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Ithamar Theodor, "The Philosophy of the Bhagavad-Gita" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
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- [00:00]
Dr. Itamar Theodore
Hello, everybody.
- [00:01]
Marshall Po
This is Marshall Po. I'm the founder of the New Books Network, and if you're listening to this podcast on the New Books Network, I bet you like to read. I know that I do. That's why I founded the New Books Network. So as readers, we need to know what to read. And I have a podcast to recommend for you. That being the Proofread podcast, do you have a goal to read more this year? How about a goal to read more of what you love and less of what you don't? The Proofread podcast is here to help you. Hosted by Casey and Tyler, two English professors and avid readers with busy lives, Proofread helps you decide what books are worth spending your precious time on and what books aren't. They have 15 minute episodes that give you everything you need to know about a book to decide if you should read it or skip it. They offer a brief synopsis, there's fun and witty commentary, and there are no spoilers and no sponsored reviews. Life's too short to read a bad book, so subscribe to the Proofread podcast today. And by the way, there's a new season coming soon.
- [00:59]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
So good, so good, so good.
- [01:02]
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- [01:58]
Marshall Po
Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [02:02]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
Hello and welcome back to the New Books in Indian Religions podcast, a podcast channeling on the New Books Network. I'm your host, Dr. Raj Balkaran. More importantly, I have the pleasure of welcoming back to the podcast a dear colleague, Dr. Itamar Theodore of Zafat Academic College. We're talking about this little book called the Bhagavad Gita and his new book on this little book called the Bhagavad Gita called the Philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita. Itamar. Welcome back to the podcast.
- [02:29]
Dr. Itamar Theodore
Very happy to be here. Hey, Raj, second time yes, yes, yes.
- [02:34]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
So tell us a little bit about the Uphakyana, the backstory. What is your. Tell us about your relationship with the Gita. You know, like, how has this been brewing for some time? Was this book conceived a while ago? Tell us about the backstory.
- [02:48]
Dr. Itamar Theodore
Well, I've been fascinated with the Bhagavad Gita for many years. And I'm trying to introduce a kind of rationalistic, philosophical, or perhaps humanistic reading of the Bhagavad Gita. You may ask, what is my larger project? What is my desire? What is my vision? And my vision is to bring the Bhagavad Gita in the philosophy department, that the Bhagavad Gita will be taught just as other sources of ancient philosophy, just like Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, Lao Tzu, the Gita simplify it. I don't know if I've simplified it, but that was my aim. And try to deal with it in humanistic, rational, non mystical terms. Something which could be taught in class, basically. And again, bring the Gita, or build the bridge so that the Gita can be taught in a class of philosophy. That's basically what I'm trying to do. My first book on which we have been talking here a few years ago, that's exploring the Bhagavad Gita philosophy, structure and meaning. And there I offer the full translation, verse translation. I divided the text into sections, into about 70 sections, so it's easier to read, not to read just verse by verse, but section by section. Each section was about, is about 10 verses long. And of course I give it a title that's a kind of interfering with the text. You can even say it's true. It's a kind of editing, but it helps the reader to see what is the main focus of that section. And then I offered the Three Story House Structure, which is my perhaps contribution to the study of the Gita. One of the major contributions, this attempt to articulate the structure of the Gita, that was that book. Then later I did another book which is called the Bhagavad Gita Critical Introduction. And that book is a critical introduction. It does not aspire to offer innovations in the study of the Gita. Rather, it brings together very good scholars, including yourself. You have a chapter in that book who highlight various aspects of the Gita that was published 2021. And of course you have a chapter there about the names of Krishna and Arjuna, the epithets. And now this book, the present one, is kind of a fructification of that project. It's kind of bringing that to a higher level. Taking the Bhagavad Gita, this time, not offering a verse translation anymore, but dividing the Gita into themes. It's a thematic book. I try to put the Gita into themes, into this structure. This is a three story house structure, but in a thematic way. So you have a chapter on the philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita and then Dharma and Karma, yoga and then the rebirth and then Yoga, then Sankhya and then Upanishadic knowledge and then Bhakti and then consciousness of divinity and then and then the education doctrines of the Gita. So it's basically taking my project a step further in the articulation of the Gita. That's basically where I am.
