<iframe src="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lAxDyIKsGDEEIA27d0NBZ2ctsXfa4_zB/preview" width="100%" height="80" allow="autoplay"></iframe> How's it going Tracy? Good, how are you Earl? Good. Good. Did you have a good day? Yeah, I went to the Rubin Museum. It was a nice... The Rubin Museum? What's that? It's got a lot of... well i don't know if it always is but it's got a lot of buddhist um stuff it's just a buddhist museum nice i don't think i've ever been to one it's cool when the world gets back to normal one day i'll put it on my bucket list to go check it out yeah it's well curated and translated and explained wow so did you go through like with a tour like somebody who's gonna or you you can just go through on your own you can just go through on your own and I think there's probably headset things or ways to tune in and get more info nice how was your I don't know how to say Pratyahara without like like did you have any senses around certain artifacts or anything like did you have any experiences where you had like different sensations or anything no i'd like to try to read the tibetan and figure out who they were the images of they're looking to one of the exhibits they're creating which isn't done yet is something that's more sensation sensory oriented yeah i can experience yeah um but the you know it was mostly just statues and tankas and oh wow yeah nice nice i'm amazed that they're open so everything's kind of back to normal there like It's not so much lockdown now. It hasn't been for a long time. To wear a mask, sometimes they're limiting the amount of people on the floor. It's like a five-floor thing. I think restaurants are all back to, I don't know if they're limiting occupancy or not. Yeah. Nice. We've been full swing for a long time, too. Oh, really? Yeah. We were locked down right from the get-go and then we haven't been since. So it's province by province because I know some provinces are pretty dang long. Ontario has been in lockdown for a long time. And I think maybe Alberta parts of it. It's so unique, province to province. I know there's still lots of restrictions in BC. I know everybody's moving here from BC and Alberta and Ontario because houses don't last more than a few hours and they're sold. Everybody wants to move here now. Finally, people are like, I want to move to New Brunswick. Yeah. Yeah, I heard it's crazy on the West Coast all over again. Yeah, it's kind of sad, but hopefully things will shift sooner or later. You're in New York, like great New York City? Brooklyn. Brooklyn. Wow. Are you like American partially? Yeah, I'm both. Newel citizen. Okay, nice. So that gives you the option. Flip flop. Nice. It's good. Yeah, that's good. Do you ever go and do stuff at Three Jewels? Yeah. They have a online platform. So I teach once a week online. I teach once a week in person. and then I just signed on to teach ACI 10, 11, 12. Nice. And I teach as part of their yoga teacher training. I teach a little bit of like one class of that, one class in the meditation teacher training. Oh, nice. And then do you have stuff on your own that you do as well or mostly through the student? Through YSI, through them. That keeps me busy enough. nice oh that's awesome yeah where is everybody guess you Michael Rocha always said don't ever be late so I have that it's almost like gazoo shows up in the it's like don't be late we hounded that in one retreat that I went to so now I always feel like I have to be early hello how are you guys long time no see i know how did you get a nap today of course not i have two kids what is an app what does an app mean i thought you might ship them out or something no it's impossible crazy i had a meeting with china at 2 a.m my time yesterday and i went to bed almost at four then we're in yoga sutra so yeah when you have children you don't rest right right Lydia well my children are teenagers so you rest a lot because they sleep but until you wake them up well my my uh youngest is five so it's like 10 more years or something I don't know it's fun but i know what you're talking about yes definitely but i will inspire you that you will get to sleep a lot afterwards there's light at the end of the tunnel yes there is look like we were at um like amber right when we were there like recording like the videos and stuff and it was like winter and then bob was like you must be exhausted we worked so much and i was like no it was a vacation like what do you mean i mean worked all day long but there were no kids so it was all fine there were no kids there was five adults to cook food wash dishes like be courteous like no it was it was a total like vacation and you didn't have the mantra mom mom mom totally I like John Campbell's description of Aparigraha today. Grabbing this. I wasn't there. What did he say? He was talking about that it seems to be so innate when we're super young just to grab things. Like it's mine. I want it. Like little kids, they're just like, And we have to learn how to share and not just grab whatever we want. It's like this inborn thing of like a parigraha. We just go around and grab the stuff we want. And it's funny because yesterday I was with a friend and her baby is like 10 months old. She's starting to taste things and, you know, to eat lots of stuff. And she was eating something and we took it away from her. And it was like, you know, like all the despair in her look. like it's mine you cannot take it away from me and i just saw it i was like it is here you know like that part where you you cling into things and you want them to