Video 1

1. Bhagavad Gita | Chapter 1 Summary | Swami Sarvapriyananda

vasudeva's suitum deivam come such our new rama danam devaki param anand krishna mande Sri Ramakrishna said that the goal of human life is God realization Swami Vivekananda said the goal of human life is to manifest the divinity within us now if we are asked that our first reaction is well that might be the that may be that is the goal of human life it should be the goal of human life but that's not really my goal at the moment what is my goal at the moment my goal at the moment is I guess I need to earn money and take care of the family and my job and my my role in community maintain good health be happy in general but all of those things if you analyze if you generalize what are we trying to do what we are trying to do is we are trying to be happy we're trying to overcome suffering we're trying to attain happiness and peace attainment of happiness and overcoming suffering that is our prime motivation whether you are doing it in a worldly sense or in a spiritual sense the deep motivation the underlying motivation is always the same at first we think that there is happiness in these activities that we do in the world outside I am unhappy I think I am poor deaf therefore I am unhappy if I become rich if I learnt so much money I'll be happier I think I am alone and I'm not married or I do not have friends I am unhappy so if I have friends or I get married and have a family then I'll be happy I think because I am a very ordinary person nobody knows me nobody values me therefore I'm unhappy if I get name and fame if I do something and become famous in some way then I'll be happy if people know me and recognize me to be special in all these ways whatever the ways we think we are actually pursuing happiness and we think that they this happiness lies outside this bhagavad-gita it is also a book about how to become really happy how to overcome suffering come on into space here come come how to overcome suffering but it tells us that what you are looking for there is a way of becoming happy permanently deeply so there is a way of overcoming suffering permanently completely transcending suffering and that is the goal of the bhagavad-gita but it tells us this thing is not where you are looking for it this thing which will give you real happiness which will help help you to overcome suffering is within us that is called whatever you call it Atman the self Brahman the absolute reality God whatever you call it we are looking in the wrong place in those external activities so the bhagavad-gita is what is called a moksha Shastra a scripture dealing with moksha what is moksha see all the external activities pursuits to get happiness from something outside they are broadly classified under three heads one is the pursuit of karma karma literally means pleasure we pursue pleasure because we think that's what's going to give us happiness our first attempt at being happy suppose I want I want a burst of happiness so maybe I go out and eat a cookie or I go out and meet a friend or something like that which is giving me some pleasure so pleasure is also we are trying to get happiness through pleasure that's one way another way is through acquiring wealth acquiring worldly power and achievement and status this is called artha kama or pleasure and literally wealth art uh means literally wealth but also in a wider sense all kinds of worldly accomplishment and beyond that there is another word Dharma it's a difficult word to pin down because if you see the Sanskrit dictionary it will have a whole page of meanings it means morality decency it means religion all of that Dharma but here it means specifically it means all the good that we do in a wider sense and in the vedantic framework this Dharma the good that we do generates good karma for us good results for us and if you have good karma you will get more of our Thai and karma pleasure and wealth so all these three Dharma artha kama if you see our we look at our activities activities of ordinary people in the world they're all they can all of those multiple activities whatever we are doing deliberately consciously pursuing all of them can be categorized classified under these three goals spirituality starts Gita starts when we realize it's not possible we have been trying and trying and trying but we are unable to be really happy in those three pursuits so real happiness is promised here religion begins spirituality begins when we realize when the promise of all spiritualities promise of all religions is that there is something really something there exist something call it Nirvana moksha Salvation whatever you call it different religions different names but it is uniformly a state where you attain real happiness it is uniformly a state where you permanently overcome suffering that is called moksha so the gita is a text dealing with moksha it's very important to understand this at the very beginning it's not really a text dealing with how to party and have fun in life not at all it's not a text teaching you how to become multimillionaires it might help but it's not meant for that so suppose suppose somebody asks if I do this will Mike Whitley will it harm my career will I be able to rise high in the corporate ladder the Geeta does not promise you that it's not meant for that it don't worry it will not slip down the corporate ladder but this is not meant to teach you that for that you need to go to a career coach or something like that Krishna is not doing that here krishna is not even talking about conventional religion how do I worship God so that I get more of worldly things more of worldly pleasure more of worldly achievement no Krishna here in the Bhagavad Gita is talking about his teaching about moksha the true spirituality attainment of true bliss and overcoming of suffering the Buddha's quest that there is suffering is there a solution to this suffering that was the Buddha's quest is that the source of Buddhism it's a similar thing here so moksha the book is about moksha why I am saying this is that sometimes you hear and it's a more and more popular in India bhagavad-gita for management now one must be one must strike a careful balance here I have given talks on that in India but and it's true lot of things we just said here are very wise and very useful for sustainable organizations for a good family life for a better person in life they are all very useful really