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    The Bhagavad Gita for the Rest of Us
    The Bhagavad Gita for the Rest of Us
    The Bhagavad Gita for the Rest of Us
    Ebook89 pages1 hour

    The Bhagavad Gita for the Rest of Us

    By Giridhar Boray

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    Over centuries, The Bhagavad Gita has been considered an important spiritual guidebook and has influenced many thought leaders in human history. The Gita is conversational poetry set in an epic battlefield where a family of cousins are engaged in a war for control of a kingdom. The Lord Almighty assumes the role of a charioteer for prince Arjuna who is about to fight his cousins led by Duryodhana. The fact that this is a war between cousins and involves people related to each other immerses Arjuna in a deep remorse at the prospect of fighting his cousins, uncles, friends, teachers etc, which leads him to a decision to abdicate the war and leave the kingdom to his cousins. At this point, the Lord teaches Arjuna the need for one to confront difficult tasks in life and not run away from responsibilities as in this case, it was Arjuna's responsibility to wrest the kingdom away from his cousins who had usurped the same with dubious means. Arjuna indeed had an obligation to run a just and rightful administration. The Lord answers a series of questions that Arjuna has on the overall concept of rightful action, how to conduct them and the associated attitude. The Lord then expounds on the cycle of the universe, the cycle of births and deaths, nature of the universe, the constituents of the universe, inter relationship among these constituents, the nature of Lord Almighty etc. The Gita also provides guidelines for daily living by coverings aspects of diet, meditation and yoga.
    There are 700 Sanskrit verses in the Gita. There are many excellent commentaries on the Gita in many different languages, but the author felt a need for a simple book on the Gita presenting the core concepts by minimizing the use of Sanskrit words or terminology and sticking to plain English. The entire book is presented in a Q&A format in keeping with the spirit of the original work. The core concepts presented are based on an interpretation by the 12th century ascetic Sri Madhwacharya which was further expanded by later day savants such as Sri Raghavendra Swamiji.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGiridhar Boray
    Release dateDec 25, 2013
    ISBN9788192850313
    The Bhagavad Gita for the Rest of Us
    Author

    Giridhar Boray

    Dr. Giridhar Boray an exprienced mobile telecom industry professional has varied interests in different disciplines such as Mobile Telecom Technology, and has deep interest in ancient vedic scriptures. He has authored numerous papers on many of these subjects and holds many US patents on mobile communication technology. He has authored several articles on Indian scriptures with particular emphasis on the Bhagavad Gita. He holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX.

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      Book preview

      The Bhagavad Gita for the Rest of Us - Giridhar Boray

      The Bhagavad Gita for the Rest of Us

      Copyright 2013 Dr.Giridhar Boray

      Published by www.upanishat.com

      ISBN: 978-81-928503-1-3

      Smashwords Edition License Notes

      All rights reserved. No part of this ebook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the copyright holder.

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Foreword

      The author is deeply indebted to many commentators and authors who have written or spoken extensively about the Bhagavad Gita based on the interpretation of 12th century ascetic, Sri Madhwacharya and latter day savants such as Sri Raghavendra Swamiji. The author has benefitted greatly by scholarly lectures (in the Indian language of Kannada) on the Gita by Sri Vishwesha Teertha Swamiji of Pejavar Mutt, Dr. Prabhanjnachar and Dr. Bannanje Govindacharya and respectfully expresses his gratitude. The author respectfully acknowledges his initial tutelage on Sri Madhwacharya's school of thought from his father Late Prof. Krishnaswamy Rao.

      The author acknowledges extensive review and comments by Mrs. Prabha Venkatesh which helped in improving the readability of a rather complex subject. The author gratefully acknowledges words of encouragement by Mr. Prasad Bhargava. Thanks to Mr. Raghavendra of Vagartha Printers for help in cover design and book formatting.

      Chapter 1. Introduction - Background and Battleground

      Over centuries, the Bhagavad Gita has been considered an important spiritual guidebook and has influenced many thought leaders in human history. The Gita is conversational poetry and is part of the great Indian epic ‘Mahabharata’, which is a story about the families of two brothers who inherit a kingdom from their father. These cousins are known as the ‘Pandavas’ and the ‘Kauravas’. The Kaurava brothers are 100 in number and the Pandavas are 5. The Kauravas, not wanting to share the kingdom with their cousins invite them to a game of deuce. They use dubious means to defeat the Pandavas and annex their kingdom as a result of winning the bet. As per the rules of the bet, the Pandavas complete their stay outside the kingdom and come back to ask for their fair share of the kingdom so they can rule with dignity. The Kauravas refuse to honor the agreement and even deny the Pandavas a settlement of 5 villages so that they can live in peace. As the Kauravas refuse to budge an inch the Pandavas have no choice but to declare war on them to get back their fair share of the kingdom. During this period, The Lord who has incarnated as Krishna offers the cousins a choice between His army and Himself, but makes clear that He Himself would not be participating in the war. The Kauravas choose His army as Krishna would not be fighting, and the Pandavas are happy to just have Krishna on their side. Krishna takes on the role of charioteer to Arjuna’s chariot (Arjuna is the middle brother among the five Pandavas).

      Before the war starts, the two armies assemble on the battlefield, facing each other. At this point, Arjuna requests Krishna to place his chariot in the middle so he can get a full view of the warring forces. Since this is a war between cousins, Arjuna sees his cousins, uncles, grandfathers, great grandfathers, nephews, friends, classmates etc on both the sides. He is overcome with emotion and grief at the prospect of bloodshed among his family and friends for the sake of a kingdom. He declares his intention to renounce from fighting and let the Kauravas keep the kingdom, thus abdicating his responsibility as a prince and a warrior. It is at this stage that Krishna teaches him the ‘Gita’ which is structured as a series of questions from Arjuna and answers from Krishna. Krishna extols the virtues of performing one’s duties regardless of the outcome and not getting attached to the action itself even when the work is difficult and unpleasant. As Krishna starts to talk to Arjuna on the virtues of doing one’s work (in this case Arjuna needing to fight a rightful war), Arjuna asks a series of questions on the bigger issues of life, individual souls, the Lord Almighty, the universe, the circle of life etc, for which Krishna provide clear, unambiguous answers. He finally convinces Arjuna that his fears were unfounded and that he should fight to free the Kingdom from the Kauravas and provide a just and compassionate administration to his citizens.

      At first it would appear that a battleground is hardly the place for someone to be preaching philosophy. However, many of the questions that we have in life are about choices we make, especially in challenging times. It is interesting to note that Sanskrit verses lend themselves to multiple meanings and in one interpretation, the battleground in The Gita is compared to the human body (and mind), and the battle between Pandavas and the Kauravas is compared to the constant strife between good and evil thoughts that we encounter on a daily basis. The Gita is indeed a teaching for all of us with Arjuna acting as an example of an individual at cross roads desperately looking for guidance and support.

      The Gita is one of the most widely read and commented upon spiritual works in human history. There are several excellent books on this topic in various languages. Given that the original work is in Sanskrit, most of the scholarly commentaries have been in Sanskrit or other Indian languages which are closer to Sanskrit. There are relatively few books in English on this topic. To read and comprehend many of them, one would need some training in Indian spiritual studies as many of them liberally use Sanskrit words albeit transliterated in English. It was felt that there is a need to present the key concepts of

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