be yours and you totally fight for them yeah i just want to say i work with kids out in the woods and they have nothing except for like what's in their backpack and as soon as like you start to like they start to collect rocks and they start to grab onto things that they find in the woods. And if you ever try to take their rock collection, it's just like it is the end of the world. That possessiveness goes to just anything. That's so interesting. We'll give it a couple more minutes and then what I'd like to do is just do a quick review of the three verses that we covered. And then Lydia and I will kind of lead us back down the road the Geshe-la started us on and looking to, like what's the vow of killing mean for us? I thought that was such a great example. Like we're not gonna go stab people, you know, rip their faces off, but we'll text on the phone. And that's the, like real life examples that are relevant. So that's the plan. So maybe we'll start. Can you put up verse, what verse? Maybe verse 29. We'll do 29, 30, and 31 just to get oriented. I totally can. Just one second. Let me get there. All right, here we go. We'll start with the eight limbs. The way it's broken down will be verse 28 first. So, Gisela, okay, verse 28 we talked about yesterday. He did cover these verses fairly well, so we don't need to go too much in depth, I don't think. But we started talking about verse 29, where he just gives the names of the eight limbs. So, this is very Patanjali. He'll give the names of the eight limbs, and then one by one he'll define them. And one of the commentators, or a lot of the commentators will say, oftentimes they're in order. Like, a vidya is the worst affliction. It's the worst klesha. It comes first. Yama is the most important. It's the most important one because it comes first. I don't think that's exclusively true, but I think it's interesting to look at. ahinsa is the most important of the yamas because it comes first. So as we go through the text, we could see if we agree with that assessment, is the first word in his list? And it happens constantly in this text because he's so short and he's so concise. He's just like, here's the topic, here's the words, see you later, without a lot of commentary on them. So that's something to keep in mind as we go through the text. Is the first word the most important. You know, the eight limbs are a little bit different, perhaps, because we could look at it, is it a progression? You know, do they go in order? Is it a practice order? And that's another interesting discussion. But let's move on to verse 30. And here he's saying, now he's going to give the list of the yamas. So he's defining the first of the eight limbs, and he's giving the names Ahinsa Satya Steya. So that different forms of self-control, self-control being the yamas, are avoiding harm to anyone, Ahinsa. And you can see here, Ahinsa he put with the N instead of the M that has the prenasal, right? So when we have the diacritics, this would be an M as in Mary with a dot. And that's the correct Sanskrit equivalent letters. But here he's not using diacritics. So he's just using the sounds. And so it sounds more like an N as in Nancy than an M as in Mary. Does that make sense? Or is that interesting? Okay. I was wondering, so thanks for clarifying. Cool. So when you see a M with a dot, that's the diacritics. If there's no M and it's just the N, it's the pronunciation. and then we get to the rest of verse 30 so he's still defining yama keeping sexual purity brahmacharya and overcoming grabby grabby grabbiness aparigraha and then he gets into this verse that he talked a lot about which i think is one of the most important verses it's so cool and that was the one i just wanted to review and then we can kind of have more of a discussion about it so jati is place or class like in india like if you were a warrior or a business person or a priest time. So that's also jati. It's your occup... could be your occupation. It could be your... where you're... like the type of birth also is jati. Desha is... is the place. It's the country of origin. Kala is time. So historical time. An Anavachina, sorry, Samaya is circumstance, like your circumstance in life, or Geshe-la translates it as creeds and convictions. An Anavachina, it means it's not conditioned by, it's not limited by these things. Sarva is each, And bauma, it means like earth, like everywhere in the planet. Geshe-la translates it at more like bumi, like your spiritual, like the ten bumis, meaning more like your spiritual development. He said it doesn't matter where you are at in your spiritual development. Other translators take it to be bauma means earth or place, like anywhere on earth. And then maha is great and vrata is vau. So the great vow is sarva bauma. It applies everywhere on the planet. And Patanjali could just stop there. Like he's kind of said it. It's like it applies everywhere. But then you can just see all of the minds that want to create their own exception for it. Well, what about my exception? What about my exception? You know, I'm, what about this special case? What about that special case? And, and what's cool about this verse is he's just so blunt about eliminating every single objection your mind comes up with. So he doesn't just stop at, hey, look, this applies everywhere. It's like, this applies no matter, no matter your type of birth. And if, So when we think about what would the objections have been in his time, it'd be like, well, what if you're a priest and your job, your responsibility is to perform the animal sacrifices? Or