really good advice but the point here is not better management or improving the bottom line or something like that or any other thing even it talks about food which it's not about diet it's it does talk about food it it's not about exercise it does talk about you know the proper exercise or something it's not even about stress management through meditation it talks about meditation but all of that it talks about for attainment of moksha enlightenment true spirituality so that's one thing we have to keep in mind what is this book about really it is about that incidentally it's not about war it's an easy mistake to make in the modern time specially in the West nobody makes this mistake in India though the story is set in the midst of a civil war the great Mahabharata word epic and literally this is taught in the battlefield Arjuna drives the warrior Prince a Krishna drives the warrior Prince Arjuna's chariot and so it's in the middle of the battlefield just before the war is about to begin and Krishna teaches Arjuna so is he encouraging to him to fight is it about what no not at all how do you know this if you ask Gita has a long tradition of commentary's going back at least to the I mean depending on what we have the texts which were available to us it goes back at least 1400 years to Shankar Acharya commentary the first available commenter which we have but even Shankar Acharya that mentions other older commentaries nowhere in any of the commentaries is it ever about warfare but what Gita is never ever about about nobody mentions Shankar Acharya ramanuja module lasts 15 centuries people have been writing in India commentaries about it nobody even pays at least attention to the war itself that's the context that's the story so it should be taken as symbolic the your battle in life the struggle in life that we have to face how to lead light in the midst of this world in fact when you read the gospel of sri ramakrishna the master Mahad the author of the gospel of Sri Ramakrishna the first two questions he asks really when it really have a proper conversation the second visit to questions he has the first two questions he asks those are the essential questions of spiritual life and they are the basic teachings of the bhagavad-gita the theme of the bhagavad-gita what are the two questions mmm ask Sri Ramakrishna how do I keep my mind on God number one number two how do I live in this world so spirituality that's one central idea but also how do I manage it how do I carry on my life after that how do I manifested spirituality in my day-to-day life these are the two central themes and that's basically the theme of bhagavad-gita also how do i attain to real spirituality how do I get enlightenment moksha Advanta whatever you call it how do I get that and second how do I live my life Arjuna being a warrior in the middle of a crisis a battlefield so the how he lives his life is basically deals with that but it does not mean that Krishna is interested in urging us to fight wars no commentator in the last fourteen hundred years fifteen hundred years has ever said anything like that even the modern commentators they don't say that I find it peculiar that some scholars modern scholars specially in the West immediately the attention goes towards that Oh Krishna encouraged Arjuna to fight how strange why would in a religion be connected to a war your teacher the the god Krishna encourages Arjuna to fight of war and violence I am sorry but that's just a reflection of the was guilt in the Western mind of the last hundred years or so 200 years or so I mean industrial scale warfare that the West has seen so the attention is always towards war in peace and everything goes to that so it is not about fighting wars absolutely not so that's one thing that should not be brought up again but Matt McGann D he one of those main sources of his inspiration was the bhagavad-gita and sources of his nonviolent struggle for independence so it is not about warfare that's the background story also it's not even about the story itself you know the story many I think you are all acquainted with the great epic Mahabharata it's a somebody said it's the greatest tale ever told but it's very simply summarized an ancient royal household and it's like a civil war between cousins the five brothers Ponte was the five brothers they are the good guys the heroes and their cousins the hundred evil cousins the Kauravas they are the bad guys the Kauravas led by Duryodhana they take away the Kingdom which is rightfully the goes to the eldest of the Pandavas and five brothers had put through a lot of torture and a lot of pain and suffering by the evil cousins and finally all matters come to a climax in the great battle which the epic ends horribly for everybody concerned because it ends in this huge battle called the Mahabharata war so 18 day battle it at the end end of the whole story towards the end of the whole story so it's a huge huge epic but the bhagavad-gita which forms a part of that epic is not really related to that story what de panda was dead and what the Kauravas did who was right and who was wrong Indians can go on discussing they never have been causing it for centuries and millennia it's a evergreen topic and somebody said you know all the movies of Bollywood and all if you trace back that there are themes taken from Mahabharata and Ramayana basically we have been repeating that for millennia now but the Gita is not concerned with that really that's just the background story what happened in the war who was right who was wrong that also does not interest us why would it interest us in 21st century in in Manhattan why would we study the Gita if it was some ancient half mythological story about princes in an ancient royal dynasty in India not interesting for us so what it deals with is spirituality and our life here what does it teach what does the Gita speak about how to attain enlightenment how to attain moksha how to attain true happiness and go beyond suffering how broadly the main paths of spiritual practice the path of knowledge the path of meditation the path of love the path of service that of work Jonnie yoga bhakti yoga karma yoga raja yoga the four yoga's which Vivekananda spoke about these are the broad themes of the Bhagavad Gita Krishna teaches this to Arjuna and bhagavad-gita is a beautiful book where all of these are harmonized Sri Ramakrishna himself you know was not particularly fond of book-learning