1787: What Are You Exchanging Your Life For? | Thoreau and the Gopī Gīta

Wisdom of the Sages - Raghunath Cappo & Kaustubha Das

This episode explores the profound life choices we make, inspired by Thoreau’s philosophy and the Gopī Gīta’s depiction of selfless love for Krishna. It emphasizes evaluating what we sacrifice and for what higher purpose.

Key takeaways

• Life’s true cost is the time and energy exchanged for material pursuits.
• The Gopīs exemplify giving up everything for divine love, not out of loss, but gain.
• True fulfillment comes from shifting attachment from the temporary to the eternal.

Transcript preview

after hundreds of thousands of Sanskrit verses through the Vedic literature, you come to this chapter, which is like the highest expression of love in these Gopi's. What are they giving up that? They gave up their, to run out there for that dance. They gave up their homes. They gave up their families. They gave up their reputations. They were willing to exchange chunks of their life, the huge, all of their life. They gave up their lives. They gave up their homes. They gave up their it's saying if you're going to give up, which all of us have to do, where everybody's giving up, everybody's sacrificing. If you're going to sacrifice, what do you sacrifice for? You sacrifice for Krishna. That's the smartest thing to do. These girls had it right, you know? And Christian may sound like, well, okay, now you just, what you're saying, seem to be making some sense, and then you start talking about this mythological character. Like some, you know, you know, some, some. cartoon. Yeah, some cartoon or something. No. No. No. Study it. Really try to analyze it. Read about Krishna, who he is. What is about his different, even if you want to just approach it theoretically, there's this whole presentation that there's an absolute truth, that from which everything comes, that has multifarious energies that are, that the world that you're moving around and right now is made of, that your body is made of, that your mind is made of, that you're made of. the whole thing is so in depth, so thorough, so dense, so consistent, so brilliant, so insightful. You can't pick it apart. It makes so much damn sense no matter how you approach it, you know, and it builds and builds and builds up to this very, then it begins to talk to the heart at a certain, it moves beyond the mind and it begins to talk to the heart. With this whole foundation of logic and clarity and theology and philosophy and that's where we are right now. The hearts of the Gopies are being expressed. Oh, no, I gabatee vase d'aus. Oh, no, bagoa, aa, aa, aha. O'nao baaa, aausu da. Aa, aa'a'a'a'a'a'a. stages of the Bacti Yoga podcast with your host Raganathan co-host and senior educator of the Bacti Center, New York City, goes to Vadas. Welcome to the show everybody. It's Monday, June 29, 2026, episode 1787. Good morning, beautiful people. It's good to be here on a Monday. I felt like we haven't done this in years, right? On a Monday? Oh, no, we just did this on Thursday. Okay. Good morning. have like a retreat. I wasn't on tour. There was no. Yeah, I don't think we've had a weekend off. And it was like, wow, we have nothing to do this weekend. Except mow, yeah, we mow lawns. That's what we do on the days off. How are you, Kostoeba? Doing good. Good to see. I went to New York City yesterday to see my mom. Yeah. Yeah, she's wonderfully oblivious to material existence. Like, like. She's got no aches and pain. She's got no issues. She's you know She's just like sort of like losing her mental faculties Okay. I'm sort of like facing off as a 60 year old man I'm facing off with This is it the windows closing Sometimes I'd say something like you know life is short and people will write life's not short. It's the way you'll look at it now life is short life is short. Life is short. to realize that by how many good summers do I have left? How many good summers? Meaning where your body is healthy and you can do certain things. Suppose you know I've wanted to always hike the Appalachian Trail I've never done it. Let's go do it. I've hiked pieces of it and now it's like I was planning on it last year and my knee was bugging me and I couldn't do it. I started practicing hiking up and down the hills and my... on my knee became immediately agitated. So I'm like, wow, maybe that is off the table in this lifetime because I put it off too long. This is a message, don't put off. You know, your little bucketless things. What's to speak of your spiritual bucketless things? There's, I think, materially, civic bucketless things I have about hiking, about camping, about connecting with nature, about if I had a second life I do this. Well, guess what? This is your life. This is the one you get and What to speak of Kustu is spiritual bucketless some people say well I'll go on pilgrimage one day or when I finish his career when this kid grows up Maybe now maybe now's the time to go on pilgrimage Okay This is all important stuff goes to but you don't seem like you're even taking it in you're you know what? You're I'm listening thing that you're saying no you're not you're waiting to speak I wasn't speaking at all okay I wasn't okay I'm sure you have something really locked and loaded you're just throwing out phrases you're waiting to speak you pick that off in something you read about talking I wasn't even responding and you're just waiting to speak but now that you brought it up my point is I'm not relating to I appreciate what you're saying but in my own life I don't really have like a bucket list I don't you're walked appellee. I'm not thinking that way. Okay, well you should have walked it once in your life and you get a taste for that. Walking, being alone with yourself, you and the stars. You be you, sleeping under the stars. You don't have to force your things on me. You should be more dissatisfied. You should be more dissatisfied. But I am looking forward to going