than just a simple act.  If we are able to understand a path of seeds fully, then we can follow such a path directly to achieving whatever primary goal we might have in our own life— whether it be financial independence, good health, a wonderful relationship, or an entire world of happiness and peace. This then is the purpose of our third and final course in the Indian classic, the Bhagavad Gita. **2) Arjuna tells Lord Krishna: “I cannot understand.” What would be an example of an everyday action that was done without understanding?** A classic example of an action taken without understanding is in the case where someone, say for example our partner, has gotten angry and yelled at us. If we fail to understand where they are coming from in the first place, then we will naturally want to yell back at them. This then plants seeds in our mind that will create yet another yelling from our partner in the future. **3) Lord Krishna says that if we understand the “highest secret” in the universe, then we have done all that we ever need to do. Explain, giving the Sanskrit root for “understand” here, and some well-known words derived from it.** Let’s go back to the example of our partner yelling at us. If we understand the “highest secret” in the universe, then we understand that in reality they are coming from us, from seeds within our own mind.  These seeds were planted when we yelled at someone else in the past.  If we understand this secret, the last thing we’d want to do is yell back at our partner, since this would plant another seed for someone to yell at us.  We no longer have to stress about deciding what to do about a partner who yells at us. We no longer have to decide whether we should yell back or remain in resentful silence, hoping that things will somehow get better later on.  **4) Describe what Lord Krishna calls the “highest form of self,” with regard to the question of whether a pen is itself.** A human sees a pen and thinks of it as a “pen.” A dog in the room sees the same object as something different: as a chew toy. Which one is right? Both of them: the object can work equally well for both of them, as they see it.  Now leave the same object on a table in the room, and ask all the people and all the dogs in the room to step outside. At this time, the cylinder is neither a pen nor a chew toy: it is simply “blank,” like a blank white movie screen—or we can call it “empty.”  If we walk in and see a pen lying on the table, this pen must somehow be coming from our own mind. If the pen were coming from the pen’s side, and not from our side, then the dog would also be seeing the cylinder as a pen.  But they don’t, which proves that what we see is coming from us: the pen is coming from us.  We can say then, that the pen is not a pen in and of itself. Considered from its own side, the pen is not a pen! It is not itself.  The fact that everything we ever perceive is the same—it is coming from us— means that nothing is itself. This “real” nature of all things is their true self, or what Lord Krishna here calls the “highest form of self.”  That is, it is true of all objects and people that they are coming from us, and not from their own side. **5) Briefly describe the important Sanskrit words prakirti and purusha, giving an example of each.** The distinction between prakirti and purusha is a famous one in the ancient sacred literature of India, and it has frequently been made too complicated since then.  Prakirti literally means “nature” or “the way things really are,” and refers to the true nature of the things and events around us. As we have seen, this nature is that none of these things or events is coming from their own side. Rather, they are coming from us, from seeds in our mind.  Purusha means “person” and refers to the true nature of ourselves. That is, even how we see our physical appearance, and the thoughts we hear within our own minds, is also coming from us, from seeds we have planted during our interaction with other people.  If we have been kind to others, then the weather will be good (a reflection of prakirti), and we will be surrounded by nice people. If we have been kind, then we will hear happy thoughts in our own head, rather than depressed ones (a reflection of purusha).  Things like our financial situation, our partner, and the degree of peace in the world around us might be considered a reflection of prakirti, the real nature of the outer world. Our own personal health and happiness might be considered a reflection of purusha, the real nature of ourselves.  The point of learning about these two is that—if we really understand them—then we can make radical changes in the people and events around us, as well as in our own level of happiness and understanding. These are a very real method of achieving everything we ever wanted in life, and we would be foolish not to use them as such, as soon as we learn about them. # Class 2 **5) Lord Krishna tells Arjuna that he may as well kill the warriors of the other army, since “I have already killed them (XI.34).” What does this mean, and what does it not mean? What clue do we get in the verse itself?