- [06:35]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
Thank you for that introduction to the genesis and germination of this project. We will dive momentarily into the structure and the rationale for the structure of your book. And then of course we'll dive into some of the core ideas in the Bhagavad Gita. I wish to comment that I can resonate with the notion, whether it's obvious to some or perplexing to some, that one does not find this profound Indian philosophy anywhere to be found in most syllabi and in a philosophy department. When I first started university some decades ago, I enrolled to study literature, history, philosophy. It took me some time to realize that in order to study literature, history and philosophy of South Asia, I needed to transfer to the Religious studies department. And philosophy was endlessly fascinating. I did exceptionally well in those days in philosophy, but there was nothing in Vic to be found anywhere on the syllabus. And so could you comment a little bit about why you think that might be the case? And then I would love to hear your perspective on whether we are using. Is it a fit? Is it a misfit? Are we using one to measure the other? Are we trying to expand the Western philosophy to make space for the Gita? Are we trying to measure the Gita with Western philosophy? I would love to hear your thought about the lay of the land.
- [08:05]
Dr. Itamar Theodore
Well, that's a very important topic. And as such I devote the first chapter to this topic. I start the book with a chapter arguing for the Gita to be treated as philosophy. And I quote various scholars who are saying that now it's time to discuss Indian philosophy as equal to a Western philosophy. Exactly what you're saying. And basically I think what's happening in academia is that Indian philosophy is. They treat it in museum, Sma. Museum, museum as a Museum mean you look at the history of philosophy, you categorize it and you grade it. You say oh that's philosophy because it resembles Plato so that you give it a grade and you say oh that's beautiful. But it's not taken as a vibrant contemporary philosophy. You don't consult it. It's considered either in terms of world philosophy. There's a category about world philosophy which is all kinds of non western philosophical traditions or history of philosophy. Let's categorize what these thinkers thought in medieval tale that Shankara is different from Ramanuja and so forth. But it's not vibrant philosophy, it's treated in apologetic terms basically. And I'm trying to take the Gita a step further out of this obscurity. Now I also critique Indian philosophy in that I think that it is lacking the state of or the mode of vibrant contemporary philosophy which is there in Western philosophy. And I quote embarrass people about it. I start the book with quoting Ram Prasad Chakravarti and he said that we have to apologize for even engaging in Indian philosophy and theology. And it's not even considered legitimate to engage in that. He said when it comes to Christian theology there's a whole vibrant tradition of theologians writing and arguing and developing various thesises and themes and here you have to even apologize doing that. Then this kind of obscurity between philosophy and theology. And I quote Frank Clooney saying that really you can't really draw the borders like go back and forth between theology and philosophy because they're quite similar and you can't consider philosophy to be non spiritual and you can consider theology to be emotional and non irrational. But perhaps the most important quote there, I also quote Christian Cero saying that now it's time to actually engage with Indian philosophy not in these museumic terms but actually as Bible philosophy. But then I quote Gennado Daneri who I believe is in Toronto also and is. Yeah and he says that in order for something to be a philosophy it will have to have an a priori structure. And that's what I'm trying to do, to offer an a priori structure. That three story house is that a priori structure, something which you can examine and deal with in a disconnected way with the text itself. Just put the text aside and just study the structure without referring it to the text and then bringing that into the text. But that creates a kind of a bridge, a rational bridge which we can first study and then enter the text. I think the same process also occurred to ancient Greek philosophy Initially or thousands of years ago, this, it was studied in what you'd call today in ashram setting. Like Aristo and Plato, they were living in the academia. It was a kind of an ashram. The Pythagorean, they were kind of a sect, they were doing rituals, they were worshiping the Greek gods, they had some ethical constraint, they were vegetarians. And so it was like an ashram setting. And gradually the philosophy was secularized and rationalized. And today you can study Plato and Aristotle without even worshiping Greek gods. You don't have to, you don't have to identify yourself in Greek religion. But actually it was detached, it was disconnected from Greek religion. The study of the Gita is considered to be in many places a religious practice. You go to an ashram, there's some chanting, then you study the Gita. But I'm trying to take us to help. I'm not the only one. I'm sure that many people around the world at scholars doing that. But I'm also contributing my own part to that endeavor of rationalizing the Gita, offering the Gita a humanistic approach where you can just start it as philosophy. Interestingly, I was visiting India, Mumbai, I was visiting Ruha College two years ago and I was speaking to students and they were saying, you know, we are young, they are Indians, of course, and they were saying, we are young Indian students. We want to read the Gita in humanistic terms. We don't want to go to study it in a register. We won't understand basically what the Gita is, what's the basic ideas, how it is structured. It is our heritage. But we want to read it in a non religious way. And you're supporting that, you're offering this kind of humanistic, rational, a non religious reading?
