Hi everyone, I'm back, this is one of my writings from a few years back...hope it enlightens you someway..
Introduction to Bhagavad Gita
Bhagavad Gita means the song of Lord! It’s a divine embodiment of words delivered by the Lord himself to an emotionally overwhelmed Arjuna who prefers quitting the battle of dharma rather than being responsible for death of his own kith and kin, his gurus and preceptors.
Bhagavad Gita also explains that truth, along with the path of righteousness (i.e., dharma), and knowledge is what we need to reach god or what we call paramathma. Gita is within us as…. Kurukshetra is our heart, Arjuna’s chariot is our body, lord Krishna is in the form of our wisdom of our inner soul, the horses that Lord Krishna charioteered are our 5 senses, Pandavas represent fearlessness, steadfast, faith, sincerity concentration and such good qualities in us, Kauravas represent injustice, selfishness, hatred, and such negative qualities raising in us, then Drutharashtra represents unawareness, blindness towards the truth, and Dhuryodhana represents covet, possessiveness, and selfishness. Bhagavad Gita in whole expresses divinity. It says that the god is truly within us, and the whole cosmos is within god. Bhagavad Gita has 18 chapters in total and, in it the first six chapters are to be heard carefully, the next six chapters from 7-12 are to be heard and recalled again and again in life, and the last six chapters from 13-18 are to be heard, recalled and to be inculcated in the situations of life.
Importance of Gita in daily life
First, it describes that anger is our biggest foe, it starts like a slow wind and turns to a disastrous tornado! It states that even a small word uttered in anger can cause irreversible rifts. In short, anger is the gateway to hell. By reading Gita a person may transform in a more effective way.
Gita also teaches us to reign our desires by making us realize that we are wishing too much at a time and none of it can happen without our effort, and also some of the desires may be out of our reach.
Bhagavad Gita encourages us and provides strength to overcome our fears, whatever they might be in terms of losing out or failing in our duties or may also be fear of death. It tells us to enjoy every moment of our life as neither life nor death are to last forever and both are ephemeral.
Gita is indeed very important as it means many things to many people but has one simple message, we see the world as we are and we create meaning by giving shape to emptiness and make boundaries to contain the infinite. Right is created and realized by us and so is wrong. We make our own truth and let it define us. We create friends and we create enemies in fact our own mind can turn to be our own enemy if we don’t control it, and we can gain control over our mind by meditation.
A peaceful life should be devoid of expectations. Either you should do what you love or love what you do, only then you can find happiness. Bhagavad Gita describes that we can find perfection in the work we do when we find happiness and also find ourselves involved and enjoying it.
Gita makes it clear that all power, along with fear, happiness, sorrow, confidence, guilt, anxiety, and anger are all within us, we just need to realize which is the correct path to be followed to make our life better.
So, Bhagavad Gita is important in many ways as it teaches and explains many new morals of life that we need, to make it wonderful.
Life situations in which Gita guided me…
The most simple example is when I get angry, I try to remember what is right to do, that is when I am reminded by Bhagavad Gita that I should be poised and try to think positively as the bright side always brings light in.
Another common situation held by me is stage fear, or even fear of exams, when I see the question paper, it is like I have to be battling a group of people…who are stronger than me…, that is when I lose my confidence, and start thinking that I’m going to lose it all, and mess myself up. But then Bhagavad Gita gives me the answer as it tells me that the only way of winning is by believing in yourself and putting in all your efforts, trying the best. So positive thoughts like “I can do it” train my mind as I level up more higher, enough to encourage me to do well. The result whatever I get makes me happy because at least I tried, and winning doesn’t always have to be compulsory or important.
In sad situations due to friendship matters such as misunderstandings and arguments, I feel sadness hit its way on attack, I do let the tears flow but later recollect the truth I previously got to know from Gita, that we create our friends and we are the ones to create our enemies too, I try to remind myself that nothing is mine forever, I just have to deal with it.
Then, every alternate day I go to classical dance - Kuchipudi classes, and soon after an year of learning, I started vibrating fear whenever I think about dance class as I remember that I have to go through a lot of pain that day, but then by the help of Gita, in about three years I stopped developing this fear as I gradually learned that when we enjoy the work we are doing which at present is dancing, we don’t see the bad side that is the pain and fear, and in fact now I’m doing much better in dance than before.
Once again coming to writing examinations when I didn’t study when I had a chance to, and later when I had to I didn’t have the time and so the anxiety arises within… Initially that is when I realized that when a person faces any problem, it is brought up to her by herself as she has done something herself to cause it. As I didn’t study, I brought up my failure in exam myself.
Finally there are some situations in which I have a really strong wish and I need it to be fulfilled, not want, so the desire is very important. In these situations my only one and biggest hope turns to god as my devotion flows while I recall from Gita that devotion which we also call bhakti is a way to reach god. As long as I remember truly, in every situation I had my hope on god, he has lent me his support and I indeed am very grateful for it!
Bhagavad Gita mainly says that, throughout our life our soul should defeat the features of Kauravas and win the trophy of the features of Pandavas and reach our victory position at the end i.e., reach god or paramathma.
Concluding with some morals I have learnt….
Change is the law of the universe…because what you think as death is indeed life. Our life is a clay which is given to us to mould it, there is a right way and a wrong way to do it, the right way is shown by god when we are able to believe in him, and the wrong way is shown by the devil in yourself. There may be wrongs which may also be rights and there may be rights which may also be wrongs, we just have to know which one is wrong and right and encourage ourselves to mould a path towards the right to find a lovely life.
There may be a great height in life but an immediate fall may appear too, but just remember not to worry for anything, because after every fall there is a lifting opportunity, and whatever happens, happens for our good.
There’s a day for you and a day for me, and so there is one for everyone, but don’t worry that it’s just one for each because when we gather all of them, all the days are ours. So, push the thoughts of ‘yours’ and ‘mine’, as nothing belongs to any of us. We come and go but take nothing with us, even our soul is taken by god. Our karmas are the only things we take with our death.
The power of will is so strong that anything can be achieved or overcome.
Everything in the universe will eventually face an end, and life is too short to spend crying, so don’t waste your time on crying over things you don’t have and stay happy with what you have.
Whatever happens will happen for the good, so no regrets are to be for future nor past nor present.
Balance everything you do in life.
Bhagavad Gita is the right way, and a wise leader to lead the path of life which gives us the option to use it or not.
Last but not the least, I summarize that Bhagavad Gita is the synthesis of yoga of action and yoga of transcendence of action and its results.