to Italy seeing you there seeing front of Peter there I've seen everybody that's coming up so soon right? We got our crew go and we got a good sweet crew I'm excited to we leave on we leave on Wednesday morning because you're gonna go get a little beach time ahead of time. Well you know there is a heat wave and we planned appropriately July in Europe is hot. Yeah yeah. Nice. Yeah. So, yeah, so anyway. Brokenath shows up the thing like red as a lobster full of pasta pizza. Big belly, tiny bathing suit. Totally sunburked. Tiny bathing suit. Totally sunbur. The balding part of my head is on fire. Let's all sit here and make fun of me. I'm okay with it. Hey. Yes. You have any announcements. Puneopria. our sage group registration opened yesterday morning. Oh yeah, it's on fire. Yeah, it's already 48% full. What happens? Yeah, so if you're looking to sign up for a sage group, do it immediately. If you don't know what a sage group is, it's absolutely free. It's a way just to connect with people in the community. They meet once a week for something like eight weeks or three months or something like that. And people, and people love it, because they connect with people and they just share their experience of life and adding spirituality to their life and adding spirituality to their life to their life to their life to their life to their life to their life to their life to their life to their life to their life and what they're going through you don't have to be very evolved or spirit you could be brand new and get into a sage group or you could be around for a long time and and get a lot out of it it's people filling this space right because you and I both know it's a sad thing actually in one sense what's not to blame are you sad I'm just saying it's a sad reality that someone might go to like a Hari Krishna temple like a one in their city. Yeah, okay. They may go to that place for 20 years to the like the Sunday feast or whatever. Yeah. And never feel that they like the door's been open to them. Mm. So share their heart to talk about what they're going through to talk about their struggles to ask certain questions. Sure. They may have felt like nobody ever came to me and said that we're here to help or so. These sage groups they're all about that right off the bat. It's like here. It's like here. to talk, here's your place to share, here's your place to discover, to make some friends. Maybe you go, keep going and you don't really even make any real friends, you know? Well, there's, I think there's different types of people who go to a temple. Sometimes you go, I used to go, I used to not know anybody. I used to go to that Brooklyn temple, I used to wander around there. You know, indoctrinate me. You know what you'd I got nothing from these guys. You guys are not really a good cult if you're not trying to get me in your. But yeah, and so sometimes you have no one to talk to you what to speak of share your heart, which is really what religion is there for or spiritual pass are there so you can have community you can share when you're down and you can lift people when you're high. That's important. It's right there and the nectar of instruction that you're teaching right the the dati prati greenati the bounda bojai tchaiva yeah yeah yes that as well there's got to be some preside I don't know if the sage groups are great for that but but but opening up one's heart you know hearing confidentially you know sharing confidentially this is what I'm going through you know I'm trying to practice this but I don't understand this I don't understand that trouble with this. Or hey this is going great I'm so excited you know that kind of that kind of exchange is really helpful and sage groups really give you room for that lots of interesting conversation lifelong friendships being made sure this is why people like 12 step groups or Bockty Recovery sometimes more than religion because wow this is why people like 12-step groups like 12 step groups or Bocki recovery sometimes more than religion because wow this is not just community but a place to like share what you're going through and so just sitting and getting lectured to which has its place yes it does you're right it does have his place you got to share and really open up that stage academy we want to start to get that up and run into the coast now we can study this is there is learning that takes place in the sage groups but that's not its real purpose you know it's definitely there's learning going on but it's really more about connecting with people Do you have any announcements? Oh, well that was my announcement. That was your announcement. Okay. Also we have a limited amount of retreats going on at the farm this year. Please go to my website, Raguenof. Yoga.orgonath that yoga also Ray Capo. It's the same thing and go to super soul events. Yeah, the events calendar. And check it out including a wisdom of the sage's autumn retreat that's happening and that always sells out so if you're interested in any of these you got to lock yourself. in there. I don't know that we've opened registration for that automerite yet. Who? We got to get on that and we got to get on our January Light and Wisdom. Retry to get that. Let's get that. Let's get that. I think in the Nectar devotion. I think in that. Neutr devotion, my friend. That's it. People can save the date. So that'll be January 10th through the 22nd. Yeah. Yeah. Like over on Eco-Eco Village. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. Nuggett. Nuggett this comes from Henry David Thoreau. Yours in mind favorite transcendentalist. Okay he writes. The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. I was just talking about this. Who are you? Yeah, that was like my opening gambit. Okay. Read it again, Prana. Read that again, please. The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. Right. On a side note, I hate when people say, read that again. Don't tell me to read that again? You say read that