- [14:10]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
Yeah, I think that's fascinating. A number of levels and I think the discussions and the debates about the footing upon which various cultures and various philosophies stand, the debates about hegemony, the debates about measuring up, the debates about academia in the Western world. I mean these are ongoing debates that are perhaps exasperated between the relationship between Europe and India or European thought, an indic thought. Certainly that's crucial to keep in mind what I find really fascinating. I mean clearly above and beyond my role as a very interested podcast host for this work, upon some self reflection, I find it fascinating that I'm engaged in a very similar exercise in that I have an online school filled primarily with Western learners, some indic diasporic learners. We have a weekly study of the Bhagavad Gita, it's called Wisdom Wednesday because it's on a Wednesday, happens to be Wednesday. And we, we don't, we literally look at the verses, what you might call, in what you might call a philosophical, humanistic or even a literary fashion to make sense of the text. But it's, it's really a fine line between honoring the context, availing the text from the context, but as well honoring the text from the context. It's a fine line between you know, plucking, plucking the flower, you know, with the lotus from the swamp type thing. And so, you know, I think it is to many of my students and myself it would be evident your approach should be natural and evident. But I think to many others, as you say, would be revolutionary that you can look at the Gita in this way. So I find that very interesting. But there certainly is in my experience a great many people who have an appetite for the very tree that you're looking, that you're using while you're looking at the Gita.
- [16:15]
Dr. Itamar Theodore
Thank you for that. I think one problem is that the Gita is considered by many circles to be eclectic. Means gathering various recognized Indian philosophical schools together. You have the Mimamsa and you have Vedanta and you have Yoga, you have Sankhya, you have Sam Nyaya, some Vaishasik. A very small touch. You can find trace of a Buddhism, Karuna and Jainism, Ahimsa. But the, the argument is that they're not, they don't have a backbone, they don't have a structure, they're just a conglomerate, they just gather together. But they don't have a unifying structure. This is the word actually which I'm trying to offer to say. No, it's not just these philosophies together. Of course they have wisdom, life changing wisdom, we know that. But they also have a structure which can be treated and again bringing a Greek philosophy. I mean say you would start, you would study Greek, ancient Greek and start reading Plato. So say, oh, that's very mystical. You have chariots and you have horses, you have feasts, all kinds of things. And you have, you know, a Socrates. But the philosophical tradition gradually went out of that and started to treat it as a unified rationalistic philosophy. And today you go to the Philosopher school, you, you study first year philosophy, introduction to Plato and Aristotle, which I studied years ago. And you know, it was formulated in terms of a natural structure which is accepted. Of course. You can also read Plato and Aristotle in classical studies, study Greek and go to the classical department and study there and read the text. It's also possible. But it did undergo a process of philosophication, you may say. And I think that that's. I'm part of the process of doing that with the Gita. Maybe a little later then. I mean, that happened for 25 year hundred years ago and that's happening now. But that's okay. But that's what I feel that I'm doing. I'm trying to take the Gita through a similar process of taking it out of its religious context and bringing to the philosophical arena, so to speak.
- [18:38]
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- [19:06]
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- [19:36]
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Hi, I'm here to pick up my son, Milo.
- [19:39]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
There's no Milo here who picked up.
- [19:41]
Dr. Itamar Theodore
My son from school. Only on Pico.
- [19:46]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
I'm gonna need the name of everyone that could have a connection.
- [19:49]
Dr. Itamar Theodore
You don't understand. It was just the five of us.
- [19:52]
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So this was all planned.
- [19:53]
Dr. Itamar Theodore
What are you gonna do? I will do whatever it takes to get my son back.
- [19:57]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
I honestly didn't see this coming. These nice people killing each other.
- [20:02]
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- [20:06]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
Yeah, I think there's much to be said about. I mean, part of my own research is looking to Sanskrit narrative works, looking at their innate structures and the ways in which, you know, the ways in which they are set up and the ways in which their structures invite exegesis. Whether or not we want to agree with that or not. But I think there are many in our audience would love to hear more about the structure or the unity or the unification that you see in the Bhagavad Gita. Because it's certainly a syncretic textbook, but it's not a haphazard text. Clearly there is. It's a structured work. It's not a, you know. So we would love to hear more about, you know, your. How you, how you view the Gita structure.
