Gita Acharan

In the Gita, Lord Krishna says you yourself are your own friend and you yourself are your own foe. The following story of the trapped monkey illustrates it well.   Some nuts are kept in an earthen pot with a narrow mouth (surahi) in which the monkey's hand barely fits. The monkey inserts its hands by squeezing through the mouth of the pot and grabs a fist full of nuts. As the fist is full, its size goes up and so it can't come out of the pot. The monkey makes all sorts of efforts to get the closed fist out of the pot. It keeps thinking that someone has laid a trap for it and never realises that the trap is set by itself. No amount of explanation would convince the monkey to let go of these nuts, instead it would think that we are trying to grab its nuts.  From the outside, it looks quite simple that it has to drop a couple of nuts to loosen the fist so that its hand comes out. But realising this simple fact, when we are trapped is the challenge.   T...

A small change in the trim tab attached to the rudder changes the course of a large ship. Similarly, a nudge to study the Gita can reorient our course in life.  Time available due to the current COVID-19 lockdown can be utilised to dive into the Gita. The Gita is an eternal text book from Kindergarten to Post Graduation, for internal realization and it is likely that in the first reading, very few concepts are understood. They can be easily understood if we approach from the view point of manifested, which is within the realm of our naked senses (including the scientific instruments built to extend these senses) and un-manifested, which is beyond our senses.   The story of manifested goes from Big Bang to the formation of stars to fusion/cooking of atoms of  higher chemical elements in the core of these stars to spread of these elements in  explosion of stars to formation of planetary systems to  appearance of intelligent life. It is an accepted...

The Gita was born in the battlefield  and  the current COVID-19 days are similar to the Kurukshetra battle.  One phrase in the Gita neatly sums it up : nimitta maatra -just being an instrument (in the hands of the Almighty).  Arjun wanted to see the reality of Krishna as it is (yathaarth) and needed  an extra sense to grasp the same, just like the blind man needed an eye to see complete elephant. He was given the same by the Lord to see the Vishwaroopam of Krishna. Apart from showing reality in space, Krishna gives him access to the  future and Arjun sees that many warriors are entering into the mouth of death.  Then Lord says that these warriors would die soon and you are just an instrument in that process. Krishna clarifies that Arjun is not the Karta (doer) and secondly, he ensures that Arjuna would be free of Ahankaar when he comes out as victor, as victory is the biggest booster of Ahankaar . At the same time, Krishna didn't let A...

The Gita is about maintaining harmony in the inner world and the law is about maintaining order in the outer world. Any Karma has two parts, one is the intent and another is execution. In the words of law they are called, using Latin words, mens rea and actus reus , respectively, in the context of crime.  For example, a surgeon and a murderer both plunge a knife into someone's stomach. The surgeon's intention is to save/cure, but the murderer's intention is to damage/kill. Death can occur in both situations, but the intentions are completely opposite. Law is situational while the Gita is eternal. Driving on the left side of the road is legal in one country and may be an offense in another. Law is black and white, but not life which has many grey areas.  As long as one pays ( actus reus ) taxes, the law is not bothered about whether it was done with pleasure or pain ( mens rea ). Law is very comfortable as long as execution is within the defined parameters of l...

Gita appears different to different people based on their orientation.  There are three different paths given in Gita. Karma yog, Sankhya yog  and Bhakthi yog. Karma yog is ideal for someone who is mind oriented. Sankhya yog is for Intellect and Bhakti for heart oriented. In todays world, majority falls in the category of mind oriented.  Its based on belief that we are tied up with chains and need to work hard to break them to free ourselves. So its action oriented. Any conversation with them would end up with ‘What should I do now’. This path leads us to Nishkam karma i.e. unmotivated action.   Sankhya yog is also known as Gyan Yog and this is about awareness or knowing, but not knowledge. Its begining point is the belief that we are in a dark room and have to just lighten a lamp in the dark to quell the darkness as no amount of action or flight can remove that darkness. This path takes us to realize about choiceless awareness.   Bhakti Yog is...

Gita lays emphasis on our senses as they are the gateways between our inner and outer world. Neuroscience postulates, "Neurons that fire together wire together". The Gita's words too convey a similar message using the language of its time. Our brain has about a 100 billion neurons. Some of them are wired by DNA to take care of automatic functions of body and some are wired by us during our life times.  On the first day, before a driving wheel, we all found it difficult to drive and then slowly got used to it. This is because of hard wiring that the brain does, with unutilised neurons, to coordinate all the activities involved in driving. Same happens with all the skills. Starting from simple walking to sports to complex surgeries by a surgeon. Hardwiring saves a lot of energy for brain and makes our lives easy.   A new born is a 'universal baby' capable of many things.  The Domestication done by family, peers and society, leads to formation of many neu...

The Gita is about what we are. It is like being truthful apart from knowing the truth and that happens when we are centered (space) in the present moment (time) The underlying dilemma of Arjuna is what would happen to his image, in the eyes of world, if he kills his friends, relatives, elders and teachers for the sake of kingdom. This appears very logical and this is the first barrier to be crossed, if one has to live the Gita life. The real dilemma of Arjun is about his future, whereas Krishna says that we have the right to do karma but no right to the karmaphal . Why? Because karma happens in the present and karmaphal is something that comes up in the future.  Like Arjun, our tendency is to strive for outcome- oriented actions. Some times modern life gives us an impression that future outcomes can be controlled. But in reality, the future is a combination of so many possibilities over which we do not have any control. Once again its our ahankaar , feeding on our pa...

Just as it is said, "All roads lead to Rome", all paths given in the Gita lead us to the Inner Self.  Some of the paths appear to be in contrast with each other. However, this is like a circle where a journey on either side would take us to the same destination. The Gita operates at various levels. Sometimes Krishna comes to the level of Arjuna and sometimes he comes as the Supersoul ( Paramatma ). This creates difficulties in comprehension at the initial stage as both these levels appear to be different.   Scientists faced similar difficulties while understanding light, at the beginning of the last century. Initially, it was proved that light is a wave and  later it was realized that it also behaves like a particle. Both theories appear to be opposing each other. But light, with which we are so familiar,  is a combination of apparent contradictions. Similar is life.  Once an elephant entered  a village and a few blind men attempted to iden...

Bhagavad Gita is a 700 verse conversation between Lord Krishna and Warrior Arjun in the battle field of Kurukshetra.  Just before the start of war, Arjun gets the feeling that war would kill many of his friends and relatives and argues that this is bad from many points of view.  Arjuns dilemma eminates from his presumption that " I am doer" - Aham karta and is also known as Ahankaar . This Ahankaar keeps us telling that we are distinct, but reality is different. Though ego is usually given as meaning to Ahankaar , but ego can be taken as one of many manifestations of Ahankaar . The entire conversation is about this Ahankaar , be it directly or indirectly and Krishna gives various paths and milestones (yardsticks) to get rid of it. If we take Kurukshetra war as a metaphor, all of us enter into a situations, like Arjun did, in our daily lives be it in family, work place and interms of health, wealth, relationships etc. As long as one lives, these dilemmas are natu...