Srimad Bhagavad - Gita

---------------------------------------- Sunday. November 29, 2020. 09:43. AM. Chapter 6: Self-Restraint and the Nature of the Self - 1. ------------------------- Chapters four, five and six of the Bhagavadgita in a way dilate upon the discipline that is required in the practise of yoga. Some aspect of it I touched upon yesterday, and the study we made already is the foundational character of spiritual discipline, in a sense. Spiritual discipline, which may be considered to be almost the same as what you regard as self-control, is a many-sided, spiritual effort. The whole of yoga is self-restraint and a simultaneous self-recovery. It is dying to live, as Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj used to say many a time. The process of vairagya and abhyasa constitutes a sort of dying, for the sake of a living in a higher sense. This dying is not a loss – you will bring back to your memories what I told you yesterday – it is a gaining of the originality of things by awakening from one's involvement ...

  ------------------------------------- Monday, November 23 2020. 05:51. PM. Chapter 8: The Yoga of Action-3. ----------------------------------- 1. In a mythological style, in the form of a beautiful image, Krishna says that the Creator produced the individuals in the early days of creation, with a message to everyone. The great God who created us seems to have spoken to us thus, at the time of creation: “Children, I have created you, but I have created you together with a duty.”  To be born as an individual is also to be born with a duty inseparably. If we are to be free from duty, we have to be free from individuality itself. So, when we were born as individuals at the time of creation, at the origin of things, we have been sent by the Creator with a commission to perform a duty in the form of yajna.  “Sahayajnah prajah srishtva purovacha prajapatih; anena prasavishyadhvam esha vo’stvishtakamadhuk” is a famous verse which sums up the principle of spiritual action. Indi...

  ------------------------------------------- Sunday, November 22, 2020. 11:37. AM. Discourse 6: The Third Chapter Begins – The Relation Between Sankhya and Yoga -2. Post-1. -------------------------------- Now Sri Krishna takes up the question of the relation between Sankhya and yoga, about which enough has been said in the Second Chapter. It has been mentioned again and again that all our activities have to be based on the knowledge of the Sankhya. But are they two different paths, or are they internally related to each other? ----------------------------- Sri bhagavan uvacha "Loke ’smmn dvi-vidha nishtha pura prokta mayanagha jnana-yogena sankhyanam karma-yogena yoginam." (BG -  CH-3, SLO-3.)) "Na karmanam anarambhan naishkarmyam purusho ’shnute na cha sannyasanad eva siddhim samadhigachchhati." (BG- CH-3, SLO-4.) Sankhya and yoga, or knowledge and action, are mutually related in an organic fashion. When it was said that action has to be rooted in the knowledge o...

---------------------------------------------------- Saturday, November 21, 2020. 12:45. PM. Chapter 8: The Realism and Idealism of the Bhagavadgita-2. The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita (Spoken on Bhagavadgita Jayanti) ------------------------------------ Some of the extra-cosmic enthusiasms of religious phases today become a kind of anathema to realistically-minded, socially-minded, politically-minded outlooks in life, not because religion is bad, but a religion that is unrelated to facts of life loses its meaning. And if there is any outlook of the religious ideal which plants itself firmly on even the lowest values of reality, we have here in the Bhagavadgita a grand consummation of that integrated outlook. It is a friend of the poor, and it is also a friend of the Supreme Creator of the universe. From the uttermost poverty of human thought it rises to the pinnacle of divine perfection. Such is the gamut it covers from the lowest to the highest of levels. ------------------...

  ------------------------------------- Friday, November 20, 12 : 25. PM. Srimad Bhagavad-Gita Chapter-15. Purushothama-yogam Slokam - 15. "This  chapter is very important, hence kindly  follow  and  understand  each  slokam  well." --------------------------------------- Slokam-15. "Sarvasya  caham  hrdi  sannivishtah mattah  smrtirjnanamapohanam  ca, vedaisca  sarvairahameva  vedyah vedantakrt  vedavideva  caham."  ---------------------------------------- Translation : Aham  sarvasya  =  I  of all living beings; hrdi  sannivishtah  =  being situated  in the heart; mattah  =  from Me; smrtih  jnanam  =  smrti  ( remembrance )  and  jnanam ( knowledge );  apohanam  ca  =  and forgetfulness  happens; sarvaih  vedaih  =  in  all  veda-s; vedyah  ca  aham  =...

