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Showing posts from January, 2017

The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita : Ch -18.12.

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26/01/2017. Chapter -18: Fix Your Mind on Me Alone-12. With this knowledge of our true relationship to the creation of God, with this preparedness of spirit, what are we supposed to know? What is the object of attainment? What is knowable reality? Here is a very grand description of the supreme Brahmam, which comes only once in the whole of the Gita, and that occurs in the thirteenth chapter. "Jneyam yat tat pravaksyami yaj jnatvamrtam asnut" : - Knowing which you shall attain immortality. What is that, by knowing which, you shall attain immortality? 'Sarvatah pani-padam tat sarvato’ksi-siro-mukham, sarvatah srutimal loke sarvam avrtya tisthati.' There is something that is invisible to the eyes but which exists everywhere, with hands and feet and eyes and heads everywhere, as it were, pervading all things inwardly and outwardly; deepest and nearest, inside us and yet most remote and unreachable by any effort of man. "Sarvendriya- gunabh

The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita : Ch -18.11

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19/01/2017. Chapter -18: Fix Your Mind on Me Alone-11. 1. Now, the description goes further down to the nature of the percipient, the subject who aspires for God or the attainment of liberation. 2. What are the characteristics of such a person? What is jnana? What is the knowledge that is required of us in order to understand this kshetra,and what is the knowable or the supreme object of knowledge? 3. Amanitvam adambhitvam, etc. are the various sloka-s, beautiful indeed, which portray not only the ethical characteristics that are required of a seeker, but also the philosophical attitude that we have to maintain and the spiritual qualifications that are required of us. 4. The gradual ascent of aspiration until tattva-jnanartha-darsanam takes place is mentioned in these sloka-s, culminating in the beautiful concept of knowledge of Truth as it is. 5. This comes to us by the service of the Guru, study of the scriptures, self-investigation, humility, unpretentiousness a

The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita : Ch -18.10

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12/01/2017. Chapter -18: Fix Your Mind on Me Alone-10. Through avyakta God reveals Himself as buddhi or mahat and stratifies Himself further down as the cosmic ego, ahamkara. In later Vedantic doctrines, these stages are described as ishwara, hiranyagarbha, and virat. The terminology of the Bhagavadgita is different, but it means almost the same thing. Right from the supreme will of the Creator to the manifestation of cosmic ahamkara, there is only paradise reigning in the universe. There is only a garden of Eden, only heaven, and supreme felicity of cosmic perception everywhere. There is no egoism, no hatred, not even an individual consciousness. But then starts the sorrow of the individual. There is the manifestation of the grossened elements, mahabhutani—earth, water, fire, air and ether—which look like objects of sense to individuals who are cut off from the outside world. These individuals are again constituted of the five layers—annamaya, pranamaya, manomaya, vijnaamaya

The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita : Ch -18.9

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05/01/2017. Chapter -18: Fix Your Mind on Me Alone-9. 9.1.1 When we move to the thirteenth chapter, we are entering a more philosophical theme. As a matter of fact, from the thirteenth chapter onwards, we are entering into deeper and deeper philosophical discussions, which are placed before us as methods of implementing the doctrine of the whole of the Gita delineated in the earlier chapters, right from the first to the eleventh. 9.1.2 The whole world of experience consists of the dual action of purusha and prakriti, consciousness and matter, ksetrajnah and ksetra—thus the thirteenth chapter begins. Ksetrajnam cpi mam viddhi sarva-ksetresu is a very important passage at the very commencement of the chapter. 9.1.3 The ksetrajnah mentioned here in the thirteenth chapter, the consciousness, the Atman, the kutastha, the soul inside us, is not merely the individual light that shines in the heart of a particular person. It is the light that is the light in all beings, sarva-ksetresu, and