Srimad Bhagavad - Gita

  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, May 23, 2021. 7:14.PM. Chapter-11. Participating with the Intention of the Universe -4. The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita (Spoken on Bhagavadgita Jayanti) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hell and heaven are nothing but these three gunas.  What a difference between hell and heaven!  Unthinkably different are the conditions prevailing in heaven and hell, but there is nothing substantially different in the formation of these arrangements or atmospheres or environments we call hell and heaven. The particular type of pressure exerted by the gunas in a type of intensity will give us the idea of a particular world, as I mentioned. We call it a physical world, an astral world or celestial world, a nether region, an inferno, and so on. So there is no inferno, paradiso, purgatorio – nothing of the kind. There is no earth, there i...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, May 30, 2021. 10:24.AM. Srimad Bhagavad-Gita Chapter-16.  Daiva-asura-sampad-vibhaga-yogam. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Slokam-19 : tanaham  dvishatah  kruran  samsareshu   naradhaman, kshipamyajasramasubhan  asurishv  yonishu. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Translation : dvishatah  kruran  =  envious  and  mischievous  ( one  spending  his  life  with  hatred  and  causing  injury  to  others); asubhan  tan  naradhaman  =  those  sinners / inauspicious  and  the lowest of mankind; aham  =  I; samsareshu  =  into the ocean of material existence ( life );  asurishu  y...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, May 29, 2021. 10:15.AM. Chapter 6: Sankhya – The Wisdom of Cosmic Existence - 4. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Bhagavadgita teaching is an expert handling of the inner harmony that exists between God and creation, the universal and the particular, that which is Sankhya and that which is Yoga. What is the relationship between God and His creation? What is the relationship between subject and object? What is the relationship between consciousness and matter? What is the relationship between contemplation and action? All these questions amount to only one question, finally – namely, the absolute and the relative, the inner and the outer or, rather, the universal and the external. Sri Krishna's point of view is that it is not possible to emphasise or stick to only one side of the matter. We are, as human b...

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday, May 27, 2021. 7:34. AM.  Chapter 9 : The Majesty of God-Consciousness - 2. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Bhagavadgita does not go into great details in this subject, as much as we have in the Upanishads, for instance. There is a brief statement of the exit of the soul. 'The departure of the soul from the body,' is the way we describe things generally, as if we are encaged in this body and we are not this body. As a person may leave his house, we, the real individuals lodged in this tabernacle, leave it one day in order that we may enter a new house which is already constructed for us by the architect who is paid for by God Himself; and already the house is built, the foundation is dug and the entire structure is complete even before we leave this body. Such wondrous mechanism operates in the ...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tuesday, May 25, 2021. 06:42. PM.  Chapter - 10 : Forms of Sacrifice and Concentration-9. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The posture we maintain in the body also should be such that there should not be any kind of ache or pain felt in the system. Suppose we are seated in padmasana, or sukhasana, or any such asana for the purpose of meditation, we should not feel pain in the knee, or the back, etc. Then that posture would not be suitable. One is a master of one’s own self, and we can choose our own posture. Patanjali is generous when he says that the posture to be maintained for the purpose of meditation is any one, provided it is comfortable. He does not speak of padmasana, siddhasana, and all that. Any comfortable posture—comfortable in the sense that it does not distract our attention and does not compel u...

  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday,  May 24, 2021. 6:30. PM. Chapter - 9. The Fourth Chapter Continues: The Performance of Action as a Sacrifice - 1. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Srimad Bhagavad Gita - Chapter-4, Slokam-7. Incarnation is the descent of God for the ascent of man. This has been briefly touched upon in two verses which we studied yesterday :  Slokam-7. "yada yada hi dharmasya glanir bhavati bharata abhyutthanam adharmasya tadatmanam srijamyaham." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Translation  : yadā yadā—whenever;  hi—certainly;  dharmasya—of righteousness;  glāniḥ—decline;  bhavati—is;  bhārata—Arjun, descendant of Bharat;  abhyutthānam—increase;  adharmasya—...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, May 23, 2021. 7:14.PM. Chapter-11. Participating with the Intention of the Universe -3. The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita (Spoken on Bhagavadgita Jayanti) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There are, therefore, patterns of the projection of these forces – sattva, rajas, tamas. The variety that we see in the world is an illusion, as the illusion of the difference of presentation is made possible by the distribution of ink, though the inks may be only a few – one, two or three. Though variety is there, the basic substance of this variety need not be so multitudinous as the picture is made to look. Now, the painted picture gives the semblance of a wholeness. Every part of the painting is sustained in a given manner in order that the wholeness of the picture can be made possible. Every particular dot of the i...

  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, May 22, 2021. 7:34.PM. Srimad Bhagavad-Gita. Chapter-16.  Daiva-asura-sampad-vibhaga-yogam.  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Slokam-18. "Ahankaram  balam  darpam  kamam  krodham  ca  samsritah, mamatmaparadeheshu   pradvishantobhyasuyakah." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Translation : ahankaram  balam  darpam  =  false ego,  strength,  and  pride; kamam  krodham  ca  samsritah  =  lust,  anger,  and  having taken shelter of; abhyasuyakah  =  envious  of; atmaparadeheshu  = one's own  in other bodies;   mam  =  I,  the  Supreme; pradvishantah  =  continue...

