March Book Madness! Day 8, The Bhagavad Gita, Translated By Eknath Easwaran

Book Details

Philosophy and Religion

The Bhagavad Gita is the most famous poem in all of Hindu literature and part of the Mahabharata, the ancient Indian epic masterpiece. The Gita (in Sanskrit, “Song of the Lord”) consists of a dialogue between Lord Krishna and Prince Arjuna on the morning of a climactic battle. Krishna provides Arjuna with the spiritual means to understand his own nature so that he can take action and prevail. However, the larger canvas painted in the poem is that of the moral universe of Hinduism. As translator Eknath Easwaran, one of the world’s premier teachers of meditation and spirituality, notes “The Gita does not present a system of philosophy. It offers something to every seeker after God, of whatever temperament, by whatever path. The reason for this universal appeal is that it is basically practical: it is a handbook for self-realization and a guide to action.

Goodreads Overview

Discerning, Insightful, and Well Translated

Two of my favorite classes in college were Eastern Philosophies and Meditation and A History Of India. I’ve always had a special place in my heart for fictional and nonfictional books based in India, but it wasn’t until college I understood why. It all became clear once I read Easwaran’s translation of The Bhagavad Gita from the Mahabharata. I realized many of the teachings expounded by the figure Krishna mirror many of my Christian beliefs. This cemented in my mind with particular clarity all people in the world have more in common than they think. 

The Narrative

Easwaran separated his book in two parts.

• An explanation of core teachings in the epic poem along with special clarification on the Gita’s history
• An easy to follow translation of the Gita

I especially enjoyed reading Easwaran’s descriptions and explanations of Hindu beliefs illustrated by Arjuna’s conversation with Krishna. Because I studied historical research in college, I ate up this first section and made many written connections between Christian and Hindu beliefs. I wondered about the ancient history behind the Mahabharata and how its teachings evolved over time. It was almost as if there were echoes of an older religion, forgotten and lost over a millennia.

Teachings Which I Found Most Intriguing

• Atman, or the divine core of personality. Practicing yoga daily reminds me that I am a divine and eternal being. In the Bhagavad Gita so much of one’s choices hinge on how clearly they see their Atman. If one understands they are divine, their actions change and they strive to live a more balanced life. I’ve been taught this all my life, so seeing it written and explained in this book gave me such joy!
• Karma, every event is a cause and an effect. I am a firm believer that what each person does has consequences, especially concerning matters of marriage, love, and education. I’ve often pondered how God, who honors man’s freedom to choose, must feel watching his children fall victim to poor decisions. I’m not a mother yet but I often think how I will teach my children this principle.
• Tamas, Rajas, and Sattva, Non-Activity, Unbridled Activity and Balanced Activity. This principle is a little more complicated. Actions influenced by Tamas are made without awareness but with ignorance. There is no desire to grow. It is living life wallowing through a cold river. There is no passion. Rajas are the exact opposite. It is like making decisions, fast-paced with no thought to any damage it can have on others. It is like running at full speed and spreading fire through every step. Sattva is mindful decision-making through balanced evaluation and thought of people. Studying these three principles helped me understand how to balance my actions and make a bigger difference in the world.

Who is this book for?

If there is anyone who loves to do yoga and study deeper ways to grow in their practice, I would recommend reading this book. Lovers of Indian History will also appreciate Easwaran’s clear explanations and translation. I loved reading this book because I felt better connected to different religions around the world. I like to believe each religion carries snippets of truth that can benefit the world. Our job is to look and find them.

I won’t rate this book because it is a historical and religious work.

Favorite Quotes

No one who does good work will ever come to a bad end, either here or in the world to come.

The peace of God is with them whose mind and soul are in harmony, who are free from desire and wrath, who know their own soul.

He who has let go of hatred
who treats all beings with kindness
and compassion, who is always serene,
unmoved by pain or pleasure,

free of the “I” and “mine,”
self-controlled, firm and patient,
his whole mind focused on me —
that is the man I love best.