** There’s a clue in the wording of this verse that helps us decide what the verse does mean, and what it doesn’t. At the end of the verse, Lord Krishna tells Arjuna that if he does fight, then he will “defeat these foes in the great struggle.”  The Sanskrit word for “great struggle” here is ==rana==. The ancient translators recognized it as having two very different meanings: a wild military battle (yul in Western Chinese), and the noise and confusion within our own minds when we have negative emotions (nyon-mongpa).  Lord Krishna is not, of course, saying that—because they are going to die eventually anyway—it is alright for Arjuna to go ahead and kill the other warriors now. This would be tantamount to saying that it was all right to crash our friend’s new car, since it will fall apart on its own eventually anyway.  Rather, there are two lessons here. First of all, the negative emotions which plague (another meaning of nyon- mongpa) us all every hour of the day are actually sometimes even called enemies in the ancient literature of India (as in the word arhat, which means “enemy slayer,” referring to someone who has stopped all their negative emotions permanently, and thus reached nirvana).  Lord Krishna then is on one level telling Arjuna to slay these emotions within his own mind.  The way to slay them is the second lesson here. The warriors that Arjuna is confused about killing—the fighters on the other side—have always been dead anyway. That is, the warriors that he thinks he sees were never there in the first place. Arjuna sees himself as a doer who is going to kill some people who have wronged his family. In reality though, there is no one outside of himself who has wronged his family. We have learned that—if Arjuna does see someone injure his family— then this is because he had a seed in his mind to perceive violence in the world.  If he didn’t have such a seed—if he had renounced violence perfectly himself, in the past—then he never would have seen such a thing: as the Yoga Sutra itself states, “If you make it a way of life never to hurt others, then in your presence all conflict comes to an end (II.35).”  Arjuna thinks that he is being asked to kill friends, relatives, and even teachers who are approaching him on the field of battle; but actually they are flowing from his own mind. People that we meet who are approaching us from the outside are people who never existed in the first place—they have been “dead” forever.  If we realize this, then it will never even occur to us to hurt someone else who threatens us. Quite the opposite. And then we kill our true enemies. **6) Are we really supposed to—as Lord Krishna says—give up being happy or sad? Must we abandon “both good and evil (XII.15)”?** These two advices from Lord Krishna—to give up being happy or sad, and to abandon both good and evil deeds—are very delicate; they have been widely misunderstood by some people over the centuries, with disastrous consequences.  There is, of course, nothing wrong with wanting to be happy and not wanting to be sad. They are not at all the same thing; our heart and our brain both tell us so.  And it is true that doing good things for others is the only way to be happy, and that hurting others—doing evil—is the only way to be sad. It’s just that when we go out to do our good deeds in order to gain happiness, we have to do it with the right understanding. If we don’t, it will just make us sad again.  Some of us are nice to others out of habit, or because we were told by someone— our parents, our school, our church or synagogue—that this is what we are supposed to do. This kind of being nice breaks down when we are under pressure: when we are really tired, or when we really want or need something. This kind of being nice says that, in general, we should be nice to others, but there may be situations when we have to go ahead and take the things we want for ourselves.  This viewpoint doesn’t recognize that we never get what we want unless we first give it to someone else. For a person who understands this Law of the Universe, being good is not a luxury; it’s essential. When Lord Krishna tells us to give up being good or bad, and to give up the happiness and sadness that always follow separately from each, he is referring only to doing good or bad without understanding how it works.  If, for example, our husband is often angry with us, we pose two bad choices to ourselves in deciding how to respond. One is that we should stand up and be tough and yell back at him. The other is that we should be quiet and not say anything: maybe it will get better if I don’t stir things up. The first would seem to be a “bad” or “evil” deed; the second would seem to be a “good” deed.  But in reality, both are being done with the same lack of complete understanding. I’m not being good because I know that this will plant the seeds that will make my husband (who is coming from me) change. I’m not being good because I am sure this will always fix a problem with my husband—I don’t know how that works, so I can’t use it to change him with certainty. I just keep making a selection between two bad choices and hoping for the best. # Class 3 **7) The point of all spiritual instruction is to help us get all the things we want, and to remove every challenge we have—and then to help everyone else in the world to do the same. Write here the one thing you would most like to make happen, or the one thing you would most like to stop, in your life—right now as you take the course.