- [20:51]
Dr. Itamar Theodore
Well, my first major argument is that the Gita has a leather, just like the Yoga Sutra has the leather. I mean, many people from these circles, they know the Yoga Sutra leather, that's yama niyama, etc. These eight stages. And basically I'm trying to uncover the Gita, the Gita's ladder, which is a Kriya Yoga, a Karma Yoga ladder. It's a similar ladder, but it is a Karma yoga ladder. And it also has stages. And these stages are. They represent the internal motive or mode by which a person performs his or. Or her Dharma. That's actually what's there. The whole frame of the Gita is Dharmic, how to perform one's Dharma. And there are different stages of internal motivation for performing this Dharma. It's a very simple, very simple a Karma Yoga ladder, not a yoga ladder of Patanjani, but a Karma Yoga ladder. So at the lower stage, Arjuna is supposed to perform his Dharma out of a utilitarian motive. If you go to leave the battle, you're going to be dishonored. So that's. And then it goes a little higher and it says, well, if you, if you perform your Dharma, you go to Svarga, you go to heaven, and then it goes higher, says, well, you should perform your Dharma for the sake of duty. Karmani, Eva di Karaste, Mahapaleshu Kadachana. This, you're entitled to perform your Dharma without regards to the fruits. Then it goes higher and perform your Dharma for the sake of Brahman. These verses about the well, if you have all the water, you don't need a small well. And then it goes higher and says, perform your Dharma as yoga, Yoga, Karma, Sukoshala. Very interesting stage that Arjuna goes to battle as a yogi, he fights as a yogi. And then it goes higher to bhakti, and says, you should perform your Dharma as a devotion. Still perform it according to your nature, but offer it to the supreme. And then goes to the ultimate surrender of Sarva Dharman, Parinthya, Jara, and so forth. And that says, surrender and then perform your Dharma out of devotion to the Supreme. So that's a ladder. It's actually a ladder. It's a dharmic ladder because it's dharmic. From beginning to end, through all the ladder, one has to follow his or her Dharma. But the motivations differ. One goes higher and higher and higher, stage by stage. So that's the first element component of the structure. And that's. I think that's. It's a major argument that just as the Yoga Sutra has that famous yoga ladder, the Bhagavad Gita also has. But it's a Karma yoga ladder. And I think it makes sense because everyone knows that Karma yoga is at the heart of the Bhagavad Gita. It's not like. It's like. I think people understand that, but the ladder itself is important. And again, it's not my own idea. It's a traditional idea. I was trying to look for the roots and I found them in Vishwanath Chakravarti, who was an 18th century Indian thinker. He was living in Bengal, then in Vrindavan. But he had this idea in his Gita commentary about different stages. And I think I've developed that further and I bring it to a more elegant way. I also heard it in a seminar years ago by Burijan Das. It was a theological Hindu seminary. And I learned it there. And I very much gave him the credit for that. But it's actually a traditional Indian idea. It's not like external imposition on the Gita. So that's one thing. And then the second thing is dividing the Gita into three metaphysical levels. I call the three story house. So that's the ladder. Then you have three stories. That's kind of my own. I would say innovation or Medea. And basically I'm saying that the Gita is talking in three different languages in the three different levels. When one speaks on the lower level, that's the lower. The level of Dharma. That's the humanistic level. That is lower than humanistic, also in ontological terms and also in ethical terms. From that point of view, there's a whole world of Dharma, a whole speech of Dharma that correlates with other Indian texts, Mahabharata and other. And I'll show the differences. Then the second level, the higher level, is the level of spirituality. I call it the world of yoga. And it has a different vocabulary, different ontology, different ethics, also different epistemology. And then the highest level is the level of moksha. I think it makes sense because really that's the structure of text. In the Vedanta tradition, we're talking about personal tree. This is the Vedanta tradition. So that makes sense. Now you can see the difference Is, for example, when Arjuna speaks in the first chapter, he says, I don't want to kill my relatives, I don't want to be killed. And so much talk about death and killing. And when Krishna answers him at the beginning of the second chapter, he says, basically, death, I don't see death. The soul is eternal on these verses, the hinus, mina, tag, the hand, etc. So he speaks across a copolical revolution. Arjuna is talking from the level of a humanistic, dharmic level. He says, I'm a human being and you're a human being, you all human beings, and we're undergoing death. And Krishna says, I don't see any death here. I don't see anyone dying. I see only atmans, spiritual souls, eternal living from body to body, transmigrating. So that's a different metaphysical level. It's a different metaphysical vision. And here that's the ontological differentiation. On the lower level, he's a human being, and then he rises to the second level. Here he is in the spirit, soul transmigrating. And as far as ethics, you can also see a very clear differentiation. On the lower level, you have the ethics of prosperity, Arjuna. Underlying Arjuna's speech is the belief that we are all supposed to reach prosperity in this world, to be happy, to be prosperous, we don't want to suffer, we want to be happy, and so forth. But when it comes to the second level, there is a different set of ethics. Being indifferent to both happiness and distress, not preferring happiness over the stress at the lower level. In the dharmic level, one prefers happiness and tries to avoid stress. But in the second level, one is supposed to be equal, to offer sameness, Samatva. So that's a major distinction in the Gita. The Gita also has the third story, and I showed that in the book. But it mainly the Gita goes back and forth between the first and second levels. And once you understand that, you can understand the tensions that are actually settled by moving between these stories. Now we're talking Dharma. So you have to perform your duty and you have to look for loka, sangra and so forth. Now we're going up. Now we're talking about the souls of Prakrita Gyamanini. The spirit soul is acting under the gunas, helplessly and so forth. And once you can differentiate between these levels, then you can see how they actually fit together and nourish each other in a very natural way. If you don't see that, you probably will say that there are so many contradictions. In the Gita, how can this as both this and that? But once you see this hierarchical structure of knowledge which I tried to highlight in the chapter about Jnana, Upanishadic knowledge, that's where I developed this concept of hierarchical reality. Then you could see how these fit together in I was quite harmonized way. They nourish each other. And I think they're quite natural for Indian thought. You just have to see the structure, and then they don't conflict. But you can speak also about this level, the humanistic level of Dharma. You can speak about the spiritualistic level of the soul transmigrating and it work together. And then you try to construct Karma Yoga, and you see how Karma is supported by this sense of knowledge. You see that Karma is supported by this Upanishadic knowledge. And I think it fits together quite. I think, quite well. Yeah, I think makes sense. I like it.
