1. 1. Bhagavad-Gita The Divine Song: Krishnas Counsel at War Manish Paliwal Department of Mechanical Engineering The College of New Jersey Close Reading Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 1 / 35
2. 2. The Divine Song Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 2 / 35
3. 3. Bhagavad-Gita What is it? Part of the scriptural trinity of Sanatana Dharma (loosely translated as Eternal Religion), commonly known as Hinduism. Deals with metaphysical science Answers two fundamental questions: Who am I? How can I lead a happy and peaceful life in this world of dualities? Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 3 / 35
4. 4. The Plot Timeline and Prime Characters A king had two sons, Dhritarashtra and Pandu. Dhritarashtra was born blind, therefore, Pandu inherited the kingdom. Paadu had ve sons (Paandavas). Dhritarashtra had one hundred sons (Kauravas). Duryodhana was the eldest of the Kauravas. Pandu died and the Paandavas were young at the time. Duryodhana (the eldest Kaurava) wanted the entire kingdom for himself. He unlawfully took possession of the entire kingdom of the Paandavas and refused to give back even an acre of land without a war. All mediation failed. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 4 / 35
5. 5. Arjunas dilemma The big war of Mahabharata was thus inevitable! Choice 1: Fight and kill his revered teachers, friends, relatives, and many innocent warriors Choice 2: Run away from the battleeld in the name of peace and nonviolence. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 5 / 35
6. 6. Krishna To dispel Arjuns dilemma, the Bhagavad Gita was spoken about 5000 years ago in the midst of the battleeld. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 6 / 35
7. 7. The Gita begins Double frame narration: Narrated to the blind king, father of Kauravas, by his charioteer, Sanjaya, as an eyewitness war report. Sanjaya, tell me what my sons and the sons of Pandu did when they met, wanting to battle on the eld of Kuru, on the eld of sacred duty? 1.1 Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 7 / 35
8. 8. Arjuna inspects the battleeld Dejected, lled with strange pity, he said this: Oh Krishna, I see my kinsmen gathered here, wanting war. My limbs sink, my mouth is parched, my body trembles, the hair bristles on my esh. The magic bow slips from my hand, my skin burns, I cannot stand still, my mind reels. (1.28-30) Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 8 / 35
9. 9. J. Robert Oppenheimer American physicist and director of the Manhattan Project, learned Sanskrit in 1933 and read the Bhagavad Gita in the original, citing it later as one of the most inuential books to shape his philosophy of life. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 9 / 35
10. 10. J. Robert Oppenheimer: I have become Death, destroyer of the world Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 10 / 35
11. 11. I shall NOT ght! 1.47 Saying this in the time of war, Arjuna slumped into the chariot and laid down his bow and arrows, his mind tormented by grief. 2.9 Arjuna told this to Krishna- then saying, I shall not ght, he fell silent. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 11 / 35
12. 12. Why wouldnt wise lament for the living or for the dead? 2.11 While speaking learned words, you are mourning for what is not worthy of grief. Those who are wise lament neither for the living nor for the dead. 2.13 Just as the embodied Self enters childhood, youth, and old age, so does it enters another body. This does not confound a steadfast man. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 12 / 35
13. 13. 2.22 As a man discards worn-out clothes to put on new and dierent ones, so the embodied self discards its worn-out bodies to take on the other new ones. 2.28 Creatures are unmanifest in origin, manifest in the midst of life, and unmanifest again in the end. Since this is so, why do you lament? Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 13 / 35
14. 14. Krishna reminds Arjuna his duty as a warrior. 2.38 Do thou ght for the sake of ghting, without considering happiness or distress, loss or gain, victory or defeat and by so doing you shall never incur sin. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 14 / 35
15. 15. What is Karma Yoga? Do not crave for the fruits of your actions; Detachment towards actions and its fruits. 2.47 You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty. 2.48 Perform your duty equipoised, O Arjuna, abandoning all attachment to success or failure. Such equanimity is called yoga. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 15 / 35
16. 16. 2.50 A man engaged in karma-yoga rids himself of both good and bad actions even in this life. Therefore strive for yoga, which is the art of all work. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 16 / 35
17. 17. What are the signs of a self-realized person? 2.56 One who is not disturbed in mind even amidst the miseries or elated when there is happiness, and who is free from attachment, fear and anger, is called a sage of steady mind. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 17 / 35
