You need to sleep. You have somewhere to be, and the hours are running out, and so you try. You try to relax. You try to quiet your mind. And every attempt makes it worse, because the trying is the thing keeping you awake. Effort, here, is the enemy of what effort wants.

Sleep does not come when you seize it. It comes the moment you stop reaching, when you finally give up and let go, and something you were not doing does it for you.

Patanjali knew this shape. He has just spent three sutras on the road of effort, the striving toward stillness. Now he turns to the one knot effort cannot untie, and offers the only thing that can.

NOT MORE TRYING. SURRENDER.

Everything turns on the last word. Va. Or. Patanjali does not replace the road of effort. He sets a second road beside it and lets you choose.

And this second road answers a problem the first cannot. There is a point where effort turns on itself, where trying to still the mind becomes one more disturbance, the will thrashing to force a quiet it cannot force. You cannot grip your way to stillness.

This surrender is not escape, its not defeat, its not giving up. Its release.

The loosening of one particular grip, the grip of the small self that believes it is running everything. The “I” that plans and defends and insists on steering. Surrender sets that ego down.

What remains when it lets go is not weakness. It is the quiet that was always underneath the holding.

But surrender needs a direction. And here Patanjali defines what that something is.

WHAT YOU SURRENDER TO

You have met this awareness before, in a smaller form. The Knower within you. The one who watches the mind turn and is not itself the turning. Pure awareness, the Seer.

The Knower within you has observed and/ or interacted with your Field or Prakriti depending on your spiritual practice and evolution.

Ishvara is the Knower completely untouched by Prakriti or the Field in anyway.

Not a ruler above you. Not a maker of the world or a judge of it. That one awareness that was always free.

THE SOURCE OF ALL KNOWLEDGE

The seed here refers to the eternal source of knowledge; the origin and reservoir of absolute wisdom - infinite, flawless, and beyond comparison

For the spiritual aspirant, this sutra offers deep reassurance. By surrendering to Isvara, the ultimate source of all, one aligns with that infinite intelligence in its pure, unadulterated form. In such alignment, the practitioner becomes a channel through which divine wisdom flows effortlessly - transforming ignorance into clarity.

THE FIRST TEACHER

Knowledge does not wake itself. The seed of Knowledge within you, however complete, sits covered until something already awake calls it out. A Knower is roused only by a Knower. This is why there have always been teachers. No one lights the lamp alone.

But every teacher was lit by a teacher before them. Follow that line back and it cannot run forever. It rests, at last, on one Knower who was lit by no one, the awareness outside time, full from the start, in whom nothing was ever covered. The teacher the first teachers learned from.

True knowledge is thus unmarred by authors, books, names, scripts - it’s understood not via blind following, but via discernment. It is turning toward that first light, the free awareness every lineage traces back to, the Isvara.

Patanjali provides a tool for this reflection, this discernment.

THE PRIMORDIAL SOUND

The word in the sutra is pranava, the primordial sound, the one that never grows old however often it is spoken. A fitting name for the awareness outside time. The tradition knows it as Om.

Most names are assigned. Om is not like that. The bond between the sound and the awareness it names is not a label pinned on from outside. It is inherent, the way light belongs to flame. You do not decide that flame should give light. It simply does. Om is the sound that awareness makes.

And listen to how the sound is built. It moves through three, and then a fourth that is not a sound at all.

• A: Formed at the back of an open throat. The waking state

• U: Rolling forward through the mouth. The dream state

• M: Closing at the lips. Deep sleep, where even images fall away.

• And then: The humming ends - the silence remains after

That silence is the fourth. The pure awareness beneath waking, dreaming, and sleep. The Knower that was there through all three and touched by none of them.

So Om is not a syllable you recite. It is the whole of experience, sounded and then released into the awareness underneath it. The three states, moving into the fourth - Turiya - and the one who witnesses them.

THE PRACTICE OF SURRENDER

Repetition alone is not the practice. You repeat the sound and you hold its meaning, reaching, as you sound it, toward the awareness it names. The sound without the meaning is noise. The meaning without the sound has nothing to hold.

And there is a reason repetition is asked for. The mind runs in grooves, the same latent tracks laid down by all you have done and thought, deepening each time they are used. Left alone, the old grooves run you, and they pull outward, toward the world and its wanting. Every repetition of Om, held with its meaning, brings one toward the free awareness instead of away from it. You are not chanting to fill the silence. You are wearing a path the mind can later follow home.

This is why Om was never meant to be a mere decoration at the start of a yoga class. Done with attention, it is this whole teaching folded into a single breath. A sound, and behind it, the turning toward what was never bound.

WHAT IT CLEARS

Two things follow, and there is an order to them.

The mind does not turn inward because it is told to. It spends its life reaching outward, pulled by everything bright and promised. What turns it is a taste. Somewhere in the practice it catches its first glimpse of the quiet that comes from within, and finds it steadier than anything the outer world was offering. Only then does it begin to want to turn. Awareness starts to flow inward, back toward its own source, because at last it would rather be there.

And the obstacles fall away, not by being fought, but by being starved. A mind fed from within stops lunging at every passing thing outside. The distractions that scattered it lose their pull.

And notice where it began. With trust. The small faith that there was something worth turning toward at all. The one who strives and the one who surrenders set out from the very same step.

THE WHOLE OF IT

Effort has a ceiling.

You loosen the grip of the small self. You turn toward the Knower that was never caught, the free form of the awareness already seeded in you. You hold it through a sound, and dwell on what the sound means. And slowly the mind turns inward, the obstacles thin, and the quiet you could not force arrives on its own.

Has there been an instance when letting go did more for you than holding on did? I would love to hear in the comments below.

This post stays free. If it gave you a moment of stillness or reflection, would appreciate a coffee or a matcha by way of thanks.

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REFERENCES

• Edwin F. Bryant, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: A New Edition, Translation, and Commentary

• Swami Satchidananda, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

• B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

• Rishikesh Yogkulam, Yoga Sutra 1.22 – Mrdu Madhya Adhimatratvat Tato’pi Visesah

• The Alchemy Yoga, Sutra 1.19

• Vallarta Breeze, Analysis of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras

• Vyāsa, The Yoga-darśana: The Sutras of Patañjali with the Bhāṣya of Vyāsa (trans. Ganganatha Jha)

• Yoga Pradipika, Sutra 1.26, 1.27, 1.28

• Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, Yoga Sutra 1.29 (Yoga International)

• Swami Vivekananda, Raja Yoga

• Aks Reflections, Introduction to the Yoga Sutras: A Timeless Manual for Mastering the Mind

• Aks Reflections, Who Is Reading This? Yoga Sutras 1.1 to 1.4

• Aks Reflections, THE FIVE TURNINGS OF THE MIND: YOGA SUTRAS 1.5 - 1.11

• Aks Reflections, YOU NEED BOTH HANDS: YOGA SUTRAS 1.12 - 1.16

• Aks Reflections, WHY YOUR BREAKTHROUGH DIDN’T HOLD: YOGA SUTRAS 1.17 - 1.18

• Aks Reflections, THE PACE TOWARDS STILLNESS

A language, maybe. A practice. A discipline you knew would take years. And in the beginning, there was nothing to show for it. No fluency, no calm, no proof. Only your conviction to keep going, and the quiet trust that this would add up to something.

That trust had no evidence. You could not see the summit. You could not even see the next bend. You simply believed the road went somewhere, and you took the step.

Patanjali knew that step. Arriving at the summit of stillness is a long climb. Some people, he says, are born already near the top. The rest of us walk. And the walking starts the same way it always has. Not with proof. With faith.

THE ONES WHO ARRIVE CLOSE TO THE SUMMIT

For some, the state of stillness comes by the very condition of their birth.

Patanjali begins with an exception. A few arrive at stillness without ever walking toward it, carried by the momentum of lives already lived. He names two kinds.

The videhas (the bodiless): Those who have loosened their grip on the body so completely that they rest in the subtle, knowing I have a body, but I am not it. Awareness, no longer anchored to flesh.

The prakriti-layas (those merged into nature): Sit by moving water and watch it long enough, and the mind begins to be pulled along its current. The thoughts thin. The body quiets. For a moment there is only the water, and you dissolving into it. That passing feeling is only a hint of direction. Hold that, deepen it, and it becomes a stillness the size of nature itself.

Traditional Interpretation:

Traditional commentators view this sutra as an acknowledgment of advanced beings who have achieved high levels of spiritual evolution. They emphasize the role of samskaras (latent impressions from past lives) which carry these beings into deep absorption but also remain as seeds that can draw them back

What frees you is not reaching the height. It’s burning what brings you back.

MOST OF US START AT BASE CAMP

Patanjali then turns to the rest of us born in the material world, and the climb we have ahead of us. This path has five stretches, and each one gives rise to the next.

Step 1: It begins with faith (shraddha): Not blind belief. A quiet trust that the path leads somewhere, enough to take the first step before you have any proof. Everything rests on this, because no one sustains a practice they secretly think is pointless.

Step 2: Faith releases energy (virya): When you truly trust the road goes somewhere, you find the will to walk it. The effort stops feeling like force and starts feeling like fuel. Trust is what unlocks it.

Step 3: Energy steadies into mindfulness (smriti): It’s the mind’s power to stay, to remember what it was doing and return there, again and again, without drifting. Sustained effort becomes steady attention.

Step 4: Mindfulness deepens into absorption (samadhi): Attention held long enough stops being effortful. The mind settles onto its object and rests there, gathered, quiet. The stillness of the last post, now arrived at by the road.

Step 5: Absorption ripens into wisdom (prajna): And out of that depth, something is seen. Not thought, not worked out, but directly known. The clear seeing that begins to loosen the seeds themselves.

This is a chain, not a checklist. Faith is what frees the energy. Energy is what steadies the attention. Each link forges the next. Miss the first and the rest never catch. This is why faith comes first, it is the small hinge the whole door swings on.

THE PACE TOWARDS STILLNESS

Having named the road, Patanjali turns to pace. And he says something quietly radical.

We tend to assume the summit belongs to the gifted. The naturally calm, the born contemplatives. Patanjali disagrees. The deciding factor is not talent. It is samvega, intensity, a burning eagerness to arrive.

Two people walk the same road. One strolls. The other walks with their whole heart. The road has not changed. Only the speed. Intensity shortens the road.

This sutra reminds us that even among sincere practitioners, differences naturally arise in the pace, depth, and outcome of spiritual growth. Patanjali gently acknowledges that progress in yoga is not a race but a reflection of one’s inner intensity and perseverance.

• Mild: Practice fits around life. A good week, and you show up. A hard one, and it is the first thing to go. The calm you find is real, but it keeps slipping, because nothing holds it in place. Progress comes, slowly, with long gaps.

• Moderate: Life makes room for practice. It has become a habit that survives a normal day. You return even when you would rather scroll, or sleep, or do anything else. Life still knocks you off course, but you find your way back faster each time. The change is gradual, and it holds.

• Intense: Practice becomes the thing life organises around. Not one item on the list, but the point the rest arranges itself near. Not grim, not forced, simply first. For this seeker the road is shortest, because they are always walking it.

There is no judgement in this, only a plain accounting. The road is the same for all three. What changes is how quickly it passes underfoot. And the level is not fixed. It is a dial, and you can turn it up the day you decide to.

THE WHOLE OF IT

Two kinds of stillness, and now two kinds of seekers.

Some are born already near the summit, carried there by a life they no longer remember walking. Everyone else walks. At a pace they decide.

The road is open to all. You are not held back by what you were born with, because the one thing that sets the pace is the one thing you control. How much of yourself you bring.

The road does not move. We do.

Whatever your practice towards grounding and stillness, what’s the one action or small step you can take to dial up the pace?

This post stays free. If it gave you a moment of stillness or reflection, would appreciate a coffee or a matcha by way of thanks.

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REFERENCES

• Edwin F. Bryant, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: A New Edition, Translation, and Commentary

• Swami Satchidananda, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

• B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

• Rishikesh Yogkulam, Yoga Sutra 1.22 – Mrdu Madhya Adhimatratvat Tato’pi Visesah

• The Alchemy Yoga, Sutra 1.19

• Vallarta Breeze, Analysis of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras

• Aks Reflections, Introduction to the Yoga Sutras: A Timeless Manual for Mastering the Mind

• Aks Reflections, Who Is Reading This? Yoga Sutras 1.1 to 1.4

• Aks Reflections, THE FIVE TURNINGS OF THE MIND: YOGA SUTRAS 1.5 - 1.11

• Aks Reflections, YOU NEED BOTH HANDS: YOGA SUTRAS 1.12 - 1.16

• Aks Reflections, WHY YOUR BREAKTHROUGH DIDN’T HOLD: YOGA SUTRAS 1.17 - 1.18

Ten days of silence, or a therapist’s room, or a bonfire in a forest far from home. Whatever it was, it worked. The knot loosened. You watched your own thoughts drift by like weather, and for the first time in years, none of them could touch you. You came home lighter. Certain, this time, that something had finally shifted for good.

Then one morning, the message arrives. A line from the one person who knows exactly where to press.

And before you have read it twice, the old reaction is already moving through you. The tight chest, the racing defence, the heat behind the eyes. Exactly as it always did. As if the six months never happened.

This is the puzzle Patanjali walks straight into. Stilling the mind was never one door you walk through once. It is a journey, floor by floor, and even the deepest floor is not yet the end. In sutras 1.17 and 1.18 Patanjali asks us to sit with the definition of Stillness itself.

THE STILLNESS WITHIN AN OBJECT

Patanjali calls the first kind samprajnata, absorption and focus that rests on an object. The mind has stopped scattering, gathered to a single point, and is resting on something - A flame. A breath. A word.

The focus on the object deepens across four stages (let’s use the example of a flame):

1. Reasoning (Vitarka): The mind rests on an object in its plain, solid form. The flame as a flame. The fire flickering, casting light, burning. Your mind is able to hold it, names it and places it.

2. Reflection (Vichara): The object grows subtler. Thought quiets to something closer to sensing. The visible flame gives way to what lies beneath it. Not the fire you see, but heat itself, the principle of burning, the energy behind the light. You are no longer with the flame, but with what makes it a flame.

3. Bliss (Ananda): Subtler still. The object thins almost to nothing, and what fills the stillness is a quiet joy, the sweetness of a mind gone clear. The flame is still there, but the mind doesn’t rest on it.

4. The sense of being (Asmita): The last and finest. Each feeling fades away, even bliss. What remains is only the bare sense I am. No flame, no idea, no feeling. Just the hum of existing, and awareness resting in it.

Notice the direction. From the solid to the subtle to the almost-nothing. At each step the object grows fainter and the stillness grows deeper. But something is always still held. Even at the very top, there is the faint sense of being someone who is absorbed. A seed remains.

THE STILLNESS BEYOND THE OBJECT

The second kind is asamprajnata - when even the last trails of the object are let go. What remains is a stillness resting on nothing at all. Patanjali simply calls it the other.

This does not come by holding on to focus but from higher letting go. From release rather than effort. You practise stillness so long that even the subtlest object is set down. What is left is not blankness but pure awareness, resting in itself.

BEYOND BOTH

The two stillnesses are one climb.

The first empties the mind of its noise, but keeps a single object, growing finer and finer until only the sense of being remains. The second releases even that, and rests on nothing. Neither is reached by force. Both come the same way the whole path comes: by showing up consistently, and by loosening the grip.

But even in the aware state of asamprajnata, something quiet remains. The latent impressions, the grooves of every past turning, still lie in the deep mind like seeds in winter soil. Nothing new is growing. But the seeds are there, and given warmth and water, they could sprout again.

This is why the stillness, the meditation, the “healing work”, however deep, is not yet freedom. The surface can go perfectly quiet while the seeds sleep on beneath it. How does one not just still the water, but completely burn the latent seeds so nothing can sprout again? This becomes the work of the later Padas 2 to 4.

