Sometimes the philosophy seems too philosophical and not practical. What should we do in such situations?

Comments to different Gita daily articles on Gitadaily.com

From Dilip Singh

may be i haven’t understood the explanation because of my physical and mental limitations.
But what i want to convey that this articles deals more about what we get ing to achieve but doesn’t elaborate more on how to achieve and incorporate practical changes in our lifestyle.

From Gaurav

It seems too difficult to refer this page to a neophyte, it seems too philosophical and not simple, and somehow looses essence while reading. I have no knowledge, just sharing my viewpoint, which can be totally rejected.

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question. Some of the Gita Daily articles, they are too philosophical and they don’t seem applicable for practical use.
And they don’t tell about what practical changes we need to make in our life. Answer. Not everything that is vital has to be practical.
Our existence is at three levels, physical, mental and spiritual. So generally we think of practical as that which we can apply and apply at the physical level. Or at the most, we may think of something at the mental level in terms of emotions.
I’m agitated and I can become pacified. So we talk of it at the emotional level. But in the emotional level, there is also at the mental level or at the subtle level, there is also the emotional and the intellectual.
And beyond that, there is a spiritual. So just as when a doctor, when a student goes to medicine to study medicine, medical college to study medicine, not everything that is studied over there seems practical immediately. One may have to study so many subjects before one gets down to the practical details of how to diagnose a patient, how to administer medicine, how to maybe do surgeries.
So all the theoretical knowledge may not seem immediately practical, but it is building up oneself so that one can do what is practical eventually. So the philosophical knowledge that is there, the Bhagavad Gita does conclude the call for action. It is definitely a practical book, but it’s not just a practical book.
It is also a book that is philosophical. And the Gita Delhi articles reflect that. So generally, if you look at the book, Gita for the Enrichment, there I have divided these Gita Delhi articles into six sections.
Overcoming, growing through life’s reversals, then seeing the world through the Gita’s eyes, understanding Gita concepts, choosing intelligent pleasures, leading a principled self-led life and learning to love Krishna. So these in general are the six topics. So out of these, learning Gita concepts and seeing the world through Gita’s eyes are more philosophical.
The others are more attitudinal and practical. So philosophy is important because at a subtle level, all of us have a philosophy. We may not call it a philosophy.
Even materialistic people have a philosophy. Their philosophy may be a philosophy. It may be the sophistry of fools.
It may be a world juggler by which they are making fools of themselves and fools of others. But we all have a philosophy. And that philosophy at a subconscious level shapes everything about us.
It influences the way we look at things, what we think about and how we respond. And the purpose of Krishna consciousness is not just to change our actions or to change our emotions, but also to change our conceptions that underlie those emotions. And so going back to the earlier point that we have physical, mental and spiritual.
So at a spiritual level, when we just expose ourselves to the knowledge of Krishna, that itself purifies us. There may not seem to be any immediate benefit. Sometimes when we hear Krishna Katha, there may not seem to be any immediate benefit.
But we know that it is a connection. Krishna is gradually elevating us to the spiritual level of consciousness. So that is itself a benefit of hearing about Krishna.
Then even at the mental level, generally we feel some benefit when emotionally we are healed. Emotionally we are helped. We are anxious and we become peaceful.
We are in a bad mood and we become cheerful. Then we feel, oh, this is helpful. But along with the emotions, there is emotional level, there is also intellectual level.
At intellectual level, a stronger understanding of things helps us to make right choices and it helps us to not be so much ruled by our emotions. So the intellectual understanding is progressive. When a student is studying in school, it is not that every day the student enjoys the studies.
It is that on many occasions, the student may get some, oh, this is very nice. I understood this concept. We may enjoy it.
But other times, as long as the student is studying, although there is no sudden movements of epiphany, some illumination, sudden understanding, deep understanding, delightful understanding, that may come occasionally. But other times, by the study application, one is learning the subject and one is growing intellectually. So when we study scripture in general, I’m not talking only about the Gita, the articles, I’m talking about general study of scriptures here.
When we study scriptures, our focus is not just on knowing, okay, what all I am doing wrong, what all I should do right, or just changing my emotions from negative to positive. They are important, but beyond that, there is our conceptions, which also need to be changed. And the change of conception happens by a deepened philosophical understanding and also happens by purification, both of which are also the result of hearing about Krishna, understanding Krishna’s message.
So we can look for the practical, but we shouldn’t reduce the spiritual to only the practical. Rather, the practical is the means to raise us to the spiritual. Thank you.
I rate Krishna.