he didn't think too highly of it he would make fun of you know he would call the mere scholars who just learned books by rote but he really admired the bhagavad-gita so he would say in Bengali Gita coupe boy Gita is a very good is a great book Gita is a great book and he would say if you say Gita ten times that is the essence of the Gita what it becomes geetha what is greater ten times if you repeat if you quickly say Geeta ten times Geeta Geeta Geeta it becomes taggi Geeta Geeta becomes tacky tacky literally means renunciation Tiago so giving up worldliness for spirituality that renunciation that is what is the essence of bhagavad-gita so that's what's the ramakrishna phase he summarizes that so that's what it is about the spiritual teachings of krishna to Arjuna many years ago I came across the notes of Swami pashka eeshwar and G's classes he was the Swami a disciple of swami sivananda a great so emasculation himself Hawass koresh warren and himself was regarded in his own lifetime as an enlightened person I never saw him that was a long time before my time his classes were famous he founded our ramakrishna mission ashram in in Nagpur in Nagpur now I knew some of the Swami's who attended his classes when they were novices they straightened his classes and they would take meticulous notes of his classes his classes were very powerful I mean they would like generate a spiritual atmosphere up by themselves so some people would take some of the those who attended the classes would take notes I came across the notes of the first Geeta class he gave and there I remember he starts off by saying keep these two things in mind when you study the Bhagavad Gita first why am i studying it second who is teaching first why am i studying it in sanskrit prior jerem the need why am i start studying it always keep this vibrating within yourself that I am a spiritual seeker I am in suffering in samsara I want liberation salvation moksha Nirvana whatever you call it I want that I want my life to be elevated I want that bliss and transcendence of suffering I want it therefore I am here what else could it be it could be anything else somebody might be you know other questions like for example he says in his in his introductory teachings he says for example interesting questions like was the bhagavad-gita and integral part of the Mahabharata or was it interpolated later on it is a question that scholars ask and by the way now they have come to a sort of consensus it is a part of the Mahabharata who could have told you that thousands of years ago anyway that's a general understanding or you can ask the question that before the beginning of the battle how could Krishna have given this long 18 chapters teaching to origin in the middle of the battlefield is it practical did Krishna speak in verses Sanskrit verses in a way no we are not interested was it mr. Howle historical was it the whole thing where does it fit in Indian history now these are interesting questions they are not questions we are interested in their good interesting things for scholars to research but that's not going to be the focus of our study the focus of our study is the spiritual teachings of Krishna to Arjuna which we will use in our own lives for our own enlightenment so that's what he mentions second is keep in mind who is speaking it's not a professor who's talking about his pet philosophy it's not a pundit it's not even a saint a very spiritual person it is God himself Raghavan Krishna who is telling us imagine if you could sit at the feet of the Buddha at the feet of Jesus Christ and listen directly to the teachings you sit in in front of shri ramakrishna and listen to the teachings directly from an Avatara so that is what is happening here Krishna gives these teachings to Arjuna and through our journey to all of us Shankar Acharya in his introduction to the bhagavad-gita he says that Arjuna was selected to represent all of us because giving it to a fit student like our Jeannette ensures that the teaching will have a wide dissemination so basically krishna is speaking to us across thousands of ears and giving us this teaching so remember who is teaching so that will give you the proper attitude to approach these teachings now the bhagavad-gita forms a part of the root texts of Vedanta what is Vedanta definition Vedanta nama opening shock pramana Vedanta is the spiritual teachings are the teachings of the Upanishads so open its form part of the Vedas because they form the final teachings of the Vedas the end of the Vedas in one sense are the highest teachings of the Vedas they're called Vedanta end up the Veda in that sense so once a little boy asked me no Christian study the Bible and Muslim study the Quran you say that for Hindus the Vedas are the core text but we don't study the Vedas even the opening shots which form a spiritual teachings of the Vedas how many of them how many of us study that very little very few so I said to him but you and those kids were chanting the Gita daily so so you studied the Gita right he said yes in that case you are studying the essence of the Vedas you are studying the essence of the Vedanta because the Bhagavad Gita contains the essential teachings of the who punishes the essence of Vedanta if there's one book you should study if you want to know Hinduism if you want to know where and it is definitely the Bhagavad Gita in fact after the commentaries written by Shankar Acharya and other masters following him bhagavad-gita has come to be if you want one book for Hinduism it's such a vast array of scriptural literature you want one book it is has become the book Bhagavad Gita has become the book so I said to that kid that if you study the Gita you study the Vedas and valent all the essential teachings you know in fact in one of the verses praising the Gita it is said the Upanishads are the milk cows the cows and Krishna is the milkman and Arjuna is the thirsty calf and the milk of the cows milk of the Upanishads is this bhagavad-gita so it is the essence of the Upanishads Upanishads bhagavad-gita brahma sutra are together known as the root texts of Vedanta the foundational texts of a dontoh in sanskrit pressed on a tram the triple foundation or more precisely the triple canon of of Vedanta Upanishads bhagavad-gita and Brahma sutras Upanishads are called Shruti pressed on Shruti means the Veda themselves so the original texts the Shruti the bhagavad-gita is called smithii Pristina