Class Summary for Feb 2, 2025 - Bhagavad Gita Chapter-9 Slokas- 18-20

 Summarized by Prasanna Kumar:

We started with prayanam and meditation
Then we went through the following verses.

Chapter 9 verse 18
gatirbhartaa prabhuh saakshi nivaasaha sharanam suhrita |
prabhavah pralayah sthaanam nidhaanam beejamavyayam || 18 ||
I am the outcome, nourisher, master, witness, abode, refuge and well-wisher. I am the origin, dissolution, sustenance, repository and the imperishable seed.
verse 19
tapāmyaham ahaṁ varṣhaṁ nigṛihṇāmyutsṛijāmi cha/
amṛitaṁ chaiva mṛityuśh cha sad asach chāham arjuna//19//

 I radiate heat as the sun, and I withhold, as well as send forth rain. I am immortality as well as death personified, O Arjun. I am the spirit as well as matter.

verse  20
trai-vidyā māṁ soma-pāḥ pūta-pāpā
yajñair iṣhṭvā svar-gatiṁ prārthayante/
te puṇyam āsādya surendra-lokam
aśhnanti divyān divi deva-bhogān//20//
Those who are inclined to the fruitive activity described in the Vedas worship Me through ritualistic sacrifices. Being purified from sin by drinking the Soma juice, which is the remnant of the yajñas, they seek to go to heaven. By virtue of their pious deeds, they go to the abode of Indra, the king of heaven, and enjoy the pleasures of the celestial gods.

Discussion:

 We don’t have to visit temple to experience Bhagwan. as the divine presence is considered to be everywhere, including within yourself; therefore, you can find and experience the divine around you regardless of location. It’s in every breath and every step we take.
We have to remember to thank God and we need to practice it till it becomes a habit. We should give our best  and accept the outcome though good or bad as a Prasad from God. A prasad could be sweet ( good outcome) or bitter ( bad outcome) but surrender the outcome and learn to accept it as a prasad from God .

• Shift in self not scene 

A person changing houses wont change his luck , but one has to change from within to change our destiny.

• Sincerity, purity, and clarity

This " represent a core spiritual ideal, emphasizing the importance of acting with genuine intention, maintaining a clean inner state, and having a clear understanding of one's actions and motivations while performing one's duty; essentially, doing everything with a pure heart and focused mind, without hidden agendas or self-serving desires. 

• Go beyond letter to spirit /passive good actions no good

Not just attend the class or hear Gita principles but Implement this in your day to day life and only when we practice what we learned or we embody them we are able to follow this path to God. We need to be an active participant to this process.

Imaginary emptiness cannot be fulfilled, we have to require a real and ultimate goal. An example is given of a man jumping to action and rushing to put out his car fire, then realizing he doesn't own a car. 

• Pursuits can be three types
• Selfish pursuits (desire based): lead us to hell
• Selfish but without desire : we will obtain the rewards and Reward is like nectar. 
• Unselfish pursuits (havan  - Yagna)

( the material below quoted from art of living org)

• Focus on your work, not on the results

“karmany evadhikaras te

ma phalesu kadachana..”

The most famous adage of the Bhagavad Gita is that we should focus on the task at hand, not on the outcomes - for we can only truly control our actions, while the results are a permutation of many different variables. Internalizing this concept in our day to day lives makes us more productive, as we can expend all of our energy into the task at hand without worrying about the results.

2. Be stoic
Noted Indian writer Khushwant Singh believed that the Bhagavad Gita’s philosophical essence was that of stoicism – adopting a mindset of being indifferent to the vicissitudes of fortune and to pleasure and pain. If we are to truly enjoy a joyous existence, we should not be too attached to labels or objects. Suffering comes from being obsessed with one’s success and failures. Being stoic frees us from the bondages of pain and suffering.
3. Cultivate empathy
Love is at the core of Bhagavad Gita’s message. One might think that because the Bhagavad Gita was delivered by Lord Krishna on a battlefield, it focuses only on the principles of duty and action. But the Gita is actually a treatise on life as a whole. Krishna’s call to Arjun to perform his duty is ‘Karma Yoga’ while the principles of love and devotion explained by the Lord form the essence of ‘Bhakti Yoga’. Lord Krishna tells Arjuna that a spiritually advanced person can understand both the happiness and the distress of others. Thus, empathy is a key step in aligning one’s mind with spiritual mastery. In our day to day lives we come across many different people, each with their own joys and sorrows. Cultivating empathy towards them sets us on a path of spiritual enlightenment and also helps to lessen the misery of people around us.

