Srimad Bhagavad - Gita

01/05/2019 (Talk given on Janmashtami, Sri Krishna's birthday.) 1. One important lesson of our scriptures which we have overlooked is their call to a life of glory. There are many passages in the Vedas in which the Rishi prays for greatness. "O Lord, make me lustrous." "May I be the most glorious." "May the sun and the moon and the earth and the sea, and the sky and the heaven made by Thee, be always favourable to us for achieving greatness." The Bhagavadgita has a whole chapter – Vibhuti Yoga – in which Sri Krishna exalts the best or most outstanding specimen in each class of beings by identifying himself with it. For example, he says: "Among immovables I am the Himalaya; among rivers, the Ganga; among trees, the holy fig; among cows, the divine cow of plenty; among sages, Vyasa; among heavenly songsters, Chitraratha; among generals, Skanda; among rulers, Yama; among celestial sages, Narada; among warriors, Rama; among men, the King. I ...

30/04/2019 (Spoken on November 3rd, 1973.) 1. Salutations, humble prostrations to the Supreme Almighty God, Bhagavan Sri Lakshmi Narayana! May we, on this auspicious occasion, invoke the grace of Bhagavan Sriman Narayana that his all-compassionate eyes may look upon all of mankind with a benignant, gracious compassion. May this be a sacred opportunity for all of us to contemplate and pray to his all-pervading form as the Virat Swarupa in this visible shape of creation. May we be endowed with that understanding and power of wisdom to recognise his presence in all this manifestation as this world, this cosmos, this universe. May we not be tempted into the false belief that this world is an object of enjoyment for the senses. May we not be led astray into the erroneous notion that this world is our property, that it belongs to us, that this is a field of physical enjoyment and personal aggrandisement in any manner whatsoever. May we be blessed with that knowledge with which w...

29/04/2019 (Spoken to a French-speaking group on December 28th, 1972) 1. The Bhagavadgita cannot be easily understood. We can understand the Vedas and the Upanishads properly, but not the Bhagavadgita. Even the Upanishads, the fundamental scriptures of India, have a single meaning on the surface so that there is no difficulty in understanding them. But the Bhagavadgita is highly symbolic and esoteric, and the surface meaning is not its real meaning. No other scripture in India has had so many commentaries. While the Upanishads speak of God or the Absolute directly, the Bhagavadgita tries to touch various stages of the evolution of man, and that is the difficulty in understanding it. The Bhagavadgita is, in one sense, the most important scripture because it touches all sides of life from the lowest to the highest. It touches the inner as well as the outer. It touches the social, the individual and the spiritual aspects at one and the same time. It is the only scripture which c...

28/04/2019 Srimad Bhagavad-Gita : Chapter-13. ( Kshetra-kshetrajna-vibhaga-yogam) Slokam-33. yatha sarva-gatam saukshmyad akasam nopalipyate sarvatravasthito dehe tathatma nopalipyate yatha—as; sarva-gatam—all-pervading; saukṣhmyat—due to subtlety; akasam—the space; na—not; upalipyate—is contaminated; sarvatra—everywhere; avasthitah—situated; dehe—the body; tatha—similarly; a atma—the soul; na—not; upalipyate—is contaminated Translation - BG 13.33: "Space holds everything within it, but being subtle, does not get contaminated by what it holds. Similarly, though its consciousness pervades the body, the soul is not affected by the attributes of the body." Comments The soul experiences sleep, waking, tiredness, refreshment, etc., due to the ego that makes it identify with the body.  One may ask why changes in the body in which it resides do not taint the soul.  Shree Krishna explains it with the example of space.  It holds everything, but yet r...

27/04/2019 (Spoken on July 15, 1979.) 1. It is necessary to be very practical and realistic in our approach to sadhana. While we have to be idealistic ultimately, we have also to be realistic and accept the fact that we are still on the Earth and not in the heavens. Many a difficulty of the seeker is an over-estimation and an enthusiasm beyond the level of the Earth. Our feet are still on the ground. We live in a physical body, we live in human society, and we have the foibles of human nature in general. It is very clear that we are not Godmen. We have not even a clear idea of what God is, let alone be established in the consciousness of God. We are intensely body-conscious. We are acutely hungry when it is lunchtime or dinnertime. We suffer from the pangs of thirst when the sun is hot. We get fatigued, due to which we fall into deep sleep. And we have anxieties caused by the operations human society. We have fears from inside, from outside, and from above, called the three t...