it's pretty because it's called sweetie because it forms part of the Mahabharata it does not form part of the Vedas themselves because Krishna comes much later in the Mahabharata and he gives the teachings to Arjuna so it is called splitty Prasanna part of this meeting and brahma sutra which need not concern us now you don't know how lucky you are that's that's such text which is very difficult that that takes care of the philosophical aspects so it's called Naya Preston and the ayah means logic or reasoning so these three Upanishads are the core teachings but they are very mystical poetical profound and dense the bhagavad-gita takes that and teaches it in lucid language still Sanskrit but much more lucid much more understandable and also very practical the bhagavad-gita is very practical it is a very comprehensive book of spirituality before this we were reading a baroque Shinobu tea which is a very specialized kind of book one Swami compared other texts and bhagavad-gita this way in Hindi there is a word parked under that means a narrow lane in the hills or so it's a narrow lane these other texts are narrow lanes they're specific methods for specific bus philosophical points of view but he says bhagavad-gita is a royal road pressed on literally means a royal road so it's like a big highway or freeway it is very comprehensive it answers many many questions about spiritual life which were not taken up in books like Cedric Trisha Vivek or a per option with the other the other advaithic texts those are very specific so you have these three texts and there is a long commentarial tradition which I will just touch upon before I go on many great masters wrote explanations of bhagavad-gita and it's still continuing even till today the earliest that we have why I am saying we have there where other commentaries before Shankar Acharya but we don't have them Shankar Acharya himself mentions though this book has been commented upon earlier to the best of my knowledge I will give a brief commentary on it brief brief commentary it's a really big book little brief commentary on the bhagavad-gita I will give a brief commentary on it because it's very profound he says Shankar Acharya wrote the bhagavad-gita and explained the bhagavad-gita in the framework of Advaita Vedanta non-dual Vedanta couple of hundred years 300 years later ramanujacharya comes along and writes his beautiful commentary on the bhagavad-gita it explains it in the framework of vashisht Advaita Vedanta qualified monism that's another philosophical framework madhvacharya comes along about a couple of hundred years after ramanuja and writes his commentary on the framework with the framework of dwight evident dualistic vedanta and numerous commentaries commentary for example the one i am holding right here is by somebody called sri her Swami who who came 700 years ago and was in the tradition of Shankar Acharya but his commentary is a simpler commentary and also not so heavily leaning to the path of knowledge he's also has a beautiful blending of devotion and all of that in his commentary another great commentary was written by Madhu suden Saraswathi who came about 600 years ago is contemporary of chaitanya mahaprabhu he is beautiful and very profound and very big comentary good-hearted deepika the lamp of profound illumination our elimination of the profound secret that is a fantastic commentary which I shall personally draw upon when one of the things I shall draw upon then there is there are other countries also many other commentaries many of these I will use down to the modern age Swami average Ananda who was here in the Vedanta Society of New York many people do not know he has a complete commentary on the bhagavad-gita every every verse of it it's not easily available in English there are commentaries in many Indian languages and of course now a lot of commentaries in English Swami Ranganath Ananda ji who was the 13th president of the Ramakrishna order he has an extensive commentary in three volumes on the bhagavad-gita and it goes so it goes just a few weeks ago I came across a new commentary written by a professor here it's called God song it was it was reviewed in New York Times it's not a common treats a new translation a free translation of the bhagavad-gita so God's song in fact God's song is the literal translation of the name bhagavad-gita bhagavad-gita if you literally translate directly the song of the of God or song of God that's one way Edwin Arnold said the song of God but literally if you translate it it is God's song so listen I don't know why nobody thought of it earlier it sounds nice I heard Yale University this summer this summer Yale University is going to conduct a month-long camp a month-long summer camp on the bhagavad-gita so a professor is going to teach that which for limited to scholars who are enrolling for it and they have taken up a project of collecting all English translation available all over the world of the bhagavad-gita to make a new collection about our Gita they're in Yale University in New Haven here so it goes and I'm sure there'll be many more commentaries to come in the future one question is sometimes raised by modern scholars is this taking up Shankar Acharya scum entry the most famous one Shankar Acharya I have read well-known scholars writing this Shankar Acharya tries to explain the bhagavad-gita in terms of Advaita Vedanta non-dual Vedanta but very clearly the bhagavad-gita does not is not comfortable it's not a comfortable fit Advaita Vedanta does not fit the bhagavad-gita comfortably many things seem to be not quite in the line of thought of Advaita Vedanta you see where this kind of thinking goes wrong they think that the bhagavad-gita has to fit to one particular worldview Advaita Vedanta droit evident of assisted whether it cannot it is the source of all of these one Swami Rama so does who wrote his beautiful commentary on bhagavad-gita one of the best ones in recent times called Sadiq Sanjivani in Hindi he was an expert on the bhagavad-gita he spent his whole life studying meditating teaching the bhagavad-gita till the age of 104 he passed away a few years ago his book I had a copy in India but it's so huge it's this thick with this thick and this big so I couldn't get it here but it's a nice commentary in Hindi it's been translated into English short so I think anyhow in his introduction he says the bhagavad-gita is an is like a very deep and old well from