Gita daily – Empower yourself with timeless wisdom

Podcast:

Video:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you.
Hare Krishna. Welcome to this talk on Gita Daily. How to empower ourselves with timeless wisdom on a daily basis.
We live in difficult times. Not just external difficulties, but also inner difficulties coming from distractions, confusions, delusions, depression. How do we deal with these? We need inner empowerment.
The Bhagavad Gita is an ancient book that empowered a powerful warrior thousands of years ago when he had to face a big battle in life. The biggest battle of his life in fact. That was Arjuna.
Although he had formidable physical and archery skills, but still life’s adversities disempowered him. And when Arjuna had raised his bow up in readiness to fight, at the start of the Bhagavad Gita, just the situation overwhelmed him and he put aside his bow. Arjuna’s bow represents our fighting spirit.
We needn’t have to fight any physical wars in our life, but the challenges we face are no lesser than a war. By hearing the Bhagavad Gita’s message, at the end Arjuna has picked up his bow in readiness to fight. Similarly, understanding and internalizing the wisdom of the Gita can empower all of us to pick up our metaphorical bows, to become ready to face life’s challenges.
How can the Gita help us? I’ll talk about this using an acronym. So, PEAR. Just like pear is a fruit, if we eat it, we can relish it.
So, P-E-A-R. Purifying, edifying, applicable and relishable. How does the Gita purify us? It brings us in contact with the words of the all-pure divine Krishna and all the pure souls who have commented on Krishna’s words.
Now, what do we mean by purity or impurity? This is not a moralistic, judgmental kind of conception. It is simply functional. Impurities are desires and distractions that burden us.
Imagine if we are walking on a journey and are carrying a huge burden. Something that we don’t need. Then shedding it will give us energy.
So, just as we would shed unnecessary physical burden, we can also similarly shed unnecessary inner burdens. Inner burdens are destructing and degrading thoughts and desires within us. And quite often, when we are trying to do one thing, instead of focusing on that, something within us pushes us towards something else.
And that distracts us, that deludes us. So, those inner forces that distract and delude us, they are the impurities within us. And how can those impurities be removed? We can’t have a physical broom to remove the impurities that are non-physical.
That is where the study of the Gita comes in. Krishna states that That studying this wisdom, this sacred conversation between us and Krishna, With our Gyan, with our intelligence, we are actually performing the sacrifice of knowledge. We are worshipping Krishna with our intelligence.
We are worshipping Him. Some of us may be familiar with going to the temples and doing an Aarti, an act of sacred worship for the Lord. And just as we might do an Aarti with a lamp, so here Krishna is saying we can use our intelligence, we can use our intellectual faculty in a mood of service and worship.
And just as sacred ceremonies purify us, the study of the Gita is a sacred activity. And if we study the Gita regularly, reciting its verses, contemplating its verses, and especially contemplating how those verses speak to us in our daily situations, then we will find that even without our conscious efforts, the many things that distract and delude us, the influence, the force of those things on us will decrease. So this is the first empowering benefit of studying the Gita.
We will become purified and through purification, we will feel ourselves being unburdened of distractions and delusions. So the next one, we said PEAR is the acronym we are discussing. So E is edifying.
Edifying means, it means that it educates us, it provides us insight that can enrich our thought world and expand our worldview. Now what does this mean? Insight. The word sight means to see.
In is inside. So just like if it’s dark around us, then we can’t see. And we need a flashlight.
And imagine walking through a dark place and stumbling and slipping and bumping and suddenly we get a light and then we can navigate our way through. So we would normally be very careful about walking through a dark place physically. But quite often our inner world is quite dark.
And when we are trying to navigate and decide, what I should do, what I should not do, but we come across hidden resistances within us, we come across biases, our moods, our various mental complexes that we don’t even understand. We just bump against them and then we are not able to function. So what the Gita does is, it acts like an inner flashlight.
It provides us insight. So the first function is whatever is unnecessary, the impurities, the burdens, the Gita study can remove. But the second is, the Gita illumines our inner world.
It starts showing us what is what. It starts showing us which of our desires are healthy, which are unhealthy. It enriches our thought world.
How does it enrich? By showing us what is helpful, what is harmful and helping us to make better choices. And it expands our worldview. How? Because quite often we focus on externals based on our preconceptions.
And we often don’t think of things beyond the immediate. The Bhagavad Gita expands our worldview by telling us that reality is not just material. A holistic worldview means there is material reality and beyond the material there is spiritual reality.
This applies both internally and externally. That at an internal level, even when we may presently not be feeling good, that’s at a material level. But at a spiritual level, actually it might be good for us.