Have you ever had a clearing that lifted and then quietly returned you to old patterns? How did you tackle it?

This post stays free. If it gave you a moment of stillness or reflection, would appreciate a coffee or a matcha by way of thanks.

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REFERENCES

• Edwin F. Bryant, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: A New Edition, Translation, and Commentary

• Swami Satchidananda, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

• B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

• Sir Ganganatha Jha, The Yoga-darśana: The Sutras of Patañjali with the Bhāṣya of Vyāsa

• Aks Reflections, Introduction to the Yoga Sutras: A Timeless Manual for Mastering the Mind

• Aks Reflections, Who Is Reading This? Yoga Sutras 1.1 to 1.4

• Aks Reflections, THE FIVE TURNINGS OF THE MIND: YOGA SUTRAS 1.5 - 1.11

• Aks Reflections, YOU NEED BOTH HANDS: YOGA SUTRAS 1.12 - 1.16

Two ways it tends to go. You chase it white-knuckled, and even getting it doesn’t quiet the wanting, it just moves to the next thing. Or you talk yourself out of it, call the wanting foolish, and it goes quiet for a while, then returns louder. Grip it too hard, or push it away too fast. Either way the wanting still runs you.

Patanjali watched the mind the same way. Stilling it, he said, takes both hands at once. Not chasing, and not shoving away. Holding steady, and letting the pull fade on its own.

STILLING THE TURNINGS

• Abhyasa: practice. Showing up, again and again, effort renewed.

• Vairagya: dispassion. Loosening the grip on what pulls at you, until its hold quietly fades.

Grip and release. Effort and surrender. Most of us reach for one or the other. We are strivers, gritting our teeth, chasing the next thing we are sure will satisfy. Or we give up, and call the giving up peace. We let go as escape, as protection, as laziness. Patanjali says it takes both hands. Steady effort in the present, and a loosening grip on everything we are convinced we need.

SHOWING UP: THE PRACTICE (ABHYASA)

Notice what practice is aimed at. Not effort in general. Not trying harder at life, or at being a better person. It is a lot more straightforward. It is aimed at sthiti, staying settled, being present, remaining in the quiet.

Most of our effort scatters across a hundred targets. Abhyasa is effort narrowed to a single one, the settled mind, returned to each time attention wanders off. The five turnings pull us in every direction at once. Practice is simply the art of returning to the stillness, the now.

Then Patanjali, who rarely spends a word he can save, gives a whole sutra to what makes practice actually hold.

THE THREE CONDITIONS OF PRACTICE

What comprises Practice? Three conditions, and each closes a familiar escape hatch.

1. For a long time (Dirghakala): No quick fix. The mind does not still over a weekend, and anyone selling that weekend is selling something.

2. Without a break (Nairantarya): Not in sporadic bursts. A little each day outlasts a great deal now and then. Gaps let the old grooves quietly refill.

3. With sincerity (Satkara): Not as a checkbox exercise. Attention with intention.

Long, unbroken, sincere. Meet all three and practice becomes dridhabhumi, firm ground. With that the foundation is laid - something solid enough to finally stand on.

LOOSENING THE GRIP: LETTING GO (VAIRAGYA)

Practice alone does not still the mind. You can show up every day, effort renewed, and still be dragged off the moment a craving calls. Something else has to stop it leaking away. That is the second hand.

The translators reach for dispassion, or non-attachment. The word underneath is warmer. Vairagya comes from raga, which means colour, the dye of attraction, the flush a thing takes on the moment we want it. Vi-raga is that colour draining out. The vivid pull quietly fading until the thing is simply seen as it is. The craving loses its dye.

What are we gripping:

• The things we have seen: the pleasures already tasted and reached for again, the ones that draw us deeper into the cycle of wanting

• The things we have only heard: the rewards someone swore would satisfy, the status, the life we were told to want.

Through this comes mastery over the pull. The thing can sit right in front of you, and you are not dragged. You hold the reins, rather than the reins holding you.

THE FOUR RUNGS TOWARDS MASTERY OVER THE PULL

And the grip does not loosen all at once. The tradition maps it as a climb, four rungs, from the first raw effort to full mastery.

This loosening of the grip lets you be fully present. In your life, your work, your relationships, without the mind dragging you off somewhere else. You do not push the world away. You simply stop being pulled by it.

THE FINAL LETTING GO

The four rungs mastered the pull of objects, the seen and the promised. Patanjali now points past them, to a thirst that runs deeper, and to a letting go of a wholly different kind.

The sutra names it exactly. Guna-vaitrishnyam, thirstlessness for the gunas, the three strands that weave all of nature, and the mind along with it. The release comes as a journey through the three.

1. First, the frenzy of rajas and the fog of tamas fall away, the restlessness and the dullness that keep the water churning.

2. What remains is sattva, clarity, the still and shining strand. Sattva, though the clearest glass, is still not the one looking through it. It still attaches

3. So the last letting go is the subtlest of all. You use the clarity of sattva to finally align with the Seer within (Purusha), and then you release your grip on even that.

4. What is left is purusha - The Seer. The one who was looking the whole time.

Once you have met the Seer, the one who was never thirsty, the thirst has nothing left to stand on. You do not defeat it. You outgrow the need for it. It stops making sense to want, the way a childhood fear stops making sense once you switch on the light and see the room.

This is the summit of the chapter. Every rung below was practice for this. The final freedom is not a better grip on a finer thing. It is wanting nothing from the water at all. Because you are no longer the ripples. You are the one leaning over them.

The showing up and the letting go: How do you balance the two? Let me know in the comments below.

This post stays free. If it gave you a moment of stillness or reflection, would appreciate a coffee or a matcha by way of thanks.

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REFERENCES

• Edwin F. Bryant, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: A New Edition, Translation, and Commentary

• Swami Satchidananda, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

• B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

• Sir Ganganatha Jha, The Yoga-darśana: The Sutras of Patañjali with the Bhāṣya of Vyāsa

• Aks Reflections, Introduction to the Yoga Sutras: A Timeless Manual for Mastering the Mind

• Aks Reflections, Who Is Reading This? Yoga Sutras 1.1 to 1.4

• Aks Reflections, THE FIVE TURNINGS OF THE MIND: YOGA SUTRAS 1.5 - 1.11

You can picture it locked. You can almost feel the bolt under your hand. But was that tonight, or every night before it, blurred into one? Maybe you only meant to. Maybe you are picturing a door that is, right now, wide open.

Three different things are happening in that one small worry, and you cannot tell them apart. A memory of locking it. A perception, if you actually heard the click. And a pure invention, the open door you have never seen but can picture perfectly. The mind offers all three at once - in the same voice, wearing the same certainty.

We call all of it “thinking.” Patanjali looks closer, and counts.

INTRODUCTION TO THE YOGA SUTRAS

TWO CLAIMS BEHIND THE RIPPLES

In the last sutras, we met the one who watches. The seer behind the ripples, resting in its own nature once the water stills. Now Patanjali turns from the watcher to the water. Before you can still a ripple, you have to know what a ripple is.

These ripples are known as Vrittis or the turnings within the field of the Mind. Two claims, both larger than they look:

1. There are only five Vrittis. Everything the mind has ever done, every loop at three in the morning fits into one of these five.

2. Each turning runs in one of two directions.

• The Freeing Turn (Aklishta): Thoughts and actions that return towards the Watcher (Purusha)

• The Binding Turn (Klishta): Thoughts and actions that push one towards the Field (Prakriti) and in-turn the cycle of material life

A pleasant thought can bind you. Praise, replayed and clung to, building a self that needs more of it. That ripple feels lovely, but it tightens the knot with every turn. A painful realisation can free you. The hard recognition that you have chased the wrong thing for years. It stings, but loosens the knot. So “think positive” was never the teaching. The only question that finally matters about any thought is not whether it feels good, but which way it pulls.

PATANJALI NAMES THE FIVE VRITTIS

That is the whole inventory of the mind. Take them one at a time. Humans are said to find themselves in one of these states at any given point in time. All other states of mind are a subset of one of these.

VRITTI ONE: THE TURN OF RIGHT KNOWING

The first turning is right knowledge(pramana), the mind arriving at truth. Patanjali names the only three roads it can travel.

1. Perception (pratyaksha): You know it through your own senses. You see the building ablaze, and you know there is a fire.

2. Inference (anumana): You reason your way to it from what you already have. You see the smoke rising, and you infer the fire beneath it.

3. Testimony (agama): You trust a reliable source who saw or reasoned before you. A fireman waves you back, and you understand there is a fire, though you have seen neither smoke nor flame.

Agama only holds if the source is trustworthy. A liar’s testimony is not pramana/ knowledge at all, only error passed along. This is why scripture carries such weight in this tradition. The sages who passed on the knowledge were held to have seen the truth directly, through pointed reflection and meditation. So their words are treated as testimony from the source itself, not opinion about it.

Even right knowing is a ripple. True, useful, and still a movement on the water. Held lightly, it frees. Clung to, it can bind like any other.

VRITTI TWO: THE TURN OF MISCONCEPTION

A coil of rope on a dark path, seen for a moment as a snake. The heart pounds, the body recoils, the fear is entirely real. And there was never a snake.

That is the trap of misconception (Viparyaya). From the inside, it feels exactly like knowing. The certainty is identical. Only later, when the light comes, does the rope reveal itself, and the fear dissolves with nothing left to stand on.

This is the most important of the five, because the deepest misconception is the one the whole text exists to correct. The seer mistaking itself for the ripples.

VRITTI THREE: THE TURN OF IMAGINING

Imagination or Vikalpa is what the mind constructs out of words alone. A thought that is verbally perfect, but without evidence or substance.

The horns of a rabbit. A square circle. The words hold together, so the mind accepts the thing, even when there is no thing behind it.

This is a double-edged faculty, and worth not dismissing. Vikalpa is how we plan a future that does not yet exist, how we abstract and model and dream. It builds cathedrals on paper before a stone is laid. The same power conjures the monster under the bed, and rehearses the argument that will never happen, and stops us on our tracks spinning about a door that is, in fact, locked.

Language can carry us toward the real or spin us away from it.

VRITTI FOUR: THE TURN OF SLEEP

Here is the one that surprises everyone. Dreamless sleep is not the mind switched off. It is the mind running a particular state, one whose content is nothing at all.

How do we know it was still turning? Because we wake and report on it. I slept well. I knew nothing. The blank left a trace, and a trace means a turning happened.

This matters more than it looks, because it guards against an easy mistake. Yoga is not sleep. Going blank, zoning out, the empty stare, none of these are the goal. They are just the ripple of absence, weather on the water like any other. The stillness Patanjali points toward is awake, alert, lucid. The seer is no more revealed in deep sleep than in worry. Both are simply the water moving, or seeming to.

VRITTI FIVE: THE TURN OF REMEMBERING

A song comes on, one you have not heard in years, and for a moment you are somewhere else entirely, with someone long gone. Nothing in the present moved. Yet the water stirs as if it had.

Nothing the mind touches passes without a trace. Every visual, every word, every experience presses a faint imprint into the mind-field as it goes. The tradition calls these samskaras, latent seeds, and the mind-field (citta) is thick with them.

Memory is a seed rising back to the surface long after the moment is gone. By day the seeds surface as memory and daydream. By night, as dreams.

So memory shows the two directions plainly. The same seeds that trap us in a wound we will not set down also let us recall a teaching exactly when it is needed, or remember, mid-thought, that we are the one watching and not the thought. Memory can be the chain if it controls. Memory can be the key if controlled.

WHY DOES A BOOK ABOUT STILLING THE MIND BEGIN BY CATALOGUING IT?

Because you cannot quiet what you cannot see. When a thought has you in its grip, the first freedom is small and immediate. To notice which of the five it is. This is memory. This is imagining. This is misconception wearing the face of fact.

That naming is itself the watcher waking up. In the moment you can see a ripple for what it is, you are no longer the ripple. You are, however briefly, the one leaning over the water.

The mind will go on producing its five. The work was never to stop the water moving. It is to know each shape as it rises, to feel which way it pulls, and to remember, every time, who is doing the watching.

The next time a thought catches you off guard, find it in the table above. Name the turning, then notice which way it pulled, toward the churn, or back toward the bank. I'd love to hear what you find below.

THE VRITTI AUDIT

This post stays free. If it gave you a moment of stillness or reflection, would appreciate a coffee or a matcha by way of thanks.

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REFERENCES

• Edwin F. Bryant, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: A New Edition, Translation, and Commentary

• Swami Satchidananda, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

• B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

• Swami Vivekananda, Raja Yoga

• Georg Feuerstein, The Yoga Tradition

• Aks Reflections, Introduction to the Yoga Sutras: A Timeless Manual for Mastering the Mind

• Aks Reflections, Who Is Reading This? Yoga Sutras 1.1 to 1.4

You say your name? Maybe the pronoun you associate with, do you add in your job title or where you are while you’re reading it?

Underneath all of that, there is something simpler. Something that is silently aware, taking in these words. That something has been witnessing your whole life. Every thought you have ever had appeared in front of it.

And most of us have never once met it.

The Yoga Sutras, in the simplest term, are a manual for meeting the Seer within.

INTRODUCTION TO THE YOGA SUTRAS

Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras draw from the older tradition of Samkhya that focuses on two principles:

• Prakriti: Nature, which is the field, all of it

• Purusha: the seer, pure awareness, which only watches.

Those who have walked the Bhagavad Gita with me, would be familiar with these concepts. Sutras 1.1 to 1.4 covers what obscures the Seer within and the groundwork to clear it.

THE FIRST WORD OF THE YOGA SUTRAS IS NOW

Just atha. Now. The tradition treated that word as weighted. It marks an auspicious beginning, the right note to open on. It implies a before, so the text announces itself as continuing a thread already old. And it carries readiness, "now" in the sense of now that you are prepared, the student arriving with a life already lived behind them. The teaching begins when the one reading is ready, and that readiness was earned.

FOUR WORDS HOLD THE WHOLE TEXT

This Sutra embodies the entire philosophy of this text. Let’s carefully unpack it.

CHITTA: The entire Field of the Mind. It comprises three areas

• The Mind (Manas): It is the sensing mind that takes things in. The receiver, registering that something is happening before any judgment lands. Manas reports.

• The Intellect (Buddhi): It weighs. It’s the discerning faculty, the part that sorts this from that and decides. Manas says - “a sound”. Buddhi says, “the door, the wind, a threat.”

• The Ego/ I-Maker (Ahamkara): It claims. It is the function that takes whatever has been sensed and judged and stamps it mine. Manas registers worry. Buddhi names it. Ahamkara says I am worried.

Together, these three are the chitta, the mind-field. The whole inner instrument, the ground where sensing, judging, and claiming all play out.

VRITTI: The turning of the mind-field.

Each turn is a vritti, a wave, a state the mind takes and holds for a moment before the next. The Mind receiving, the intellect judging, the ego claiming, on and on, all day, in the loop you felt at three in the morning. The same word, vritti, you would use for a whirlpool.

NIRODHA: The stilling of that turning.

The mind-field resists being stilled. The more the mind takes in and sorts, the faster the whirlpool spins. Nirodha is the deliberate checking of something that fights the check, which is the whole reason Patanjali needed the rest of the text. If stilling the mind were easy, four words would have ended it, instead of beginning it.

Yoga is the quieting of the whole apparatus, until the turning stops. And once the turning stops, the ripples clear and that which is behind it can finally be seen.

THE REFLECTION WITHOUT THE RIPPLES

Lean over a pool and you see yourself looking back.

Let the surface stir, a breath of wind, a dropped stone, and the reflection distorts. The face warps and scatters. Assuming that to be the only lens, we take the distortion for ourselves. We watch the trembling image and think that is me.

This is ahamkara’s work. We become the ripples. We lose the one who is gazing in.