which many people have drawn water so Shankar Acharya takes a meaning out of it madam Acharya takes another meaning out of it Ramanuja takes a meaning out of it in the bhagavad-gita equally supports all of them see the intellectual framework a philosophical framework comes later downstream before that comes the revelation from God from the teaching from God out of that you want to fit it into a frame that will come later and that's fine you are free to do that so the great teachers have given different frameworks and they are all valuable very they have beautiful insights it's not that one is right and the other is wrong you can get beautiful insights from not only from Shankara but from Ramanuja from multi from all of the others from Shree Dhara so that's one more point I wanted to make now before we start the background story as I said it's known to all the Mahabharata the Great War is about to begin and on one side are the good guys Pandavas and their advisor God Himself is their advisor the five brothers the third of them is Arjuna the great hero of the cold battle you might say and Krishna decides to be his charioteer and you know the way Hindu epics are there are stories and stories behind stories and stories behind those stories and so on you know all these Hindu epics the Puranas they are huge books and you know how they begin how they're full of stories about some particular deity or some particular personalized personality well you know how they begin they all begin from the beginning the beginning means the creation of the universe so it starts with God creating the universes and then the story starts you can imagine they're all very very long stories anyhow how did Krishna come to be driving the chariot the war chariot of Arjuna the story goes that Krishna by the who by that time has it own Kingdom the two opposing forces the evil ones led by Duryodhana and the good ones Arjuna both of them went to Krishna to ask for his help now here these stories show the difference between spirituality and worldliness Duryodhana sits near Krishna or Krishna I was taking a nap India afternoon so even God takes a nap there yes he's taking a siesta now both of them arrive the two cousins I'm sure they glared at each other and they walked in at the same time to ask for help from Krishna and Duryodhana haughty he goes and sits next to Krishna's head you know just near the bed where Krishna's head is on the pillow Arjuna with devotion goes and sits near Krishna's feet so Krishnaveni opens his eyes he sees Arjuna first you see it's instructive okay and he asks what do you want and Duryodhan is afraid that Oh No now the Arjuna is going to ask for Krishna's you know army and all of that you know all the power and wealth of his kingdom and I'll lose out our Jeana says I want you I just want you and Krishna says all right but I will not fight I will not fight on your side I'm not going to use a weapon still I want you on my side and paraphrasing shortening the story believe me Duryodhana is ecstatic this is what a fool you see just once Krishna no matter how good he is it's just one man and he says to Krishna that well I want your armies your kingdom the power of the economic and military power of your kingdom I want it on my side Krishna said done you take all the all the power that the military power of my kingdom I just go just by myself to be on on their side which is ultimately it is Arjuna who's the wiser because if God is on your side everything else is on your side no matter in the worldly sense you may be the loser but ultimately you're going to come out come out ahead because the Lord Himself is on your side so that's how krishna comes to be Arjuna's charioteer and he says I will not fight and at the beginning of the war he takes the chariot and Arjuna says with bravado he says let me see who who are these guys who come to fight with me take my chariot and show me who are they welcome to fight with me now what's happening is back in the capital of the kingdom which they are all fighting over all these brothers the old king dhritirashtra who is blind you see all troubles he is blind to the facts of life because of his inordinate love for his evil no you no need to do wealth children it leads to this war so he is it's symbolic that he's blind he's sitting in his key in his royal chamber and this terrible war is going to happen which will lead to the destruction of that clan and everything but for that throne and he asks his trusted adviser Sanjay what happened tell me what's happening what did they do what's happening and Sanjay had been blessed with what I can only call like Superman has what this vision telescopic vision or something you can see things in the distance and Sanjay I had TV vision you can see not that he watch TV but he could actually see things going on different places and report like breaking news to you so Sanjay is sitting next to the King far away from the battlefield and he's giving you like CNN you know breaking news he says what happened was this that Arjuna asked drive my chariot to the middle of the battlefield show me who's come to fight against me and Krishna says so be it and he drives the chariot purposefully in front of the people that Arjuna are is closest to because they are all his relatives and included among the opposing ranks are his favorite grandfather grandsire bhishma who he grew up as a little kid you know in front of dish mob reach mines there to fight against him Drona his master his teacher rip ow cheerio dronacharya teachers and he sees he says and he sees I see all of these people are generous stunned he doesn't he suddenly realizes what he's going to do he is here too for the kingdom which is rightfully his and his brothers truly he is here to take revenge on the Kauravas for all the tortures they have inflicted upon the Pandavas and so he's there to fight the battle it's a righteous take it it is very understandable but he just suddenly sees I see before me uncles and nephews and cousins and brothers and kinsmen and my grandsire and and my teachers all those people who are beloved to me and he says I'm translating the verses without whom life is meaningless and Here I am to grab the kingdom by killing my near and dear ones what is this I'm doing no matter the cause is right because they are Deva evildoers and it is duty as a warrior to protect society from the bad guys but still what's the point even if I win this terrible