BHAGAVAD SAMVADA: Essense of Bhavad-Gita - I

BHAGAVAD SAMVADA: Essense of Bhavad-Gita - I: "“Ignorance is bliss…”, screamed Prof. Choudhry, an eminent engineering professor in one of the leading universities of India to Deepak, who..."

Essense of Bhavad-Gita - I

“Ignorance is bliss…”, screamed Prof. Choudhry, an eminent engineering professor in one of the leading universities of India to Deepak, who was heading a franchise center at one of the posh localities of New Delhi pointing towards Bhagavad-Gita. “It’s a book meant for elderly persons and not people like you and me- strong active, energetic, in our mid of life and looking forward for success & achievement. Whoever reads this book will never be able to go back to work. He will stop doing his job and go to religious moths, I bet ….” continued Prof. Choudhry with a sense of relief in his eyes that we often feel after giving a piece of advice to our students in class. “Oh it is not me, it is my father who reads this as he is retired now and is spending his time with this book,” clarified Deepak with a gesture of relief & pretension to protect himself from complacence.

What a bliss it is to be ignorant! What an excuse we pretend, what a relief we enjoy being ignored and how proud we feel being successful without knowing and even trying to know the reality! This discussion helped me in understanding the necessity of delivering the message to the people who are having a huge misconception about Bhagavad-Gita and other Vedic literature. It is a vast science full of solutions to our day to day problems; full of extremely useful tips which are proved to be a perfect remedy for many a deep rooted problem. If you ask any wise person today about the gift our predecessors have given to us, then it is nothing but the huge treasure of knowledge and the methods of application to resolve every practical aspect of daily life. These are all nothing but the scriptures. Bhagavad Gita is the essence of all, i.e. in the condensed form of wisdom derived from all sources of truth imprinted in all the scriptures.

We may survey what is this Bhagavad-Gita all about. This is meant for freeing persons from the material existence. Every man is in difficulty in so many ways, as Arjuna also was in difficulty in the matter of fighting the battle of Kurukshetra. As such, he surrendered to Sri Krsna, and thus came this Bhagavad-Gita. Similarly, not only Arjuna but every one of us is always full of anxieties, material existence. In Bhagavad-Gita the subject matter comprehends five different truths. The first truth is what is God. It is the preliminary study of the science of God which is explained here. Next, the constitutional position of the jiva, the living entities, who are the controlled and Isvara, the Lord, the Supreme Lord, who is the controller. If somebody says that "I am not controlled, I am free," he is not a sane person. A living being is controlled in every respect- at least; in his conditioned life he is controlled. So in the Bhagavad-Gita, the subject matter comprehends about the isvara, the supreme controller, and the jiva, the controlled living entities and prakriti, the nature, the material nature. And next, the time, or duration of existence of the whole universe, or this manifestation of the material nature, and the duration of time, or the eternal time, and karma. Karma means activity. Everything, the whole universe, whole cosmic manifestation is full of different activities.

The living beings especially, are all engaged in different activities. So we have to study from the Bhagavad-Gita, isvara, what is God, jiva, what are these living entities, and prakriti, what is this cosmic manifestation, and how is it controlled by time and what are these activities? Now we have become materialistic and conditioned by the false ego, the false consciousness exhibited under the impression that "I am one of the products of this material nature." That is called false ego-the whole material activities, yasyatma-buddhih kunape tri-dhatuke [SB 10.84.13]. Yasyatma-buddhih kunape tri-dhatuke, one who is absorbed in the thought of bodily conception. Now, the whole Bhagavad-Gita was explained by the Lord because Arjuna represented himself with bodily conception. So one has to set free oneself from the bodily conception of life. That is the preliminary activity for a transcendentalist who wants to get free, who wants to be liberated called mukti. Mukti or liberation means to become free from material consciousness. In the Srimad-Bhagavata also the definition of liberation is said, muktir hitvanyatha rupam svarupena vyavasthitih [SB 2.10.6]. Svarupena vyavasthitih. Mukti means liberation from the contaminated consciousness of this material world.

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"Krisner Matir Asstu"

To Be Continued........