- [30:37]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
Thank you. Thank you. Do you think, would it be fair to ascribe the. One of those planes as Prvti Dharma and the other as Niverti Dharma? Is that a fair aspect?
- [30:52]
Dr. Itamar Theodore
Of course. Of course. I mean, the Pravriti path, Marga, that would start by performing Mujdharma and gradually ascending the ladder. The Nivriti path would start from the second story. They don't need the humanistic. That's the Nivriti. Nivriti. The Pravriti is for most people to go through Dharma and gradually rise up and come to Nivriti. And the Nivriti will be starting from the second day story.
- [31:23]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
Yes. The reason I asked that is because I don't want to put words in your mouth. But to my mind, that is the core tension of the epics in general and the Bhagavad Gita in particular is what I think of as this dharmic double helix, this intertwining of poverty and liberty. The metaphor I use often when I teach is you have camera one and camera two, and camera one's focused on the worldly in this world and. And fame and honor and prosperity. And then first thing Krishna does is he peeks out from his cousin Captain the camera too. He's like, wait a minute. What death? What life? You know, he. He kind of peeks out to this grand vision of reincarnation and sort of this. This cousin Krishna and the poverty path. And there's like cosmic Krishna and the Nriti path. And then the Bhagavad Gita is. It's always toggling between these two views, perhaps.
- [32:17]
Dr. Itamar Theodore
I very much agree with that. What I'm trying to do is put it out theoretically and look at the structure. It's like when you study grammar, you study roots. Now roots, they don't appear in real, in five grammatical forms, they don't appear in real language. Roots are theoretical. But to study grammar you have to say that's the root and that's the declination and so forth. But then it goes together into natural language. So here we put it together. We this is the word of Dharma, that's the underlying assumptions. This is the word of Yoga, that's the underlying assumptions. And then they start fitting together and it works. And I agree with you that the way you describe it is very well.
- [32:56]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
Would you say that Samsara, rebirth, moksha, karma, samsara, this really pervasive indic worldview, would you say that this is indispensable or dispensable from the philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita?
- [33:12]
Dr. Itamar Theodore
It's indispensable. And that's why I devote a third chapter for this topic. I think without seeing that aspect, you miss the life of the Gita. You have to see that aspect. And I devote the third chapter to this topic. Exactly. I discussed the soul. I say you can't read the Gita without having this vision. And I divide into four different points of view. One is looking at samsara from above, looking Maupetya, punarjanma, how the souls incarnate in this world. Then the ontology of the soul. All these beautiful verses from the second chapter about the soul is this and that cannot be burned. And as a person changes clothes and so forth. And then I look at it from the point of view of changing the bodies, going from. It's also done the Gita, how to move from body to body, transmigrating the mentality, moving to the next body. And then eventually I look at it from the point of view of an external vision of one's bodily and mental functions, which also requires the soul, this out body vision. I look at myself and I see my functioning. I see the elements, I see the gunas, I see the mental activities. But from the external point of view, from the Atman, from the soul's point of view. So yes, it's very important aspect and I don't think you can understand the Gita without actually getting a grasp of this idea of the soul being different from the body. It's. It's very essential. I. I give search after what's going on.
- [34:44]
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- [35:28]
Dr. Itamar Theodore
This is a real good story about Bronx and his dad Ryan.
- [35:31]
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- [35:33]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
We were returning home and one of the flight attendants asked Bronx if he wanted to see the flight deck and meet Captain Andrew. I got to sit in the driver's seat. I grew up in an aviation family and seeing Bronx kind of reminded me of myself when I was that age.
