The Gita<\/em> is popular because it is the word of Krishna who is presented as the Lord. And Krishna is someone who has captured the imagination, the psyche of the Indian population.  But popular as the Gita<\/em> is, very few people really study it. And anything popular can be much abused. Any discipline, knowledge or art form that becomes popular is very often corrupted. When a book becomes popular, various people start commenting on it. Many commentators on the Gita<\/em> have not studied it as it is meant to be studied. In the Gita<\/em>, it is said that wisdom has to be acquired from  a guru, a teacher, who is both well- versed in the shastras<\/em> and is rooted in oneself (brahmanishta<\/em>). It doesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s a man or a woman, he or she has to be rooted in this truth. There are no restrictions on who can publish a book, but, unfortunately, a lot of commentaries on the Gita<\/em> do not capture the spirit of the Gita<\/em>. They deal with the verses but do not capture the spirit. What we are trying to do here is to capture its spirit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Yes, the language of the Gita<\/em> is Sanskrit which is anywhere between 3000 to 5000 years old. How will the young generation access it? There are a hundred and one translations available, most of them not up to the mark and, therefore, how does someone who wants to read the Gita<\/em> and apply it to his life go into it? I\u2019m afraid there is no simple answer to this, because the Gita<\/em> is a technical text. Therefore, it is like someone asking me, `How do I study a medical book?\u2019. There is a lot of information on medicine available on the internet, and, similarly, there will be a lot of information available on the internet on the Gita<\/em>\u2026.including this blog. But this will only give you a general knowledge, a general  awareness of the Gita<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In this blog, we will try to explain all the technicalities of the Gita<\/em> as much as can be done through a medium like this. But, traditionally, it is held that if you really want to know the meaning of the Gita<\/em> and apply it in your life, you have to study with a teacher. This is the traditional view. However, this blog will have a lot of information on the Gita<\/em> including insights into the Gita<\/em>\u2026..We will attempt to make a casual reader into an informed one who will know enough to apply the Gita<\/em> into his life, to start one\u2019s spiritual journey until one finds a teacher one can relate to on a personal level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This blog will not explain every verse but will deal with the key issues in each chapter. For every issue, there will of course be a lot of cross-fertilization of ideas from various chapters because the Gita<\/em> has to be seen as a whole. That is why a teacher becomes important. The Gita<\/em> is trying to give the vision of the whole to a person, and the vision of the whole cannot be given in parts even though specific topics concern themselves with specific parts. There will, therefore, be some back and forth movement between topics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The beauty of the\u00a0Gita<\/em>\u00a0is that the essential verses, the 700 core verses as spoken b y Krishna to Arjuna, are intact. Keeping this in mind, what makes it popular as a spiritual text is that it deals with a fundamental\u00a0 human problem .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Overview<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Gita is an ancient Indian text, a dialogue between Arjuna, a warrior, and Lord Krishna who has taken upon himself the role of Arjuna\u2019s charioteer on the battle-field. Sad and bewildered by the violence that lies ahead, Arjuna, faced with foes who are his closest and dearest relatives, is forced to ask the bigger questions about dharma, about what is right and what is wrong. This leads him further to ask about  life itself , the purpose of life, the meaning of life, and death and Krishna answers them all. Krishna teaches him to look beyond his own self-imposed limitations, to look at himself as the infinite instead of as a small, limited being. Krishna shows him the road that lies beyond success, which is transient, to fulfillment, which is permanent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Krishna\u2019s answers  are, of course, relevant for today and for all times and for everyone, which is what makes the Gita valuable; besides being a text that connects us with ourselves, its proper understanding can also teach us to manage and overcome our problems and lead a fuller life. To obtain this understanding and knowledge, one doesn\u2019t have to retire to the woods; it is not exclusively for monks who live in caves, it is for all of us, and this knowledge can be sought and found in our present environment, whatever it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Most people associate spirituality with meditation and so let\u2019s talk about that. In the Gita<\/em>, Krishna talks about the meditator and the meditation; both are combined together because the meditator is more important than the meditation. Meditation is something a meditator does; therefore, the Gita<\/em> talks about what it takes to be a meditator.  It talks about spiritual wisdom, popularly known as `Jnana yoga\u2019<\/em>. But to divide it into these various yogas is really a misconception, which we will handle when we are going into the details of every chapter. Every chapter is nothing but a given topic. The word `yoga\u2019  in the title of every chapter is said to be just a topic; each chapter has its own topic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The first chapter talks about the grief that Arjuna felt, the second chapter is about pure spiritual wisdom, the third chapter about karma yoga<\/em>, the fourth chapter about jnana-yoga<\/em> which deals with it in even greater detail, fifth is sanyasa yoga<\/em> talking about what sanyasa<\/em> is, a commited pursuit of the truth to the exclusion of everything  vis-a-vis karma yoga, <\/em> the sixth chapter talks about meditation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The seventh chapter comes back to how to validate this knowledge in your life, the eighth chapter is again a repetition of some of these ideas and is called abhyasa yoga<\/em>. The ninth chapter will be talking about raja vidya<\/em>, the king among the branches of knowledge, which is also the king among secrets. What is the secret about? People talk about the secret doctrine of the Upanishads etc, which is revealed in the ninth chapter\u2026.The tenth chapter talks about divine manifestation, the eleventh about Ishwara\u2019s<\/em> form being revealed, the twelfth chapter deals with bhakti<\/em>, devotion\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The thirteenth chapter is about matter and spirit, about what is the world and who is the one who experiences the world and the reality behind both. The fourteenth chapter talks about various gunas\u2013 sattva, rajas, tamas,<\/em> the fifteenth chapter talks about universal spirit or purushottama<\/em> yoga, about what is ishwara<\/em>. The sixteenth chapter will talk about what is spirituality, what is materialism, how far is it compatible, what is the difference etc. The seventeenth deals with sattva, rajas, tamas<\/em> applied to devotion, action, eating\u2013 it talks about a lot of these in detail where we will see a lot of misconceptions of sattvic<\/em> food etc being negated. The eighteenth chapter is the concluding chapter of the Gita<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When I am describing each chapter, the first six chapters are predominantly dealing with reality faced by an individual, the second group of six chapters deal with reality with respect to ishwara<\/em> or God, the last six chapters talk about the relation between the individual and totality. I used the word `predominantly\u2019 because in the second chapter ishwara<\/em> does come into the picture and in the eighth chapter the individual comes into the picture. In the next upload, we will go into chapter 1 of the Gita.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bhagavad  Gita: Timeline How old are the Vedas? Nobody really knows. One way of looking at it is to look at the\u00a0Bhagavat Gita, the\u00a0Mahabharata\u00a0(of which the\u00a0Gita\u00a0is a part) as part of a historical work. If you are going to look at it as a historical work, you need external evidence to back it up in… Continue reading 1.The Gita: Timeline, Misconceptions, And Overview<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arjunas-sorrow-ch-1","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n