18. 18. What are the dangers of unrestrained senses? 2.62 Brooding about sensuous objects makes attachment to them grow; from attachment desire arises, from desire anger is born 2.63 From anger comes confusion; from confusion memory lapses; from broken memory understanding is lost; from loss of understanding, he is ruined Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 18 / 35
19. 19. How to attain peace and happiness through sense control and knowledge? 2.67 As a strong wind sweeps away a boat on the water, even one of the roaming senses on which the mind focuses can carry away a mans intelligence. 2.70 A person who is not disturbed by the incessant ow of desires that enter like rivers into the ocean, which is ever being lled but is always still can alone achieve peace, and not the man who strives to satisfy such desires. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 19 / 35
20. 20. Why should one selessly serve others? 3.7 When he controls his senses with his mind and engages in karma-yoga (disciplined seless action without attachment), he is by far superior. 3.9 Actions imprisons the world unless it is done as sacrice freed from attachment, Arjuna, perform action as sacrice. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 20 / 35
21. 21. 3.16 One who fails to keep the wheel of creation in motion by performing seless service to others Living only for the satisfaction of the senses such a person lives in vain. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 21 / 35
22. 22. Would you take credit for your work? 3.27 Actions are all eected by the qualities of nature but deluded by individuality the self thinks, I am the doer. 3.30 Surrender all your actions to God, with full knowledge of the Self without desires for prot, and possessiveness, and free from mental grief, ght your battle. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 22 / 35
23. 23. What are the two stumbling blocks in the path of perfection? 3.34 Attraction and hatred are poised in the object of every sense experience; a man must not fall prey to these two brigands lurking into his path! Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 23 / 35
24. 24. What makes a person commit evil? 3.37 It is lust only, Arjuna, arising from the natures mode of passion and later transformed into anger, know it here as enemy, voracious and very evil. 3.38 As re is obscured by smoke and a mirror by dirt, as the embryo is veiled by its caul, so is knowledge covered by lust. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 24 / 35
25. 25. 3.39 Knowledge is obscured by the wise mans eternal enemy which takes form of desire or lust an insatiable re, Arjuna! 3.40 The senses, the mind, and intellect are said to be the abode of lust; with these it deludes a person by veiling the Self-knowledge. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 25 / 35
26. 26. How to control lust? Puried intellect steadies the mind which controls the actions. 3.43 Knowing the Self beyond senses, mind, and intelligence steady the mind by puried spiritual intellect and thus, by spiritual strength, - O Arjuna. conquer this insatiable enemy known as lust. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 26 / 35
27. 27. Summary Yoga of Action Discharge your duties without the thought of fruit as a seless service. Perform your duty with equanimity towards failure and success. Yoga of Knowledge Every being is forced to act by the qualities of nature. You are not the doer. Lust, greed, and anger are the enemies as they ruin the judgment. Conquer them! Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 27 / 35
28. 28. Key concepts Yoga: How to achieve union (yoga) with the Supreme Being? Karma Yoga or the Path of Action Jnana Yoga or the Path of Knowledge Raja Yoga or the Path of Meditation Bhakti Yoga or the Path of Devotion Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 28 / 35
29. 29. Bhagavad-Gita Five thousand years have passed ... ... and it has inuenced millions and millions. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 29 / 35
30. 30. Aldous Huxley the most systematic statement of spiritual evolution. its enduring value is to all of humanity. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 30 / 35
31. 31. A. Einstein When I read the Bhagavad-Gita and reect about how God created this universe everything else seems so superuous. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 31 / 35
32. 32. Henry David Thoreau In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 32 / 35
33. 33. Hermann Hesse the marvel of the Bhagavad-Gita is its truly beautiful revelation of lifes wisdom Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 33 / 35
34. 34. Ralph Waldo Emerson I owed a magnicent day to the Bhagavad-Gita. It was as if an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent,the voice of an old intelligence which in another age and climate had pondered and thus disposed of the same questions which exercise us. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 34 / 35
35. 35. Mahatma Gandhi When doubts haunt me, when disappointments stare me in the face, and I see not one ray of hope on the horizon, I turn to Bhagavad-Gita and nd a verse to comfort me; and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow. Those who meditate on the Gita will derive fresh joy and new meanings from it every day. Paliwal (TCNJ) Gita 35 / 35