Dr. Shamanthakamani Narendran

MD (Pead), PhD (Yoga Science)

We either live in the graveyard of the past, which is dead and gone or live in the womb of the future that is yet to be born and thereby miss the bliss of the present.

We are constantly haunted by the humilation, failures, worries, and wounds of the past or by the anxiety, insecurity and expectation of the future, thereby missing the ‘present moment’ which is a great gift.

Every child that is born brings not only a stomach to be fed and a body to clothed but also the brain and the brawn that can feed and clothe others.

The message of Bhagavadgita is not just a philosophical treatise for intellectual appreciation but also a practical guide for day-to-day life. The message is universal.

Yoga is nirodha, control, or mastery. It also means upaya, a means of achieving something. Any form of meditation, dhyana, is called yoga. And a connection, sangati, meaning a subject matter, visaya, is also called yoga.

There are three factors that determine the success of any pursuit. They are prayatnah (human endeavor), kalam (time) and Diavam (the lord).

Lord Krishna is perhaps the only avatara that has never known to have wept – ever laughing, ever active, ever enthusiastic, thirsty to live and hungry to experience.

If a person is convinced, though it takes time in many cases, the right action from a person with the right amount of intensity is bound to be spontaneous and successful.

ABOUT LORD KRISHNA

The fourth type of discussion is called samvada. This discussion is always between a teacher and a student, guru-sisya-samvada.

Dharma is that which holds together the different aspects and qualities of an object into a whole. Dharma is the ‘law of being’ meaning “that which makes a thing or being what it is.” Dharma of the fire is to burn. Dharma indicates the essential nature without which it cannot retain its independent existence.

As the thoughts, so the person. The texture of the thought determines the quality of a person.

Yogabhava is the attitude where we consider every action as an offering to the altar that enables us to drop the doership from the frame of our mind.

Whatever is the law that governs the karma and its result is the law of karma and that law of karma includes various other laws also.

Most of us, whose concern for society is also at the superficial level, feel helpless at the magnitude of problems that stop us from even making an effort to inspire people who are in our area of influence.

Karma performed for neutralising raga-dvesas (likes and dislikes) for antah-karana-suddhi (purification of mind) becomes yoga which is the means for moksa.

Gita’s influence is not merely philosophic or academic but immediate and living, an influence

both for thought and action, and its ideas are actually at work as a powerful shaping factor in

the revival and renewal of a nation and a culture.

Aurobindo Ghose

Actionlessness is not giving up action.

An anecdote from Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa.

A patient who goes to the hospital for treatment will not be discharged until the disease is cured. He will not be retained in the hospital after the disease is cured. Similarly, a person who is suffering from the disease of ajnana (ignorance) must be in the hospital of prakrti and must go through the treatment of Karma-Yoga for the cure of that disease.

Gita wsa not preached either as pastime for persons tried out after living a worldly life in pursuit of selfish motives or as a preparatory lession for living such worldly life. My last

prayer to everyone is that one should not fail to thoroughly understand this ancient science of the life of a householder, or of worldly life, as

early as possible in one’s life.

Lokmanya Tilak

A thankful reflection on the goodness of the giver.

A deep sense of our own unworthiness, and

A recollection of the uncertainty of our long possessing them.

There are three requisites to the proper enjoyment of earthly blessings

The first will make a grateful, the second, humble and the third moderate.

Hannahmore

When we say that we enjoy an object, we do seem to be enjoying it. In time, however, we find that the object has enjoyed us because we have grown older.

A piece of iron which is hard, black, and dull becomes soft, red, and shining when it makes friendship with fire.

The same iron acquires a lot of rust and loses all its strength when it makes friendship with dirt and moisture. Thus the sacred life which you wish to lead can be achieved if you are in the company of good people.

This is the true joy in life – that being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. That being a force of nature, instead of a feverish, selfish

little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I

am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up

when I die, For the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It’s a sort of splendid torch which I’ve got to hold

up for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on the future

generations.

George Bernard Shaw

Every karma is desire-based; every action presupposes desire. Therefore, desire also cannot be the same. We do different karma because we want different results.

If the cause-effect relationship is understood, there is no question of luck. It is simply replaced by pass karma. Being at the right place at the right time is karma and being at the wrong place is also karma.