So what happens when the water goes still?

The surface settles. What it shows, clearly now, is the seer. The one who was leaning over the water the whole time.

This is the purusha, the still point in the whole system. Everything else moves. The body ages, the senses flicker, the mind-field turns and turns. All of it nature, all of it prakriti. The seer alone does not move. It only watches the movement.

The seer rests in its own nature. It does not become something new. It was there all along, behind every ripple, waiting to be seen once the water stilled.

THE SEER DOES NOT SEEK A CALMER POOL

Otherwise is the rest of the time, which is to say almost always. The water is rarely still. It ripples through every waking hour, and the seer goes on mistaking itself for the moving surface.

It stops being a matter of attention and becomes the root of our suffering. When the seer believes it is the trembling surface, every disturbance that crosses becomes ours to bear. The worry is suffered rather than seen. The loop is lived rather than watched.

Freedom, in this tradition, is not a calmer pool, but the end of that confusion at its source.

And the text holds one last precision. The seer only appears to take the form of the ripples. It never truly becomes them. A reflection of fire does not burn the water. The image stays an image.

Freedom is remembering you were always the one leaning over the water, never the trembling face on it.

Have you ever caught yourself mid-thought, aware of the thinking as it happened? I'd love to hear about it in the comments below

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REFERENCES

• Edwin F. Bryant, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: A New Edition, Translation, and Commentary

• Swami Satchidananda, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

• B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

• Swami Vivekananda, Raja Yoga

• Georg Feuerstein, The Yoga Tradition

• Aks Reflections, INTRODUCTION TO THE YOGA SUTRAS: A TIMELESS MANUAL FOR MASTERING THE MIND

Within the Bhagavad Gita series, you have sat with me through the battlefield, the chariot, Arjuna’s paralysis, Krishna’s quiet and devastating clarity.

Eighteen chapters of asking: how do I live well?

I have been asking a parallel question in my own life. And it led me somewhere unexpected.

Building a Woman’s Circle

It is called Roots Above. A community for high-performing women (starting in New York) to come back to themselves and refill. Expert-led gatherings across four pillars: Mindful Living, Health, Finance and Lifestyle.

The name comes from Chapter 15: The Upside Down Tree - Roots above, anchored in the source. Roots Below, obscured by illusion. The axe of detachment cutting through the roots below towards freedom. The inner clarity that already was.

I have created a new Substack to bring Roots Above to life.

SUBSCRIBE TO ROOTS ABOVE

I wrote the full story over on the Roots Above Substack. Where the name came from, why I built it, and the philosophy behind it. If you have been reading me here, you will recognise the thread.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE

This is the beginning. Thank you for being part of what led me here.

AKS

(P.S. I will continue my reflections on ancient philosophies here and I look forward to exploring the deep dive on the Yoga Sutras with you)

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Gratitude, because each of you has been such an encouraging part of my journey. As I explored all eighteen chapters of the Gita, you pushed me to think harder and dive deeper.

Anticipation, because I have been waiting for my next read to reveal itself. And through so much of the dialogue with you, it did: the Yoga Sutras.

We hear the word yoga and we picture a mat, a pose, a slow exhale. But the text that gave the word its weight, goes beyond the body. It is a manual for the mind.

So before we begin exploring it as a chapter by chapter series, I wanted to set the scene with an introduction.

(If our paths haven’t crossed yet, welcome. I’m glad you’re here. Feel free to explore my previous posts, and if you’d like to journey through this text with me, subscribe below.)

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WHAT ARE THE YOGA SUTRAS?

The Yoga Sutras are a collection of around 196 short verses, attributed to the sage, Patanjali. Each verse is a sutra, a word that literally means thread, the same root that gives us suture. The text is stitched together from these threads, each one compressed to the point where a single line can hold an entire teaching - Spare, technical, and built to be memorised.

Dating the text is genuinely difficult. Tradition places Patanjali as far back as the 2nd century BCE, while modern textual scholarship leans toward the early centuries of the common era, somewhere around 400 CE.

SO WHAT IS “YOGA”?

The word yoga comes from the root yuj, to yoke or to join. But Patanjali does not leave the meaning to a slogan. He defines it, in the second verse, with a precision that has never been improved on:

That is the whole project in five words. The mind is restless. It churns, narrates, replays, anticipates. Yoga is the practice of quieting that churn until it settles.

WHO WAS PATANJALI?

Not a lot is known about the author itself; leading to the belief that Patanjali is less a biography than a name attached to a system.

There were several ancient figures called Patanjali. One wrote a famous commentary on Sanskrit grammar, centuries earlier. Most scholars now think that grammarian and the author of the Sutras were simply two people sharing a name. And the Sutras themselves draw on older material - on early meditative traditions, gathered and compressed by a compiler.

What survives is not the author. It is the architecture.

WHAT’S THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE TEXT?

The Sutras are arranged into four chapters, each called a Pada, or quarter:

• Samadhi Pada: the still, absorbed states of mind that the whole path aims toward

• Sadhana Pada: practice, and the discipline that gets us there

• Vibhuti Pada: the powers and subtleties that surface along the way

• Kaivalya Pada: liberation, the final freedom of the seer

The order is deliberate. It opens with the destination, then turns to the path.

WHAT ARE THE KEY TEACHINGS?

The heart of the Sutras is an eight-fold path, often called Ashtanga, meaning eight-limbed. It moves from the outermost conduct to the innermost stillness, like a ladder turned inward:

The first limbs are things we do. The last are things that happen once the doing has done its work.

HOW DO THE YOGA SUTRAS RELATE TO THE BHAGAVAD GITA?

The Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Sutras are complementary texts, drawing from the same well. The Gita came first. Most scholars place the Sutras a few centuries later.

The Gita offers four paths towards liberation: The yoga of action, the yoga of meditation, the yoga of knowledge, the yoga of devotion - woven together for a life in the midst of the world.

Patanjali offers one: He takes the meditative thread, the work of mastering the mind, and sharpens it into a single discipline. This path is sometimes called Raja Yoga, the royal road.

Read the Gita’s sixth chapter, on meditation, and you will hear Patanjali in it almost word for word. The steady seat, the gathered senses, the mind held like a flame in a windless place.

Both begin in the same place. Beneath the noise of the mind there is a witness, untouched by the churn. Both walk toward the same freedom. The Gita reaches it out in the world, through action and devotion. Patanjali reaches it through the quiet mastery of the mind.

The Yoga Sutras are meant to be read slowly, and never bare. The verses were built to be unfolded by a teacher, so find a translation with commentary and sit with a few at a time. It is a manual, not a novel. Made to be tested against your own mind.

Is there a practice in your day to day life from ancient wisdom that helps ground you in today’s world? Let me know in the comments below.

This post has been kept free because of the beauty of exploring this knowledge alongside you. If this journey held something for you, show you support with a book or coffee.

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REFERENCES

• Edwin F. Bryant, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: A New Edition, Translation, and Commentary

• Swami Satchidananda, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

• B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

• Swami Vivekananda, Raja Yoga

• Georg Feuerstein, The Yoga Tradition

• Philipp A. Maas, on the dating and composition of the Patanjala Yogashastra

• Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga_Sutras_of_Patanjali

An in-depth inquiry, not an essay. Built to be walked with and explored. Tell me what you find.

A slow rainy Sunday. A cup of tea. A few headlines that have been on my mind.

Bryan Johnson spends $2 million a year to reverse his biological age. His protocol tracks 108 biomarkers. He calls the project Don’t Die. In March 2026 he published a manifesto naming the broader movement: Immortalism.

This weekend the first Enhanced Games opened in Las Vegas. Fifty athletes competing under FDA-supervised performance enhancement, backed by Peter Thiel, valued at $1.2 billion.

Have A.I. models already reached consciousness? Does Anthropic think Claude is alive?

Three headlines that don't seem to talk to each other. But something pulled me to dive deeper. So let me try, through the lens of a six-thousand-year-old philosophy that has been pushing one towards unearthing life's nuances.

Longevity is the word of the hour. Doctors are turning influencers, influencers are doling out the latest in medical innovation, and everyone is promising more life.

But more life is doing a lot of work in one phrase. Let’s split it. Are we talking about living better? Living longer? Or living forever?

• Living better is easy to grasp. Ayurveda named the principles. The Gita named the practice: moderation in eating, in sleep, in work, in recreation. Sleep well. Eat well. Move well. Care for the vessel so the life can be lived. Much needed.

• Living longer is possible. Blue Zones are widely researched. Modern medicine has done remarkable work on healthspan. Better diagnostics. Better preventatives. The protocols pushing further into this space are real attempts at a real question.

• Living forever is worth a pause. Seems like a fantasy, might even be possibility. Just maybe not in the way the conversation currently imagines.

Let me hold this conversation up against the Vedic frame.

The Vedas (literally meaning “Knowledge”) are the most ancient Indian scriptures, composed in Vedic Sanskrit and preserved over many millennia by oral tradition and form the foundation of Hinduism as we know it today.

The word Veda comes from the Sanskrit root vid, to see, to know. The same root as the English wisdom and the Latin videre, to see.

Preserved through generations of careful study, it has a focused emphasis on the Art of Inquiry and Exploration.

The inquiry branched into specialised lenses.

Yoga Sutras took up the architecture of the mind. Ayurveda, literally the science of life, took up the body. Samkhya mapped the relationship between consciousness and matter. Vedanta synthesised the metaphysical conclusions.

The journey of exploration offered three paths to walk it. Karma Yoga, the path of action. Jnana Yoga, the path of knowledge. Dhyana Yoga, the path of reflection. Three doorways into the same room: Action —> Knowledge —> Reflection —> Repeat.

The inquiry was held in a particular way - through a guide, mentor, guru. The Sanskrit word GURU literally means dispeller of darkness. A teacher who clarifies with wisdom, not distracts with information overload. The role is to remove what is obscuring what was already there.

This essay tries to stay in that spirit. An attempt to clarify to inquiry, not to convince.

According to Vedic philosophy, everything you can name changes. The body. Thoughts. Emotions. Even rocks erode if you wait long enough.

The tradition makes a precise move.

That which changes cannot be what you fundamentally are. What you fundamentally are must be what is watching the change.

Two categories emerge: the temporary and the permanent.

• Nature (Prakriti/ Temporary): Matter, mind, sensation, desire. Everything that arises and passes.

• Unchanging Reality (Brahman/ Permanent): The all-encompassing unchanging reality. The awareness in which Prakriti appears.

When the seed of life enters Prakriti (Nature), the Field wakes up. Brahman now resides within the individual as the Soul (Aatma/ Supersoul). The unchanging - now embodied within the changing. Surrounded by illusion and the material world.

Meister Eckhart, the fourteenth-century Christian mystic: “The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me.”

In this temporary, ever-changing world, the mind desires. The body chases. The intellect grasps. Each desire drives action. Each action taken with the purpose of fulfilling that desire leaves grooves. The grooves generate new desires.

The wheel turns. This is Samsara - Birth, death, rebirth. The soul stuck in the temporary, mistaking the temporary for what it is.

The way out

When desires are fulfilled, or when one relinquishes the obsession with their results, the grooves dissolve. The seeds stop reseeding. The soul is freed.

The word for this is Liberation (Moksha). Not becoming something new. Returning. To the unchanging. To the permanent. To Brahman.

Ultimate immortality, in this frame, is not the body refusing to end. It is the return to what was always permanent.

The buzz of an alarm. A yawn. The eyelids open.

The mind reaches back for the dream it just left. A world that felt complete, populated, real. Gone in a second. And in that second, something obvious. Something in you was watching the entire time. You were never inside the dream. The dream was inside you.

The Mandukya Upanishad, one of the shortest and most precise of the Upanishads, names four states of consciousness.

1. Waking (Jagrat): The world in motion. The senses gathering. The mind narrating.

2. Dream (Svapna): The mind generating its own interior world. A different “I” in a different room.

3. Deep Sleep (Sushupti): No dream. No “I.” And yet I slept well is a memory that comes from somewhere.

My Oura Ring helps me track these same three. Awake. REM. Deep Sleep. Eras apart. Same three data points.

And then the Mandukya Upanishad inquires, “What’s beyond?”

Turiya. The Fourth. The awareness in which the other three appear and disappear. Aware in waking. Aware in dream. Aware in deep sleep. The permanent, unchanging witness across all three.

This is the Knower. Atman. What you fundamentally are.

Modern neuroscience is still exploring this concept. In 1998 the neuroscientist Christof Koch bet the philosopher David Chalmers that the neural correlates of consciousness would be identified within twenty-five years. In June 2023, Koch conceded the bet. The neural correlates had not been found.

The reason is structural. The instrument and the object are the same thing. Turiya is what the instrument is. Awareness cannot find awareness from inside the brain, because awareness is the field in which the brain appears.

Eckhart Tolle, writing in 1997, named the same recognition in modern English: “You are not your thoughts. You are the awareness in which thoughts appear.”

The witness was never the thoughts. It was always the one witnessing them rise.

With the Knower being the permanence within - the sole witness; everything else we experience ourselves as is the Field - impermanence.

Chapter 13 of the Bhagavad Gita gives this its sharpest formulation. Two realities. Kshetra and Kshetrajna. The Field, and the Knower of the Field.

“Know Me as the Knower of the Field in all Fields. The knowledge of the Field and its Knower, this I hold to be true knowledge.” - Bhagavad Gita 13.2

The Field is everything that moves. The body. The mind. The intellect. The ego. The senses. The thoughts arising. The emotions cresting and breaking. The memories surfacing. Thirty-one components, the Gita says. Everything you have ever called “I” but which is not.

The Field changes. The Knower does not. The Field is many. The Knower is one.

And here is what matters for the headlines. The Field is what the longevity industry is working with. The Knower is what it still has no language for.

To see what can actually be preserved by protocol, we need to look at the Field more carefully.

Vedanta does not treat the body as one thing. It distinguishes three.

1. The Gross Body (Sthula Sharira): The physical vessel. The five elements (earth, water, fire, air, space) and the organs they compose. Flesh, bone, breath, blood. What a biomarker measures. What the longevity industry is trying to optimise.

2. The Subtle Body (Sukshma Sharira): The energetic and mental chassis. Seventeen components: five life forces (pranas), five senses of perception, five organs of action, the mind (manas), and the intellect (buddhi). The layer that animates the gross body. (Traditional Chinese Medicine arrived at the same intuition. Qi maps closely to prana.)

3. The Causal Body (Karana Sharira): The seed-form of the individual. The deepest layer, beneath flesh and beneath mind. The storehouse of latent tendencies (Vasanas) and the I-Maker (Ahankara). The substrate from which the other two bodies arise.

Modern longevity protocols reach the gross body, and through breath and lifestyle, touch the subtle body. The work is real. The question the Vedic frame raises: what is the work in service of?

The ego reaching for immortality. The market chasing a trend. The self-importance built on the chase.

Care for the body so the inquiry can be lived. Sharpen the mind so it can see clearly. Develop the intellect so it can hold what the inquiry uncovers. All of it in service of clarity, not defence.

Because once you optimize the vessel, the question remains: who is actually going to live in it? The Causal Body may open the doors to the real questions…

The causal body within the temporary Field is a different layer altogether. Achieving immortality through liberation comes not from preserving it, but from dissolving what is stored within it. The modern conversation has no word for what this storehouse holds. Not yet.

Modern English uses one word, consciousness, for several different things. Being awake. Being aware. Having thoughts. Being sentient. Philosophy. All compressed into one word.

The Vedic tradition attempts to break them down:

• The Mind (Manas): The gathering point where impressions land.

• The Intellect (Buddhi): The filter that turns impressions into concepts.

• Sentience (Chetana): The fundamental spark enabling the mind and senses to function.

• The Ego (Ahankara): The I-maker, claiming every experience as mine.

All four are part of the Field. Born with the body. Active during life. Ending when the body ends.