battle it'll be an empty victory because those people for whom I would want the kingdom they'll all be dead so why am i fighting this battle this is very bad this is evil it'll lead to suffering and death in the industry and in the clan in there and the royal family will be dissolved I won't fight so the first chapter by the way we are not going to study the first chapter the first chapter sets their tone the bhagavad-gita itself has 18 chapters with 700 verses there's a little difference there one verse may be extraordinary that'll be much much later that happens in the thirteenth chapter anyhow basically seven hundred verses divided into eighteen chapters but the first chapter with forty yard will see more than 40 verses 47 verses I think has just the background yes 47 verses the context in which Arjuna says I see such and such person he names them so I it's it's a huge army of hundreds of thousands of people so you can see the list is long he names them and he says I don't want to fight against them it'll it's really it's not worth it and he drops his bow and arrow and he sits down in frustration in in sorrow on one hand he knows it's the right thing to do on the other hand he can't bring himself to do it krishna keeps silent he's telling all this to krishna and remember all of this is being reported by Sanjaya to to the rostra live once in a while the scene will shift back to the court a courtroom the the Royal Court of Natasha where the old king is sitting desolate and his reporter is telling him this is happening this is happening then it shifts back to the battlefield against very dramatic yet the drama is tremendous I mean in the eleventh chapter before that krishna has revealed himself to be an avatar incarnation of God Arjuna says I believe you that you are an incarnation of God but I would like to see for myself this is one thing that is common to religion in India all throughout the centuries and million years religion is realization with a kind of said not believing in something not not subscribing to a doctrine you must actually there is God you must actually see God so like Narendra nod goes to Sri Ramakrishna and says have you seen God Arjuna asks that same question thousands of years ago he asked the same question I believe you what you said but I would like to see for myself if you think me fit would you show me your real nature you look like a human being now but you say that you are incarnation of God would you show me your real nature and this tremendous drama and what poetry 11th chapter of the bhagavad-gita Krishna says yes I will show you and he does you know this famous story of Oppenheimer the great at home mom scientist when the first atomic bomb exploded he actually chanted from the 11th chapter of the bhagavad-gita that I come with the brightness of a thousand suns I come as time the destroyer of all so what a description of the vision of God but it just terrifies Arjuna so there's a lot of drama there at the end of the first chapter Krishna has not spoken a single word Arjuna is now caught in a dilemma he doesn't want to do it but he knows he should do it because it's his duty to protect the good fight against evil and so on then krishna sees what nowadays is called a teachable moment yes so krishna uses this as the teachable moment now krishna will start teaching one interesting thing you note krishna does not tell him straight away you should fight this battle those guys are bad guys in fact those are secondary things he teaches him Vedanta Arjuna asks something else this is my dilemma what do I do krishna does not answer that directly he says he first teaches in vedanta so that is the purpose that is the the context is this but the purpose of the text is to teach Vedanta to Arjuna and through Arjuna to all of us so that we can apply it in our lives so the second chapter starts with Krishna beginning to speak the second chapter is one of the two chapters are very important the bhagavad-gita the second one which where Krishna tells whatever basically what he wants to say yes said the second chapter the whole chapter he teaches first iana yoga the path of knowledge leading to enlightenment directly he comes straight to the point and then he teaches Karma Yoga basically you can see these are the two answers in detailed answer to the questions that M asked Sri Ramakrishna how do I get God how do I keep my mind on God and the second question was how do I live in this world and the answers are Gani over the path of knowledge and karma yoga path of action and finally the third last part of the second chapter will be an enlightened person person whose gets this enlightenment you are speaking about theta Praeger off of firm wisdom established with wisdom established enlightenment what is this person like what's it like to be enlightened that's the question that Arjuna asks then the next that the other important chapter is the last one eighteenth chapter so these two are very important but in between then what about the other sixteen chapters in between fifteen chapters in between what are they Arjuna asks a question and for clarification and you will often find those are our questions Arjuna asks questions you know that what we are thinking literally takes it from us and he asked a question you can see that how his act he is questioning on our behalf so and Krishna answers and each of them becomes a chapter so that's how it will go we are going to pick up from the second chapter and we are not being lazy because Shankar Acharya himself in his commentary he starts from the tenth verse of the second chapter when Krishna actually starts teaching Vedanta from that verse he starts there he ignores the first chapter and also the first ten verses of the second chapter but we are going to start from the first verse of the second chapter before we do that because we're starting bhagavad-gita it's a very auspicious time today I will it's customary to chant at least the first verse verse number one where the blind king asks Sanjay news ya Twitter feed what's happening so he asked this but it's a very famous verse of the bhagavad-gita first verse many people in India know this first one didn't know anything else but you know the first one please repeat after me this is verse 1 chapter 1 Dhritarashtra watch do terrestre watch Dharma Chaitra Kurukshetra the moksha three Kurukshetra summer beta you utsava summer Vita you use server mom akka pandavas caiva mom akka