Monday, 7 April 2014

My book on Bhagwadgita


The idea to obtain liberation is the main theme of Gita, advocating three spiritual paths towards it, namely Karma Yoga, Jnana Yoga and Bhakti Yoga.
 
The battle of Kurukshetra (field of work or material action) is fought between two opposing forces: discriminative intelligence (buddhi) and the sense-conscious mind (manas), on a daily basis within us. It is fought at three different levels: moral, psychological and spiritual.

The material and moral struggle is between good and evil, right and wrong action on the sensory level. The psychological war is between the material tendencies of mind pulling the life and consciousness outward towards matter and the discriminative tendencies of intelligence drawing the life and consciousness inward towards the soul. The spiritual battle is fought to overcome the lower states of consciousness and dissolve all duality and sense of separation from God.

The material man will know inner peace and happiness only if he sides with goodness and wins the struggle between the good and evil inclinations that guide his actions on the external bodily field of action. The spiritual aspirant will know inner peace and happiness once he wins the psychological war defeating the tendencies of mental restlessness and sense attractions. The yogi, who seeks the ultimate goal of Self-realisation and liberation, will know inner peace and happiness on winning the spiritual battle against the magnetic attraction of the lower ego nature of body consciousness.

The impulsive mental and sense tendencies (Kauravas), and the self-disciplined offspring (Pandavas) of the soul’s discrimination (Pandu) assemble on the bodily field (Kurukshetra) of sensory, psychological and spiritual battle every day. Bhagwadgita suggests, through Sri Krishna (soul), that we should indulge in a daily (at the end of the day) honest introspection (Sanjay), to reveal to our blind mind (Dhritarashtra) which force, good or evil, won the battle that day.

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