  ------------------------------------------------ Wednesday, November 18, 2020. 10:54. AM. Chapter 3: The Transmigration of the Soul - 4. -------------------------------------------------- An iron rod is made up of little particles of iron. If it is heated until it becomes red hot, the particles cannot be seen; only the radiance, the red heat, is visible. In a similar manner, every limb of the body, from the fingertips to the toes, appears to be a completeness. The whole body feels the touch of a little toe or a little finger, due to the fact that there is a consciousness pervading this entire organism. If this divisibility of consciousness were not to be there, every part of the body would look disjointed. One hand would not know the existence of the other hand, and one limb would not cooperate with another organ of the body. But every little cell and part of the body, every little limb, goes on working in such system, method and harmony that you feel that you are one integrality...

-------------------------------------------------- Tuesday, November 17, 2020. 08 : 25. AM. Chapter 5: Life as a Yajna or Sacrifice - 6. ------------------------------------------------- So, the yoga, the sacrifice – which is control of the senses, restraint of the mind, and the stabilising of the reasoning process, which is the yajna, the various types of yajna mentioned in the fourth chapter: prana, manas, indriya etc. mentioned there – all these suggest a single action on the part of our consciousness, namely an awakening into a higher Self. We may wonder why we should go on using the word 'Self' again and again, as if there is nothing else and no other word will connote what is our intention. The word 'Self' is a very important thing, because it suggests the true nature of things.  ----------------- We are not likely to understand the meaning of it because we are accustomed to identify self with our personality: 'yourself', ' myself', 'himself...

  ---------------------------------------------- Monday, November 16 2020. 01:44. PM. Chapter 8: The Yoga of Action-2. ---------------------------------------------- Every cell of the body is active, and our mind is never inactive. To think is to act, and to be really inactive would be to cease to think. Even in the so-called mental inactivity of deep sleep, the mind is subtly active in a different manner. The psychology of sleep reveals that the mind is not really inactive even in sleep. There is no occasion conceivable when we can be totally inactive. Right from the minutest atom up to the highest conceivable galaxy, one cannot see anything sitting idle or being inactive. This is one of the aspects of the reply of Krishna to Arjuna’s decision not to act. There is no such thing as ‘no action’; your action is inseparable from your being. Every finite entity is active on account of the very finitude of itself. Action is the necessary consequence of the finitude of entities. --------...

  ------------------------------------------ Sunday, November 15, 2020. 06:24. PM. Discourse 6: The Third Chapter Begins – The Relation Between Sankhya and Yoga -1. Post-1. ------------------------------------------- Srimad Bhagavad Gita - Chapter-2. Slokam-72. "Esha brahmi sthitih partha nainam prapya vimuhyati,  sthitvasyam antakale’pi brahmanirvanamu ucchati." (2.72).  ------------------------------------------------ The Second Chapter of the Gita, which we have practically concluded yesterday, is the core of the teaching of the whole of the Bhagavadgita, which is elaborated in the subsequent chapters, from the Third onwards. Madhusudhana Saraswati, a commentator on the Bhagavadgita, has pointed out that the teachings of every subsequent chapter are a commentary on one or the other of the verses of the Second Chapter. The Second Chapter is pre-eminently important because the whole of the teaching is on Sankhya and yoga, whose basic principles have been explained during...

  ------------------------ Saturday, November 14, 2020. 08:06. AM. Chapter 8: The Realism and Idealism of the Bhagavadgita-2. The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita (Spoken on Bhagavadgita Jayanti) ------------------------ How does the Bhagavadgita begin? It begins with a most prosaic atmosphere of a political situation, which is the grossest involvement of the human being in public affairs. It is the least that one can do; some people say it is the worst that one can do, and yet it is a reality in its own way. A thing may be the worst, but does it exist? As long as it exists, it enjoys a degree of reality. The worst thing does not become unreal merely because it is worst from some point of view, yet it is the ground on which the edifice of the great gospel is built. The Mahabharata battle is the scene of the commencement of this gospel. We will see a little later why that gory occasion should have been found the most suitable atmosphere for giving this mighty gospel. We shall ...

-------------------------------------- Friday, November 13, 2020. 08 : 51. AM. Srimad Bhagavad-Gita Chapter-15. Purushothama-yogam Slokam - 14. "This  chapter is very important, hence kindly  follow  and  understand  each  slokam  well." --------------------------------------- Slokam-14.  "Aham  vaisvanaro  bhutva  praninam  deham  asritah, pranapanasamayuktah  pacamyannam  caturvidham." --------------------------------------------------------- Translation : Aham  praninam  deham  asritah   vaisvanarah   bhutva  =  I  am  in  the  body  of  all  living  things,  present and  active   in  the  state  of  'Vaisvanaran'  ( Jadaragni )  the  digesting  fire; prana-apana-samayuktah  =  joining  or  mixing  with  the  pranavayu  ( inhain...