The karma-phala, the result, is produced by the law and the law itself is produced by another intelligent being.

The entire Gita psychology is dealt with in terms of raga and dvesa alone. No other norms are used.

Recognition that Isvara is the karma-phala-data converts every karma-phala into prasada. Therefore, prasada is not an object, it is a way of looking at an object.

Watch your thoughts, they become words;

Watch your words, they become action;

Watch your action, they become habits;

Watch your habits, they become character;

Watch your character, they become your destiny.

There is no way of escaping karmas – except by sannyasa or death. In sannyasa the vow or commitment, diksa, taken eariler to perform rituals is given up and the person is no longer bound to do karmas.

The norms of human interaction is called dharma and the opposite is called adharma. Dharma and adharma form the standard norms. They are not absolutes in that they have to be interpreted according to the given situation.

With reference to the result of our actions, there is a sameness, samatva, in our response. Gaining this attitude of samatva depends upon the recognition of Isvara as karma-phala-data, the giver of the fruits of all actions.

Isvara himself is in the form of the very world, the very creation. Therefore, every blade of grass is what it is – and it is Isvara.

When we analyze the creation, we don’t find it having any basis at all. Everything just reduces until all that we are left with is mere words, and they keep disappearing too, because when the object is gone, the name is also gone.

For each and every small action that we do, the appropriate result has to come which requires that all the laws must be operating properly.

George Bernard Show once remarked that the most intelligent person he had met in his life was

his tailor. When asked why he thought so he promptly answered, “Because he is the only one who takes fresh measurements every time I go to

him”

The self is not an object of perception; it is the subject who perceives. Nor is the self available for inference; it is the one who makes each inference. Since the self knowledge unfolded in the Upanishads is not based on perception or inference, it must be understood as revealed knowledge.

Men have lost the catholicity of religion. Lost the quintessence of spirituality. Religion today has boiled down to a strange fear, anxiety and hope towards an unknown dictator called God. Consequently, people waste all their holy feelings on bodies of cows, snakes, and pupil trees, on relics, crosses and crescents.

Bhagavan does not go about distributing success to someone today, something else tomorrow. It’s our own karma and we call it God. We can also see that the whole thing is Isvara. Every law is Isvara, and it is God, no doubt.

It is a matter for great regret that the young men and women of our Universities know very much less about the Gita and the principles of Hindu religion than the undergraduates of European Universities know about the Bible and the principles of the Christian faith.

That the spiritual man need not be a recluse, that union with divine life may be achieved and

maintained in the midst of worldly affairs, that the obstacles to the union lie, not outside us, but

within us, such is the central lesson of the Bhagavadgita.

Dr. Annie Besant

A mirror exposed under the sun enjoys the light of the sun and reflects the light of the sun “prathibhimba suryah.” This reflected sun is borrowed sunlight.

A karma-yogi is one who takes care of raga-dvesas, likes and dislikes by doing what is to be done with the proper attitude towards actions and their results.

When a potter has completed making his pots, the wheel of the potter still rotates for some time,

but is unable to manufacture pots. For a liberated soul, the wheel of life remains in motion, but his karma does not create any bondage for Him. His actions are called

actionless actions.

Swami Rama

There is only one Religion – the Religion of Love;

There is only one Caste – the Caste of Humanity;

There os only one Language – the Language is Heart;

There is only one God – HE is Omnipresent.

The beauty and grandeur of human activity is renunciation in action, not renunciation of

action. Renunciation of the highest order insists on performance of action.

To my knowledge, there is no book in the whole range of world’s literature so high above all as the Bhagavadgita, which is a treasure-house of

Dharma not only for Hindu but for all mankind.

Madan Mahan Malaviya

A person is a karma-yogi only for atma-jnana. Therefore, he or she continues to listen to the teaching and reflect upon it so that it will become a reality.

If a person does not know that he or she is ananda, the person is elated when desirable objects enter and dejected when undesirable objects enter. Whereas, for the wise person, there is no difference.

It is difficult to find happiness in one self, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.

Schopenhaver

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot

learn, unlearn and relearn…

Alvin Toffler

Failures are divided into two classes – those who thought and never did and

those who did and never thought.