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Friday, May 07, 2021. 08:12.PM. Chapter 6: Sankhya – The Wisdom of Cosmic Existence - 3. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gita -Ch-2, Slo-72. "esha brahmi sthitih partha nainam prapya vimuhyati sthitvasyam anta-kale ’pi brahma-nirvanam richchhati" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Translation : BG 2.72: O Parth, such is the state of an enlightened soul that having attained it, one is never again deluded. Being established in this consciousness even at the hour of death, one is liberated from the cycle of life and death and reaches the Supreme Abode of God. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Commentary :  nainam prapya vimuhyati (Gita 2.72) :...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday, May 20, 2021. 06:56. PM.  Chapter 9 : The Majesty of God-Consciousness - 1. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From self-discipline, the Bhagavadgita now takes us to the level of God-Consciousness as its discourse proceeds, and especially in the ninth, tenth and eleventh chapters we reach the climax of the description of this state. Here we seem to find God taking possession of everything. Human individuality and human responsibility do not anymore stand as an outside principle when God begins to rule His kingdom. The kingdom of the jiva, the individual, is no more an isolated factor requiring separate attention on the part of the individual. As we noted in earlier stages in the preceding chapters, the Gita concentrated itself upon the training which the individual has to undergo, until there is a complete preparation of oneself for the final ...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday, May 19, 2021. 06:12. PM.  Chapter - 10 : Forms of Sacrifice and Concentration-8. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Difficult is all this for the mind to understand, and we are not supposed to go too high when we are in a lower stage. We will know what is above us when we reach the stage that is immediately below. Each time we are given only the vision of one step ahead; we cannot have the total vision of all things at the stroke of a moment. Just now we can have an inkling of what is immediately above us, and further on we cannot know anything. When we reach that second step, or achieve the immediately higher level, we will have the vision of the next higher level. Nature reveals its secrets by degrees, and the whole secret cannot be given in one instant. The Bhagavadgita, in its Sixth Chapter, tells us that the higher Self is the controlli...

  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday,  May 18, 2021. 07:41. PM. Chapter-8.The Fourth Chapter Begins: The Avataras of God-5. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our thoughts and actions contribute, to a large extent, to the welfare or the suffering of mankind; and if they are very intense, they disturb the other layers of the cosmos such as Bhuvarloka, Svarloka, etc. When the Rakshasas were harassing the Devas, the Devas went to Rudra and Brahma, and finally they beseeched Narayana to take some action. Similarly, the fourteen worlds will cry for a redeeming power to act. Then the centre of the cosmos will work immediately, in a positive manner or a negative manner. The avataras of God are described in great detail in the Srimad Bhagavata Mahapurana. It is said that Narayana had twenty-four avataras, but that is only in a manner of speaking. There can be twenty-four million av...

  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday, May 17, 2021. 07:44.AM. Chapter-11. Participating with the Intention of the Universe -2. The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita (Spoken on Bhagavadgita Jayanti) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There is a rapid movement of forces – sattva, rajas, tamas. They never are stable in themselves. The whole universe is a movement, it is a velocity, it is an ocean of inwardly active, moving and energising elements, so that the inward activity of this threefold force called sattva, rajas and tamas in a particular or given manner, at a given moment of time, projects a kind of universe, a particular pattern or form of the coming together of these three forces, is a world. These forces can assume another pattern if the need be, and another world can be created. Varieties of pictures can be painted with the same kind of inks. There can be only three i...

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, May 15, 2021. 08:39.PM. Srimad Bhagavad-Gita Chapter-16.  Daiva-asura-sampad-vibhaga-yogam  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Slokam-17 : atma-sambhavitah stabdha dhana-mana-madanvitah yajante nama-yajnais te dambhenavidhi-purvakam -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Translation : of Slokam BG 16.17: Such self-conceited and stubborn people, full of pride and arrogant in their wealth, perform ostentatious sacrifices in name only, with no regard to the rules of the scriptures. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Translation by words : ātma-sambhāvitāḥ—self-conceited; stabdhāḥ—stubborn;  dhana—wealth;  māna—pride;  mada—arrogance;  anvitāḥ—ful...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday, May 07, 2021. 08:12.PM. Chapter 6: Sankhya – The Wisdom of Cosmic Existence - 2. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How would you, then, make yourself fit for the universal vision if you are rejoicing in the world of the sense organs?  Another verse gives a little clue in this matter.  BG-CH-2, SLO-70. "apuryamanam achala-pratishtham samudram apah pravishanti yadvat tadvat kama yam pravishanti sarve sa shantim apnoti na kama-kami." BG 2.70: Just as the ocean remains undisturbed by the incessant flow of waters from rivers merging into it, likewise the sage who is unmoved despite the flow of desirable objects all around him attains peace, and not the person who strives to satisfy desires. A person filled with desires cannot have any vision of the Universal Spirit. If it could be possible, by way of intense austerity and restraint of sense ...