Just like, say suppose a child is given an injection. It doesn’t feel good. But at one level, at the level of simply the injection penetrating the skin, it doesn’t feel good.
But at another level, in terms of the biochemistry of the body, in terms of the functionality of the body, after some time the child will start feeling good. So, knowledge in general expands our vision. And the Gita’s knowledge expands our view of reality.
Sometimes when things are going wrong at the material level, we might just feel overwhelmed by negativity. But when the Gita has edified us, it has expanded our vision so that we see the spiritual beyond the material. Then, what is an adversity at the material level can be an opportunity at the spiritual level.
So, this wisdom is not just to be studied but to be taken shelter of. idam jnanam upashitya mamasa dharmyam agataha sarge pinopajayante pralayena vyathanticha So, idam jnanam, this knowledge, what should we do? Upashitya So, don’t just study it, but take shelter of it. Take shelter of it means, let this knowledge become so internally assimilated within that we start seeing the world with better informed vision.
And we take shelter in this way. If the child is focusing only on the sensation of the pain when the injection is coming, the child will think, what is the point? I am going through pain. But if the child takes shelter in the assurance of the mother, in the assurance of the doctor, it is going to make you better.
Then the pain can be minimized. We all have to face pain in life. But if we take shelter of the Gita’s knowledge, jnanam upashitya then what happens? mamasa dharmyam agataha Krishna says, you will attain my nature.
You will realize life’s spiritual side. Krishna, the speaker of the Gita, resides in the spiritual level of reality. mamasa dharmyam agataha He says that you will also attain my nature.
sarge pinu pajayante pralaye na vedanti ca When there is destruction, when there is distress na vedanti ca, we will not be that afflicted. When we are edified by the Gita’s wisdom, we may have to live with pain, but we won’t have to live in pain. In pain means, pain consumes our entire consciousness.
Pain becomes our complete experience. But with pain means, yes, I am experiencing pain right now. That’s a part of my experience, but my reality is bigger.
So that expansion of our worldview can help us face life’s difficulties with greater grace, with greater strength, with greater resilience. And that brings us to the third point. That is P-E-A-R.
A is applicable. So the Gita, when we study it, we need to see how the Gita can come alive for us. So how does the Gita come alive for us? I have been for the last 10 years writing on the Gita everyday a small article, about 300 words.
And I have incorporated also a think-it-over section. I have been studying the Gita for more than two decades. Everyday I have read the Gita dozens and dozens of times, memorized the Gita’s verses, found immense shelter in it.
And around 2011 I was praying, how best can I share the Gita’s wisdom? There are so many teachers of the Gita who have written phenomenally illuminating commentaries on the Gita. The Gita commentary that I found most illuminating was by His Divine Desasi Bhaktivedanta Swamishla Prabhupada, whose Bhagavad Gita as it is, brings the divinity within the Gita at the center stage. And helps us also to find our divine center.
At the same time, the Gita is often a complex philosophical book which presumes the knowledge of many concepts that were known to Arjuna. The commentators have tried to explicate that. And there is no substitute for a systematic study of the Gita assisted by its learned and devoted commentators.
At the same time, entering into the Gita’s worldview in its totality, takes time, effort. And along with that kind of systematic study, if there is a way in which the Gita’s wisdom can be made accessible through small nuggets, where some verse of the Gita is taken and its application in a contemporary situation is shown, then I felt the Gita’s reach and accessibility would increase. So with that intent, I started writing the Gita daily.
And I’ve been doing this for the last, as I said, nearly a decade. And all these articles are available in Gita Daily. And they are available on WhatsApp, Facebook, and various other social media.
And in that, I have a think it over section, where I start with the contemporary situation, give analysis based on Gita wisdom, connect with the specific words of the Gita, and then offer an empowering application. And then think it over. So that think it over can help us not only think over what we have read, what we have understood about the Gita, but that can make our reading of the Gita active.
And passive reading is where we’re just reading without really thinking much about it. Active reading is where we’re looking for something. We’re consciously seeking, what in this speaks to me? Why does it speak to me? So the think it over section, if we start using it in Gita Daily, we’ll find that even when we start reading the Gita systematically with its commentaries, that disposition of the mind will be developed.
Our intelligence will become trained to think in a way of how we can apply the Gita. And this is an enduring benefit for us. So Krishna himself says in the Gita, the Gita is primarily to be applied.
This is 1624. Therefore he says, with knowledge acquired from Shastra, that is the Bhagavad Gita, understand what is to be done and what is not to be done. So the Gita when it comes alive for us, it will act like an inner guide for us.