The Enhanced Games athlete chases a clean form of this. So does the executive optimizing biomarkers. Both are the ego, pulling the body harder, faster, more visibly into the Field. Both work. Both leave the Knower untouched.

• The Soul (Atman): The witness. Not in time. Not born. Not dying. The awareness in which all four appear.

This is the distinction modern English keeps collapsing. When we ask is a language model conscious?, we are asking about chetana and the inner instrument. Does it have sentience? Does it have thought? Does it have memory? Some of those answers are yes, in a limited sense. None of them touch atman.

The Field can be replicated. The Knower will take more than replication - More openness. More exploration. More reflection.

Here is the verse the entire Vedic answer to immortality rests on.

“When all the desires that dwell in his heart are gone, then he, having been mortal, becomes immortal, and attains Brahman in this very body.” - Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.4.7

Read it again. In this very body. Not later. Not in another realm. Right here, in the flesh that will still go when it goes.

Immortality, in the Vedic frame, is not the body continuing forever. It is the cessation of the grasping that fears the body’s end. The grasping has a name. It is held in the causal body. It is what keeps the cycle turning.

Vedic philosophy calls it Vasana: Latent tendency. Inherited groove. Subtle imprint.

For now, let’s call this Latent Inheritance

A Vasana is what makes one person calm in a storm and another person frantic in the same storm. It is why a trigger lands disproportionately. Why a fear has no traceable origin. Why a gift seems to arrive without being taught. The groove was already there. The present moment just provided the spark.

Patanjali, in the Yoga Sutras, named the mechanism. Every action lays down a samskara, an impression. Impressions accumulate into vasanas. Vasanas shape the next action. The next action lays down another samskara. The karmic wheel turns.

One is Free; One is Immortal once the obsession with Temporary Desires and Results is dissolved.

What science is beginning to see

DNA inheritance is one of the most established facts in modern biology. Genes carry forward. Traits carry forward. The architecture of one generation shapes the next at a molecular level we can now read.

What is more open is whether anything subtler also crosses generations.

Let’s look at the field of epigenetics - the last two decades have documented how parental experience, stress, nutrition, even trauma, can leave marks on the genome that are transmitted to offspring without changing the underlying DNA. Rachel Yehuda’s research at Mount Sinai, on the descendants of Holocaust survivors, found inheritable stress patterns that did not exist before the traumatic event in the previous generation.

This is NOT proof of Vasana. Epigenetics is measuring the physical echo. Vasana is pointing at the deeper imprint the echo is gesturing toward. One operates in the gross body. The other sits in the causal body.

But the direction of travel matters. The modern conversation has moved from only DNA carries forward to genes plus epigenetic imprints carry forward. The Vedic frame says: keep going. There is a potential third channel that neither measurement reaches.

Carl Jung, working in 1929 from yet another angle, called something close to vasana the Collective Unconsciousness. The archetypes. The patterns that arrive in every individual without being taught. He read the Upanishads, and recognised the convergence.

, in her March 2026 essay An Argument Against AI Alignment, names DNA and consciousness as the two great anti-entropic forces shaping the human story. Both, in her framing, are competing for persistence across time.

The Vedic frame would agree about DNA. On consciousness it would split the term - chitta yes, atman no. And it would add a third force the modern conversation has no name for. Vasanas. The grooves that carry forward beneath both biology and the thought-stream. The third channel - Latent Inheritance.

Which is where this gets interesting.

Kala. The Sanskrit word for time. Also a name for what dissolves things. The Vedic tradition treats time as cyclical, not linear.

Four ages in each cycle. Each one with a characteristic human lifespan.

• Satya Yuga (Golden Age): 100,000 years.

• Treta Yuga (Silver Age): 10,000 years.

• Dvapara Yuga (Bronze Age): 1,000 years.

• Kali Yuga (Iron Age) the age we are said to be inside, begun in 3102 BCE: 100 years

Lifespan declining by a factor of ten across each age. Take the numbers literally or as cosmological metaphor. The structural claim is the same. Life was once longer. It shortened as something was lost.

That something has a name. As each yuga turns, dharma (righteous duty) recedes. Wisdom thins. Collective alignment with what is true gives way to confusion, then noise.

Other civilisations remember the same arc in different words. Methuselah lived 969 years. The Sumerian King List gives reigns of tens of thousands. Across cultures, ancient texts agree: life was once longer, and the shortening came with something deeper than biology.

“Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.”

Oppenheimer famously quoted the Bhagavad Gita at the moment of the first nuclear explosion. The words come from Chapter 11. But the phrasing missed something.

A more faithful translation of the verse would have been: “I am Time itself, the destroyer of worlds, come to dissolve all things.”

Not a threat. A truth. Everything within creation is subject to the cycle of birth and destruction. Everything except the unchanging Brahman itself. And within us - only the Witnessing Self remains.

Layer in the second thread: AGI (Artificial General Intelligence)

Tolo’s conclusion: control is impossible. Only symbiotic absorption or adversarial consumption.

The Vedic frame agrees with much of this. The systems are real. The game is real. And the entire game is happening in the Field.

Tolo writes that consciousness has never solved its persistence problem. She is right about the Field of Sentience (chitta). This however, is not describing the Permanent (atman) - which currently has not category in the existing framework.

Think about a Language Model across the 4 states:

• Waking: Input In, Input Out

• Dream State: No Dream

• Deep Sleep: No Sleep

• Turiya: No Awareness

The output appears. No one is there to know it appeared.

AI is Vasana made literal. Weights laid down by training. Each interaction deepening grooves. The carry-forward is the entire architecture.

A system of grooves cannot align itself. It needs something outside the groove to align it. In humans, that is the Knower. In AI, that does not exist.

Which means alignment depends entirely on the humans building it. Whether they are operating from the Knower, or from their own vasanas dressed up as strategy.

The dominant narrative around AGI is fear. Threat to jobs. Threat to truth. Threat to humanity. What if that frame is missing something?

Civilisations keep losing the wisdom they accumulate. Sanskrit is no longer a living philosophical language. Greek philosophy was nearly lost in medieval Europe and survived only through Arab preservation. Classical Chinese is no longer daily speech. Oral traditions across continents have been disappearing for centuries. Each yuga loses what the last one knew.

What if the role of AGI, used well, is to be the Keeper of Wisdom?

Not the replacement of human inquiry. The preservation of it. The translation across languages. The cross-referencing of contemplative traditions that never spoke to each other. The making accessible of texts locked for centuries.

From Chitta, AGI becomes a tool for ego at scale. From the Knower, AGI becomes a tool for clarity at scale.

The question is what kind of intelligence the humans building this thing are operating from.

This is not an essay - its an exploration. An inquiry.

I have been sitting with these ideas for six months and they keep getting bigger. Some lines I am sure of. Others I keep turning over. The Vedic tradition was not designed to be transmitted alone. It was designed to be walked with others. Discussed. Argued. Refined.

What I keep coming back to:

• The witness is what we have been looking for. Not something to be found. Something to return to.

• AGI is the moment that asks us, more sharply than ever before, what kind of intelligence we want to be.

Where I would love other minds:

On the causal body and AI. Is there a meaningful difference between the human’s causal body, the storehouse of vasanas carried across lifetimes, and an artificial system’s training-derived grooves? Or is the distinction the witness, and only the witness?

This is the longest piece I have published. It is also the most exploratory to date. The Gita series taught me the work happens in the inquiry, not in the conclusions.

I open the invitation. Join me.

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REFERENCES

Bhagavad Gita translations

• A Parthasarathy, Bhagavad Gita

• Eknath Easwaran, The Bhagavad Gita

• Stephen Mitchell, Bhagavad Gita

• Holy-Bhagavad-Gita.org (Mukundananda), Chapter 13, Kshetra Kshetrajna Vibhag Yog

• Holy-Bhagavad-Gita.org (Mukundananda), Chapter 6, Verse 16 and 17, on Moderation

Upanishads and primary texts

• Shankaracharya.org, Mandukya Upanishad with Adi Shankaracharya’s Bhashya

• Wikipedia, Turiya, the Fourth State of Consciousness

• Wisdomlib.org, Brihadaranyaka Upanishad with Sankaracharya’s Commentary

• VivekaVani, Brihadaranyaka 4.4.7, Verse and Shankara Bhashya

Yoga, Vasana, the Three Bodies

• Patanjali, Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Overview and Structure

• Swami Vivekananda, Raja Yoga, A Translation and Commentary on the Yoga Sutras

• Swami Sivananda, Divine Life Society, Vasanas, chapter from Mind, Its Mysteries and Control

• Vinita Rashinkar, Samskara, Vasana and Vritti

• Wikipedia, Three Bodies Doctrine in Vedanta

• Wikipedia, Kosha, the Five Sheaths and Three Bodies

Ayurveda

• PubMed (Mukherjee and Wahile), An Introduction to Ayurveda

Traditional Chinese Medicine

• Wikipedia, Qi, the Vital Force in Chinese Tradition

Yugas and Vedic Cosmology

• ISKCON Desire Tree, Timings of the Four Yugas, Brahmanda Purana 1.2.29.31 to 34

• Stephen Knapp, Timings of the Four Yugas, Vishnu Purana and Bhagavata Purana

Cross-Cultural Lifespan Parallels

• Wikipedia, Methuselah, Genesis 5:27

• Wikipedia, Sumerian King List, Reigns of Tens of Thousands

• Wikipedia, Hesiod’s Ages of Man, Golden, Silver, Bronze, Heroic, Iron

Oppenheimer and the Bhagavad Gita

• The Conversation, Now I Am Become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds, the Bhagavad Gita Explained

• Religion News Service, The Bhagavad Gita, the Bomb and the Dharma of Robert Oppenheimer

Modern Consciousness Studies

• Science (AAAS), June 2023, Adversarial Search for Neural Basis of Consciousness, Christof Koch Concedes the 25 Year Wager

• Brian Pennie, Mind Cafe, You Are Not Your Thoughts, Eckhart Tolle’s 1997 Transformation

• Center for Action and Contemplation, Meister Eckhart, Western Nonduality

Epigenetics and Jung

• Scientific American, Descendants of Holocaust Survivors Have Altered Stress Hormones

• Mount Sinai, Rachel Yehuda, Profile and Research Summary

• Wikipedia, Collective Unconscious, Jung’s 1929 Description

• Academia.edu (Spring Journal), Ancient Indian Thought in the Formation of Jung’s Psychology

Longevity Science and Practice

• David Sinclair, Lifespan, Why We Age and Why We Don’t Have To

• Peter Attia, Outlive, The Science and Art of Longevity

• Aubrey de Grey, SENS Research Foundation

• Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus, A Brief History of Tomorrow

• Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near

2026 Longevity and AI Conversation

• Bryan Johnson, The Immortalism Manifesto, March 2026

• TIME (Future of Living), Bryan Johnson’s Best Longevity Tip Is Free, March 2026

• Fortune, Aim Death Optional, Two Million Dollar Annual Cost, Thirty Plus Doctors

• Kate Tolo, An Argument Against AI Alignment, March 2026

• NPR, The Enhanced Games Are Sunday, What to Know, May 24, 2026

• Wikipedia, Enhanced Games, Peter Thiel Backing and Valuation

• Oura Ring, What Are the 4 Stages of Sleep

Artificial Intelligence and AGI

• Anthropic, Research, Claude and the Question of AI Welfare

• Wikipedia, AI Alignment, the Field of Research

• Stanford HAI, Center for Human Centered AI

Can a two thousand year old text answer the problems of a modern life? Not by handing you more, but by removing what was never yours to carry?

The Bhagavad Gita opens on a battlefield, with a prince who cannot stand up. Eighteen chapters later, that same prince lifts his bow.

After diving into each chapter in reflective depth; the external world remained the same. What moved was the internal journey.

I have now tried to capture these 18 life lessons on 1 page…

Chapter 1: The Path of Despair

A skilled warrior looks across the field, sees his own kin on the other side, and feels the bow slip from his hand. He sits down in the middle of his life and says he would rather beg than fight. The first chapter offers a portrait of the struggles of everyday life, the moment when the old way of doing things has stopped working but before any real change has begun.

Life has its battles, its winning days and its losing ones. The highs and lows are not the problem. They never were.

Chapter 2: The Path of Knowledge

The teaching begins by widening the frame. Some things change constantly - your body, your moods, your circumstances. Something underneath them does not. Once you see that steady part, a quieter truth follows. If your footing was never meant to come from the things that change, it was never meant to come from results either. So do the work fully, and let the outcome go.

One does not control the fruit of one’s work. Only the work itself.

Chapter 3: The Path of Action

If peace is found within, why engage with the chaos outside? Because withdrawal is a fantasy. To be alive is to act, and no one opts out. The third chapter closes the exit door and reframes the question, not whether to act but how. Do the work as an offering rather than a transaction.

Life is built from small steps, taken not because you felt strong, but because you simply did.

Chapter 4: The Path of Knowledge in Action

Action without understanding is just motion. This chapter places a lamp behind the work. The same task, done by two people, is not the same task. Done with a clear and steady mind, work stops draining you and starts to free you.

The same deed binds one person and frees another. Attachment is the chain.

Chapter 5: The Path of Renunciation

Give everything up, or stay and act? The chapter dissolves the question. What it asks you to renounce is not the work but the grasping, the constant reaching for what the work might bring. Drop that, and you can stand fully inside a busy life and still be at rest.

Peace is not a place to escape to. It is found in how one stays.

Chapter 6: The Path of the Steady Mind

The teaching turns practical - the problem it takes up is the restless mind. It is like trying to hold the wind, Arjuna admits. The chapter answers with two simple concepts - Steady practice and loosened grip on Outcome. This coupled with the rhythm of moderation - Not too much food, not too little. Not too much sleep, not too little. It offers one reassurance for the long road, no honest effort is ever lost.

The mind is not forced quiet. It is trained, a little at a time.

Chapter 7: The Path of Discernment

There are two ways to know a thing. One gathers facts about the world. The other senses the single source the facts are all pointing back to. Most people stay with the first, held there by Illusion, the pull of appearances and desires, the habit of seeing only surfaces. The chapter says the deeper knowing is reachable too, once the surface is seen through.

Knowledge can be given. Wisdom has to be built.

Chapter 8: The Path of the Imperishable

Almost everything a life reaches for will fade. One thing does not; the all-encompassing source the Gita calls Brahman. And the mind moves toward whatever it rests on. A mind fixed on passing desires and materials stays bound to passing things, lost in the fog of illusion. A mind that turns toward what lasts moves quietly in that direction.

Where attention goes, life goes with it.

Chapter 9: The Path of the Royal Secret

The chapter calls itself the royal secret, the highest teaching of all, and the secret is quieter than expected. It is not the size of an act that matters. A leaf, a flower, a little water, given with the source held in mind, counts as much as any grand gesture. The same act done in forgetfulness stays ordinary. Done in remembrance, it is changed.

What changes an act is not the act. It is the awareness behind it.

Chapter 10: The Path of Divine Glory

The teaching opens outward. Wherever there is brilliance, depth or strength, the chapter points to a single source wearing many faces. It trains the eye to read the world as a pointer, that source glimpsed in a mountain, a piece of music, a quiet mind.

Look closely at anything, and the same source is behind it - The Brahman, the Self.

Chapter 11: The Path of the Vision of the Whole

Arjuna asks to see Krishna's true form. It is vast beyond holding, beautiful and terrifying at once, brighter than a thousand suns. Everything that exists is pouring out of a single source and falling back into it. And running through all of it is Kala, Time itself, already turning, already deciding. The outcomes Arjuna feared were never waiting on him. They belonged to Time.

One can act, and witness, without the ego that fears the result.

Chapter 12: The Path of Devotion

After the vision, a gentler question. What is the easiest way forward? The formless source is the true destination, but the mind struggles to hold what has no form. So the chapter offers a bridge. Love something near, something the heart can actually reach, a presence, a form, a face. Held with the source in mind, that near love is not a smaller path. It is the road the formless opens through.