pandavas caiva kim akurvata sanjaya kim akurvata sanjaya what does it mean o Sanjaya in the field of Dharma or a beautiful phrase thermic Chaitra Kurukshetra the battlefield is called Kurukshetra it's near Delhi it's actually a place you can go there so the battlefield is Kurukshetra Dharma Chaitra it is the field of Dharma of where right and wrong I decided basically it it symbolizes life our life in the field in the field of kuruksetra which is also the field of Dharma what did they do my children and their armies and the five Pandavas and their hosts who had gathered for this awful battle they had gathered for the for fighting what did they do o Sanjaya tell me so that's how it starts nothing spiritual there don't look for deeper meanings there now come to chapter 2 arjuna expresses his that I don't want to fight throws down his bow and arrow and sits down in frustration in deep depression then krishna starts speaking so we'll start let us do a few verses of chapter two please repeat after me chapter two verse one Sanjaya dont't are creepy Avista meeee Don Tata creepy Avista mushrikuna Kulick shanem a shrew punakha lakes Arnhem wish Edenton atom vacuum rashid anthem atom vacuum watch madhusudana watch a Medusa Donna so Sanjay takes up the commentary he says Krishna one of the names of Krishna's Medusa Donna Krishna - that that person Arjuna who was grieving who was nearly in tears who had sat down and in depression to him - who was overcome with pity and grieving with eyes filled with tears and agitated who was this Arjuna Krishna spoke these words Krishna stood up for the first time he started speaking What did he say let us see verse 2 sri-bhagavan uvaca sri bhagavan uvaca kutas - Akash cutest Waqas malam edom the shamisen opus tetum vishal me some opal Statham an Oreo Judge Thomas William Analia Yosh Thomas welcome okapi Kurama Juna Aki the Kurama Juna Shri Bhagwan who watch o means the Blessed Lord spoke What did he say the first words are not no not Vedanta their common sense he is not going directly into the teaching what does he say he says what's wrong with you in this terrible danger wish am I in this danger in the we are in it's not no you know you're not sitting on a couch and doing armchair philosophy here in the midst of terrible danger the war is about to start in the middle of this with calls for action what are you doing how are you overcome by this this weakness this despondency uh Nadia you system not fit of a noble person like you a sorghum it is not conducive to heaven the idea was a warrior at Kshatriya if he does a duty fighting in the battle even if he is killed he goes to heaven so that because it's done is duty to protect the weak against the evil but this is your honor you're failing in your duty so you will not you know it is not productive of heaven you not get go to heaven after death and in this world Archy Tikaram it leads to ill repute your reputation yes in English your name is mud you know yeah your knee you are one of the greatest warriors of of our times and your everybody knows what a great warrior you are and if you do this if people see that you're doing this what will they say about you not just now in centuries to come in 21st century in the Vedanta society I mean in Manhattan they will they will make fun of you actually so it's forever you are going to be you know the ill-fame will follow you around okey Tikaram so neither in this world nor in the next this is not good for you what you're doing why did he do this the Krishna is very wise he knows that Arjuna has not had his say yet you see what what we do is we suffer in the world and we think we know the solution okay I'm suffering poverty I need money I'm suffering up this person that divorced this person so in this way I I know this is the cause of suffering none of them really are the cause of suffering the cause of suffering is internal because I do not know true true nature within but I think that is the cause of suffering and I keep making adjustments in the world outside ultimately I'll realize that this is not the way to true happiness then I am helpless there are terms for this carpenter carbanion means helplessness then I am helpless I don't know I really honestly don't know what to do then I turned to the spiritual path and asked for help so he has not yet asked for help he's still in the first stage he is in trouble he is a mess but he thinks he knows what is right what is right is not to fight this war though that's what we we have all been building up to this but no I make a sudden change in the plans I'm going to give all of this up and run away from the battlefield that's the solution that's what he thinks though a deep inside he knows that's also not the solution but he doesn't know what is the solution then what's the point of it all so he has not yet reached the point of helplessness he has not asked for advice and Krishna is very wise he's he never gives advice unless you ask for it and ask for it first you surrender that I don't know what's good for me would you tell me and I'll listen to your words with respect and give and practice them in my life then he speaks we are very free with our advice let alone somebody surrendering to you and respecting you and promising to practice what you say they've not even asked and we are ready with all sorts of advice we think it would be good for that person as a result nobody listens obviously we ourselves don't listen to our own advice so why should anybody else listen krishna is not like that he says come on get up don't give in to this kind of depression common sense advice ask I sort of motivational talk no Vedanta so far in third verse clavia MASMA gama part clavia Maas MA varta night Atreyu papa dirty night Atreyu papa dirty should remarried or Billiam fruit remarried or valium to put a stopper on top of a stopper and Appa he calls Arjuna there are many names at that time so so do we in these days also people have one name for Facebook one name for said different names are there so so like that Arjuna partha is one one name for Arjuna another one named Krishna uses his parent about the sculpture of force very psychological here so he says that don't eat weakness don't eel - unmanly Ness it is not worthy of you shake off this this small petty faintheartedness arise take action or scorcher of force again seems to be a straightforward case of in like a pep talk a coach would give before a big game but swami