if you're a warrior and you're expected to go to war or, you know, time, kala, like there was religious ceremonies where on that ceremony, there'd be a big turkey dinner or, you know, another ritual. ceremony that involved fire ceremony or pujas or animal sacrifices for the seasons or something like that or their place there is times you could do certain things in the temple and not do anywhere else and so he's just saying he's one by one just saying no great vow means not it includes that it includes that it includes that it includes that and includes that it doesn't matter what your samaya is your circumstance doesn't matter that the restaurant you went into doesn't have vegetarian food that's not an exception and uh it's not an exception there's just it's universal and it applies to everybody equally everywhere and so this was a big deal at the you you can imagine at that time it's a big deal and this is arjuna's dilemma in the bhagavad-gita there's a there's a yoga in the bhagavad-gita called the yoga of despondency it's an actual yoga where he's just melting down it's like it's the yoga of melting down where he's the greatest warrior in the world and at the biggest battle of good versus evil he's expected to triumphant over the over the bad team and if if they lose the world's going to be taken over by a very very evil king and he's just having this meltdown because some people on the other side are his uncles, his relatives. And he just is melting down. He's talking to Krishna saying, if I kill people, I will create so much bad karma that I'll just have rebirth after rebirth in the most miserable circumstances. It's better that I just not fight. It's better that I just, it's better that I go off and be a yogi, is what he says. And Krishna kind of makes fun of him. He fun of him. Like you're supposed to be the greatest warrior. And this is his dilemma. Like, does he save the world or does he become a renunciate and be a yogi? And so the yoga tradition is very much what Patanjali is saying is he's giving this super hard line, hard line of what it is to be a yogi. He's like, there are no excuses ever. It doesn't matter if you're a fisherman it applies to you doesn't matter if that's your if that's what job you inherited from your parents or your caste it's like that's it so this the the yogic tradition has always been this very renunciate tradition this very extreme practice it's got this connotation of yoga as a extreme practice. So like a what's it called? Hatha yoga. It's like this drastic means like this drastic practice. And so it's this extreme form of asceticism where you're renouncing the family life you know many many interpretations of brahmacharya is celibacy and that's like this old school view of the life of a yogi was super hardcore so he's giving this hard line of yeah it's everywhere all the time that these vows apply to you. There's no excuses. And that's what makes them maharata. That's what makes them the great vow because they apply universally to everybody, everywhere, no excuses at all. Why are they the great vow? Because of all that. That's what makes them great. They're great because it's the universal laws that we must follow to be happy. There's no option. There's no there's no exceptions to the great vows because those are the laws of the universe and that's what makes them great so it's a cool verse it's very powerful and it's very representative of what the idea of yoga really means in that in this context of It's an extreme practice to be a yogi is kick ass. It's hardcore. There's no messing around. It's like, yeah, it's extreme. It's an extreme form of practice. To be a yogi is an extreme form of practice. So yeah, go ahead. I'm wondering like, like where the balance is and I'm not seeking, um, exception, but I'm wondering where balance is. Cause at some point in my life, like I wanted to take on that path. And so I started to only eat foods that were readily given usually by plants. So, um, eventually it leads to like I only eat fruit right because it's something that's given by a tree and I don't have to even like if you eat a carrot you kill the carrot and so you have these traditions that take on the idea of like uh protecting life to I don't want to say it's an extreme because in in some way um it makes sense to my heart you know that we don't we we they won't even eat things that have seeds in them you know so is there a balance and does that balance point keep shifting as we go down the path I guess that's my question Flavie, what do you think? I was a raw foodie for like six years, only ate fruits. And I don't know, little things. So I don't know. I keep looking for that balance. Sarah what's your thoughts um you can see the wheels churning in my head I mean um I think you have to you know every every body is different and has different needs at different times in your life um you know and I I think you know for example if you are a woman and you are thinking about starting a family you probably have to eat differently than if you're not doing that. So that comes to mind. And I like what you said, Benji, about what feels good in your heart because I think that's, if we can all get to that place where we're eating in a way to nourish ourselves and what feels good in our own heart, then um but not to say that that's easy because i think our culture is uh we have such a disconnect with what we put into our mouths and what we think is food but um but that could be the goal um yeah that's just my initial thoughts yeah i think it's you know what dulcie is saying like