Love what is near, and it carries you toward what is vast.

Chapter 13: The Path of the Field and the Knower

The teaching turns inward and draws a clear line. There is the Field, the body, the mind, the moods, the whole moving landscape of a life. And there is the Knower, the one who witnesses it all. Most people spend a life believing they are the Field. But the watcher was there the whole time, only never noticed.

One is not the body, thoughts and moods. One is what witnesses them.

Chapter 14: The Path of the Three Modes

Three Modes define how we move through the world. The Mode of Clarity (Sattva) - that lifts and steadies. The Mode of Passion (Rajas) - the restlessness that drives and grasps. The Mode of Ignorance (Tamas) - the inertia that dulls and resists. Each one binds through attachment. The hold of restlessness and dullness is easy to see. The subtler trap is clarity, growing so attached to feeling wise or calm that even the good state becomes a cage.

Liberation is watching the attachments rise and pass, and calling none of them yourself.

Chapter 15: The Path of the Supreme Self

The image inverts. A tree with its roots above and its branches below. And then a second set of roots, growing downward, reaching into the world to grasp at possessions, status, attachment. The chapter offers one tool, the axe of detachment, the clean cut that frees one from the downward roots and turns the eye back to the anchor above. What waits there is the Supreme Self, the true source the whole tree was growing from.

Cut what pulls you down towards noise; and find what holds you up in clarity.

Chapter 16: The Path of Two Natures

Two natures live in a person. One illuminates, lifting toward the better self. One obscures, pulling away from it. The chapter is not sorting people into the good and the bad. Both natures are in everyone. What it points to instead is direction, set not by one large verdict but by the small daily choices - each one feeding the nature it belongs to.

Every choice moves one toward focus, or toward the fog.

Chapter 17: The Path of Threefold Faith

Faith is not a belief one signs up to. It shows in ordinary things, what one eats, what one gives, how one works. The same act, done by two people, carries a different weight depending on the Mode (Sattva, Rajas, Tamas) behind it. Small acts, repeated day after day, are quietly building the person who does them.

In the end, one is what one repeats.

Chapter 18: The Path of Liberation and Surrender

The longest chapter gathers the whole road, then goes one step past it. Every method so far, action, knowledge, devotion, discipline, has been a way of carrying the weight well. The final teaching is to set the weight down. Do the work, release the result, release even the seeking, and surrender. Not as defeat, but as the end of carrying it all alone.

The work was always yours. The weight of the outcome never was.

The prince who could not stand up at the start of Chapter 1 lifts the bow again at the end of Chapter 18.

Same battlefield. Same bow. A completely different person holding it.

The chapters close. The journey continues.

This series has been kept free because of the beauty of exploring this knowledge alongside you. I am now seeking my next read. If this journey held something for you, contribute toward my next read. Buy me a book. Or a coffee.

BUY ME A COFFEE

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

REFERENCES:

• A Parthasarathy, Bhagavad Gita

• Eknath Easwaran, The Bhagavad Gita

• Stephen Mitchell, Bhagavad Gita

PREVIOUS POSTS ON THE BHAGAVAD GITA:

• Aks Reflections, INTRODUCTION TO THE BHAGAVAD GITA: A TIMELESS BLUEPRINT FOR A MEANINGFUL LIFE

• Aks Reflections, PICK UP THE BOW: BUILDING YOUR INNER SELF (LESSONS FROM CHAPTERS 1 & 2)

• Aks Reflections, THE QUIET TRIUMPH OF THE NEXT STEP (LESSONS FROM CHAPTER 3)

• Aks Reflections, EXHAUSTION OR EVOLUTION: WHAT’S YOUR DAY BRINGING TO YOUR MIND (LESSONS FROM CHAPTERS 4-6)

• Aks Reflections, JOURNEYING FROM KNOWLEDGE TO WISDOM (Lessons from Chapter 7)

• Aks Reflections, THE CANVAS AND THE PAINT (Lessons from Chapter 8)

• Aks Reflections, The Royal Secret (Learnings from Chapter 9)

• Aks Reflections, A THOUSAND SUNS - THE TURNING POINT OF THE BHAGAVAD GITA (Exploration and the Cosmic Vision from Chapters 10 and 11)

• Aks Reflections, THE WAY OF LOVE: DEVOTION TOWARDS THE SELF - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 12 PART 1

• Aks Reflections, A PORTRAIT OF DEVOTION - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 12 PART 2

• Aks Reflections, A MAP OF EVERYTHING YOU ARE NOT - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 13, PART 1

• Aks Reflections, THE KNOWER: ONE WHO WAS NEVER ASLEEP - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 13, PART 2

• Aks Reflections, THE FLOW, THE FRENZY AND THE FOG - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 14

• Aks Reflections, THE UPSIDE DOWN TREE: THE SOURCE OF EVERYTHING - BHAGAVAD GITA CH. 15

• Aks Reflections, OF LIGHTS AND SHADOWS - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 16

• Aks Reflections, THREE TYPES OF FAITH, AND THE ONE THAT IS (BHAGAVAD GITA CH. 17)

• Aks Reflections, FREEDOM IN RENUNCIATION: BHAGAVAD GITA CH 18 - PART 1

• Aks Reflections, FREEDOM IN RENUNCIATION: BHAGAVAD GITA CH 18 - PART 2 (THE FINAL CHAPTER)

Today, the chapters close. The reflection has only just begun.

This is where the eighteen chapters resolve. Where Arjuna lifts the bow again, this time freely.

Where the Gita reveals what it has been all along. A guide. For your inner life, your daily life, for every timeframe. Let’s walk through it together.

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THE MAP OF THE INNER LIFE

Part 1 looked at the ACT. Part 2 looks at the ONE PERFORMING IT.
What makes a person who they are? The Gita names six layers:

See it. Judge it. Hold to it. Act on it. Become what you do. Feel the result. And begin again.

The cycle is coloured by the three Gunas or the modes of human nature:

A Tamasik (Ignorance) cycle deepens its own fog. A Rajasika (Passion) cycle feeds its own wanting. A Sattvika (Clarity) cycle is the only one that loosens itself with each round. Eventually the cycle dissolves the very wanting that powered it.

This is what liberation means. Not stopping the wheel by force. Watching it slow, as the grasping that turned it falls away.

You cannot release what you cannot see. The seeing is the first move.

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

Of all the rows in this map, one deserves its own breath - SUKHA/ HAPPINESS.

Modern life is organised around the chase for happiness. But does happiness always need to be a chase?

“That which is poison at first, nectar at the end, born of the clarity of one’s own intellect, is Sattvika sukha. (PURE HAPPINESS)” 18.37

“That which is nectar at first, poison at the end, born of the contact of senses with their objects, is Rajasika sukha. (FLEETING HAPPINESS)” 18.38

“That which is self-deluding from beginning to end, born of sleep, indolence, and heedlessness, is Tamasika sukha. (HOLLOW HAPPINESS)” 18.39

Don’t ask: does this feel good? Ask: where does this lead? The shift is in the lens.

The chase is for what feels good now - power, money, status - Rajasika sukha. The sustained inner practices that produce Sattvika sukha look unrewarding from outside. And the dulled comfort of distraction - the mindless doomscrolling of Tiktok - the daily slip into Tamasika sukha.

True happiness asks you to face reality. With mindfulness. With discipline.

YOUR PATH. YOUR ACTION

The map does not stop at the inner faculties. It classifies the kind of person you are.

Here, the Gita names four constitutions: Each a particular weave of the Gunas, shaped by the Vasanas carried forward from past lives. Each one expressing as a natural inclination toward a particular kind of work or duty.

Brahmana (scholars and teachers). Kshatriya (warriors and rulers). Vaishya (merchants and producers). Shudra (service and support).

This is the original meaning of Varna - Constitution. What you are naturally drawn to do. Svadharma - One’s own duty.

“Better is one’s own duty, though imperfectly performed, than the duty of another well performed.” - 18.47

What this teaching became across centuries is a separate matter. Hereditary caste, rigid hierarchy, exclusion, contempt. Whether the text itself bears any of this weight is a question I haven’t fully reckoned with. The history and impact are real and beyond the scope of this post.

The teaching, in its original sense, asks something simple. Do your own work. Release the result. Walk your own path.

THE PREPARATION GATHERED

After the long map, the chapter turns toward the highest state. Path of Liberation - Becoming Brahman.

• The inner INSTRUMENTS are gathered: Pure intellect. Steadfastness. The senses controlled.

• The CONDITIONS are set: Sense-objects renounced. Attraction and aversion cast off. Solitude. Speech, body, and mind held in discipline. Meditation.

• The EGO IS RELEASED: Egoism. Force. Arrogance. Desire. Anger. Possessiveness. All let go.

  “Free from the sense of mine and tranquil, one becomes fit for becoming Brahman.” 18.53

Peace is not the starting point. It is what comes after the long preparation.

THE FREEDOM OF CHOICE

After every argument has been made, every disguise pulled off, the Gita does something unexpected…

“Thus has the knowledge, more secret than the secret, been declared to thee by Me. Reflecting on this fully, do as thou wishest.” 18.63

“Yathechchhasi tatha kuru.” - Do as you wish.

Eighteen chapters. And then the listener is released.

The Gita does not command. It informs. It returns the choice to the one who must make it. A decision made under compulsion is not svadharma. It is just constraint.

What follows is the deepest line in the text.

“Abandoning all dharmas, take refuge in Me alone. I will liberate thee from all sins. Do not grieve.” 18.66

After eighteen chapters of teaching paths, disciplines, distinctions, the final word is release the paths themselves. The release is only available to those who have done the gathering throughout.

The eighteen chapters were the preparation that makes the final move meaningful.

THE WISDOM ARRIVES WHEN YOU ARE READY

After teaching surrender, after teaching the highest yoga, after pointing to the dissolution of the ego, the Gita names three things:

• The Wisdom is not for everyone in every moment: It is for those who are ready.

“This is never to be spoken to one who is without austerity, without devotion, who does not wish to hear it, or who speaks ill of the teaching.” - 18.67

• Readiness and Preparation are key: Action. Knowledge. Reflection. The three paths the Gita has been teaching across eighteen chapters. They are the preparation that makes journeying through spiritual wisdom possible.

• The highest service is teaching the Gita. What was given to you was meant to be given again.

The Gita does not dismiss any genuine doorway. Plant medicines, energy work, contemplative practice, retreats - they can be real and powerful. But without the inner foundation, even the deepest experience can be misread. The ego picks up the residue and calls it growth.

The teachings have held for thousands of years because it is careful. Through the line of teachers and students, the verses have moved hand to hand.

The wisdom arrives when you are ready for it.

ARJUNA RETURNS

From within that freedom, Arjuna finally answers.

“My delusion is destroyed. Memory is regained. I stand firm, doubts dispelled. I will act according to your word.” - 18.73

The bow is lifted again. Not because he was ordered to. Because he could see what was his to do.

Same battlefield. Same bow. A completely different person holding it.

That is the resolution Chapter 1 was waiting for.

A GUIDE FOR EVERY LAYER

The Gita is a guide you return to.

• It meets you at the body, when discipline is what is needed.

• It meets you at the mind, when clarity is what is needed.

• It meets you at the spirit, when letting go is what is needed.

Six months ago, I picked it up looking for something. Eighteen chapters later, I see what I found. A way of meeting every question the rest of life will bring.

What was given to you was always meant to be given again. Hold the text carefully. Reflect and make it yours. Pass it forward, one chapter at a time.

The Gita does not ask you to leave the field at any point. It asks whether you can stand in it whole.

In this chapter, something has likely moved. Something has likely stilled.
Share what stayed with you. I’d love to read it.

This series has been kept free because of the beauty of exploring this knowledge alongside you. I am now seeking my next read. If this journey held something for you, contribute toward my next read. Buy me a book. Or a coffee.

BUY ME A COFFEE OR A BOOK

Leave a comment

REFERENCES:

• A Parthasarathy, Bhagavad Gita

• Eknath Easwaran, The Bhagavad Gita

• Stephen Mitchell, Bhagavad Gita

PREVIOUS POSTS ON THE BHAGAVAD GITA:

• Aks Reflections, INTRODUCTION TO THE BHAGAVAD GITA: A TIMELESS BLUEPRINT FOR A MEANINGFUL LIFE

• Aks Reflections, PICK UP THE BOW: BUILDING YOUR INNER SELF (LESSONS FROM CHAPTERS 1 & 2)

• Aks Reflections, THE QUIET TRIUMPH OF THE NEXT STEP (LESSONS FROM CHAPTER 3)

• Aks Reflections, EXHAUSTION OR EVOLUTION: WHAT’S YOUR DAY BRINGING TO YOUR MIND (LESSONS FROM CHAPTERS 4-6)

• Aks Reflections, JOURNEYING FROM KNOWLEDGE TO WISDOM (Lessons from Chapter 7)

• Aks Reflections, THE CANVAS AND THE PAINT (Lessons from Chapter 8)

• Aks Reflections, The Royal Secret (Learnings from Chapter 9)

• Aks Reflections, A THOUSAND SUNS - THE TURNING POINT OF THE BHAGAVAD GITA (Exploration and the Cosmic Vision from Chapters 10 and 11)

• Aks Reflections, THE WAY OF LOVE: DEVOTION TOWARDS THE SELF - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 12 PART 1

• Aks Reflections, A PORTRAIT OF DEVOTION - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 12 PART 2

• Aks Reflections, A MAP OF EVERYTHING YOU ARE NOT - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 13, PART 1

• Aks Reflections, THE KNOWER: ONE WHO WAS NEVER ASLEEP - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 13, PART 2

• Aks Reflections, THE FLOW, THE FRENZY AND THE FOG - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 14

• Aks Reflections, THE UPSIDE DOWN TREE: THE SOURCE OF EVERYTHING - BHAGAVAD GITA CH. 15

• Aks Reflections, OF LIGHTS AND SHADOWS - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 16

• Aks Reflections, THREE TYPES OF FAITH, AND THE ONE THAT IS (BHAGAVAD GITA CH. 17)

• Aks Reflections, FREEDOM IN RENUNCIATION: BHAGAVAD GITA CH 18 - PART 1

Six months ago, I began this exploration of the Bhagavad Gita, one chapter at a time. Today it has brought me to Chapter 18.

Still at the battlefield. With Arjuna and Krishna. I close my eyes and ask the simplest question - To fight or not to fight? To give up or keep going?”

The answer comes back simple - YES

Give up, but don’t. Renounce, not refrain.

The weight of this chapter deserves to be held in two parts. Thank you for walking this slow, reflective journey with me.

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THE TWO RENUNCIATIONS

The answer is YES - Give up, but don’t.

The reveal to the conundrum lies in the WHAT?

Arjuna asks Krishna a question that turns on a single word. Renunciation.
“What is the difference between Sannyasa and Tyaga?” - 18.1

Two words. One English translation. Two Objects.

• Sannyasa: To renounce action itself.

• Tyaga: To relinquish the fruits of action.

Sannyasa, the renunciation of action itself, is reserved for the advanced seeker. One who has already done the long inner work. For the rest of us, still in the world with duties and relationships and work, the path is Tyaga.

Stay in the field. Do the work. Relinquish the grip on the result.

WHAT ACTIONS STAY?

The Gita is specific.

“Acts of sacrifice, charity and austerity should not be relinquished. They are purifying even to the wise.” - 18.5

• YAJNA/ WORSHIP: Orienting away from the Ego and toward the Self

• DANA/ CHARITY: Giving without expectation of return

• TAPA/ DISCIPLINE: Discipline of action in body, mind and speech

These are not optional. Not for the professional. Not for the renunciate. Not for the wise. They are what render the mind composed enough to walk any further path.