4. Don’t give in to gratification
‘ye hi samsparsha-ja bhoga
duhkha-yonaya eva te’
‘The pleasures that arise from contact between the senses and their objects are in truth the sources of all suffering.’
What often deviates us from our goals is the habit of sense gratification – doing things for the mere purpose of pleasuring one or more of our senses. It breaks our focus, wastes our energy and stops us from achieving our full potential. By applying this teaching of the Bhagavad Gita, we can make or day to day life more rewarding and productive.

Class Summary for Jan 26, 2025 - Bhagavad Gita Chapter-9 Slokas- 15-17

Summarized by Anand Santhanam:

Bhagavath Gita Chapter 9 Verse 15

Versa 14 explanation: When do you follow devotion, worship, all these are paths towards good. “I am not this, I am that”. In the light of new understanding, to burn the old stupidity is called as the “Jyana yagya. Here, when we burn our false notion using knowledge, this is called “Education”. As education comes, we give our childishness, then we become a cultured man. We may know all vedanta, and become eloquent speakers, there is no point, if we don’t burn up our old motions. Never enter spirituality, if you are not ready for change. 

Spoke 15 explanation as per certain other schools of thought:

 There are three levels of worship. First level of worship is “Self-level” worship. It refers to the one with the lord. We are workshopping the lord within you. Second, is the one who creates an image of the lord. The third, is the universal form of the lord. The brahman is everywhere and is an abstract concept.

Sankara-charya came in a time when there are a lot of buddhism. 

Ramanuja-charya focused on a blend of bhakti and jana as a solution. His guru was a shaivite. He came when there were lots of fights between shivites and vaishnavites. Vishistadvaita says, I am part or extension of the brahman.  

Madhva-charya focused only on Bhakti as a solution. 

How should I consider lord ?, is it one lord only? You follow whatever you want. You may consider it as one mass of consciousness. If it is hard to consider, then consider the davit bhaava. The rest will automatically come. You adore and give him good food. If you don’t even believe that, if you think the sanskaras, believe that the good is the people around you. Do social work and the people’s happiness is the god’s happiness. If so, consider that as good and continue in that direction. 

Verse 16 explanation.

Store: On my 20th birthday, my dad bought me a beautiful car. This is first car that came to US. The son jumps into the car and goes and crashes the car. The son was lying down in the carpet, who woke up from the dream. Now the question is, where is the car, father road, accident etc., everything is in my mind. Similarly, when we wake up to that consciousness you will see that everything is just ripples created in your mind. “Aham kratu” I am the elaborate. You will realize that everything is just the “waking” mind and you will only realize it when you wake up.

Verse 17 explanation 

The non-apprehensions of the reality gave wrong understanding. The only truth is the supreme conscience. The total vasanas in the mind is the iswara. I am the father of this entire universe. I am the mother, the protector, sustainer, and the destroyer. The dream in your dream world, you are the father. You are the mother. The mind sustains the dream. The dream is just a projection of the mind in the non-apprehension of the waking state. This is the thing to be known. In the objective world, everything is “knowledge of” the science. The greatest purifier where the vasanas are exhausted, is the representation of the “Om”. When the mind quietens, the god who was always there will appear before you for your understanding. This is the key thing to be known.