26/04/2019 (Spoken on Gita Jayanti in 1974) 2. We have to reiterate here that our mistake lies in regarding an ideal as a future. “Then what about the present?” is the question. If an ideal is ahead of us in the far-off future, what has happened to us at the present moment? The conflict that apparently seems to be there between the ideal and the real is born of a miscalculation of religious values, a misinterpretation of the spiritual sense in life, and a thoroughgoing lack of understanding in respect of that which can be regarded as the organic structure of the values of life. We as human beings are born with a prejudice. The prejudice seems to have entered into our very blood and vitals, the prejudice which insists that the present and the future are divided by a large and vast gulf which cannot easily be bridged, and this gulf that yawns before us between the future and the present is also the gulf that is between the world here and God above. As I mentioned, in one sens...

25/04/2019 Chapter II Sankhya Yoga II.1 This is Jnana Yoga or Vedanta which bespeaks of the Immortality of the Soul. Lord Krishna said to Arjuna : “Wake up from the slumber of ignorance. This body and the world are indwelt by the Imperishable Atman, Brahman or the Soul. None can cause the destruction of That—the Imperishable. This Atman is not born nor does It ever die. It is unborn, eternal, changeless, ancient and inexhaustible. It is not killed when the body is killed" (20). "It slays not, nor is It slain. Just as a man casts off worn out clothes and puts on new ones, so also the embodied Self casts off worn out bodies and enters others which are new (22). "Weapons cut It not, fire burns It not, water wets It not, wind dries It not" (23). "This Self is unmanifested, unthinkable and unchangeable" (24). II.2 “O Arjuna! do your duty. It is the duty of a Kshatriya to fight. There is nothing higher for a Kshatriya than a righteous war...

24/04/2019 (Gita Jayanti Message spoken on December 26, 1982.) 4. The recorder of this great gospel, Krishna Dvaipayana Vyasa, was another miracle in himself. He was not in any way less than Sri Krishna, as we are told. According to our accepted traditional belief, great Masters like Vasishtha, Krishna, Vyasa and Suka were on equal pedestals in knowledge and power. There is no comparison among them. And the recorder of this great gospel, which is a great mystery in itself, was also a mystery. And there are many traditions which tell us many things about the way in which the Bhagavadgita was recorded by Sri Krishna Dvaipayana Vyasa. Some say he was visualising directly what was happening and recording it then and there, similar to, we are told, the way in which Valmiki wrote the Ramayana. It was written during the lifetime of Rama himself, not afterwards, because it was sung in Rama’s own court by his own children. They could foresee things, and even the future of Rama’s life ...

23/04/2019 (Spoken on September 18th, 1974.) 4. To give an instance of this predicament or possibility, there can be a war between the understanding and the feeling, and then you will be an unhappy person at home though you may be a dignified public person outside. Your social status and the rational capacities may make you, or at least appear to make you, a noble individual of an elevated status in the eye of the public. You may be a big person or a big gun, as they say, in the eyes of the world, but privately you may be a miserable person at home. This is a phenomenon which is not unknown to people. Most people are privately unhappy though publicly big, rich, well to do and powerful. There can be political power which one may wield, social status and public esteem; all can go simultaneously, hand-in-hand with internal agony and sorrow which one suffers privately in one’s own abode. Why should this happen? It is because while your intellect, your reason, your public capacity w...

22/04/2019 Chapter 1: 1.4 1.Introduction -4. We know how happy we are to be members in a single family of brothers, sisters, father, mother, and so on. We feel happy by our coordination with other members in the family, notwithstanding the fact each one has an independence. It does not mean that any member of the family will subjugate another. There is no such intention of any member in a house. One brother will not consider another brother as a subordinate. Yet, the very fact of there being cooperation, which gives them so much satisfaction and security, is an automatic restriction on each one’s freedom. Each one is ready to sacrifice his or her freedom for the sake of giving that very kind of freedom to another member in the family, by which act of limitation of one’s freedom, one does not feel unhappy, but more happy. We are one. So, there is a larger integration and a wider form of security and a sense of welfare sanctioned to each member in this coordinated family. By t...

