Week 10 Post!

Reading Response:

Chapter 9 and 10 confused me more than any other chapter in the Gita. It talked about how to achieve Bhakti yoga or what Bhakti yoga really was. Krishna kept talking about how once the head is Krishna that the entire group is therefore then Krishna.  I guess the terms just seemed to confuse me because I wanted sure if he was talking about himself or if he was talking about the enlightenment that he has already gained.  Also it seemed strange to me that when Arjuna asked Krishna to list his qualities he said that this was to big a task for even him.  I guess in Hinduism the idea of deities is similar to that found in Greek/Roman mythology.  They seem to be more human than the monotheistic, omnipresent view that Christianity, Judaism and Islam believe.  Also another puzzling idea in chapter 11 was the idea of Viswarupa.  When Arjuna asks to see Krishna in his true form with all his wealth he was taken back by it and astonished that it encompassed all of the things of the universe.  Does that mean that Brahman and Shiva are both apart of Krishna's viswarupa?  If so, are all material AND non material things a part of this viswarupa?  I didn't quite understand if this was a vision or a form that Krishna took or if it was something that was received while meditating.  The description was very vague and I didn't understand the concept or point of it all.  

Practice Response: 

I really enjoyed doing more of the hip openers today but I feel like my hips are open enough.  I don't care to become more flexible in my hips because I don't think that it helps me in any sort of daily activity.  I thought of a funny joke while we were doing them though...Dr. Schultz asked if everyone's hips felt open enough and I thought to myself, I'm a mom, of course my hips are open enough, if anything I need them to be more closed and to shrink.  It was funny at the time but I guess it was one of those, "had to have been there" ideas.  Well in the future if we do bound ankle pose I hope to be more flexible and bend down closer to my pelvis but for now I'll have to struggle and get frustrated while doing hip openers.