when you go to the garden i don't know how many people hear like the garden but eventually you get to the point where like i have to weed this garden you know there are things that which i don't want here or that are inhibiting the growth of the thing that i quote unquote need or there's pests that are attacking the thing that i want and then trying to come up with the ways that are less invasive and less harmful i mean yeah dandelions too but then we get into the conversation of invasive plants which you know I could talk about for a while but um and I think it's about becoming more skillful having more skillful means essentially even as a gardener and saying okay like how do I manage a system that in a natural way I don't have to deal with the weeds something I have too many weeds is that I don't have enough chicken, you know? And so, yeah. I guess one thing that I found is that if I'm getting too obsessed, if I'm thinking too much time on that, that went wrong. Because I'm supposed to be doing something more important than thinking if I'm going to eat mangoes or rice. Like it's, and with the gardening, I think it's, maybe you need to think more about it because you need to touch the plants and the dirt and there are a lot of little beings there. It's hard, but with food, I guess I'm a cook, So I spend a lot of time thinking about food. And I guess in my experience, I got a little obsessed and I saw many people getting obsessed. And we are supposed to be doing something more important, like talking about this or studying, translating, doing something else that thinking between mango and rice. I think that's a good point. I also was thinking like, I mean, I recently had an experience where, and Geshe Michael was saying this today, like, oh, everybody said like, how are you going to get enough protein if you stop eating meat? And I've heard that so many times too. People say, oh, how are you going to get the protein? And I was like on the train of like, I'm going to have enough protein. This is fine. But actually, I wasn't eating enough protein. I, you know, I just, I wasn't, I was eating a lot of rice and vegetables and, you know, everything that looks very healthy and good, but I was also eating a lot of chocolate and, and I changed my diet a few months ago just to be very conscious about adding more plant protein. And I feel so much better. I feel so much more satisfied. I don't want to go too much off on the tangent, but that just speaking to the, um, listening to what's good for your body and what's personal to you, you know, what works well for you, I think is really important rather than just following what you think, um, you know, is what you're supposed to be doing. So. So is Patanjali being too extreme? Like, can we take this hardest stance if we were to present this material? Like, do we need to soften it or what's the, what do we do? Because he's pretty clear. Yeah, I think about the word harm versus medicine. I wonder if our seeds are creating our reality, are there times in which eating meat is a medicine? And then it doesn't come to you through violence. And then in that way, it is serving your path. I don't know. I'm just so looking forward to lab meat though. It's going to be so much easier. Just grown from some sort of chromosome and perpetuated forever in the labs. I don't know it's so weird I mean I'm kind of adult I don't know I feel like the times I've spoken to native people who would say well the deer are the fruit of the forest and are given to us you know as our brother and this is the flesh of our brother and we give thanks and this is our offering to our brother and this is a way for them to live through us And so it's not really harmful. And so then the conversation becomes about the word harm, you know, and being violent versus being ceremonial, intentional. I also think that I was once talking with a person that was very like obsessed with food and everything had to be raw and really raw and just heating and not boiling. And once I told this person, well, you have people like Mother Teresa or St. Francis of Assis and so many saints in the world that have done so much changes in the world and they were eating meat, perhaps. So to also remember that there is like the emptiness of what you eat. Don't let, I wouldn't teach that, but I get the road that perhaps getting so obsessed in that in so much time in you that you use that time, you can use that time more with more wisdom. Anatole told me once and Anatole is like really he has experience with food, let's say he said once that if you plant the perfect diet for you, this is relating with the protein search, if you plant the perfect diet for you then you are becoming an example for the whole world that is suffering because it doesn't have a healthy body connected to their food so you are like putting light in an issue that can save everybody's lives and because you have to do that with seeds you cannot plant your perfect diet just with raw food or whatever you need to make it with wisdom and and seeds but i guess if you make your diet perfect because you want to help everybody maybe that's a nice way of using it in a good way and not in the selfish obsessive addictive way So what's the seeds for planting a perfect diet? That was my question. Feeding others this healthy diet, some healthy diet. yeah I would totally agree with that I would say I mean just like as a mom I think about how many meals I prepare and the fact that I do get to have all these opportunities to to plant good seeds where I can teach my kids to respect life and