The strict path of total renunciation - Sannyasa - is reserved for those who have already done this work. The discipline of action is what earns the eventual freedom from it.

For the rest of us, the path is simpler - Tyaga - Keep the three actions. Relinquish only the fruits.

THE THREE TYAGAS

The Gita now classifies renunciation by the Gunas. Same word. Same outer shape. Three completely different acts.

“One should not abandon the duty to which one is born, even if it is flawed. All actions are enveloped by flaws as fire is by smoke.” 18.48

Only Sattvika Tyaga performs duty. The action continues. The wanting is what’s been relinquished.

The other two abandon it, and call the abandonment “renunciation”.

Most acts of renunciation in ordinary life are Rajasika or Tamasika Tyaga in costume. The body retreats. The mind stays bound. This “fleeing” cages one away from freedom.

The chapter has a name for the one who clings - Atyagi.

And it names what the clinging produces. Karma - Desired, undesired, or mixed.

THE CLAIM ON THE FRUIT

A natural pushback rises. If I performed the act, why shouldn’t the fruit be mine?

The fruit may be a result. But you’re not automatically entitled to it.
Because the “I” is not the entirety of the action.

“He who, due to untrained understanding, sees the pure self alone as the agent, that one of perverse intelligence sees not.” 18.16

The Anatomy of an Action:

Behind each name, an element of the act:

• The Doer: The “I” that perceives, initiates, and acts

• The Knowledge: The awareness of what could be done

• The Known: The object pulling the attention forward

• The Body: The vessel through which action becomes visible

• The Instruments: The senses, the mind, the hands. The tools.

• The Effort: The will-force pushing the act forward.

• The Divine: The unseen field. Karma, conditions, what was set in motion

• The Action: The deed itself, the movement that occurs

The “I” appears at every stage. But never alone. Never the whole.

The body did its part. The faculties did theirs. The conditions did theirs. The unseen did its.

Claiming the whole fruit was always overreach. Relinquishing it is not loss. It is the honest response to what action actually was.

ACTION WITHOUT THE “I”

Once the “I” is placed in proportion, action itself changes.

“He who is free from the egoistic notion, whose intellect is not tainted, though he slays these people, he slays not, nor is he bound.” 18.17

The action that arises from the I-sense binds. The action that arises from clarity leaves no residue.

Renunciation is not a withdrawal from life. It is a loosening of the inner hand.

The mind divided between act and outcome is fully present in neither. The hand that is not gripping the fruit is the hand that does the work cleanly. The clinging itself contaminates the doing.

This is what it looks like in lived form. The presentation that lands because the speaker was inside it. The conversation that healed because no one was keeping score. The decision that was right because it was not being made for credit.

The fruit was always going to come. The grip on it was never necessary.

Arjuna’s refusal at the start was the bow set down. The I-sense still tight around it.

The Gita does not ask you to leave the field. It asks whether you can stand in it without the I-sense reaching for what comes next.

That is the renunciation Chapter 18 teaches. Not the bow set down, but grip relinquished.

Think back to a moment you thought you gave something up.
Was it renunciation? Or ego? Or escape?

PART 2 TURNS FROM THE ACT TO THE ACTOR

SUPPORT ME WITH A COFFEE OR A BOOK

Leave a comment

REFERENCES:

• A Parthasarathy, Bhagavad Gita

• Eknath Easwaran, The Bhagavad Gita

• Stephen Mitchell, Bhagavad Gita

PREVIOUS POSTS ON THE BHAGAVAD GITA:

• Aks Reflections, INTRODUCTION TO THE BHAGAVAD GITA: A TIMELESS BLUEPRINT FOR A MEANINGFUL LIFE

• Aks Reflections, PICK UP THE BOW: BUILDING YOUR INNER SELF (LESSONS FROM CHAPTERS 1 & 2)

• Aks Reflections, THE QUIET TRIUMPH OF THE NEXT STEP (LESSONS FROM CHAPTER 3)

• Aks Reflections, EXHAUSTION OR EVOLUTION: WHAT’S YOUR DAY BRINGING TO YOUR MIND (LESSONS FROM CHAPTERS 4-6)

• Aks Reflections, JOURNEYING FROM KNOWLEDGE TO WISDOM (Lessons from Chapter 7)

• Aks Reflections, THE CANVAS AND THE PAINT (Lessons from Chapter 8)

• Aks Reflections, The Royal Secret (Learnings from Chapter 9)

• Aks Reflections, A THOUSAND SUNS - THE TURNING POINT OF THE BHAGAVAD GITA (Exploration and the Cosmic Vision from Chapters 10 and 11)

• Aks Reflections, THE WAY OF LOVE: DEVOTION TOWARDS THE SELF - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 12 PART 1

• Aks Reflections, A PORTRAIT OF DEVOTION - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 12 PART 2

• Aks Reflections, A MAP OF EVERYTHING YOU ARE NOT - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 13, PART 1

• Aks Reflections, THE KNOWER: ONE WHO WAS NEVER ASLEEP - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 13, PART 2

• Aks Reflections, THE FLOW, THE FRENZY AND THE FOG - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 14

• Aks Reflections, THE UPSIDE DOWN TREE: THE SOURCE OF EVERYTHING - BHAGAVAD GITA CH. 15

• Aks Reflections, OF LIGHTS AND SHADOWS - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 16

• Aks Reflections, THREE TYPES OF FAITH, AND THE ONE THAT IS (BHAGAVAD GITA CH. 17)

A gift given so the giving is seen.

A gift given to tilt the world toward harm.

The act is the same. The direction is not - Only one of them is real. Only one is Sat.

The Bhagavad Gita has spent sixteen chapters describing the terrain.

In the seventeenth, it hands you a mirror.

You are not what you believe. You are what you repeat.

THE QUESTION ARJUNA ASKS

Chapter 16 ended with an instruction - let the scriptures be your guide.

Arjuna asks the human question back, “What about those who act with faith, but without the scriptures? Where do they stand?”

Most traditions draw a line. Believer or non-believer. Faithful or faithless. The question is whether you have faith.

The Gita refuses the line.

Everyone has faith. Faith is not chosen. The variable is where the gunas have pointed it.

• Sattva points it toward what illuminates

• Rajas points it toward the material gains and its returns

• Tamas points it toward what confuses or harms

Three flavours. One faculty.

FAITH OR ORIENTATION

The Gita has a word for this. Shraddha.

Usually translated as faith. The Gita means something more precise - Orientation.

The thing you return to when no one is watching. What you instinctively trust without knowing you trust it.

Shraddha is not chosen each morning. It is built slowly, by what you repeat. And because it is unconscious, the only way to see it is to look at its outputs.

Chapter 14 names the Gunas - the three forces that move through every thought, every impulse, every act.

Chapter 17 is specific about where they land. The Gunas shape shraddha. Shraddha shapes action. And action shows up in four domains of ordinary life.

HOW THE GUNAS MANIFEST

The Gita names four domains where shraddha becomes visible: Food. Offering. Discipline. Giving.

Each one walks the same path. Sattva illuminates. Rajas inflates. Tamas deadens.

Four mirrors. One face.

The outer act can look identical across a row. The Shraddha behind it is not.

DISCIPLINE: THE ONE THE GITA LINGERS ON

Of the four mirrors, the Gita spends the longest on Discipline.

Tapas has three expressions. Of Body. Of Speech. Of Mind.

Each one a discipline. Each one revealing.

The body is the easiest to measure. The mind, the hardest to see. Speech sits between them. The one domain where what is inside becomes audible.

The Gita is unusually specific here. Four tests. Truthful. Pleasant. Beneficial. Not agitating.

All four must be met. Truthful but harsh is not sattvic speech. Pleasant but false is not either. The speech that illuminates is the speech that passes through all four.

THE REAL AND THE UNREAL

Three syllables. The signature of Brahman itself.

“OM TAT SAT - this is held to be the threefold designation of Brahman.” - 17.23

• Om - the primordial sound. The Source.

• Tat - That. The Absolute, which liberates.

• Sat - the Real. What is.

“Whatever is offered, given, or practised without shraddha - it is called asat. It is nothing, here or hereafter.” - 17.28

Everyone has shraddha. But only shraddha oriented toward the Real bears fruit.

• Rajasic shraddha trusts the result.

• Tamasic shraddha trusts the wrong things entirely.

• Sattvic shraddha trusts what illuminates.

But even sattvic shraddha, severed from the Source, becomes another attachment. A rope of silk is still a rope.

The act is not sat because it is performed. The act is sat because it is anchored.

OM TAT SAT

Asat is not false. It is not evil. It is weightless.

A lot of work. Zero mass.

Om Tat Sat is not a mantra to be recited. It is the thread back.

• Om - Am I connected to the Source?

• Tat - Is this for something larger than me?

• Sat - Is this real, or a materialistic illusion?

Three questions, asked before the act. Now it is anchored.

Read the post above for the teaching. Reflect on your week with the audit below.

What does it bring up?

You are not what you believe. You are what you repeat. And what you repeat, you become.

This exploration is free. If something here has resonated with you, I'd love your support - even if it's just a coffee or matcha. ☕🍵

BUY ME A COFFEE OR A MATCHA

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REFERENCES:

• A Parthasarathy, Bhagavad Gita

• Eknath Easwaran, The Bhagavad Gita

• Stephen Mitchell, Bhagavad Gita

PREVIOUS POSTS:

• Aks Reflections, INTRODUCTION TO THE BHAGAVAD GITA: A TIMELESS BLUEPRINT FOR A MEANINGFUL LIFE

• Aks Reflections, PICK UP THE BOW: BUILDING YOUR INNER SELF (LESSONS FROM CHAPTERS 1 & 2)

• Aks Reflections, THE QUIET TRIUMPH OF THE NEXT STEP (LESSONS FROM CHAPTER 3)

• Aks Reflections, EXHAUSTION OR EVOLUTION: WHAT’S YOUR DAY BRINGING TO YOUR MIND (LESSONS FROM CHAPTERS 4-6)

• Aks Reflections, JOURNEYING FROM KNOWLEDGE TO WISDOM (Lessons from Chapter 7)

• Aks Reflections, THE CANVAS AND THE PAINT (Lessons from Chapter 8)

• Aks Reflections, The Royal Secret (Learnings from Chapter 9)

• Aks Reflections, A THOUSAND SUNS - THE TURNING POINT OF THE BHAGAVAD GITA (Exploration and the Cosmic Vision from Chapters 10 and 11)

• Aks Reflections, THE WAY OF LOVE: DEVOTION TOWARDS THE SELF - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 12 PART 1

• Aks Reflections, A PORTRAIT OF DEVOTION - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 12 PART 2

• Aks Reflections, A MAP OF EVERYTHING YOU ARE NOT - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 13, PART 1

• Aks Reflections, THE KNOWER: ONE WHO WAS NEVER ASLEEP - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 13, PART 2

• Aks Reflections, THE FLOW, THE FRENZY AND THE FOG - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 14

• Aks Reflections, THE UPSIDE DOWN TREE: THE SOURCE OF EVERYTHING - BHAGAVAD GITA CH. 15

• Aks Reflections, OF LIGHTS AND SHADOWS - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 16

Some shadows look nothing like darkness. They look like giving. Like sacrifice. Like love.

But the shadow is not the light. It is merely proof of what is standing in its way.

The Bhagavad Gita was always about this.

THE TWO NATURES

The Gita has always been generous.

Every chapter an open door. Come as you are. Take the path that fits your nature. Knowledge, devotion, action - all roads lead to the same place.

Chapter 16 gets specific.

Two natures. The Illuminating Nature (Daivi sampat) and the Obscuring Nature (Aasuri sampat). Twenty-six qualities of one. Six of the other.

• The illuminating nature uncovers - Fearlessness. Compassion. Steadiness.

• The obscuring nature accumulates - Craving. Delusion. Possession

The question is not which one you are. It is which one is gaining ground.

THE ILLUMINATING NATURE: A CLEARING

The twenty-six qualities of daivi sampat don’t add anything. They remove what was always obscuring what was already there.

"Fearlessness, purity of heart, steadfastness in knowledge and yoga, charity, self-control and sacrifice, study of the scriptures, austerity and uprightness." -16.1

Each one a subtraction. Each one a layer of ego that stops being fed.

The illuminating nature doesn’t strive toward these. It uncovers them. The way you don’t build silence - you stop making noise.

The Gita is precise about this: each quality is a practice. Fearlessness in the moment of avoidance. Compassion in the moment of judgment. Steadiness in the moment of reaction.

Not grand gestures. The ordinary moment, met differently.

Those moments, accumulated, deplete a Vasana. Each groove loosened. The spiral unwinding.
These qualities are not the marks of a good person. They are the marks of a free one.

THE OBSCURING NATURE: A TALE OF DESCENT

The obscuring nature casts the longest shadow. Because it rarely arrives looking like darkness.

“Triple is the gate of this hell, destructive of the self - lust, anger and greed. Therefore one should abandon these three.” - 16.21

The Gita names three gates. Walk through them habitually and the direction of a life is set.

1. DESIRE (KAMA)

It begins with something that looks like love. A gift given. A sacrifice made. Someone steps forward when others step back. Gives without being asked.

From the outside it is generosity. From the inside something else is present. Something quiet and insistent. The need to be seen as the one who gives. To be needed.

The desire for significance dressed as selflessness.

2. ANGER (KRODHA)

Then something shifts.

The gift goes unacknowledged. The sacrifice unnoticed. The person who was helped moves on without looking back.

The heat begins.

Not the sudden rage of a provoked animal. Something slower. The burn of the unacknowledged. A score that was never meant to be kept but somehow is.

The flame convinces the one holding it that it is warmth.

3. GREED (LOBHA)

And then, without a decision being made, something calcifies.

The giving continues. But now it is investment. Each act quietly noted. Each sacrifice added to a ledger no one else can see.

People become debtors without knowing it. Relationships become collateral.

What began as love has become ownership. A god complex fully formed. Through three ordinary gates. Each one entered for reasons that felt, at the time, entirely justified.

You have just walked through all three. The demonic nature did not announce itself. It never does.

THE SPIRAL

Left unchecked, the Obscuring nature does not stay still. It pulls deeper.

Each choice from ego and craving draws further from clarity. The self narrowing. Body. Hunger. This life. Nothing more.

A world without order. Without ground. Where lust becomes the only compass.

Chapter 14 named this tamas. Here it becomes trajectory. A direction of travel compounded across lifetimes.

The obscuring nature moves away from the Self. Each Vasana deepens. Each groove tightens. Reborn not into clarity but into denser illusion.

This is what it looks like from inside the tangle.

THE WAY THROUGH

The Gita does not leave you at the gate.

It has traced the spiral. Named the gates. And now — as always — it points to a door.

“Let the scriptures be your guide in determining what should be done and what should not be done. Knowing what is prescribed by the scriptures, you should act accordingly.” - 16.24

Knowledge. Reflection. Meditation. The accumulated wisdom of the Vedas as the thread back. A mirror held steady when everything else is moving.

What obscured begins to lift. What was always illuminating begins to surface.

The shadow was never the truth. It was only proof of what was standing in the way of the light.

26 qualities to uncover the light. 6 to obscure it. It only takes one.

The shadow is always the shape of what stands in the light. What is yours?