When we are facing challenges, our life’s destiny is determined not just by our dedication, how hard we are working, but by our decisions, how smartly we are working. At critical moments in our lives, what decisions do we take? We may work very hard, but at a difficult time, if we snap at someone, if we yell, and then that display of anger makes us lose credibility, lose face, people take offense. And then all the good work we have done gets obscured by that momentary rage.
So quite often for us, our decisions matter a lot. And the Gita can act as an inner guide for us to take healthy decisions. And the last point is, Gita is not just applicable, but also relishable.
Relishable means that as we study the Gita, we start developing a taste for the joy of remembering Krishna and remembering His message. Now this is a, at first level it might seem a little strange for us, that we are looking at the Gita as a book for us to gain guidance in our life. And that’s true.
However, the Gita, it offers us not just another world view, it also offers us another world to view. Another world to view means that it tells us that we have a real life, that each one of us is unconditionally loved. There is a divinity, an all-loving, personable and personal divinity, Krishna, who resides within our hearts.
Who cares for us. Who cares for us so much that we don’t have the power to do anything that will make Krishna stop loving us. Even if we make the most terrible of mistakes, God will never forsake us and abandon our heart and go away.
Such is the unconditionally loving Lord that is revealed in the Bhagavad Gita. And when we understand the presence of the Divine within us, all our life starts becoming an expression of love. Our family responsibilities, our work obligations, we see them not just as interacting with the family or with the colleagues or with the clients, we see through it all, I am expressing my love to the one who has provided it all to me.
Our abilities, our situations, our opportunities, we see our actions as a way of service, of worship, of contribution. And this is another world that opens where we see loving reciprocation with the Divine done through all activities of our life. When this world opens, then just remembering Krishna and remembering His words starts bringing great relish.
In fact, this is what is described at the end of the Gita in two verses. Sanjay, who is speaking the Gita to Dhritarashtra, says that, राजन्संस्मृत्यसंस्मृत्य संवादमिम्मद्भुतं केशवार्जुनयोपुण्यं रशामिचमुहुर्मुहु He says, राजन्संस्मृत्यसंस्मृत्य As I am remembering, what am I remembering? संवादमिम्मद्भुतं This sacred conversation between Krishna and Arjuna, what is happening by that? रशामिचमुहुर्मुहु That अद्भुतम् It is astonishing conversation and it is filling me with thrill. रशामि And not just a one-time thrill, but constant thrill.
Repetitive thrill. So, one is the remembrance of Krishna. And the next word, he says, not only am I remembering the form of Krishna, but I am also remembering the words of Krishna.
And that also is giving me relish. So, तच्चसंस्मृत्यसंस्मृत्य रूपेमत्यद्भुतं हरेहे विस्मयोमेमहान्राजन् रशामिचपुनपुन So, the words of Krishna and रूपम, the form of Krishna. So, when we hear the message of the Gita, we recite the verses of the Gita, we contemplate and apply, then we start developing a connection, not just with the Gita, but with the person who is the speaker of the Gita and who is the goal of the Gita.
And this can open a new level of joy for us. And that inner enrichment can not only help us face outer adversities and outer darkness, but can also help us bring zest, energy, life, light and love into every area of our life. This is the empowerment that the Gita can offer each one of us.
So, to summarize, Gita daily, the habit of studying the Gita daily can empower us in four ways. First is purifying. It can free us from the burden of the impurities that distract and delude us.
And we can move forward with greater energy, just as when we shed unnecessary baggage on our back. Then it is the pair acronym, P is purifying, E is edifying. The Gita acts like an inner flashlight, which helps us understand our inner world and understand our outer world.
We see that reality is bigger than the immediate material experiences that we have. What seems like adversity at a material level can be an opportunity for prosperity at the spiritual level. Instead of a child seeing only the pain of the injection, the child sees the overall health that is going to come.
Then I talk about applicable. So, through the Gita daily I offer resources by which the venerable tradition of the Gita systematic exposition by its various commentators can become accessible through short nuggets. And the think-it-over section not only helps us to apply the reflection on the Gita in the Gita daily articles, but also trains us to read actively and then the study of the Gita through its commentaries can also become much more systematic and relevant and applicable for us.
And lastly is relishable. The Gita doesn’t just offer us another world view, but it offers another world to view. It tells us that we are unconditionally loved and all of our life can be an opportunity to express love for our all-loving Lord.
And when we are thus remembering the Lord and remembering His words, we can be internally enriched no matter how challenging our outer situations are. We may have to live with pain, we won’t live in pain. Even in the darkest of situations we can bring light and love and life into our world by being empowered with Gita wisdom.
Thank you very much.