Lord Krishna

We are not cabin-dwellers, born to a life cramped and confined; we are meant to explore, to seek, to push the limits of our potential as human beings. The world of the senses is just a base camp: we are meant to be as much at home in consciousness as in the world of physical reality.

Thank you for reading! See you tomorrow!

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Beauty Around Us: Part 4, Quotes to Inspire

For this post, I will post twenty-five quotes from books, movies and various people. Words which move us help set afire the beauty dormant within us.

1.

Around the world–even in some of the countries most troubled by poverty or civil war or pollution–many thoughtful people are making a deep, concerted search for a way to live in harmony with each other and the earth. Their efforts, which rarely reach the headlines, are among the most important events occurring today. Sometimes these people call themselves peace workers, at other times environmentalists, but most of the time they work in humble anonymity. They are simply quiet people changing the world by changing themselves.

Eknath Easwaran, Your Life is Your Message: Finding Harmony With Yourself, Others, and the Earth

2.

The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.

Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

3.

Peace begins with a smile..

Mother Teresa

4.

Wherever I go, I will speak of you with love.

Clive Barker, The Thief of Always

5.

Witch, do this for me,
Find me a moon
made of longing.
Then cut it sliver thin,
and having cut it,
hang it high
above my beloved’s house,
so that she may look up
tonight
and see it,
and seeing it, sigh for me
as I sigh for her,
moon or no moon.

Clive Barker Abarat: Days of Magic Nights of War

6.

When you are born,” the golem said softly, “your courage is new and clean. You are brave enough for anything: crawling off of staircases, saying your first words without fearing that someone will think you are foolish, putting strange things in your mouth. But as you get older, your courage attracts gunk, and crusty things, and dirt, and fear, and knowing how bad things can get and what pain feels like. By the time you’re half-grown, your courage barely moves at all, it’s so grunged up with living. So every once in awhile, you have to scrub it up and get the works going, or else you’ll never be brave again.

Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland, #1)

7.

I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had no where else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.

Abraham Lincoln

8.

If you stumble about believability, what are you living for? Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe?

Yann Martel, Life of Pi

9.

A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor — such is my idea of happiness.

Leo Tolstoy

10.

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.

Victor Hugo

11.

To love another person is to see the face of God.

Victor Hugo

12.

It’s easy to do nothing, it’s hard to forgive.”

Avatar the Last Airbender, “The Southern Raiders”

13.

The greatest illusion of this world is the illusion of separation. Things you think are separate and different are actually one and the same. We are all one people, but we live as if divided.

Avatar the Last Airbender, “The Guru”

14.

A lesson without pain is meaningless. That’s because no one can gain without sacrificing something. But by enduring that pain and overcoming it, he shall obtain a powerful, unmatched heart. A fullmetal heart.

Hiromu Arakawa, Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 25

15.

And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

16.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar:

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come.

William Wordsworth

17.

We know that God is everywhere; but certainly we feel His presence most when His works are on the grandest scale spread before us; and it is in the unclouded night-sky, where His worlds wheel their silent course, that we read clearest His infinitude, His omnipotence, His omnipresence.

Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

18.

Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.

Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

19.

When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it, always.

Gandhi, Gandhi

20.

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

Albert Einstein

21.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

22.

“There is more to a boy than what his mother sees. There is more to a boy then what his father dreams. Inside every boy lies a heart that beats. And sometimes it screams, refusing to take defeat. And sometimes his father’s dreams aren’t big enough, and sometimes his mother’s vision isn’t long enough. And sometimes the boy has to dream his own dreams and break through the clouds with his own sunbeams.

― Ben Behunin, Remembering Isaac: The Wise and Joyful Potter of Niederbipp

The earth is speaking to us, but we can’t hear because of all the racket our senses are making. Sometimes we need to erase them, erase our senses. Then – maybe – the earth will touch us. The universe will speak. The stars will whisper.

Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl

24.

If we commit ourselves to one person for life, this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather, it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession but participation.”

Madeleine L’Engle

25.

When there is kindness, there is goodness. When there is goodness, there is magic.

Cinderella (2015)