Class Summary for Jan 12, 2025 - Bhagavad Gita Chapter-9 ver 7-10 (contd.) and 15-17

Summarized  by  Rajesh

What is Chinmaya Mission to you?  
“MY UNFOLDMENT THROUGH STUDY OF SCRIPTURES & SEVA”
- we need to do Seva, otherwise the ‘little i’ keeps increasing
- we need to look for opportunities to doing consistent Seva
- meditation is part of Unfoldment
Replace ‘I’ve been doing’ with ‘Through the grace of God, I’ve been able to …”

Additional reading reference:

• Many Lives, Many Masters

• Same Soul, Many Bodies

• Mahabharata 

In 2026, Chinmaya Mission Tri-State Center is hosting the annual Mahasamidhi Camp at the Sheraton in Parsipanny, residential camp for 5 days (30July-4Aug26)

Recap of last class (24Nov24!)
Subjective Analysis - Identify and focus 

Story #1:  Nachiketa’s story
Yama comes late to receive Nachiketa at the entrance of Yamaloka.  For keeping his guest waiting, Yama gives him 3 boons.  Nachiketa asks for:

• For his family, he asks that when he returns, that his dad won’t think he is a ghost (slyly making sure that both he and his father are going to be ok)

• For the common good for everyone, welfare to society - this becomes Nachiketa’s Yagna

• For himself, he asks what is beyond death?  Yama tries to distract him with many things including rule over Yamaloka, but Nachiketa had single-pointed focus.

2 lessons:

• maintain single point of focus toward reaching Moksha

• but do this while doing our duties and our Dharma

Story #2
A young woman who wasn’t married till late in her life, is given advice to do penance.  She does that and she finds a groom and she gets married.
Then she feels sad that she doesn’t have kids and she follows advice to do further penance, resulting in kids
Then the kids don’t get married, so she gets the same advice about doing penance.  But this time, she says she doesn’t know what she wants and neither does anyone else.  She meets a Guru who asks her to meditate and that allows her to reach Moksha as she gives up on materialistic goals.

Ch9 - verses 15-17
Verse 15:  Others, engaging in the Yagna of cultivating knowledge, worship Me by many methods.  Some see Me as undifferentiated oneness that is non-different from them, while others see Me as separate from them. Still others worship Me in the infinite manifestations of My cosmic form.
In verse 15, Bhagavan says that whether path we believe in (like advaita, dvaita & Vishista Advaita), we can all reach Him.  Similar.y, when asked who are you in relation to Rama, Hanuman-ji says:

• in the physical sense, this body is Rama’s servant

• In the jiva sense, I am part of Rama

• In the Atma sense, we are the same

Verses 16 & 17:  It is I who am the Vedic ritual, I am the the sacrifice, and I am the oblation offered to the ancestors.  I am the medicinal herb, and I am the Vedic mantra.  I am the clarified butter, I am the fire and the act of offering.  Of this universe, I am the Father; I am also the Mother, the Sustainer, and the Grandsire.  I am the purifier, the goal of knowledge, the sacred syllable Om.  I am the Rig Veda, Sama Veda, and the Yajur Veda
Theme - Krishna is like Electricity saying that it is powering all the appliances

• Yagna of knowledge - Ignorance being offered as a sacrifice to gain the right knowledge of the Brahman

• You see Brahman in everything like you see your reflection in every reflecting surface

• Verse 16 -> pointer to Atman starts here

• Like GOLD saying all ornaments are ME; Cotton telling that all clothes are ME; Krishna is saying all of creation is ME

• FATHER = spirit; MOTHER = matter

• Like a child attracted and bound to the toys; we spiritual children are attached to materialistic thing around us

We stopped before we saw the videos.

Class Summary for Nov 17, 2024 - Bhagavad Gita Chapter-9 ver 7-10 (contd.) and 11-14

 

Compiled by Prasanna Nov 17 2024 PM

The class started off with our Omkar routine followed by prayers and Pranayama & meditation.

We did a recap from our last class on the below topics 

Concept of relation less relationship.

Example of Space & Air: Space is independent, Air is dependent on Space. What happens to the Air does not affect Space at all. The air can be hot or cold, Space is not concerned. Air can be moving or still, Space is unconcerned. Air could be polluted or clean, Space is unaffected.