that's why we make certain food choices and you know just behind every meal be able to serve someone else and I think that can plant the seeds for, you know, to have the abundant healthy choices that we have. Or when we have guests to cook very healthy for them. But what's healthy for one person could be different and not healthy for another person. Some people have allergies, some people have intolerances or, you know, don't digest certain foods as well. So it becomes, it's like, are we giving the person what they want to eat? Or I guess, you know, trying to find out what is healthy for that person and giving it to them. Seems to make sense. I was just thinking out loud. I think sometimes when we ask these questions, we can get down to the most obscure, crazy example as the objection to the rule. you know like like somebody asked the Dalai Lama what if somebody was about to press the bomb and you had a gun would you shoot them he's like I don't know you know like I'll let you know when that happens and we we kind of find like the the hardest example that's so obscure and and not necessarily relevant and that's what I really liked about Geshe-la's approach today was what are the blind spots that we might have that are really common and could be more obvious and so I thought it'd be cool if we if we revisited that that list and because he didn't go through the whole thing he went through Ahinsa Satya Lydia do you remember oh he went through a stay yet so do you want to do you want to take us through the you want to review the first couple and then we can kind of put our brains together as far as the last two or add on to the first first three also yeah sure okay um all right one sec here i'm helping others while i'm helping you guys. Okay. And just, uh, I'll, I'll share. We, we have one of my children on the phone. So it's kind of special. So she's on the call. She's shy, but she's here. Okay. So the first one that Geshehla talked about was, um, Ahinza and the way he put it into a positive was to protect life, to honor life and to respect life. Did you want me to go into the blind spots too or just say how it's like phrased in a positive? Let's do a brief review of the blind spots just so we get the sense of where to go with the other ones. Okay, perfect. So then he talked about, we don't need to necessarily tell our audience about the hugest, most obvious thing. And what he said that people are doing nowadays people can maybe identify with is texting while you drive in the United States, at least maybe in other countries, abortion, maybe killing a fetus. And the other one that he mentioned was protecting animals, protecting animals lives. So those are ways that we could get people to identify where they're not respecting life, maybe like, kind of like an avenue where they can like jump in instead of just saying, I don't kill anyone. I'm good. And then for Satya, he said that that was being truthful. And I really liked the definition of this that he gives is about the matching impressions. Like is what I'm saying going to match the impression that's really happening, you know, or, you know, the most truthful version. Cause a lot of times, you know, if we omit details or if we add and embellish extra things, then that might not match the picture. So I think that that's, that's a, a very, very cool way to, to talk about that one. Um, and then he went on to number three, which is a stagia or stealing. Now, um, in this one, I would like us to come back to it and figure out how we can say it positively because we just talked about stealing in the, in the three ways that he mentioned that was that it's really easy take from work? Either you're making a call at work or you're taking some pencils from work or, you know, instead of the five minute break, you took a 10 minute break or, you know, et cetera, et cetera. Right. Like where are we taking away from, from our workplace? And the other one was public areas, maybe like parks or restrooms. Like what are we doing when we're out and about in public where we feel like, oh, it's not my responsibility. This isn't my forest. I don't have to take care of it. Or, you know, the bathrooms were, I think anybody can relate to going into a public bathroom and being like, oh my gosh, this is not like cool. I, this is not how my bathroom at home is. Well, how did it get there? Right. Because other people didn't take care of it. They didn't treat it as if it was their bathroom at home. Um, so then the next one was, and I think this is really, I guess, dear to me, like thinking of future generations, how can we, you know, not use that one, one use plastic stuff? How can we preserve oil and oxygen and trees? And how can we create a beautiful environment, not even just for our kids, but for their kids and their kids? You know, I think I've heard in a lot of, you know, native traditions, native peoples, they talk about thinking about seven generations ahead. You know, imagine if we lived our life thinking about seven generations ahead, what decisions we would make, how would we, you know, treat each other? How would we treat the resources that we have? So the next one is Brahmacharya, where, you know, Gisela said, don't mess with other people's relationships. If you're in a relationship, act as if your partner with you or if someone else is in a relationship, act as if their partner was with them, right? Like don't do anything that you wouldn't do if the other person wasn't there. And also he talked about defining the terms, like define the terms in your relationship clearly. So that