21/04/2019 (Spoken on Gita Jayanti in 1973) A Synthesis of Thought and Action-7. If the world is a single unity, of which we are also an integral part, accepted, no object or person in the world relates to us in any personalistic fashion and, therefore, no one in the world can bring us happiness or sorrow. Our individualised happiness or grief is an immediate outcome of our so-called relationship with certain persons and things in the world which ultimately does not exist, and cannot be justified. The Upanishads speak of the ultimate truth of things. Yo vai bhuma tat sukham: The Plenum is felicity. And what is the Plenum? What is this Bhuma which is the source of real bliss? The Chhandogya Upanishad tells us: Where you are not permitted to look on any object as an external something, that is the Supreme Plenum. But where you are drawn down to the level of an individualistic perception of such and such a thing being personally related to you, that is finitude of consciou...

20/04/2019 7. Otherwise, how would we appreciate the answer of Suka Maharishi to Parikshit’s question, that this is a cure for desire? A thing that would otherwise rouse desire is considered to be a cure for it. This is how God acts. He slaps us from both sides, and we do not know what the intention behind it is. Sri Krishna behaved recklessly with his mother and his comrades, and yet always saved them in their hour of need. He did fantastic things such as eating mud, and then behaved abominably with children; but when he was threatened, he showed the Cosmic Form in his open mouth. But he would not allow his mother to remember this vision that he had shown her, and immediately veiled it from her consciousness. Again she hugged the little child, as if nothing had happened. Look at this contradiction in his behaviour. He showed the Cosmic Form, but would not allow her to keep that consciousness. Then why did he show it to her at all? This is how God acts. He will tantalise us,...

19.04.2019 (Spoken on Sri Krishna Janmashtami, August 25, 1978) 7. I was chatting with some friends the other day when I put a question whether anybody has written a biography of Bhagavan Sri Krishna. We came to the conclusion nobody has written it, and perhaps nobody will write it. The reason is that it is impossible to conceive the many-sidedness of this personality because anyone who tries to write a biography of such a person has to rise to that level of perfection of thinking, which is ordinarily not possible. And if one attempts to think in such a thoroughness and completeness and many-sidedness, the mind may get stunned and any kind of writing will be impossible. It is impossible to write the beauty of the ocean. We can only appreciate it by looking at it. We want to see it again and again, and we want to be there always. The thundering waves that dash upon the shores, ebbing and flowing, catching our spirits – we do not know how they work, but they do work. We enjoy t...

18/04/2019 Chapter -2: The Search For Wholeness -1. The mystery of life is explained, as we noted yesterday, in the first five verses of the Fifteenth Chapter of the Bhagavadgita. The mystery lies primarily in the fact that the way in which this tree of life grows is a little different from the way in which human minds work. This is the reason why human comprehension cannot fathom the depths of the extendedness and the functioning of the movements of this cosmic tree. Just as the branching of the various limbs of the tree is conditioned by the power that is inherent in the seed which gives birth to the tree, all knowledge and work in this world is preordained and channelised in a given shape by the Original Will which is the seed of this cosmic tree. The world experience is knowledge and action combined. The whole of life can be summed up in knowledge and activity, the understanding and the putting of it into practice in the daily vocations of people. The outlook of life is th...

12/04/2019 Srimad Bhagavad-Gita : Chapter-13. ( Kshetra-kshetrajna-vibhaga- yogam) "anaditvat  nirgunatvat  paramatma  ayamah avyayah, sarirasth api  kaunteya  na  karoti  na  lipyate." Slokam-32. ( Those with the vision of eternity can see that the soul is transcendental, eternal, and beyond the modes of nature. Despite contact with the material body, O Arjuna, the soul neither does anything nor is entangled. ) anaditvat  nirgunatvat  =  as  he  who  has  no  beginning  and  without  any  guna-s  ( satva, rajas, tamas ); avyayah  ayam   paramatma  =  inexhaustible, this  Paramatma; sarirasthah  api  =  even though  situated  ( dwelling  within ) in  the  body; na  karoti  =   never does anything; kaunteya  =  O arjuna! na  lipyate ...

