Hope you all had a blast this Deepawali and those of you who bought Bhagavad Gita have started reading! Starting anything in this auspicious month of Karthik is the best thing to do - so, don't let it pass this year without you making an effort to become a conscious soul.
So, I wish to this time write about my take on the Chapter 2 of Bhagavad Gita which is titled Sankhya Yoga which literally means The Yoga of Analysis.
This is the Chapter where the Supreme Lord Sri Krishna referred to as Sri Bhagavan has started speaking to Arjuna about the supreme knowledge and according to me - has said it all. Later chapters are more like explaining ways to adopt the teachings of this chapter in ones life.
This chapter, as the name suggests, also is the beginning of mention of different kinds of YOGA and this one is presented for the analytical mind in a very logical and matter of fact manner.
Sri Krishna is explaining the ultimate goal of life and ways to achieve it. He has also mentioned all that we should stay away from and all that is necessary for us to practice. This is truly like the manual to live and Chapter 2 is the summary of the manual.
We will all agree that we all are looking for happiness and in this Chapter Sri Krishna says in Verse 66 - One who is bereft of self control cannot attain wisdom. Without wisdom one can never meditate. One who cannot meditate cannot achieve peace, and without peace how can one attain happiness?
So, here is the secret to achieving happiness in life revealed by none other than the Supreme Lord. However, it also tells us, why we are struggling with it. We seem to be looking for it in the wrong place and in the wrong way. We can either read this and understand or go our way and realize this someday sometime sooner or later.
This also makes us ponder why we have never been taught any of this which is so important for happiness ever in our lives? Instead of controlling our senses, we are in fact taught all our life to exploit our senses and we are told we will be able to find happiness by doing so......MAYA!! Not correct and the creator of the Universe and all of us is HIMSELF ascertaining this fact here.
So, our parents, teachers and everybody in the society we come across seems to be serving MAYA or should I say are in MAYA! They themselves are in illusion (that is what Maya means literally) and hence we cannot blame them, we can only sympathise with them and pray that they come out of this Maya and surrender themselves to the real knowledge as explained above without further damaging themselves and others. The best way for us to help them is to help ourselves first and become an example for them to follow.
Usually we can relate to Arjuna in the sense that he seems to be asking the questions we wish to ask or at least should wish to ask. However, right in the beginning, it is mentioned that he knew what is his natural propensity was, which I am not sure many of us know. This is very important. He knew he was naturally a warrior, not because he was born in a kshatriya family or just because he knew how to fight but because he knew that was his dharma or natural propensity. This is important to know since based on our natural propensity, we need to pick the path that suits us best to go to the level next to where we are.
Arjuna was advised to fight and after hearing all the knowledge, he decided to fight because that was the right thing to do for him. But if he were to be a Brahmana for example, the same would probably not have applied. Hence, we need to really introspect and know what is our natural propensity. This is where spirituality gets interesting for me.
We have 3 dimesions to us, physical, mental and spiritual - relating to body, mind and soul. It is important for us to become conscious or aware of all these three aspects, missing any one of these dimensions is not going to complete our journey of self-awareness.
We have been given a body and mind to suit the natural propensity of our soul. So, it is critical for us to understand where we are at the soul level to begin with. Of course, ultimately, we are all coming from the same plane and are travelling towards the same destination, however, we have taken different means and routes to travel and therefore, we need to figure out where are we in that journey and go forward. We cannot abruptly change our mode of travel (physical state) or route of travel (mental state).
We have to start from the spiritual state and then other things will adjust itself in due time. We have to do what we have to do based on where we are and what is most suitable for us. This is something no one can help us with. We have to find this out ourselves.
We can get some help on how to find out and we can get some confirmations enroute, but basically we have to be in the drivers seat. When the right time arrives, our spiritual master can help us showing the right direction and the Supreme Lord himself takes on the position of the Chauffeur ( as in the case of Arjuna - Sri Krishna became his Charioteer).
Wishing you all the best in this journey of becoming self-conscious! Write to me on consciouslivingcenterblr@gmail.com if you have any questions. You can join me on Skype or Google Hangout for weekly/monthly interactive sessions. Please do send me your feedback here or through email on how I can help you better.
