Monday 19 January 2015

Excerpts from Insights into the Bhagavad Gita

When one wants to overcome life's challenges, one would need to be able to see life in a different perspective. This is my endevour to devote sometime daily in reading, assimilating, introspecting and actioning some of the insights shared by Vimala Thakar from her lectures on the Bhagvad Gita. And I hope those who ever read it also share that thirst for knowledge, to go beyond the mundane, to seek the higher truth. 

"There is nothing in life to be discarded, there is nothing to be rejected and nothing to be acquired. There is everything to be seen, understood, related to and everything to enjoy in the movement of living."

Bhagvad Gita came after the Vedas, the Upanishads and the 6 Systems of Indian Philosophy: 
1. Samkhya, the enumeration school
2. Yoga, the school of Patanjali (which provisionally asserts the metaphysics of Samkhya)
3. Nyaya, the school of logic
4. Vaisheshika, the atomist school
5. Purva Mimamsa (or simply Mimamsa), the tradition of Vedic exegesis, with emphasis on Vedic ritual,
6. Vedanta (also called Uttara Mimamsa), the Upanishadic tradition, with emphasis on Vedic philosophy.
The word Yoga is derived from the Sanskrit root yukta - to connect, to unite. It has a nuance of reunion of that which was separated by an illusion. 
Yoga itself has 4 different paths - Jnana Yoga, Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga and Raja Yoga. Hatha Yoga and Sankhya Yoga are also described, however it needs to be noted that Hatha Yoga is part of the 8 step Raja Yoga which includes Asanas. 
All these paths are meant to enable a person to arrive at the inner essence of Yoga, reunion with reality, with absolute truth. 
The purpose of the Gita, the epitome of Vedic Philosophy, is to enable a person to get acquainted with the outer and appreciate the inner, to create the awareness of the necessity of growing into the state of yoga, the state of consciousness of yoga. 
Next will be Chapter 1 - The Despondency of Arjuna. 


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