Gita Acharan

In Ramayana, king Vali (Bali) was invincible as he had the capability of taking away half of his enemy's strength in any encounter. Even Lord Rama had to kill him from behind. One way to look at this phenomenon is that Vali is a quick learner, he grasps the skills and knowledge from people and situations as he sees the possibility of Paramatma and not enmity.  Krishna earlier said that all the world is pervaded by HIM (9.4) which indicates that each person or situation is nothing but a facet of Paramatma . However, our ignorance about this basic fact prevents us from being a 'Vali', Krishna in this regard says, "The ignorant, oblivious of my transcendental nature as the maker of all creatures, discount also my presence within the human form" (9.11). It's not just about being ritualistic or heaping praise upon the Lord, but a deep realisation that HE pervades every human around us whether we like them or not.  Certainly, it is a long journey requir...

The Higgs field is an invisible energy field that permeates the entirety of space. Interaction with this field gives mass to the subatomic particles. The combination of these sub atomic particles is nothing but the matter we see around us today. While subatomic particles need the Higgs field to have mass, the Higgs field doesn't need them for its existence.   This current scientific paradigm will help us understand when Krishna says, "All the world is pervaded by Me in the un-manifested form; all beings dwell in Me and I do not dwell in them (9.4). Nor do beings dwell in Me; behold My divine yoga! Bringing forth and supporting beings, Myself does not dwell in them" (9.5).  To make things simple for Arjun, Krishna gives an example and says, "As the wind moving everywhere always rests in space even so know that all beings rest in Me" (9.6). However mighty or destructive the wind or cyclone might be, it is still bound to be in space.  He further says, ...

Krishna says, "To you who doesn't cavil I shall reveal the sublime mystery -knowledge and wisdom. Once this is known, you shall be free from evil (9.1). The royal knowledge, the royal secret the supreme purifier is this, directly realisable, righteous, very easy to practice, imperishable (9.2). Men devoid of Shraddha in this Dharma , without attaining Me, tread the death darkened path of sansara (mortal world)" (9.3).  Krishna sets two conditions to be eligible to get this regal knowledge. The first is having shraddha (trust) and in the absence of shraddha , even royal knowledge becomes a mere arrangement of words.  The second is being free of cavil, which essentially means avoiding finding faults. In a contemporary context, this phenomenon is described as 'we see the world as we are but not as it is'. When two people perceive the same thing or situation in two different ways, differences are bound to be there leading to the bitterness we see around...

Once two sworn enemies prayed and GOD appeared before them. The first one wanted to know about the desires of the second one. However, the second one requested GOD to bless the first one first as GOD appeared there first. Then the first one asked GOD to give him double of what the second one seeks. Thus, the second one, blinded by enmity, prays that he should lose one eye so that the first one loses both eyes; lose a leg so that the other one loses both legs. This game of lose-lose continues when one invests one's energy in hatred and that is why Krishna earlier told us to renounce hatred but not Karma (5.3). Another learning from this story is that we should wisely invest our time and energy as these are limited at our level. In this regard, Krishna says that there are two eternal paths which are, the bright path of no return and the dark path of returning again (8.23 & 8.26). The bright path is the path of channeling most of our energy towards the internal journe...