We can also take the example of Film screen and the film that's being played. The film screen is untouched by the violence / comedy that's being played.

In the same way the actions and thoughts of beings do not affect the Substratum, Brahman. The superimposed beings do not affect Brahman at all.

State of deep sleep

According to Vedanta, states of deep sleep represent conditions of consciousness where experiences are suspended, akin to a union with the highest Self/brahman. These states, such as deep sleep, or trance (samadhi), involve a lack of duality perception due to the mind's inactivity. Although the Self remains present in these conditions, it does not display consciousness or awareness. This understanding highlights the nature of deep sleep as a profound state beyond ordinary perception. The individual is closer to Brahman in this state

We then moved on to the following topics

Yuga and Kalpa

A Kalpa consists of 1,000 Mahayugas, making it a significant measure of cosmic time. And there are four Yugas:

• Satya Yuga: The age of truth and righteousness, lasting 1,728,000 years.

• Treta Yuga: The age of virtue, lasting 1,296,000 years.

• Dvapara Yuga: The age of duality, lasting 864,000 years.

• Kali Yuga: The age of darkness and decline, lasting 432,000 years.

During a Kalpa, the process of creation (Srishti) unfolds, guided by the will of Brahma, who manifests the universe and all its inhabitants. This creative process is followed by periods of maintenance and eventual destruction (Pralaya), overseen by the deity Shiva.

 According to Vedic texts, the creation and destruction of the universe is a cyclic process which repeats itself forever. Each cycle starts with the birth and expansion (lifetime) of the universe which equals to 311.04 trillion years followed by its complete annihilation which also prevails for the same duration of 311.04 trillion years.

The cycle of creation and destruction is crucial in Hindu beliefs, teaching the transient nature of life:

• Brahma: The creator, who initiates the cycle of creation.

• Vishnu: The preserver, who maintains cosmic order during the Yugas.

• Shiva: The destroyer, who dissolves the universe at the end of a Kalpa, allowing for regeneration.

Pralaya, or dissolution, marks the end of a Kalpa, after which a new cycle of creation begins, demonstrating the eternal rhythm of existence.

Jeevatma Paramatma

We are just an instrument and the body of ours needs god to direct our actions, just like a pen by itself can’t write and is just an instrument in our hands. The Jivatma is the body of Paramatma: Paramatma is the soul of the Jivatma. The relationship between the Jivatma and Paramatma is similar to the relationship between the light and the source of light, namely, fire or sun. In one way, the light is a part of the fire or sun. 

Gita does indeed ask one to be balanced in one’s actions – that however is not indifference, but detachment. 

Such detachment ensures that our emotions don’t take over our judgement and become the sole basis of our actions. The Gita urges us to recognize that the emotions that come over us are not always our emotions. To the contrary, they frequently are default emotional responses to external stimuli that if we observe with indifference will pass. Detachment is about letting go of attachment for the sake of a possibly improved situation, whereas indifference often implies apathy or a don't care attitude.

Think of ourselves as the uncut diamond and with this knowledge we should not get upset by setbacks and adversity. Just like a diamond only shines after undergoing the painful cuts to become a shiny diamond from an uncut one. It's OK to be sad and down but we are capable of getting up, taking the next step and moving on.

 We watched a couple of videos of Gurudev on verse 11 and 12 and here is the  meaning.:

Gita  9.11: 

avajānanti māṁ mūḍhā mānuṣhīṁ tanum āśhritam

paraṁ bhāvam ajānanto mama bhūta-maheśhvaram

When I descend in My personal form deluded persons are unable to recognize Me. They do not know the divinity of My personality, as the Supreme Lord of all beings.

Gita 9.12:

moghāśhā mogha-karmāṇo mogha-jñānā vichetasaḥ

rākṣhasīm āsurīṁ chaiva prakṛitiṁ mohinīṁ śhritāḥ

 With futile hopes, futile actions and futile knowledge, the ignorant people with their minds distracted, only adopt the demoniac, monstrous and delusive nature.