11/04/2019. (Spoken on Gita Jayanti in 1974) 1. In the history of the culture of the world, the Upanishads and the Bhagavadgita may be regarded as the central spiritual message to mankind. These two gospels of the spiritual ideal offset each other, as it were; they give us the art of life in consonance with the eternal on the one hand, and in consonance with the temporal on the other.  The problem of the human being is principally one of reconciliation between the eternal and the temporal or, to put it in modern terms, bringing about a harmony between the religious ideal and the secular call of duty. This has been an age-old problem, a question that has never been adequately answered.  And the Upanishads, while holding aloft the banner of the magnificence of life eternal, seem to absorb into their bosom all the values that may be regarded as secular and temporal – so that we are faced with a lion’s den, as it were. The values that we regard as dear and near in ...

10/04/2019 Forward Swami Chidananda : 10/07/1968 (Guru purnima )  The modern man in this present decade of the second half of the 21th century is greatly in need of an effective guide to light. He is groping. He sees only problems everywhere and no solutions are to be found anywhere. He does not know which way to turn, what course to adopt and how to move towards a better state of things. Therefore, his life is filled with restlessness, unhappiness and complication. The Bhagavad Gita contains words of wisdom and practical teachings that contain the answers to the above-mentioned condition of the present-day individual. The Bhagavad Gita is a message addressed to each and every human individual to help him or her to solve the vexing problem of overcoming the present and progressing towards a bright future. This holy scripture is not just an “old scripture”, nor is it just a book of “religious teachings”, nor even a Hindu holy book. It transcends the bounds of any part...

09/04/2019 1. Consciousness cannot be externalised because consciousness is indivisible. If you imagine that consciousness is divisible, you have also to imagine that there is a gap between the two parts thereof. Who is conscious of this gap? Consciousness alone is conscious of this gap between the two parts. That means, consciousness is present even in the gap in between. This is another way of saying that consciousness is universal. Everyone in this world refers to 'himself' or 'herself'. This 'selfhood' is applicable not only to organic, but inorganic bodies and objects also. If 'selfhood' is applicable to the whole world, it means the whole world is filled with selfhood alone, and since selfhood is inseparable from consciousness, it means that the whole world is filled with consciousness. But on account of ignorance, we imagine that objects are outside the self. This idea of object outside is itself a misconception. There is no object extern...

SRIMAD BHAGAVAD GITA  : SWAMI SIVANANDA 08/04/2019 Chapter I The Despondency of Arjuna (Arjuna Vishada Yoga) This is the Yoga of the despondency of Arjuna. Arjuna saw all his kinsmen, sons, brothers-in-law, cousins, teachers (Bhishma, Drona and others) standing arrayed in battle and said to Lord Krishna (26): “My limbs fail and my mouth is parched, my body quivers and my hairs stand on end; Gandiva slips from my hand (29). I do not wish to kill them even for the sake of the Kingship of the three worlds (35). It is a great sin to kill my teachers and relatives. If I kill them, family traditions will perish. There will be lawlessness (40). Women will become corrupt. There will be caste-confusion. The slayer of the families will go to hell for, their ancestors will fall, deprived of rice-balls and oblations (42). Caste-customs and family-customs will vanish”(43). Arjuna was overwhelmed with grief. He threw away his bow and arrows and sank down on the seat of the chariot (47...

07/04/2019 (Gita Jayanti Message spoken on December 26, 1982.) 3. There is a gradual deepening of the intensity which got gathered up gradually as the conversation went further and further into heights of divine necessity, and many of the students, the teachers and the interpreters of the Bhagavadgita Gita hold the common opinion that Sri Krishna, though he might have spoken for some time in common and normal language, broke through the limits of language at a certain point of the conversation. Arjuna was not merely spoken to or addressed by a person, but was possessed by a supernormal existence because the context demanded a type of action which could not be carried out through mere sermonising or speaking through words. The difficulty of Arjuna at the commencement of the war has been rightly considered as similar to, or rather identical with, the astonishing problem facing a spiritual seeker in his arduous struggle to move towards God and His realisation. Where to demarcate...