- [35:46]
Dr. Itamar Theodore
That's Andrew, a real unique United pilot.
- [35:49]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
These small interactions can shape a kid's future. It felt like I was the captain. Allowing my son to see the flight deck will stick with us forever. That's how good leads the way.
- [35:58]
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- [36:25]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
Prices and participation may vary. While supplies last, taxes, tips and fees extra. Yeah, that. That said, that's a resident motion. And not only the soul being separate, but this whole notion of a human life being one page in this much larger volume of lives. And and what I try to communicate time and time again is irrespective of one's personal spiritual, religious beliefs, irrespective of one takes seriously Purva, chanma or any of that, intellectually speaking, one cannot. Samsara is not just the app, it's the operating system for all classical indig thought. Whether yoga, whether Ayurveda, whether the Bhagavad Gita, whether the Yoga Sutras you name it. And so I agree with you that I think one of the greatest lacks in attempting to understand the Gita is taking the Gita and putting it into another operating system, rather than understanding it within its own ecosystem. Whether we want to live in that ecosystem or not, as irrelevant. But how do you study a particular primate absent the ecosystem that they draw from?
- [37:35]
Dr. Itamar Theodore
That's a very good term, ecosystem. Yeah, I deeply agree with you that you cannot even theoretically, you have to understand this is the underlying assumption of the Gita. You have to understand that after that, you don't have personally to believe in what you believe. But that's the underlying assumption in the Gita, that you have to understand that in order to understand the rationale of the Gita. Yeah, very deep.
- [37:58]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
So please say a bit more about the demarcation between what you would claim or reclaim as philosophy versus religiosity with respect to the Gita, insofar as you know, you know, what's gained by this demarcation, what's lost, if anything, you know, where's the line in your view?
- [38:21]
Dr. Itamar Theodore
Well, I guess I would be criticized for secularizing the Gita. People would say that my reading.
- [38:32]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
But nothing that you just said seems secular or materialistic in terms of understanding of Gita.
- [38:38]
Dr. Itamar Theodore
I feel great about what I'm doing, but I'm just saying that perhaps people say that reading the Gita in a religious way, meditating on each verse, one will go deeper as a spiritual experience. I think my reading also brings a spiritual experience. I think it is. And I think also medieval philosophy brought spiritual experiences. I'm a graduate of the Theology faculty, University of Oxford. And we Oxford theology faculty feel that we started philosophy like in medieval times. That was academia. Academia was this blend of rationality and philosophy and spirituality. I mean, we are just getting back to the foundation. I'm just like a medieval Oxford theologian in the 13th century, rationalizing a text, trying to keep its spirituality, but also rationalizing it. And I don't see any problem there. But yes, you know, other people may say that maybe you should do it in a setting, which is fine with me. I have no problem with that. I supported. It's great.
- [39:54]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
Yeah. I mean, I don't think it's much like anything indicated. It's not either or. I think there are those who will engage a book from the Bible in Sunday school. There are those who may engage it in a religious studies class. There are those who may engage it in a literature class or what have you. There are those who, you know. So there are various lenses upon which, I mean, there is traditional parampara teaching of the Bhagavita in a spiritual context geared towards self purification and ultimately waking up. And then there are more perhaps reductionistic readings of the Gita. But there's so, so, so much space, I mean, at least in the circles that I travel, there's so much space in between of various sorts of intellectual, even spiritual seekers who wish to understand in an intellectual manner that is not necessarily reductive or reductionistic. I should say I agree with you.
- [40:53]
Dr. Itamar Theodore
Completely, again mentioning Oxford. I studied there and some of my teachers, they were religious people, some were secular, some were Anglicans, some were Catholics. Some of them, I heard in class they would speak in a philosophical way. Then I would go to church and hear the same professor, and he would say the same things basically, but from a more religious point of view. It was interesting in the class he would say Thomas Aquinas would say that God is great. Then he would go to church and preach God is great. Basically the same. I mean, you hear the same vocabulary, but with slight twist. So really, in a sense, if you want to see, look at what we're doing here from the traditional point of view, not from an academic, you can say we're doing Jnana Yoga. Basically, we are practicing Jnana Yoga, if you want to look at it for the traditional point of view, we are studying the Gita from an intellectual point of view and trying to rationalize the Gita. So if someone is trying to look for a traditional point of view, you can say it's doing Yana Yoga. I have no problem moving back and forth. I. I go back and forth very freely between the borders. I think we're doing good academic work here and we are actually connected to the academic study of the Gita. That's the way I see this book. I also write in the introduction on the blurb that I see myself as continuing the work of R.C. zayner, which was published in the 60s, and then Angelica Manliner, which was published like 20 years ago or a little less. So I'm trying to develop this line of thought and I'm quoting them profusely. So it is a good academic work, but it's also, I think I also contributed the traditional discussion, hopefully, why not? Academia should be rooted with an actual audience. It shouldn't be just theoretically detailed. It should actually serve a community of people who are reading it and understanding it. And you're serving them.