So, I wish to this time write about my take on the Chapter 2 of Bhagavad Gita which is titled Sankhya Yoga which literally means The Yoga of Analysis.
This is the Chapter where the Supreme Lord Sri Krishna referred to as Sri Bhagavan has started speaking to Arjuna about the supreme knowledge and according to me - has said it all. Later chapters are more like explaining ways to adopt the teachings of this chapter in ones life.
This chapter, as the name suggests, also is the beginning of mention of different kinds of YOGA and this one is presented for the analytical mind in a very logical and matter of fact manner.
Sri Krishna is explaining the ultimate goal of life and ways to achieve it. He has also mentioned all that we should stay away from and all that is necessary for us to practice. This is truly like the manual to live and Chapter 2 is the summary of the manual.
We will all agree that we all are looking for happiness and in this Chapter Sri Krishna says in Verse 66 - One who is bereft of self control cannot attain wisdom. Without wisdom one can never meditate. One who cannot meditate cannot achieve peace, and without peace how can one attain happiness?
So, here is the secret to achieving happiness in life revealed by none other than the Supreme Lord. However, it also tells us, why we are struggling with it. We seem to be looking for it in the wrong place and in the wrong way. We can either read this and understand or go our way and realize this someday sometime sooner or later.
This also makes us ponder why we have never been taught any of this which is so important for happiness ever in our lives? Instead of controlling our senses, we are in fact taught all our life to exploit our senses and we are told we will be able to find happiness by doing so......MAYA!! Not correct and the creator of the Universe and all of us is HIMSELF ascertaining this fact here.
So, our parents, teachers and everybody in the society we come across seems to be serving MAYA or should I say are in MAYA! They themselves are in illusion (that is what Maya means literally) and hence we cannot blame them, we can only sympathise with them and pray that they come out of this Maya and surrender themselves to the real knowledge as explained above without further damaging themselves and others. The best way for us to help them is to help ourselves first and become an example for them to follow.
Usually we can relate to Arjuna in the sense that he seems to be asking the questions we wish to ask or at least should wish to ask. However, right in the beginning, it is mentioned that he knew what is his natural propensity was, which I am not sure many of us know. This is very important. He knew he was naturally a warrior, not because he was born in a kshatriya family or just because he knew how to fight but because he knew that was his dharma or natural propensity. This is important to know since based on our natural propensity, we need to pick the path that suits us best to go to the level next to where we are.
Arjuna was advised to fight and after hearing all the knowledge, he decided to fight because that was the right thing to do for him. But if he were to be a Brahmana for example, the same would probably not have applied. Hence, we need to really introspect and know what is our natural propensity. This is where spirituality gets interesting for me.
We have 3 dimesions to us, physical, mental and spiritual - relating to body, mind and soul. It is important for us to become conscious or aware of all these three aspects, missing any one of these dimensions is not going to complete our journey of self-awareness.
We have been given a body and mind to suit the natural propensity of our soul. So, it is critical for us to understand where we are at the soul level to begin with. Of course, ultimately, we are all coming from the same plane and are travelling towards the same destination, however, we have taken different means and routes to travel and therefore, we need to figure out where are we in that journey and go forward. We cannot abruptly change our mode of travel (physical state) or route of travel (mental state).
We have to start from the spiritual state and then other things will adjust itself in due time. We have to do what we have to do based on where we are and what is most suitable for us. This is something no one can help us with. We have to find this out ourselves.
We can get some help on how to find out and we can get some confirmations enroute, but basically we have to be in the drivers seat. When the right time arrives, our spiritual master can help us showing the right direction and the Supreme Lord himself takes on the position of the Chauffeur ( as in the case of Arjuna - Sri Krishna became his Charioteer).
Wishing you all the best in this journey of becoming self-conscious! Write to me on consciouslivingcenterblr@gmail.com if you have any questions. You can join me on Skype or Google Hangout for weekly/monthly interactive sessions. Please do send me your feedback here or through email on how I can help you better.
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