The Yoga of the Bhagavad Gita : 1&2. Sri Swami Chidananda

-

Saturday, June 20, 2020. 09:14. AM.

1. introduction : 

Today is the most auspicious and sacred day of Sri Gita Jayanti, when one of the most glorious scriptures of the world, which has been blessing humanity by its powerful Upadesha ever since it was expounded to Arjuna on the battle-field of Kurukshetra by the Lord. It is the advent of this glorious scripture that we are trying to commemorate today by the Jayanti celebration when we express our thoughts,—reverential and worshipful thoughts—in connection with this scripture as a gesture of our adoration of it, as also a token of our heartfelt gratitude for the blessing that it has been and shall ever continue to be to humanity.

Gita has been said to be the very essence of the Upanishads upon which our culture is based. Even now the basis of Bharatian culture is recognised to be the Upanishads. The Upanishads about which one of the greatest of German savants said: "The Upanishads have been the solace of my life and the Upanishads shall surely be the solace at the time of my departure from life." Gita is said to be the very cream and the essence of the lofty wisdom of these Upanishads. So in the Gita we have got the wisdom of the Upanishads in a nutshell. We have access to the best, the most precious gems that are to be found in the mine that the Upanishads are.



2. Gita the Mother :

Therefore, it was that the father of our nation the late Mahatma Gandhiji of revered memory said that he regarded the Gita as his own mother, by which he meant to say that his very life had been sustained by the Bhagavad Gita, that his thoughts, his feelings, his philosophy, had been nourished by the soul-elevating and strengthening Upadesha of Srimad Bhagavad Gita. As a representative of our nation Mahatmaji expressed by this utterance what Gita ought to be to every Indian. He desired thereby that every Indian, every son of Bharatavarsha ought to make Gita his own, to enshrine the knowledge and the philosophy of the Gita in the chambers of his heart, to illumine his life by the bright flame of Gita-Jnana. It is this pride of Bharatian culture, this gem in the Bharatian culture, Mother Gita, that has ever been the soul of Indian philosophy.

It is precisely for this reason that, even though it is just a small book of 700 verses, a mere exposition forming part of a greater epic poem, the Mahabharata, yet it has been given the unique place of one among our Prasthanatraya, and no great saint or scholar or Acharya worth the name has failed to comment upon it. Gita has received equal reverence at the hands of every one of the leaders of religion. All great Acharyas, all great saints, all great men of realisation and scholars have ever taken the Gita to be an authority and have also drawn from it and built up their philosophy. What is more: in the West, many a great and deep thinker has not at all hesitated to accept and avow frankly his debt to this great supreme scripture of scriptures. Emerson, for instance, was only too ready to accept that Gita had been a great factor in moulding his thought and his attitude towards life. Such is the glory of this great star in the firmament of our Hindu scriptures.

To be continued ...


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita : Ch-5. Part-5.( Last Part)

-
Image
5: God is Our Eternal Friend-5. ( Last Part ) We are filled with doubts in our minds—we can prepare a dictionary of all our doubts—they are endless. Everywhere we have a suspicious attitude about the world, about things, about people, about ourselves, about the past, about the present, and about the future. These doubts cannot be dispelled until knowledge arises, and we know what knowledge means, an insight into which we have been given in the second chapter of the Gita. Knowledge is the knowledge of God ultimately, and as a result, knowledge of the nature of the world in its reality, as mentioned in the third chapter. This is true knowledge, and when we are awakened to this real knowledge, all doubts get dispelled. Then what happens? Atmavantam—we become truly possessed of the Self that we really are. We are people who have lost ourselves and are in pursuit of things outside. Yes, this is what has happened; we have grasped the world and lost our own selves, and we are
Read more

The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad gita : Ch-10. Part-3.

-
Image
Chapter 10: The Imperishable Among All that is Perishable : Part-3. We are told in the Puranas that Narayana or Vishnu takes incarnations for the preservation of creation. Vishnu is regarded as yajna itself. It is the highest sacrifice—God sacrificing himself every moment of time for the sustenance of His creation. As adhiyajna He is the administrative power and the methodology of the working of the cosmos. All activity is comprehended under this yajna of the cosmos. Therefore God is present in all activity when it is considered as a passage to God, when it is regarded as a manifestation of God as rays emanating from the sun. Those wise souls who envisage God as adhibhuta, adhidaiva and adhiyajna, which means to say, who encounter God as a comprehensive Absolute and not merely existing only here or there, such devotees are true knowers. They can entertain or maintain this consciousness even at the time of passing from this world—they are not deprived of th
Read more

The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita : Ch-9. Part-8.

-
Image
9: The Unity of the Lover and the Beloved : Part-8. The distressed souls seeking God are of one type. One who is baked in the fire of samsaram,who is tortured in this hell of earth, suffering through various sorrows, seeks riddance from the grief of the world by resort to God under the impression that God is like a parent—a father or a mother or a supreme saviour. The intention behind this devotion is redress—freedom from sorrow, the inability to bear suffering. This is the reason here behind the devotion to God. Whether this could be an adequate reason, anyone can contemplate independently for oneself. Can we love God merely because He is the only source of redemption from our sorrows? Do we want freedom from sorrow, or do we want God? That is a different question that will come up later on. Swami Krishnananda To be continued  ....
Read more