- [43:04]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
I couldn't agree more. And that is the very impetus behind new books Network and the various podcast channels. That happens to be my own brand of public scholarship. And it's not a question of not being an intellectual, not being rigorous. It's a question of being rigorous in a manner where you communicate why this matters and where you're able to serve people beyond the 12 people who will read your article, maybe 20 if you're lucky. So I think there is a burgeoning movement of bridging where more and more academics understand that public engagement, proper public engagement, has nothing to do with sacrificing rigor or complexity, but it has to do with communicating value, and it has to do with the respect of tradition and the respect of those who use these texts. One of the things that really, I find quite intriguing. I mean, clearly your findings are intriguing. And I've always seen the Gita as this, you know, as I think of it, this dharmic double helix. You know, it's Parvati. I think that's what Hinduism post Mahabharata is trying to do. Reconcile Parvatine, Nivutin. I think the Bhagavad Gita is doing that brilliantly. But one of the things that's great is this trope of taking your cue from the text, this methodological trope of looking at the text and locating authority in how the text is structured, how the text is speaking to you. I think that's quite. I mean, it's. It's quite useful. It's quite.
- [44:42]
Dr. Itamar Theodore
I don't.
- [44:43]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
I think to some, that might be novel or problematic, but I think the text is crafted in an extraordinarily sophisticated manner. And I think that it does embed and encode so much. And I think part of what your work does is showing the philosophical architecture that's actually in the work itself, rather than something you are overlaying upon it.
- [45:08]
Dr. Itamar Theodore
Thank you. May I refer to the phrase bridge, which you have mentioned, and say something that I see basically two ways of studying the Gita, one Western and one Indian, and they're quite different from each other. Western scholarship of the Gita goes one way to Indology text and, you know, the tradition and the scholars invoked. Then you go to India and you hear quite a different discourse about Gita's philosophy and coming back to more of a traditional kind of reading. And I'm aware of this bridge and this tension, and I'm trying to contribute to kind of closing this gap to bridging. Ideally, I would love to see this book accepted both in the west by Western scholars and India. Let's see what happens. But that's ideally what I would hope to achieve. To speak in both languages.
- [46:04]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
Yeah, I can resonate with that as someone who's fairly ambidextrous or bilingual. Academic enterprise is squarely pitched in the intellectual, in understanding something as an object of thought or an object of authorization. But as you say, there's no way to engage profound philosophical ideas from any tradition and not be changed by them. Because these ideas are, they're all chemical. I mean, I mean figuratively speaking, these ideas are life changing ideas. And I would say, I would say that the flip side of that is engaging the Gita in an experiential manner. To have to experience the vibratory force of the Vishwarupa, to experience palpably what the Gita is transmitting, whether through its shabda, whether through however you want to think of that. Right. So I think that actually it's not poor, but it's superb scholarship which pursues cogent intellectual understanding and leaves space for the life of tradition. I think that is the gold standard in my mind. I think once upon a time it was thought that it's not that we need to do apologetics or to placate. I mean, you're after an intellectual understanding of the Bhagavad Gita, one that's grounded in what you view as a trajectory of philosophy at the Western Academy. But what is brilliant is that you're doing so leaving space, taking your cue from the text itself and leaving space for the life of the text and live tradition.
- [47:41]
Dr. Itamar Theodore
That's very kind of you. I think it's a compliment. Thank you very much. I'd have to do that actually. It also happens with Western philosophy. A student would come to class sometimes in a young age and be influenced in undergoing a life changing experience and adopting various ideas and saying, now I'm going to remedies in life about ethics, ontology, way of life. That's the philosopher which I love and identify. I mean, that's the way it goes. You study philosophy that's it's supposed to be like that actually. And it's a life changing experience. That's ideally the way you would like to see philosophy studies, life changing experience. You come and you engage with your own simple beliefs and examine them.
- [48:21]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
And you may be a master kinesiologist, you're a nutritionist and you're teaching till the cows come home. But at the same time, people in your class, they're going to want to taste, they're going to want to live the waist, lift the weights, they're going to want to build muscle or feed themselves. They want an experience of it. You know, it's fine if you're a theoretician. It's fine if you're trying to understand something intellectually, but understand that you are after an intellectual understanding of an experiential phenomenon. So if you want to be a music historian, be a music historian. But, you know, or if you want to teach music theory, that's great. But don't be surprised if people pick up the guitar every once in a while and want to experience what you're talking about.
