Date: March 25, 2025
Part 1: Introduction
“…the colloquy at Kurukshetra will yet liberate humanity.”
~ Sri Aurobindo, CWSA, Vol. 12, p. 427
Srimad Bhagavad Gita is one of those rarest scriptures of the world in which lie the deepest and lasting solutions to most of our life’s day-to-day problems. This universal and timeless role of the Gita has been confirmed again and again by spiritual masters, philosophers, thinkers all across the world and in various times. The solution lies in sincerely practicing the teaching of the Bhagavad Gita.
The Bhagavad Gita brings to us the essence of all the experiences and teachings found in the Upanishads and Vedas. Just as the Upanishads mark a culmination or fruition of Vedic knowledge, the Gita is considered as another grand synthesis of all Upanishadic and Vedic knowledge.
सर्वोपनिषदो गावो दोग्धा गोपालनन्दनः।
पार्थो वत्सः सुधीर्भोक्ता दुग्धं गीतामृतं महत्॥
“The Upanishads are like the herd of cows, the son of the cowherd (Krishna) is the milker, Partha (Arjuna) is the suckling calf, and men of purified, subtle intellect the drinkers, enjoyers of the supreme nectar, the milk of the Gita.”
Reading Bhagavad Gita is a pilgrimage in itself, a deep immersion into the amṛtam, the sweet nectar that is the timeless and supreme teaching of this Divine Song. Speaking of the universal and temporal aspect of any scripture, Sri Aurobindo in his Essays on the Gita says,
“In the Gita there is very little that is merely local or temporal and its spirit is so large, profound and universal that even this little can easily be universalised without the sense of the teaching suffering any diminution or violation; rather by giving an ampler scope to it than belonged to the country and epoch, the teaching gains in depth, truth and power”.
~ CWSA, Vol. 19, p. 6
The entire Essays on the Gita was written by Sri Aurobindo with a silent mind, inspired from the realms above mind. Thus, in the light of Essays on the Gita, a study of the Bhagavad Gita becomes more complete, more integral. The important thing to remember, however, is that the study of any scripture, particularly the Gita is only the beginning. The real task is to live the teaching, to practice the teaching.
Studying the Gita
To truly study the Gita, or in fact to study any spiritual scripture, the devotee or seeker has to be a real adhikāri. An adhikāri is one who has developed the necessary capacity of having a subtle intellect and a purified understanding; only such a seeker can gain true benefit from the study of the scripture. The scripture is misunderstood in the hands of one who has not risen to this status of adhikāri. Sri Krishna himself warns Arjuna in the last chapter of the Gita when he says not to reveal the secret teaching of the Gita to anyone who has no inner aspiration. Tapasyā 1 and śraddhā2 are the two fundamental conditions for the seeker to raise himself to the position of a true adhikāri for the teaching of the Gita, or any spiritual scripture.
The right way to approach the study of Srimad Bhagavad Gita is with a sincere aspiration for light and guidance and for help in making our lives truly beautiful. A merely scholastic or academic study of the Gita may not reveal the essential and living message of the Gita, which humanity must seize for its perfection and its highest spiritual welfare.
“The Gita is Yoga, spiritual truth applied to external life and action—but it may be any action and not necessarily an action resembling that of the Gita. The principle of the spiritual consciousness applied to action has to be kept; the particular example used by the Gita may be treated as a thing belonging to a past world.”
~ Sri Aurobindo, CWSA, Vol. 29, p. 443
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This series will present a brief summary of the key teachings of each of the eighteen chapters of Bhagavad Gita, as per my limited understanding of this timeless Song of the Divine. I highlight the main ideas and interweave relevant passages and quotes from Sri Aurobindo’s Essays on the Gita, to bring greater coherence and clarity. Much of what is presented here comes from the detailed notes and reflections I had written many years back after completing an intensive study camp on Bhagavad Gita. I am deeply grateful for that experience.
The soulful experience of an immersion in the study of Bhagavad Gita combined with my love and adoration for Sri Aurobindo and Sri Krishna expressed itself in what will be shared here. With full acknowledgement that mere creating such a written work doesn’t make one adhikāri of the teaching of Gita in any real sense, I offer this humble effort of mine at the feet of Sri Krishna and Sri Aurobindo with a prayer and an aspiration that this becomes a step toward growing in śraddhā and aspiration for a true inner growth of consciousness.
Notes
- Religious austerity, bodily mortification, penance, severe meditation, special observance etc. are the usual meanings or translations we find when we look up the word tapasyā in modern dictionaries. In popular imagination, therefore, the word tapasyā has come to mean abandoning all activities and sitting in meditation under a tree in an isolated place, or performing some rigorous practice of austerity by tormenting oneself. Truth is something else.
Tapasyā is derived from the word ‘tapas’ which further has its root in the root-sound ‘tap’ meaning ‘to generate heat’, ‘to make warm’, ‘to shine up’, ‘to torment’ etc. Based on this root-sense, the word ‘tapas’ means warmth or heat or any kind of energism, askesis, austerity of conscious force acting upon itself or its object. In a higher sense, the self-awareness of the Absolute, the force of the consciousness, when concentrated on itself and energized for action, becomes tapas. It is the warmth of the fire of aspiration ever burning within every being. Doing tapasyā means to feel this warmth and to become aware of and intensify that fire of aspiration and act towards and energize oneself for achieving the highest goal of life. Tapasyā is inevitable for everyone to keep the spirit young. The entire life must become a tapasyā, a constant churning for a new birth of the soul into a higher consciousness. ↩︎ - The Sanskrit word śraddhā is usually translated into English as trust, faith, confidence, loyalty, respect, reverence etc. But śraddhā means something more. The word śraddhā is constituted of two components: śrat and dhā. The component dhā is a root sound which refers to putting, placing, bestowing, holding, having, causing. From this root we get the word dhātu which means a constituent element or essential ingredient which holds things together. The other component of the word śraddhā is śrat. This sound is not used in the classical Sanskrit as an independent word. But in several mantras of the Veda the word śrat is used independently as a word with proper meaning. Usually śrat in the Veda means truth. Sri Aurobindo has translated the word śrat as ‘whatever is true to one’s aspiration’.
Taking this meaning together with that of dhā we find that śraddhā means ‘to hold that power within which is true to our aspiration’. This is the true faith. When everything is in agreement with one’s aspiration then one is truly faithful. When things are not in agreement with one’s aspiration it shows that one is not faithful to himself, is not sincere. When all our movements inner or outer are turned towards the fulfilment of our aspiration only then we are truly faithful or śraddhāvān. Śraddhā is the ādhāra or base of all that we do as our sādhana. It is the force of śraddhā that saves us from all stumbles and errors and sustains us in the path of our sādhana. ↩︎