The Bhagavad Gita was written by sages who broke through the maya of illusion and wrote a guidebook for us on how to live a God-Realized life. It is called the devotees song of love to God. Many consider this the Hindu bible which is a misnomer actually because if you read the Upanishads, which the Bhagavad Gita comes from, you will find a section that translated means “Sermon on the Mount”. So many spiritual teachings can be traced back to this book.
The Bhagavad Gita is written in story form about a battle that took place in 317 BCE and is still taking place today in modern times. It is about who we really are, what we have really come to experience and the different levels through which we have come to experience it in. It speaks as clearly to the person just starting out to learn about spirituality, as well as the person who has been years on the spiritual path.
The main characters in the book are Arjuna, who represents humanity and devotion, and Krishna who represents the Godhead. So what you have here is the original “Conversations with God” – Arjuna as us talking to Krishna as God. Arjuna is faced with a moral dilemma in the story, he is the trained warrior of the family of the Pandava’s, and he is facing off with his cousin, the trained warrior of the Kuru’s. The Kuru’s have stolen some property from the Pandava’s and Arjuna is to fight them for it in a battle to the death, winner takes all. Arjuna asks Krishna to be his chariot driver and drive him onto the battlefield, and when they get there between the two armies, and Arjuna sees those he has to fight, he gets distraught and wants to give up. He doesn’t want to kill his cousins, and uncles, and teachers, and friends, in fact he says “death would be better” for him…and so he calls on Krishna for advice.
How does this relate to our lives today you ask? As Arjuna asks Krishna to tell him what he should do, Krishna relates to him in story form what our true Dharma (right action/moral conduct) is in life…and it is not necessarily what we have been led to believe life is about. Winning the battle is not about how successful you are in business, how much money you have in the bank, how great you look, not any of what we have been told by society is the judgment call of what makes you a model citizen.
Krishna tells Arjuna about where the battle is really being fought it is being fought within us. The time for the outer wars is over now the real battle is within ourselves. It is a battle of consciousness between your good and bad senses, and you can either win the throne of senses or you can win the throne of wisdom. The Pandava’s represent the good senses or spiritual wisdom, and the Kuru’s represent the bad senses or mental desires. So we have good desires and we have bad desires – the good desires are about using our senses to reach God within us, the bad desires are using our senses to reach only for the earthly fruits…the ‘fun’ stuff we see around us – fame, success, money, etc.
So it is like a game that God has us playing here on earth, and he sits on his throne and watches the players (us) play the game…and how we play the game…and the prize is to reach Him/Her/It. And He sees how we go about it, and where we look to find Him, and the struggles we go thru to avoid the pitfalls we encounter along the way…to Him. And to make it interesting of course, since it is a battle, He gives us weapons along the way to help us fight this battle, and little clues like spiritual books, and He even throws in a teacher for us here and there if we are lucky J to help us stay on the path, and give us the Grace and the strength to climb the mountains that get thrown at us along the way in the form of experiences to overcome. And all the while God is holding the reigns of our senses, and He’s creating all the experiences so we can come home to Him…and all we need to do is accept and we are (half) way there.
So the Bhagavad Gita shows us the age-old struggle that has been going on in people’s lives forever, and it shows us what others have done to overcome the struggle and win the battle – the weapons used, the teachings, how to overcome the drama, find the courage to face the challenges, raise the kids, etc.
It teaches us that it has been done before, and it will be done again. It shows us that we have the teachings, the choice is ours, and asks what choice are we going to make, what is important to us, is God the most important thing to work for, what is important? So that’s what the Bhagavad Gita is….just a guidebook…we have to do the homework for ourselves to get back home to God…it’s our choice.
Love Love Love
Derek
For more on these teaching click here to download the Bhagavad Gita Discourses.
I also like to invite you to participate in a new conference call series called ‘Essential Teaching of the Bhagavad Gita’ starting in July 2014. Click here to register.
