“Maybe you need to empty the cup in order to allow it to be filled.
Maybe we have to let go. Maybe we can just open to what is. And just a taste of this moment. Because it’s all right here. It’s all right here.” — Ram Dass, Now
Today marks a good chunk of time in this recent social media detox stretch. Every time I step off Instagram, there’s a rough first phase - like a dopamine detox where my brain feels swollen and fidgety. And then, in the stillness, something shifts.
God rushes in.
God rushes in.
With that rush come ideas, intuitions, reflections - little threads of wisdom I couldn’t hear over the scroll. That’s what Ram Dass is pointing to: the cup has to be empty before it can be filled. The Gita has been teaching me the same thing in another language.
In my one-on-one Gita study with my teacher, Anvita, I keep returning to a simple truth: even though the Gita is set on a battlefield, these teachings are not about grand heroics - they’re about how we move through ordinary turbulence. Every single day. Not a battlefield in armor, more like a modern day in 2025, with too many notifications, crossed wires, and strong opinions. The Gita becomes a way to stay steady in my world - and in my mind.
The scene I actually live in
Anvita says that we should not keep the Mahabharata in our own home because it is a book about war - but we can keep the Gita in the home because it’s the chapter where God comes in. (The Gita is chapter 18 of the Mahabharata). (I have the Mahabharata on the table above my cat Zero’s crate, and I wonder if that’s why he loves attacking my feet as I sleep at 3am!)
But really - it feels like the Earth in general these days is becoming more and more like the Mahabharata. More wars, more chaos, more conflict. I do feel like our phones play a huge part in this. We’re disconnecting from consciousness and loving awareness and connecting in to suffering on a global scale - minute by minute, hour by hour. Our phones are making us more divided. Texts are misunderstood, policy changes aren’t communicated, schedules aren’t electronically updated, comments and engagements with posts are misunderstood. The algorithm sucks us in. This is life in 2025. Busy. human. noisy.
And this is exactly where the Gita feels practical to me right now.
Anvita’s guidance is consistent: come back to the few principles that organize the chaos - witness consciousness, skillful action, evenness of mind, and devotion. When I remember these, I respond instead of react.
Yoga is skill in action (karma-yoga)
One of Krishna’s lines is: “Yogaḥ karmasu kauśalam”—yoga is skill in action. For me, that means:
Nishkāma karma (2.47–2.48): This basically says that we should do the right thing with no attachment to results. Do the right thing and release the scoreboard.
Duty over reactions: act from alignment, not impulse.
Evenness in opposites: Life will bring us through extreme energies. Our task is to do the work anyway and cultivate evenness in opposites.
How it looks on a Wednesday, today: I sit for meditation. And then I make the next clear choice.
Sankhya clarity: what changes vs. what doesn’t
Chapter 2 gives the truth: Purusha (the steady awareness) is indestructible; Prakriti (everything else) moves and morphs. When a heated message, a rumour, or a last-minute change triggering a need to shift things shows up, I remind myself: this is Prakriti doing what Prakriti does. Prakriti is the material world, and it’s playing the role of trying to teach me. Trying to create chaos. Trying to create a lesson for me to learn. My job is to act wisely and not collapse my identity into the swirl. My job is to be the witness consciousness to what is occurring. These days, the more I cultivate witness consciousness, the more I notice strongly when I’m acting in a way that is not in alignment with who I want to be. It always means I haven’t practiced enough self care and rest in a day. These moments stick out to me.
I remember that the Gita says: sensations and situations are impermanent (2.14). The Indweller is unaffected (2.16–2.25). And you have a right to the work, not the fruits (2.47). That shift - from outcome-gripping to presence - saves so much energy.
Guṇa wisdom
All three guṇas are taught in the Gita - sattva (clarity), rajas (speed/agitation), tamas (heaviness/avoidance). The Gita doesn’t ask us to pretend everyone’s in practice, everyone is kind, everyone is loving, everyone is compassionate; it asks us to discern and choose relationship with things that trend us toward sattva:
People, food, media, and pacing that leave the mind clear.
Noticing rajasic urgency and tamasic sadness, and choosing a middle: engaging in a state of steadiness.
Boundaries as self care, not moral judgment.
The portrait of steadiness (2.55–2.72)
Arjuna asks, “What does a steady person look like?” Krishna answers: less craving, less aversion, quiet confidence in adversity, and the ability to draw in the senses like a tortoise.
Working with a chanchal (restless) mind
The Gita calls the mind chanchal - bubbly, restless. This sounds to me like the AA idea of having a washing machine mind. I actually disagree with the idea that alcoholics are the only people with washing machine minds. I think everyone has a washing machine mind! It’s the default. The method of working with the mind taught by Krishna to Arjuna is classic: abhyāsa (practice) and vairāgya (non-attachment). I keep the practice ordinary - two meditation sits a day, for twenty minutes: short and consistent - and it quietly lowers the volume on my reactivity. As 2.40 promises: even a little protects from great fear.
How I’m Working to Disengage from my Phone
Dopamine Detox: I’ve turned my phone into grayscale mode (with an accessibility setting of tapping the side button three times to come back to colour when needed for functions such as google maps. It’s been life-changing for me and I find it’s really shifting my relationship with my phone.)
No debate clubs. I used to have a lot of strong opinions that I shared on social media. It often triggered debate and people speaking to each other in ways that caused suffering. I now pretty much have one strong opinion that I’ve shared consistently for the last two years (Free Palestine) but even when I post about that I brace myself for the backlash. And if an explanation starts pulling me into rajas, I choose a boundary instead of a back-and-forth.
Escaping Social Media = pratyahara. Pratyahara is taught in the Gita as the idea of a turtle putting his limbs inside his shell. Pratyahara is the practice of turning inwards. Sometimes the most yogic move is to reduce inputs. I’ve stepped off social media again…. and man, it always feels so good!
Offer it up (bhakti). I mentally place the action on the altar: “This is my best, may it be of benefit.” Then I let it go.
My current rule-of-life (small and repeatable)
Meditate twice daily.
Dharma check before action: Is this aligned and necessary?
Sattva first: choose the schedule, company, and content that keep the inner lake clear.
Release the fruits of my actions: act, detached from the outcome of what I will or won’t receive.
The Gita isn’t asking us to win an argument or win a day. It’s asking us to become trustworthy to ourselves: empty the cup, witness first, act skillfully, stay even. When I practice like that, life doesn’t feel smaller - it feels clearer. And in the noise, that clarity is everything.
PS: Coming soon is a course on the Bhavagad Gita in January online with me :) I haven’t yet announced details, but you can check it out here! :)
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