This exploration is free. If something here has resonated with you, I'd love your support - even if it's just a coffee or matcha. ☕🍵

BUY ME A COFFEE OR A MATCHA

Leave a comment

REFERENCES:

• A Parthasarathy, Bhagavad Gita

• Eknath Easwaran, The Bhagavad Gita

• Stephen Mitchell, Bhagavad Gita

PREVIOUS POSTS:

• Aks Reflections, INTRODUCTION TO THE BHAGAVAD GITA: A TIMELESS BLUEPRINT FOR A MEANINGFUL LIFE

• Aks Reflections, PICK UP THE BOW: BUILDING YOUR INNER SELF (LESSONS FROM CHAPTERS 1 & 2)

• Aks Reflections, THE QUIET TRIUMPH OF THE NEXT STEP (LESSONS FROM CHAPTER 3)

• Aks Reflections, EXHAUSTION OR EVOLUTION: WHAT’S YOUR DAY BRINGING TO YOUR MIND (LESSONS FROM CHAPTERS 4-6)

• Aks Reflections, JOURNEYING FROM KNOWLEDGE TO WISDOM (Lessons from Chapter 7)

• Aks Reflections, THE CANVAS AND THE PAINT (Lessons from Chapter 8)

• Aks Reflections, The Royal Secret (Learnings from Chapter 9)

• Aks Reflections, A THOUSAND SUNS - THE TURNING POINT OF THE BHAGAVAD GITA (Exploration and the Cosmic Vision from Chapters 10 and 11)

• Aks Reflections, THE WAY OF LOVE: DEVOTION TOWARDS THE SELF - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 12 PART 1

• Aks Reflections, A PORTRAIT OF DEVOTION - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 12 PART 2

• Aks Reflections, A MAP OF EVERYTHING YOU ARE NOT - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 13, PART 1

• Aks Reflections, THE KNOWER: ONE WHO WAS NEVER ASLEEP - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 13, PART 2

• Aks Reflections, THE FLOW, THE FRENZY AND THE FOG - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 14

• Aks Reflections, THE UPSIDE DOWN TREE: THE SOURCE OF EVERYTHING - BHAGAVAD GITA CH. 15

The Buddha is said to have attained enlightenment beneath one. A branch of that original Bodhi tree, planted in 288 BCE, is still alive today.

It was The Peepal Tree or the Sacred Fig - Its Sanskrit name, Ashvattha, means that which will be there tomorrow

Permanent. Unchanging. Like Brahman itself.

And then Chapter 15 of the Bhagavad Gita turns it upside down.

“The ancient Ashvattha has its roots above and branches below.”

The chapter that names the Source of Everything.

THE INVERTED ASHVATTHA

Roots in the sky. Branches reaching into the earth. Chapter 15 uses the Peepal Tree as a map of the entire cosmos.

The real roots are anchored above. In the Imperishable. In Brahman.

The branches spread downward - the life we live in, the desires we chase.

The leaves are the Vedas, the body of knowledge that orients us in the world.

And below, growing deeper into the earth, the Gunas form a second set of roots - Sattva, Rajas, Tamas - binding us downward in the material.

Beautiful. Intricate. Real enough to live inside.

But not the source.

THE AXE OF NON ATTACHMENT

The tree has no visible beginning and no visible end. You cannot find where it starts by looking at the branches.

There is only one way out. Cut it.

The Gita prescribes one tool: the axe of detachment. The target is the downward roots - the Gunas anchoring you in the material, when the life is in the root above.

The branches are real. The problem is mistaking them for the source.

Once cut, something clears. The seeker can look upward toward the real roots, rather than deeper into the tangle below.

THE LIGHT BEYOND THE BRANCHES

This is where Chapter 15 gets intimate. From the cosmic to the cellular.

Brahman is not distant. It is not waiting at the end of a long spiritual road.

The Gita points outward first.

The light in the sun that energises the world. The light in the moon that nourishes the plants. The fire that digests your food. The air moving through you as breath - Prana rising on the inhale, Apana releasing on the exhale.

“The light in the sun, the moon, the fire - know that light to be Mine.” - 15.12

And then it points inward.

“The memory that surfaces from within you - that too is Mine.” - 15.15

One Source. Different expressions. Already within.

THE WHIRLWIND AND THE WITNESS

A fragment of the same source takes form in each living being as the Self. Brahman places the seed - Prakriti awakens.

The Gunas pull the mind and senses into the world. The branches appear. The downward roots take hold. Life materialises - a whirlwind that looks like a world.

Each attachment to this material world leaves a groove. Each groove becomes a Vasana - the karmic imprint carried forward. The seed builds.

Mistaking this animated Prakriti for the whole of reality - that is Maya.

Witness without attachment: the karmic Vasana depletes

Attach to results: the karmic Vasana builds and carries across lives

Liberation is when these Vasanas are fully exhausted. The whirlwind continues, but You are no longer a part of it. The Self has nothing left to carry. The misidentification ends.

The flower perishes. The scent was never the flower.

THREE FORMS. ONE SOURCE

The tree, the axe, the whirlwind - all of it points to one thing. The Gita names it now.

• Ksara: the Changeable. The body, the Field, Prakriti. Everything that moves, ages, dissolves. The branches and the downward roots.

• Aksara: the Unchangeable. The Self within. The Knower. What you are beneath everything that shifts.

• UTTAMA PURUSA: the Highest Person - Both and Transcending Both. The ground in which the perishable and the imperishable both arise. The source from which the tree grows, and the silence into which it dissolves.

Because it pervades and transcends both, the Gita gives it the name this chapter is built around: Purushottama: the Supreme Person.

KNOWING THE SOURCE

The one who knows the three forms - who sees the Changeable, the Unchangeable, and the Highest - is Budhi-man: the wise one, eyes upward, anchored to the source.

Eyes downward, lost in the fog of Maya - that is Vipeksha, the deluded one. Without discernment, the downward roots feel like ground.

The one who sees this clearly has done what was to be done.

No more climbing branches looking for the root.

Returning to Purushottama: the Highest Person. The destination the whole tree was always pointing toward.

Where are you looking today - toward the root above, or deeper into the tangle below? Pick a row that speaks to you right now. Sit with it…

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REFERENCES:

• A Parthasarathy, Bhagavad Gita

• Eknath Easwaran, The Bhagavad Gita

• Stephen Mitchell, Bhagavad Gita

• Give Me Trees, Importance of the Peepul Tree

PREVIOUS POSTS:

• Aks Reflections, INTRODUCTION TO THE BHAGAVAD GITA: A TIMELESS BLUEPRINT FOR A MEANINGFUL LIFE

• Aks Reflections, PICK UP THE BOW: BUILDING YOUR INNER SELF (LESSONS FROM CHAPTERS 1 & 2)

• Aks Reflections, THE QUIET TRIUMPH OF THE NEXT STEP (LESSONS FROM CHAPTER 3)

• Aks Reflections, EXHAUSTION OR EVOLUTION: WHAT’S YOUR DAY BRINGING TO YOUR MIND (LESSONS FROM CHAPTERS 4-6)

• Aks Reflections, JOURNEYING FROM KNOWLEDGE TO WISDOM (Lessons from Chapter 7)

• Aks Reflections, THE CANVAS AND THE PAINT (Lessons from Chapter 8)

• Aks Reflections, The Royal Secret (Learnings from Chapter 9)

• Aks Reflections, A THOUSAND SUNS - THE TURNING POINT OF THE BHAGAVAD GITA (Exploration and the Cosmic Vision from Chapters 10 and 11)

• Aks Reflections, THE WAY OF LOVE: DEVOTION TOWARDS THE SELF - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 12 PART 1

• Aks Reflections, A PORTRAIT OF DEVOTION - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 12 PART 2

• Aks Reflections, A MAP OF EVERYTHING YOU ARE NOT - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 13, PART 1

• Aks Reflections, THE KNOWER: ONE WHO WAS NEVER ASLEEP - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 13, PART 2

• Aks Reflections, THE FLOW, THE FRENZY AND THE FOG - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 14

Now what if that pull - the hand that reaches, the eye that lights up - was never You?

Chapter 13 drew that line. Chapter 14 names the forces that blur it: The 3 Gunas. Born of Prakriti. Within Everything - and Everyone.

THE WOMB AND THE SEED

Chapter 13 revealed the Field - Prakriti, the entire material world of body, mind, and experience - and the Knower who is beyond it. But what moves within the Field? What shapes our tendencies, our appetites, our character?

Chapter 14 answers that with a striking Image.

Prakriti as the Cosmic Womb of the Brahman into which the Seed is placed. From that, all things are born.

The three Gunas born of Prakriti bind the Immortal Self to the Mortal Body.

The word Guna has no clean English equivalent. Thread. Quality. Strand. Think of them as the three fibres woven into the fabric of everything material - every thought, every action, every mood, every meal. They are not human traits. They are cosmic forces. All three live inside each of us, shifting dominance moment to moment.

To be born is to be subject to the Gunas. This is not a flaw. It is the condition.

And threaded quietly through everything that follows is the question the Bhagavad Gita is building toward - what does it look like to live beyond them?

THE THREE FORCES

SATTVA - THE FLOW

When Sattva dominates, wisdom shines through every gate: the senses, the mind, the intellect. One pursues spiritual practice and the material world both - clarity guiding them as a natural inclination

And yet, even Sattva binds. It creates attachment to happiness, to the feeling of being wise, to the peace that comes from knowing. A rope made of silk is still a rope.

RAJAS - THE FRENZY

When Rajas dominates, one is perpetually chasing - goals, pleasures, recognition, fulfilment. Reaching the thing, only to reset and chase again.

Rajas is not villainous. It built civilisations. It fuels ambition. But it binds through attachment to desires: the soul tethered to the results of its own striving, never quite still.

TAMAS - THE FOG

When Tamas dominates, darkness descends. Inertia. Carelessness. Delusion. The dullness that makes effort feel impossible.

Tamas binds through the comfortable numbness of not-doing. The path of least resistance that leads, over time, somewhere no one intended to go.

WHAT BINDS CARRIES FORWARD

Where attention flows in the material world, the Guna grows. And what grows, continues.

All three Gunas are necessary. Sattva illuminates. Rajas moves. Tamas rests. The question is never which one - it is which one is running you.

How you meet the world - with awareness, not attachment - sets the direction. The food you eat, the way you interact, the thoughts you return to. Each one feeds a Guna. Each Guna sets a direction.

And at the moment of death, the Guna you have fed the most carries you forward:

• Sattva: Reborn into wisdom. The pursuit picks up where it left off

• Rajas: Reborn amongst those who act and strive - another turn on the wheel

• Tamas: Drawn downward -reborn into conditions farthest from knowledge

Sattva creates the conditions for Self-Realisation. But even here, Rajas has its place: without it, nothing gets done. Tamas has its place: without rest, the body and mind collapse. The art is not elimination but balance - drawing on each Guna as the moment demands, without being consumed by any.

BEYOND THE GUNAS

Sattva is not the destination. It is the best vehicle.

The Gita never changes its ultimate aim - Oneness with Brahman. Liberation from the cycle of birth and death entirely. And that requires stepping outside all three Gunas altogether.

Arjuna asks the question that pivots the whole chapter: what does someone beyond the Gunas actually look like and how do they get there?

The Gita offers four paths to the same crossing point - action without attachment, knowledge, meditation, devotion. Krishna closes the chapter on the last:

“One who serves Me with unwavering devotion rises above the Gunas and becomes fit to attain Brahman.” - 14.26

The Gunatita does not hate the darkness when it comes, nor cling to the light when it rises.

A clod of earth. A stone. A block of gold - the same to them.

The Gunas play on. The Gunatita watches.

THE MIRROR TO THE COSMOS

Beyond the Gunas, the Self is a Reflection of the Brahman.

One who has crossed beyond the Gunas doesn’t become absent from the world. They mirror the qualities of Brahman within it.

• Immortal: Outside the attachments confining one to the cycle of birth and death

• Immutable: Unchanged by what rises and falls around them.

• Eternal: Unshaken by the world’s impermanence

• In Bliss: Not the bliss of Sattva’s happiness, but the ground state of the Self

Pick a Moment from Today. Which Guna was Running You?

Use the Guna Audit Below to help determine…

I am keeping my Subscriptions free, but would welcome any support, inspiration, encouragement - a cup of Coffee, Tea or Matcha… :)

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REFERENCES:

• A Parthasarathy, Bhagavad Gita

• Eknath Easwaran, The Bhagavad Gita

• Stephen Mitchell, Bhagavad Gita

• Aks Reflections, INTRODUCTION TO THE BHAGAVAD GITA: A TIMELESS BLUEPRINT FOR A MEANINGFUL LIFE

• Aks Reflections, PICK UP THE BOW: BUILDING YOUR INNER SELF (LESSONS FROM CHAPTERS 1 & 2)

• Aks Reflections, THE QUIET TRIUMPH OF THE NEXT STEP (LESSONS FROM CHAPTER 3)

• Aks Reflections, BEYOND THE MAT: FOUR TYPES OF YOGA

• Aks Reflections, EXHAUSTION OR EVOLUTION: WHAT’S YOUR DAY BRINGING TO YOUR MIND (LESSONS FROM CHAPTERS 4-6)

• Aks Reflections, JOURNEYING FROM KNOWLEDGE TO WISDOM (Lessons from Chapter 7)

• Aks Reflections, THE CANVAS AND THE PAINT (Lessons from Chapter 8)

• Aks Reflections, The Royal Secret (Learnings from Chapter 9)

• Aks Reflections, A THOUSAND SUNS - THE TURNING POINT OF THE BHAGAVAD GITA (Exploration and the Cosmic Vision from Chapters 10 and 11)

• Aks Reflections, THE WAY OF LOVE: DEVOTION TOWARDS THE SELF - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 12 PART 1

• Aks Reflections, A PORTRAIT OF DEVOTION - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 12 PART 2

• Aks Reflections, A MAP OF EVERYTHING YOU ARE NOT - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 13, PART 1

• Aks Reflections, THE KNOWER: ONE WHO WAS NEVER ASLEEP - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 13, PART 2

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The mind reaching back for the world it just shook awake from - a dream that felt so vivid, so real. And yet, upon waking, an illusion.

In an instant you know - without doubt, without effort - that you were never inside it. Something in you was watching the entire time. Untouched. Unchanged.

And the Awake You goes about its day in the “Real World”.

But the Bhagavad Gita stops you right there - What if the You in the “Real World” is just as fictional as the You in the Dream? If the dream was the Field - is the waking you the Knower? Or is there something deeper still?

Part 1 mapped the Field. Part 2 is about finding the One who was never asleep.

PURUSHA’S DANCE WITH PRAKRITI

The Gita names the two realities at the heart of all existence.

• Prakriti: matter, nature, the entire Field in motion. Everything that moves, changes, is born and dies. The three Gunas: Sattva (Attachment to Knowledge), Rajas (Attachment to Desire), Tamas (Attachment to Ignorance) - Prakriti’s operating modes - the qualities that colour every thought, every reaction, every season of a life.

CLICK HERE FOR A SNAPSHOT INTO THE GUNAS

• Purusha (The Key Player of this Post): pure consciousness. The Knower. Unchanging, unborn, undying. Not located in any particular body yet present in every one. Not a product of the Field but the awareness in which the Field appears.

• Their Relationship: Prakriti is the cause of all activity. Every movement in the Field - every desire, every fear, every collision - originates in Prakriti moving through its Gunas. Purusha does not act. It witnesses and holds.

But - and this is the crux - the way Purusha HOLDS with what it WITNESSES is what produces the quality of experience. Pleasure or pain arises when the Knower forgets it is witnessing and begins to believe it is the one being acted upon.

The suffering is not in the Field. The suffering is in the misidentification.

Prakriti produces the storm. Purusha, when it remembers itself, is the sky.

THE FIVE ROLES OF PURUSHA

The Bhagavad Gita provides Five clear roles of the Purusha to help the Knower remain steady in the waves of duality - Pleasure, Pain, Desire, Hatred.

1. The Witness: The one who sees without being altered by what it sees. The anger moves through the Field. The Witness observes it without becoming it.

2. The Permitter: The one in whose presence the Field feels free to move. Prakriti operates in the light of Purusha’s awareness. The Field needs the Knower the way a stage needs light - without it, nothing is visible, nothing happens.

3. The Supporter: the pillar of all experience. The Knower does not carry the Field. It holds the space in which the Field exists. The way the sky holds the weather without becoming it.