way you don't have some sort of misunderstanding where it's like, oh, I thought, but no, it wasn't. And you know, what have you. So avoiding those gray areas. And then the last one we talked about today was which is the don't be overly grabby you know and and he talked about three things that I guess are related we can maybe go into the text I'm not sure if I know master potentially doesn't say it but we can decide how how connected it is one is don't be happy excuse me don't be unhappy when someone else gets something that they want like don't be envious because the other you know the other person in yoga class is able to do the, you know, super cool pose that you can't do. And then the opposite would be being happy if someone fails, if someone has a misfortune, you know, in the United States, we had a political figure that many people didn't like. And if, you know, something bad happened to that person, it's kind of like, oh, he deserves it. No, slow down. Like, don't be happy because somebody else failed. I'll be happy because somebody else, you know, has, has a bad consequence. And then the third thing was just really having wrong views. If we forget, or we're not believing in seeds and mental impressions that we can, that are in our minds. And then if we don't think about, we don't believe in past and future lives, then like this whole foundation kind of falls apart. If I'm not thinking about what's going to happen to me in the future and how I got here from the past, then what's the point? Like, why would I be planting good seeds if I don't think I'm going to have a future life to enjoy them? So that's the review of what we have. I would love to hear from you guys other blind spots. Something that personally, I would love to know how we could say something in a positive way for Asteya, Brahmacharya, and Akarigraha. Because I thought it was cool that Gisela encouraged us to say, you know, protect life, be truthful. Because that's so much more positive than don't lie. So what do you guys think? well the not stealing is just like respecting other people's property all the time like even when you go to somebody else's house how you're using their things and and if you're asking um to take something right like sometimes you have stuff that is just lying there and it's just very easy for you to use it because it's there and it's your friend but you don't even consider asking if it's okay to take it. So just respecting things in general and thinking it's somebody else's and you would really like to know if somebody wants to use it or not. I mean, obviously you would let them use it, but just that single thought of being considerate about other people's belongings, I think that's a way of the opposite of not stealing, right? And I like what you said to Lydia about the public areas like washrooms. And so leave it as though you've never been there. Like it's perfectly clean any area that you come in, because if you don't, then it could be a divine angel coming next and you don't know who's going to be there and you're going to steal their time. So if somebody else has to clean up, then you're stealing their time. We've been doing the yoga financial abundance course, and there's a group of people taking the course in Eastern Europe. and I've found it interesting we've been talking a lot about taxes as far as stealing and not so much that they you know that's an issue for everybody I think in a lot of cultures about how much can we interpret the tax rules to our benefit before we're cheating but a lot of the questions came up about supporting businesses that we thought were appropriate that weren't harmful to the environment that treated their employees right and a lot of them were like what do I do about a business that I know isn't paying their taxes and I thought that was an interesting thing like do we have a responsibility to not support a business if we know they're not going to pay taxes on it like does that mean that we shouldn't tape tip a weight person because 90% of them don't pay taxes on their tip. I would say unless you are some economic police or police for whatever, it's not your job. It's like a spur. I mean, we are studying here now. This is from Hindus, right? So per Vedanta, Your responsibility is as long, I mean, practically do the so-called mean things like, you know, catching somebody or calling component police or something. Only as long as it's your responsibility or when you are protecting something, I mean, some life. But even at your job, you know, for example, the biggest question is when you are in a corporate world and you have to lie, you have to do a lot of things. And so we were asking, you know, the monk, and he said, don't overdo it as long as it's your job to lie. Like, let's say, for example, you do advertisement and you are consciously creating a motto that is lying, you know. But that's what the job expects from you and the boss expects from you. And you are paid for that. And then you have kids home. So practically your responsibility for your family and the kids is a little bit higher than the fact that the job is lying. You know, I mean, the perfect way would be quitting the job and, you know, going into the cave and be a monk. But we need to choose. So when you're choosing your family and feeding your kids is more important than putting on the risk your job and arguing with your boss that I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to create this motto or something like that. So that's what we were taught. I don't know. I tend to agree with that. Seems like a