- [48:59]
Dr. Itamar Theodore
You know, it goes together. Goes together, of course. And as I mentioned, the theology faculty, University of Oxford, also divinity faculty, Kate Billiard was there. The agreement, more or less, is that you can be a believer and it could be secular, but you have to be a good theorist to be there. That's the main thing. I mean, you have to write good intellectual physics. As far as the personal beliefs you can believe, you can. It can be secular. That. That doesn't matter. But if you. But you have to, to. To supply good academic work. That's all. That's the dharma, that's obligation. So some people will just read more intellectually, some will be more touched, as you say, in musicology teaching. Some would just speak about the history of. History of music. Some would actually pick a guitar and start playing. And it's fine that, that, that. That's the arena in which we are. Yeah.
- [49:53]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
And to my mind, you will necessarily do better intellectual work if you have a greater understanding of what you're studying on different levels. But, you know, there are different strokes, different folks. Okay, so before we close for today, is there anything else about this particular work, this project about the meaning of life? Anything else that you wanted to share today?
- [50:17]
Dr. Itamar Theodore
Yeah. Yes, I want to highlight the last chapter, the ninth chapter, and to say that I was engaged with the book in so many things. That's the ladder, that's the levels. That's the way yoga is structured. And that's the Jnana. And here you have Sankhya and the Guna. So many things. But then I said I really wanted to do a chapter for a teacher who wants to teach the Gita in class and ask, what is the Gita? What are the values? What is the Gita teaching? What is there? Without getting into all this, in the logical stuff of Sankhya and yoga and all that. So that's the last chapter, which I'm so happy about. Could be a much larger project, but I'm trying to highlight the major gita teachings as far as ecology, spirituality, virtue ethics. I try to relate to the Stoics and say you have different various ideas and to try to highlight major Gita themes that if one would want to develop a curriculum of teaching the Gita, that would be the main topics to be developed. Like already the educational aspect of the Bhagavad Gita. And then I end it with devotion. I have devotion as the last component. And I end with quoting Banking Chandra Chatterjee, Judas Lipgrow's Anandamat, and how he spoke about devotion not only in register, but in every sphere of life. That's how I end the book. So, yes, I'd like to highlight this ninth chapter, which is much more simplified in all, less sophisticated, but it's something I very much want to do. And maybe perhaps I'll develop it more in the future. But at least there's a chapter there speaking about the Gita's educational aspects, how to take the Gita into life.
- [52:15]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
Yeah, that ninth chapter is, to my mind, to my perspective, a bija. Indeed. A bija.
- [52:26]
Dr. Itamar Theodore
Yeah. That's nice.
- [52:29]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
A seed. It's a bija. For I realize all over the audience are educated into files. They may not all be Sanskrit, So it's a bija. So, so, so that chapter is the bija or something more heavily pedagogical and the Gita's, as you say, you know, the pedagogical application. And I think that would be a great book project at some point for you. And I think that would bring you full circle to what you were talking about, about being, you know, a medieval scholar slash theologian slash spiritualist, slash whatever it was. It's. It's a space in which. What do we reflect on pedagogy? I have so many conversations with people about the. The incredible shifts at the academy with the humanities in general, and perhaps religion and religious studies and South Asian studies in particular. And I think we have to find a way to reclaim the heart of the humanities. And for many of us, we never lost it. Perhaps institutionally, we either have lost it or we've been very poor about communicating its vitality. Because without a heart, how does the organ function? And how will the university function without the heart of the humanities? We'll soon find out. But the heart of the humanities is studying embodied, lived experience. And however intellectual we can and should be about that, it's perilous when it's disembodied and disconnected and when we don't communicate its relevance to human beings, because when we do so, people show up, they listen, they register, they care. When we don't do so, we go the way of the dodo. And so what the hell do I know? Those are my random thoughts. Thank you for entertaining them very so.
- [54:19]
Dr. Itamar Theodore
I agree with you very much.
- [54:21]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
Yes. Great. Well, thank you very much for being on the podcast today.
- [54:24]
Dr. Itamar Theodore
Thank you, Raj. It's great to be here and thank you so much. And yeah, it's good. Let me also thank my publisher, Cambridge University Press, for being so kind and publishing this book.
- [54:34]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
Yeah, I want to say great. So for those listening, we've been speaking with Dr. Itamar Theodore on the Philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita, a brand new Cambridge University Press publication. The details are in the podcast notes. Until next time, keep well, keep listening, keep reading, and keep contemplating the philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita. Take care.
- [55:07]
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