------------------------------------------------ Thursday, November 12, 2020. 09:43. AM. Chapter 3: The Transmigration of the Soul - 3. -------------------------------------------------- Then Arjuna again speaks, in the beginning of the Second Chapter. “Did I not explain myself properly? My love goes for my own elders on whose lap I sat, and who gave me education and taught me the art of archery. And my own brethren, kinsmen, are arrayed in front of me – the Kurus, whose blood also flows through my veins. What benefit can accrue to me by opposing my own kinsmen, my own well-wishers, my own elders?” ----------------------------- The answer of Sri Krishna is the Second Chapter of the Bhagavadgita, commencing from the eleventh Slokam  Sri Bhagavan uvacha "Ashochyan-anvashochas-tvam prajna-vadansh cha bhashase gatasun-agatasunsh-cha nanushochanti panditah." (Gita 2.11):  ---------------------------- “You speak as if you know everything. Very wise words you have spoken before me, ...

  ------------------------------------------------------------ Tuesday, November 10, 2020. 10 : 01. AM. Chapter 5: Life as a Yajna or Sacrifice - 5. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Emotional involvements are studied in psychoanalysis, sometimes known as 'abnormal psychology'. By a deep understanding of our own self, we may be a healthy person psychically, and psychoanalytically we are perfectly hale and robust. But from the point of view of yoga, we may still be an abnormal person – because abnormality does not necessarily mean being a psychoanalytic patient. There can be a 'metaphysical error' as philosophers would put it, apart from a mere social, political or emotional mistake that we commit. Here it is that yoga goes beyond mere human ways of thinking, much less social and political ways. It is a cosmic way of envisaging everything, which will inject a sort of shock into us. We may begin to shudder even to think of the possibility of...

  ------------------------------------------- Monday, November 09, 2020. 08:43. AM. Chapter 8: The Yoga of Action ----------------------------------------- The famous doctrine of Karma Yoga is the theme of the Third Chapter of the Bhagavadgita. This is one of the most difficult sections in the whole text, and a very important one, which provides the key to an understanding of the basic principles of the whole message. It was stated earlier that action should be grounded in understanding. This was the point made out in the Second Chapter. Now, what does it mean? How is it possible to root activity in understanding? This is expounded in the Third Chapter. ---------------------------------- There are certain misconceptions prevalent in the minds of people in regard to activity. For instance, oftentimes we feel that we are fed up with activity. We wish to withdraw ourselves from action as such, and remain inactive and do nothing. There are occasions in life when people feel like doing ...

------------------------------------------------ Sunday, November 08, 2020. 10:59. AM. Discourse 5: The Second Chapter Concludes – The Establishment of the Soul in Universality - 10. -------------------------------------------------  In a cloth shop, we can get cloth. In a cutlery shop, we can get cutlery. In a grocery shop, we can get groceries. But we cannot get what is not there.  ------------------------------------- This world is the shop where there is sorrow—# duhkhalayam—and, therefore, we will reap only sorrow if we are tethered to the demands of the sense organs. The whole of yoga is nothing but the restraining of the powers of the sense organs, which compel us to think in terms of the anatman, and centring it in the Atman. It is a movement from the centrifugality of the sensory activity to the centripetality of the soul’s contemplation on itself. -------------------------------- # "Tada drastuh svarūpe avasthanam; vrtti sarupyam itaratra (Y.S. 1.3-4)." ------------...

  -------------------------------------------------- Saturday, November 07, 2020. 08:25. AM. Chapter 8: The Realism and Idealism of the Bhagavadgita-1. The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita (Spoken on Bhagavadgita Jayanti) --------------------------------------------------- In our understanding of the message of the Bhagavadgita, we may have to move stage by stage, keeping in view the development of thought in a systematic manner which characterises the different chapters of the text. We may say, using a modern philosophical expression, that the Bhagavadgita is both idealistic and realistic. It is uncompromisingly idealistic in the sense that it holds an ultimately valid transcendent principle to be the final deciding factor in all matters, in everything in this creation. There is a final valid deciding factor which is cosmically relevant and harmonious, appropriately juxtaposed with every event in the universe, and existing as the very root of any meaning that we can read in ...

--------------------------------------------------- Friday, November 06, 2020. 09 : 55. AM. -------------------------------------------------- Srimad Bhagavad-Gita Chapter-15. Purushothama-yogam Slokam - 13. "This  chapter is very important, hence kindly  follow  and  understand  each  slokam  well." ----------------------------- Slokam-13 :.  "Gamavisya  ca  bhutani  dharayamyahamojasa, pushnami  caushadhih  sarvah   somo  bhutva  rasatmakah." ------------------------------------------------ Translation : ca  =  not  only  that; aham  gam  avisya  =  I  entered  the  earth,  then;  ojasa  =  with  My  capacity; bhutani  dharayami  =  sustaining  the  living  beings; rasatmakah   somah  bhutva  =  acting  as  the  moon,  which  is  in...