Class Summary for Nov 10, 2024 - Bhagavad Gita Chapter-9 ver 7-10

Summary by Srii

The class started off with our Omkar routine followed by prayers and Pranayama & meditation.

We did a recap from our last class of verses 3,4 and 5 of Chapter 9.

We watched a couple of videos of Gurudev on verse 5 and 6 and discussed the explanation & meaning.

Message and Key Pointers from the videos:

Continuing the strain of His arguments in the previous stanza here He says, “NOR DO THINGS EXIST IN ME,” although “I DWELL NOT IN THEM.” Now here he says that in the Infinite, never has the finite ever risen!

The Self “BRINGS FORTH AND SUPPORTS ALL BEINGS” just as the ocean gives birth to, supports and nourishes all the waves in it. “AND YET,” says Krishna “I, MYSELF NEVER DWELL IN THEM.” Just in the same way the ocean can cry that “I am never the waves.” The mud is the womb of all pots, the sustainer of their shapes, the nourisher of their forms, and yet, none of the pots, nor all the pots put together, can ever define or give a total knowledge of the mud.

Concept of relation less relationship.

Example of Space & Air: Space is in the position of a substratum to Air. The air is superimposed on Space. Space is independent, Air is dependent on Space. What happens to the Air does not affect Space at all. The air can be hot or cold, Space is not concerned. Air can be moving or still, Space is unconcerned. Air could be polluted or clean, Space is unaffected.

In the same way the actions and thoughts of beings does not affect the Substratum, Brahman. The superimposed beings do not affect Brahman at all.

Lord sys O ARJUNA, that the winds curl, swirl and whirl around everywhere in space; the space supports and envelopes them everywhere, and yet, they do not ever limit the space.

 This beautiful example, when meditated upon by any seeker, if he has at least an average amount of intellectual comprehension, will enable him to define, in his own mind, the right relationship that exists between the Self and the non-Self. The Real supports the unreal; the unreal seemingly lives… through its history of misery and sorrows, fleeting joys and passing pleasures… in the Real and yet, the unreal can never condition the Real.

When the wind is moving, the space need never move. None of the qualities of the wind is the quality of the space (Akasha). Compared with the outstretching Infinite space, in which the universes keep on revolving, at a speed measured in light years, the atmospheric disturbances are only up to the height of a few miles off the surface of the globe.

In the infinite vastness of the Real, the arena of disturbances caused by Its flirtations with Its own assumed self-ignorance, is only a negligible area… and even there, the relationship between the false and the Real is the relationship between the fickle breeze and the Infinite space.

We then recited the verses 7 8,9 and 10 :

Subjective Analysis:

The underlying message is about how God is not responsible for actions performed by beings, even though no action can take place without God's presence: 

 

• Verse 7: Explains that God manifests beings again at the beginning of each creation 

When a cosmic cycle ends, all living beings dissolve into Krishna's original material energy, and at the start of a new creation, he again manifests them according to their inherent nature 

• Verse 8: Explains that God generates beings in accordance with their natures 

Krishna emphasizes that he is the presiding power over this material energy, generating diverse forms of life repeatedly through this energy. 

• Verse 10: Explains that God does not directly create life forms, but instead uses His energies and appointed souls to do so 

Explains that the material world operates under Krishna's direction, with various energies and souls performing their roles as per his will, similar to how a government functions through its appointed official

Key Points:

•  Cosmic cycle:The verses allude to the concept of "Kalpa" - a cosmic cycle where creation, preservation, and destruction occur repeatedly.  
• Non-duality: Krishna is portrayed as the ultimate reality behind all manifestations yet remains distinct from them. 
• Divine play:The idea of Krishna "playing" with creation, signifying his creative power while maintaining a detached perspective.

Verses 7-10 essentially explain that Krishna, as the supreme being, is the source of all creation, and at the end of a cosmic cycle, everything merges back into his primordial energy, only to be manifested again during the next cycle of creation; highlighting that he is the underlying force behind the entire universe, overseeing its continuous cycle of creation, preservation, and dissolution, without directly engaging in the act of creation himself, but through his divine energy