good explanation. I remember somebody asked Kish and Michael about they were serving alcohol as their job and what to do because of what Kishenya was saying and it's a tough thing and he said yeah it is it is a problem and you are creating a seed and gracefully appropriately in the right time frame, find a new line of work. And I thought that was really great advice. We can't just throw our hands up and say, well, hey, you know, the family is a more important thing. And it is true. But to continue and not try to get out of an immoral situation, I think there should be some responsibility that we have to like, this ain't great. And I'm stuck right now, but I need to kind of get out. So I really appreciated that advice. Angelica has her hand out I don't know maybe she wanted to say something yes I would like to add a few things first of all I think it's important our intention what we do and it's also So, for example, if I take care of, if I ask other people about using their things or taking care of their things, I also have to take care of my own belongings. Because there were people who produced it and they gave their precious time. And if I make sure that this is, if I throw my checkered away, I'm not appreciating what other people have done for me. So this is also being a kind of generosity. And the other thing just Earl said about alcohol, I'm in the position I'm serving alcohol, but I changed it. It happens that I hardly serve alcohol, but if I do have to serve a glass of wine, then in this moment I pass it on to the passenger. I always say it should be this kind of liquid you need to heal. So then it happened in my life that I have hardly passengers who ask for alcohol. So I didn't have to change my position. I didn't have to quit my job, but I changed the situation. um I'll I'll I would like to share Sasha's a little shy she doesn't want to share her response but I will share it for her she says that it seems like we should just treat others the way that we want to be treated because that way, you know, when we're not here anymore, the people around us, our kids, our grandkids will, you know, have that memory and that impression that, you know, I was taught better and I should treat others how I want to be treated, including the, you know, the people, the animals and the environment. Right, Sash? May I ask something in connection to this discussion? What is your opinion about, let's say, soldiers who are defending their region or country? I mean, it's like their job. And they have to kill. Like, attackers are coming. And they are defending the territory and the people who are belonging to their country. women, kids, everything. I mean, belongings, land. It's also a job. And I don't mean now with the political games and everything. I mean a real case, let's take it, I don't know, 5,000 years ago when some savages were attacking somebody's property, killing wives, I don't know, kids. I think that's extremely difficult. It's like the Dalai Lama question. I think it's extremely difficult. And I think one of the things that happens is we ask that question as it's already too late. Like we don't have a good choice at that time. And to reframe it as, hey, I'm duka monagatam. Like, let's make sure that we're acting non-violently so that we don't get in that situation. Because then when we're in that situation, I'm not sure that there is a good answer. And it's a matter of dealing with two bad choices at that time. You know, someone's going to get hurt either way. I'm not sure there's a great right decision to be made at that time or like an answer that we can definitively point to like would it be wrong for Arjuna to say no I'm just going to go be a yogi or was it wrong for him to say no I have to go into the battle and I don't know if I don't know if you can ever come to a conclusion of right or wrong what you know what should Arjuna to do he should have been non-violent before that and never got into that into that situation but life isn't that easy and i would say also we are coming with some karma right and we need to deal with some very difficult things and choices because that's the point of the soul going through for this incarnation right And sometimes these challenges are purposely there. I mean, sometimes most of all of them are on our way in order to overcome that and do some choices and practically get through the exam of the reincarnation. On the positive idea about how to, how not to steal. if you give somebody something they are supposed to give it back but they are not giving it back maybe you can give it away you can make it as they don't steal it they don't misuse it it happens and instead of saying this is my thing and they should like give it back or whatever you can give it like as a gift. And with the waitress, I think it's a gift also. Gifts are gifts, are not payment. In Mexico, it's illegal, but in United States, it's legal to give gifts, money gifts. I remember learning about, is it the perfection of giving or it's, I don't remember the term, but it's remembering the emptiness of the giver and the receiver. there's three things, the emptiness of the act of the giving, the person giving, and the, you know, the being that is giving and the being that's receiving the gift. Do you guys know what I'm talking about? You probably know more than me. It just makes me think of like going back to the waitress and the question of if the company isn't going to pay the taxes, should I not tip the the person serving me the food and also just like does it matter what the person does with that money