** Student answers will vary. All answers should be accepted. **8) Lord Krishna says we are “dear” to him if we are “free of desires (XII.16).” Does this mean that it is wrong to want something good to happen in our life?** Now we understand, through the explanation of the three qualities or gunas, that there is a wrong way of liking things, and a wrong way of disliking things. If, though, we can induce prana into the central channel—which is the whole point of the asanas, or physical practices of yoga, and of spiritual study such as this course—then we will come to understand the correct way of achieving the things that we want in our life right now, and avoiding the things we don’t want.  That is, Lord Krishna is not telling us that we should be “free of all desires” in general: that we should just sit like a vegetable in our room and not hope or aspire to a life which is full of light and wonder. Rather, he is saying that we should be free of all desires which involve trying to get what we want in a mistaken way— and then we will be happy, which is a dear thing for him to see.  So what is the right way to get what we want in our life, right now; and to avoid what we don’t want? We need to go through the four steps in order to plant the seeds that determine the entire reality of our own life. And we need to change or take out the seeds for what we don’t want. Lord Krishna is fully in support of this kind of aspiration. # Class 4 **9) Arjuna (in verses XI.41-42) backpedals furiously when he finally figures out who his chariot driver “really” is. Why did we put quotation marks around the “really” in that last sentence, and how does it relate to the idea of “ground zero” in Step Three of creating a full path of seeds?** As we have already learned, everything and everybody that we ever experience in our life is coming from us—as much as a pen is coming from the human, and a chew toy from the dog. It’s a very radical, but completely true, idea to comprehend that Lord Krishna really was just a regular guy driving Arjuna’s chariot until Arjuna had come to the holiest ideas on the planet. And then the incredible seeds for having these ideas suddenly cause him to see Lord Krishna as a divine being, and he has to apologize for ever treating him as normal when they were young buddies together.  We need to recognize the natural evolution that flows forth when a certain threshold number of people on the planet begin to understand how to fulfill all the wishes they ever had. Instead of scouring clubs and websites for the boyfriend I haven’t been able to find for the last 3 years, I begin to use this new idea, of a path of seeds. And so I take myself to a nursing home, and visit a lonely older person say once every two weeks, just for a few hours.  This plants seeds in me not to be lonely: it plants, without fail, the seeds for a nice new boyfriend to show up in my own life. The two of us go out with my friends, and they are flabbergasted to see this beautiful man by my side.  “How did you get him? Which club? Which website?” they ask.  “Neither one—it was at the nursing home,” you reply; and of course that takes some explaining.  Then they get inspired to try the same thing, and so they get their own beautiful partner, and then their friends start asking them how they did it. You are setting off a chain-reaction: Step Three (which is actually doing something to help the person you’ve been plotting to help) can be a visit with a lonely person at a nursing home or at Starbucks, but it works infinitely better if during the actual helping you hold your mind on being the start of a revolution that could sweep the whole world.  I am not just helping one lonely old lady. If this whole path of seeds thing works, and I finally discover the true way to get a nice boyfriend, then my one example could cause a huge wave of happiness to spread across the entire globe, as everyone else begins making visits to old ladies. Not to mention how excited the old ladies will be—the nursing homes will probably be handing out tickets with numbers on them, to book an appointment with one of these grand dames—like they do for ice cream at 31 Flavors. ==**10) What does Lord Krishna really mean, from the Starbucks point of view, when he says that we can “go ahead and do whatever we want to do (XVIII.63)”?** Obviously Lord Krishna doesn’t mean that we can go ahead and rob a bank, or commit adultery with our neighbor’s husband—even though we might want some money, or some attention.  