vivekananda thought that this is a very very important verse he gave tremendous important this verse I think is one of the most important verses in the whole bhagavad-gita and why he says unless you make up your mind to take action to make your life better nobody in the world can help you no Krishna no Christ no Rama Krishna no Buddha nobody can help you no Gita Bible or you know any of the or say like Tony Robbins Robbins or somebody nobody can help you unless you take the first step I am willing to change my life is I am suffering I don't want to put up with this anymore I am willing to take action I am willing to stand up yes I will receive help you want to I want help from you but I am willing to change unless that comes it will not work nothing is going to work that's why I envy awakened he you know he powerfully said this the old religion said he who does not believe in God he's an atheist the new religion says he who does not believe in himself is an atheist this conviction Arjuna lost all faith in himself this conviction that all right things are bad I can make things better let me learn let me put it into practice things will improve take action get up and start doing don't be paralyzed our Swami's e to tell us in so many interesting ways you know early morning wait to get up very early in the ministry there don't lie in bed thinking should I get up or should I not get up jump out of bed immediately we do usually the opposite that clock is to be there with the button yeah we would snow yeah nowadays snooze button is dead earlier those alarm clocks we stood when we solid they were actually physically alarm clocks and they would make a great racket nowadays is so soothing tunes and jingles they play but I will shake and make a great racket and you would slam it down one Swami told me that if you what he did when he was first became a monk as a novice he took the alarm clock so he was not working but he was just open his eyes it's early in the morning 3:30 in the morning it open his eyes and just put it on and shut off the alarm and go back to sleep so yeah it would sound something like that he then he said what he did was he took the clock and put it at the foot of his bed so that you were to sit up and then he started thinking okay I would say that shows his greatness rather than the alarm clock I read later on they invented another alarm clock it's actually you could buy it on the market it's like a little toy a child's toy like a car you know alarm rings and it drives off by itself so yeah you have to go and catch it otherwise it'll make that awful sound and it goes it's cut holes around here and there so that you may be cursing and stumbling around in the dark but it will really make you up you have to take action somebody asked it's very interesting in the Mahabharata itself before the war somebody asked why did krishna teach all this to Arjuna who's the good guy if he had taught it to the bad guy it would have prevented the war so why did he not tell a teach it to Duryodhana the evil cousin the truth is the fact is actually if you see the Mahabharata Krishna tried Krishna tried he went to Duryodhana he was the emissary of peace you know the famous episode and he went to Duryodhana and he said look this is not good what you're doing this is a Dharma this is evil this is the path of evil it leads to destruction follow the path of good give the your brother's what they asked for and they ask for very little give them their due and make peace with them you know what Duryodhana said he said don't teach me and he said something that really touches our heart you know the eternal human condition he said to Krishna I know what is right and I know what is wrong and I know what I'm doing is wrong I know it it's he admitted it look at the person how what kind of introspective knowledge he had self introspection I know what I'm doing he admits it I know it's wrong and I know what I should be doing then what's the problem the problem is he says I know what is right I don't feel like doing it I know what's wrong I can't stop myself from doing it he says Jonna meet her mom nacho nacho anime priority not a priority not to me a priority jeremiad her mom not I mean everything cannot be Davina it is titania turn Yugi towards me to conquer he says I know what is Dharma I don't feel like doing it I know what is a Dharma I can't stop myself why can't you stop yourself because there's this power within me which impels me along this path even if I don't want to it forces me it's something that every addict knows what he's talking about everybody who's caught in this way knows what this person is talking about the interesting thing is why I'm saying this is that in the Gita you will see Arjuna comes to this point and he asked us he says the same thing to Krishna what Duryodhana said but with one crucial difference he asks a turkey in a pre-op to'em Popham charity Purusha Oh Krishna why do people do wrong things on each Jahnavi even if they don't want to they know it's wrong they make up their mind not to do it but to do it they make a mistake again and knowing it's a mistake they'll repeat it again why what forces them and how can we change look at the way it was put Duryodhana is not interested in changing or Juna says Arjuna acknowledges the same problem but we it's very difficult to change ourselves why is this so and how can we change it that's the difference this is what Krishna is saying get up and take action if you get up and take action if you decide I am going to change my life even by the slightest you are in Arjuna's camp this is what Krishna asks us to do then way danta yoga bhakti any kind of practice all of them become useful they all come to your help there are wonderful things available for us to learn and practice but we must make up our mind that we are going to do it something at least so he says do not yield to this weakness this this faintheartedness this meanness crude room is smallness arise Arjuna's not done yet now he will start from the fourth verse which we will not do now he will start presenting his case again what he said didn't you hear what I said and then he will say that I thought maybe it's better to give it all up but I really don't know I'm confused tell me what I should do the moment he says that Gita really begins with the tenth and eleventh verses of this second chapter so that's when Krishna starts teaching Vedanta we'll see that in the next class