if that person uses that money for bad things you always go back to the emptiness of the the giver and the gift and the person receiving is that right I'm trying to ask a question yeah Yeah, I wrote it in the chat. I think you explained it, right? Yeah. And I think that's a great way to fall back. I don't know if it always mitigates all of the problems, but it's certainly a way that they talk about planting the seed in a much more powerful way. in the yoga philosophy, in samkhya and yoga, traditionally, I'm going to go off on a tangent here, but the way to kaivalya is by getting out of karma. Both in Buddhism and Hinduism, karma has a negative connotation. It keeps us bound in samsara. And the way to be free of that is to see the emptiness of the of the giver in this case the emptiness of the person so if i give a gift with a realization that there's no self then that karma can't come back on me because there is no sense of a me that did the act of giving and that's their view on how to get out of samsara is stop creating karma and you do that by understanding the emptiness of the person there's no if there's no person doing the deed how can there be a result ripening on that person and then through wearing out all of our seeds we end up with that that purity at the center of the onion that we talked about that sata chit ananda that blissful perception of ultimate reality it's not created it's there and we get there by eliminating all of our negative karma So in both systems, that idea of understanding the emptiness of the three spheres is super important. Just a slightly different take on it. Dulce? Hey, so I wanted to bring up what Sasha shared, which is you are not doing harm, you are risking yourself for others lives. And to bring in nuance around when someone, especially if they had the wisdom and knowledge of, oh, this could cause karma, but they feel called to protect some people. And in doing so, they would have to commit some violence. I think that that's really interesting and important to consider. So thank you, Sasha, for that smart comment, thoughtful comment. You're welcome. That really, it's just that you're putting yourself at risk for other people's well-beings. That way they don't get harmed. You're risking yourself for their well-being. - That's a great point too. Any last thoughts? We've skillfully avoided brahmacharya any sticking points about that that's a relief um any last comments before uh we sign off for the night um i don't know i guess just kind of in closing to like bring it to like a positive thing i think it's just super awesome and i would like to honor that all of us are even exploring where is the line? Like what, how can my food choices, my work choices, my life choices, how, how can I be helping the most? So whether we really came to, you know, hard conclusions on anything or not, I just kind of want to honor the fact that we're thinking, you know, where does, where is the line and how can I approach like the best good? So I just kind of want to applaud all of us for even being here and thinking about it. May I share also about all these like rules you know we are supposed to obey? At the beginning of my studies of Vedanta at that time it was a long time ago I had this dilemma I was like okay but I can't do all that because I'm living in a world where it's hard to follow everything you know I mean even if you try hard and stuff plus maybe I'm not strong enough to do everything even if let's say it would be possible maybe i don't have you know and i asked my teacher he's like does it even make sense for me to study all these things if i know i probably won't achieve the level and he told me of course because the idea is that actually he was a brahmin from india and he told me you from western world the christians you always have this dilemma i said why because you have this concept of sinner or non-sinner like the two extremes and in in such cases he said you choose you put a goal like you decide I'm gonna give up on meat or I'm gonna give up on whatever you know and then you try to to live with that and work with that I mean work it out and then with time maybe it becomes such a natural thing that you want to do a next step and all the time like that. The idea is that trying as much as you can, and it's already better than nothing. Cool. I want to hear more about who you studied with. That sounds great. We'll get a chance to go in depth on each of the yamas and niyamas, so there'll be more time to discuss some really interesting points about brahmacharya and the aspects of what that word means to different at different time periods and to different commentators so I think that one's super interesting and we will get a chance to keep diving into this subject for a little bit more but for now I really appreciate the time Sasha thank you so much for joining us and everybody else as well. And we'll be back more tomorrow morning, six o'clock Arizona world time, five o'clock Arizona world time. Who's teaching? Do you know? Oh, it's you. It's Paola with the asana. And then I'm going to do the meditation. Come, have fun. We're going to dance on the mat. that's the style what can we call it dance enough uh i uh you know i have a background in ballet and then the other day i was like i've been doing your classes and having fun i don't know if they're like challenging or not but i tend to laugh a lot when i'm doing my classes so i i just like to make them flowy and test yourself do something you so let's see what happens awesome thank you tomorrow see everybody tomorrow thank you bye