But he is giving us complete license to dream whatever we want to dream. Most of us don’t dream enough. We come to class, and the teacher asks us to write down what we want most in our lives, and we don’t really take the exercise seriously. Strangely, the students in the class who have heard for the longest time about this new view of the world seem to have the most anemic hopes—they don’t honestly sit down and really consider seriously some grand and glorious dream that has always bubbled just below the surface.  There is nothing that we can’t make happen if we learn how to create a complete path of seeds with the Four Steps. You are empowered, you are allowed. “Go ahead and do whatever you want to do.” # Class 5 **11) We have reached the final component of our path of seeds—Step Four, which is called “coffee meditation.” A big part of this meditation is involved with the Sanskrit idea of santosha (aka santushta), or contentment, which Lord Krishna prescribes for us yogis at XII.14. Describe a coffee meditation for someone who is looking for a good partner, and “rate” its importance in upgrading a simple action to a path of seeds, especially with people who are already nice people.** It’s very common, when discussing seeds with people, to hear friends say: “I don’t believe in this seeds thing. My uncle is really nice, really generous—he gives money to people all the time—and he’s just got more and more broke.” That is, we know lots of people who are nice and who seem to be planting the right seeds, but just don’t seem to be getting the promised results.  Here again we have to distinguish between someone doing a simple action, and someone who knows how to create a complete path of seeds. If your uncle is generous and helps many different people financially, this is a good seed—and it will inevitably, eventually, bring him prosperity.  The trick though is the eventually part. Seeds in the mind can take a very long time to sprout up into our conscious mind, and thus into our real life, Remember that we create thousands of seeds every minute—regardless of what we’re doing, good or bad—and any new seeds that we create from simple actions are going to have to stand in a very long line before they get to become the next few days of our life.  If we know how to create a path of seeds, though, this pushes new seeds to the front of the line. A path of seeds of course has four steps, and the step that most people are missing is the fourth: coffee meditation. Why do we call it coffee meditation?  Suppose we are looking for a nice partner, and we’ve already finished with the first three steps: (1) we wrote down in a clear simple sentence what we wanted in our life; (2) we spent some serious time identifying someone else who seeks the same thing, and planning how to help them to get it; and (3) we actually took them out to Starbucks to talk and make suggestions that would bring them this help.  Now it’s time for coffee meditation. Come home from work, make yourself a little supper, then clean up and take your bath. Watch a little TV if you have to. Change into your nightclothes, start to wind down for bed—maybe make yourself a little herbal tea (coffee is the name of the meditation, but it’s not great for sleeping).  Sit on your bed and run your mind back over the day. Now, when we’ve had a long day and it’s late, our minds are very vulnerable. This can be a bad thing when we start to have doubts or fears about the day and our life in general. Tired moments are often the moments when we’re most likely to go over in our mind something unkind that someone said to us during the day.  With coffee meditation, we consciously turn this process around. Rather than thinking about the negative things that happened during the day, we grab our mind and force it to turn around and look at the sweet things.  Most importantly, we carefully review the steps we’ve taken today towards our dream. Early in the day I brought to mind the lonely person I had chosen to help; and in the afternoon, I took them to Starbucks and listened to stories of their exploits as a young person. I gave them companionship.  More importantly, I was flowing with the Tao: I was acting in harmony with the way the universe really works. Rather than scouring the clubs or websites for a partner, I was taking the one action that always produces a partner: I was providing companionship to a lonely person.  Every moment that we spend thinking about every single detail of the trip to Starbucks is coffee meditation. You don’t cross your legs into a lotus posture, and it’s probably better that you don’t even keep your back straight: lean back on the headboard of the bed if you like, on some big fluffy pillows, and gaze up towards the ceiling without particularly focusing your eyes on anything—like you were having a nice daydream about your partner after that first date (which is coming).  Remember that we plant 65 new seeds every second, really running through our minds the scene at Starbucks, the smile on our elderly friend’s face. And the mind is particularly open as we fall off to sleep: try to keep up this review of all the nice things you did today, even as you lower your head to the pillow. The mind is flooded with new seeds, which will ripen quickly and powerfully. You will also always sleep sweetly and soundly, and wake completely refreshed.