4. The Enjoyer: the Knower is fully present to experience. The difference is that it enjoys without being consumed. It watches the dream with complete attention - and wakes unchanged.

5. The Supreme Self: the recognition that the individual Knower is not separate from the universal. The Purusha is the Knower. The Knower realises the Self.

These five roles together describe something fully alive, fully present, fully engaged - and simultaneously untouched. Awareness over Attachment.

THE JOURNEY TO THE FOURTH STATE: TURIYA

The ancient teachers mapped consciousness into four states.

• Waking: the world in full motion. The Field running at its loudest. The Collision producing its inevitable output.

• Dreaming: the Field generating its own interior world. The Ego still present, still narrating, still inside the story.

• Deep sleep: the Field at rest. The Vasanas temporarily quiet. The noise gone. But the Knower not yet recognised - only experienced as absence.

• Turiya: And beyond these three is Turiya - The fourth. When the Knower raises its awareness above the Illusion of the three, the Knower attains Self-Realisation.

Most of us move through all three states identified with the Field. The Knower is the one who begins to notice - in the middle of waking life, in the texture of a dream, even in the stillness of deep sleep I am not this. Something in me is watching.

Turiya is not an achievement. It is a recognition. The Knower was always there - present through every dream, every waking moment, every season of the Field. The path of Chapter 13 is simply the gradual removal of everything that was obscuring it.

101 YEARS TO LEARN ABOUT THE 4TH STATE

THE GOAL - REMOVAL OF ATTACHMENT FROM THE FIELD

The goal of the Knower is Self Realisation. Oneness with the Brahman.

Brahman is beginningless and endless. Desire is not. Every desire has a start and an end - fulfilment or disappointment, both leaving a groove. The Knower keeps forgetting itself because the cycle keeps generating noise.

The goal is not suppression. It is the recognition that the peace, the fullness - is meant to be Experienced, not Seeked.

The Path back if the one you already know: Act, Learn, Meditate, Surrender

A PORTRAIT OF THE KNOWER - THE TWENTY QUALITIES

The Bhagavad Gita does not leave the Knower as an abstract recognition. He describes what it looks like when someone is genuinely living from it.

Taken together these twenty qualities are not the qualities of someone who has escaped the dream, but Someone who knows they are dreaming - and moves through it with open eyes.

Arjuna is still on Kurukshetra. The bow is still in his hand. But something has shifted in the one holding it. The Field has not changed. The Knower has remembered itself.

Where do you find yourself today — in the Field or as the Knower?

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REFERENCES:

• A Parthasarathy, Bhagavad Gita

• Eknath Easwaran, The Bhagavad Gita

• Stephen Mitchell, Bhagavad Gita

• Sri Hari Yoga, THE DOCTRINE OF THE THREE BODIES

• Swami Krishnananda, THE MANDUKYA UPDANISHAD, AN EXPOSITION

• Aks Reflections, INTRODUCTION TO THE BHAGAVAD GITA: A TIMELESS BLUEPRINT FOR A MEANINGFUL LIFE

• Aks Reflections, PICK UP THE BOW: BUILDING YOUR INNER SELF (LESSONS FROM CHAPTERS 1 & 2)

• Aks Reflections, THE QUIET TRIUMPH OF THE NEXT STEP (LESSONS FROM CHAPTER 3)

• Aks Reflections, BEYOND THE MAT: FOUR TYPES OF YOGA

• Aks Reflections, EXHAUSTION OR EVOLUTION: WHAT’S YOUR DAY BRINGING TO YOUR MIND (LESSONS FROM CHAPTERS 4-6)

• Aks Reflections, JOURNEYING FROM KNOWLEDGE TO WISDOM (Lessons from Chapter 7)

• Aks Reflections, THE CANVAS AND THE PAINT (Lessons from Chapter 8)

• Aks Reflections, The Royal Secret (Learnings from Chapter 9)

• Aks Reflections, A THOUSAND SUNS - THE TURNING POINT OF THE BHAGAVAD GITA (Exploration and the Cosmic Vision from Chapters 10 and 11)

• Aks Reflections, THE WAY OF LOVE: DEVOTION TOWARDS THE SELF - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 12 PART 1

• Aks Reflections, A PORTRAIT OF DEVOTION - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 12 PART 2

• Aks Reflections, A MAP OF EVERYTHING YOU ARE NOT - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 13, PART 1

I failed. I should have done it differently. They let me down. I should have known. They make me happy. I achieved this. I am right. They are wrong.

The anxious monologue arrives before the day has begun. The weight lands before you have decided to pick it up. And it lands entirely on one place - the Doer.

Every experience becomes elation or pain depending on a single variable - whether the I likes what it sees. The same event. Two people. Two completely different collisions. Because the Field each person is running through is different.

Kshetra. Field.

Arjuna stands on Kurukshetra - the Field of the Kurus - and Krishna says: this body, this mind, this entire inner world. Know it as the Field.

THREE MIRRORS. ONE TRUTH

Chapter 13 pauses to ask the question most of us never stop long enough to hear. Who is this I? Is it the Doer - or the Experiencer? The Bhagavad Gita expresses this as The Field and Knower of the Field.

The authors of old used intentional wordplay to depict this idea across three spheres:

1. The Battlefield: Kurukshetra - the FIELD of action, and Arjuna learning to witness rather than collapse into what he sees

2. The Human Level: the body, mind, and ego as the FIELD; the witnessing Self as the Knower

3. Cosmic Scale: Prakriti, all of material nature as the FIELD, and Purusha, universal consciousness watching it unfold

To really understand the beauty and depth within the Field and the Knower, Chapter 13 will be divided into PARTS 1 and 2.

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WHO AM “I”?

When most people hear the Field they assume it means the body. The physical.

The Gita provides an indepth journey into its 31 components.

In Vedantic tradition these 31 components are understood across three bodies:

• The Gross Body: The physical body as we know it - made up of 5 Elements, Air, Water, Earth, Space and Fire

• The Subtle Body: Relating to the senses and made up of our organs, sense objects and sense of action

• The Causal Body: The deepest layer. The storehouse of everything carried across lifetimes. Not just memory but imprint. Not just habit but inheritance

Upon reflection I crafted a 4 step journey into - What Are You Not. Reading them should be less like a list and more like a map of everything you have ever called “I”, but is Not.

THE 31 ELEMENTS YOU ARE NOT

I. THE SOURCE: 4 ELEMENTS - The internal architecture that shapes you

• The Unmanifest (The “Storage”): Holds the seeds of the past imprints and potential for future habits

• The Mind (The “Gathering Point”): Collects the raw, shifting impressions of the world

• The Intellect (The “Filter”) - Turns sensory data into defined concepts

• The Ego (The “I-maker.”): The internal voice claiming every experience as “mine.”

II. THE MEDIUM: 5 ELEMENTS - The fabric of the environment.

• Space: The container, Air: The movement, Fire: The light and heat, Water: The fluid connection, Earth: The solid ground.

III. THE PASSAGEWAY: 15 ELEMENTS - Where the “Medium” meets “Mind.”

• 5 Sense Objects: Sound, Touch, Form, Taste, Smell

• 5 Senses of Perception: Ears, Skin, Eyes, Tongue, Nose

• 5 Organs of Action: Mouth, Hands, Feet, Excretion, Reproduction

IV. THE COLLISION (7 ELEMENTS) - When the world and the "I" collide

• The Aggregate (Sanghata): The physical body - the meeting point where all these parts are held together.

• Sentience (Chetana): The awareness that enlivens the above and makes it feel alive

• The Inner Will (Dhriti): The force that keeps the 31 parts from falling apart

• The Polarities: Desire & Hatred (The push and pull) | Pleasure & Pain (The result)

DON’T JUDGE THE FIELD, WAIT TO “KNOW” THE KNOWER

Everyone arrives with seeds in their Storage they did not consciously plant - not just from this lifetime, but potentially across many. The fears that have no origin you can name. The gifts nobody taught you. The patterns that keep returning no matter how much work you do on yourself. This is what the Gita calls Vasanas - the invisible inheritance of the Field

It’s not a weakness. It is an architecture.

Be mindful of that - within oneSELF and those around.

Which means when someone is difficult - when the hatred surfaces, when the collision is loud - you are watching their Storage colliding with their Medium. Their Ego is just the voice-over for that collision.

That’s not an excuse, but a call for awareness, reflection and action.

EXPERIENCE THE FIELD - BE THE SELF WITHIN

Prakriti/ The Field is not a problem to be solved - It’s to be lived within, to be experienced.

The body, the mind, the ego, the senses - these are the instruments through which life is lived, relationships are built, duty is fulfilled. Without the Field there is no experience, no love, no action, no meaning.

The problem is not the Field.

The problem is identification with the Field without awareness of the Knower. Believing the monologue is YOU rather than something you are watching. Letting the word I carry the full weight of 31 components that were within before you arrived.

And the one watching is not touched by what it sees.

The anger feels like “YOU”. The desire feels like “YOU”. The body is so obviously YOU that most of us never question it. Even the intellect - the very instrument you would use to examine this question.

This is what the Gita calls Maya. Not illusion in the sense that the world does not exist. Illusion in the sense that we have mistaken the Field for the Self.

The Field is loud. The Knower is still. Thirty one components. One witness. That witness is where we go next.

CLICK FOR PART 2: THE KNOWER WITHIN

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REFERENCES:

• A Parthasarathy, Bhagavad Gita

• Eknath Easwaran, The Bhagavad Gita

• Stephen Mitchell, Bhagavad Gita

• Sri Hari Yoga, THE DOCTRINE OF THE THREE BODIES

• Aks Reflections, INTRODUCTION TO THE BHAGAVAD GITA: A TIMELESS BLUEPRINT FOR A MEANINGFUL LIFE

• Aks Reflections, PICK UP THE BOW: BUILDING YOUR INNER SELF (LESSONS FROM CHAPTERS 1 & 2)

• Aks Reflections, THE QUIET TRIUMPH OF THE NEXT STEP (LESSONS FROM CHAPTER 3)

• Aks Reflections, BEYOND THE MAT: FOUR TYPES OF YOGA

• Aks Reflections, EXHAUSTION OR EVOLUTION: WHAT’S YOUR DAY BRINGING TO YOUR MIND (LESSONS FROM CHAPTERS 4-6)

• Aks Reflections, JOURNEYING FROM KNOWLEDGE TO WISDOM (Lessons from Chapter 7)

• Aks Reflections, THE CANVAS AND THE PAINT (Lessons from Chapter 8)

• Aks Reflections, The Royal Secret (Learnings from Chapter 9)

• Aks Reflections, A THOUSAND SUNS - THE TURNING POINT OF THE BHAGAVAD GITA (Exploration and the Cosmic Vision from Chapters 10 and 11)

• Aks Reflections, THE WAY OF LOVE: DEVOTION TOWARDS THE SELF - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 12 PART 1

• Aks Reflections, A PORTRAIT OF DEVOTION - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 12 PART 2

In how you speak to someone who has disappointed you, in how you show up for work that may never be recognised, in how you move through a world that is constantly asking something of you.

In Part 1 we explored the question Arjuna brought to the battlefield after the Cosmic Vision, “which devotion is most perfect, and how to practise it.” The journey continues in Part 2, where Krishna paints a portrait - 35 traits of a Devotee. 35 traits of someone with Pure Love for All.

If you haven’t read Part 1, start here.

As I read them I found myself grouping them into six dimensions. Below is my reflection on exploring these 35 traits, not as a checklist, but as phases on interaction with the Self and the world around us.

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THE PORTRAIT

“He who hates no creature, who is friendly and compassionate to all, who is free from attachment and egoism, balanced in pleasure and pain, and forgiving - such a devotee is dear to Me.” Chapter 12.13-14

From here, across seven verses, the portrait deepens.

1. TOWARDS OTHERS

They carry no hatred for any being. Friendly, compassionate, free from attachment and ego - equanimous in pain and pleasure, quick to forgive.

Not because they are saints removed from the world. But because they have stopped making other people’s behaviour the condition of their own peace. In a world that reacts, they reflect and act.

2. WITHIN THEMSELVES

Ever content. Steadily united with the SELF. Self-controlled, firm in conviction, dedicated completely to what matters most.

There is a quietness to this - not emptiness, but settledness. A person who has found what they are looking for stops frantically searching. Most of modern anxiety, I suspect, is the friction of that search.

3. IN THE WORLD

“He by whom no one is put into difficulty and who is not disturbed by anyone, who is equipoised in happiness and distress, fear and anxiety, is very dear to Me.” - Chapter 12.15

This one stops me every time. How much of our energy is spent either disturbing others or being disturbed? A devotee has stepped out of that current entirely. Not by withdrawing - but by no longer needing the current to tell them who they are.

4. IN THEIR DUTY

Skilful and unconcerned with result. Free from want, free from desire, untroubled - they act without grasping at what the action might return.

This is not indifference. Its an emphasis on continuous learning, taking pride in one’s craft - full presence, full effort, full release. The Gita’s answer to the anxiety that comes with the Ego obsesses with the result of ONE’s action.

5. IN THEIR BEING

They do not rejoice or grieve, hate or desire. They renounce good and bad distractions with equal ease - neither pulled toward the pleasant nor pushed from the difficult.

The world becomes something they move through rather than something that moves them.

6. AT THEIR CORE

The same to friend and foe. Silent. Content. Unpossessive. Steady-minded. With the highest faith - and the quiet knowing that what is most real in them is also most real in everything else.

A BRIDGE TO OUR MODERN LIFE

Read the portrait across the six themes again - slowly this time - and notice what it is not asking.

It is not asking for the extraordinary. It is not asking you to renounce, retreat, or remove yourself from the world. Every single one of these 35 qualities is expressed in relationship - toward others, in duty, in the world - while keeping the focus on the SELF.

The Self inside this Life, not at the mercy of this Life.

The 35 traits are not the practice. They are what the practice leaves behind.

“Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakes.” - Carl Jung

The 35 traits are not the practice. They are what the practice leaves behind.

What does Devotion in the Modern World mean to you? Reflect in the Comment Section below…

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REFERENCES:

• A Parthasarathy, Bhagavad Gita

• Eknath Easwaran, The Bhagavad Gita

• Stephen Mitchell, Bhagavad Gita

• Bhagavad Gita 12.13-14, holy-bhagavad-gita.org

• Bhagavad Gita 12.15, holy-bhagavad-gita.org

• Bhagavad Gita 12.20, shlokam.org

• Aks Reflections, INTRODUCTION TO THE BHAGAVAD GITA: A TIMELESS BLUEPRINT FOR A MEANINGFUL LIFE

• Aks Reflections, PICK UP THE BOW: BUILDING YOUR INNER SELF (LESSONS FROM CHAPTERS 1 & 2)

• Aks Reflections, THE QUIET TRIUMPH OF THE NEXT STEP (LESSONS FROM CHAPTER 3)

• Aks Reflections, BEYOND THE MAT: FOUR TYPES OF YOGA

• Aks Reflections, EXHAUSTION OR EVOLUTION: WHAT’S YOUR DAY BRINGING TO YOUR MIND (LESSONS FROM CHAPTERS 4-6)

• Aks Reflections, JOURNEYING FROM KNOWLEDGE TO WISDOM (Lessons from Chapter 7)

• Aks Reflections, THE CANVAS AND THE PAINT (Lessons from Chapter 8)

• Aks Reflections, The Royal Secret (Learnings from Chapter 9)

• Aks Reflections, A THOUSAND SUNS - THE TURNING POINT OF THE BHAGAVAD GITA (Exploration and the Cosmic Vision from Chapters 10 and 11)

• Aks Reflections, THE WAY OF LOVE: DEVOTION TOWARDS THE SELF - BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 12 PART 1

• Carl Jung, C.G. Jung Letters, Vol. 1: 1906-1950