Snakes and snake festival

Nagpanchami is a very important Hindu festival and is celebrated on the fifth day of the moonlit-fortnight in the month of July /August. This is the time when serpents invariably come out of their holes that get inundated with rain-water to seek shelter in gardens and many times in houses. It is celebrated with more fervour especially in the rural areas. On that day women and children visit snake-pits and worship the snakes residing there by performing invocative prayer and offering milk and honey to the snakes. In urban areas where snake pits are rare, clay images of the deity are worshipped. Even snake-charmers carry captive snakes from door to door to enable city house-wives to worship the deity.

Right from the beginning of mankind, Sun and Snake have been invoked with prayers and ritual worship in most of the countries. In India even before the Vedic times, the tradition of snake-worship was in vogue.

In ancient India, there lived a clan by the name of "NAGAS" whose culture was highly developed. The Indus Valley civilization of 3000 B.C. gives ample proof of the popularity of snake-worship amongst the Nagas before the Aryans came. After the Naga culture got incorporated into Hinduism, the Indo-Aryans themselves accepted many of the snake deities of the Nagas in their pantheon and some of them even enjoyed a pride of place in the Puranic Hinduism. The prominent Cobra snakes mentioned in the Puranas are Anant, Vasuki, Shesh, Padma, Kanwal, Karkotak, Kalia, Aswatar, Takshak, Sankhpal, Dhritarashtra and Pingal.

The thousand-headed Sheshnag who symbolises Eternity, is the couch of Lord Vishnu. It is here that the Lord reclines between the time of the dissolution of one Universe and creation of another. Hindus believe in the immortality of the snake because of its habit of sloughing its skin. As such Eternity in Hinduism is often represented by a serpent eating its own tail.

It is an age-old religious belief that serpents are loved and blessed by Lord Shiva. May be that’s the reason Shiva always wears them as ornamentation around his neck. Most of the festivals that fall in the month of July/Aug are celebrated in honour of Lord Shiva. Along with Him Snakes too are worshipped. Live cobras or their pictures are revered and religious rights are performed to seek their good will.

Varna System

It is difficult to trace out when the caste system entered into the life of Hindus and how and why there occurred confusion between the Varna System and the caste creation. In fact in the Vedic era, there existed no such division and discrimination among the people.

In the later Vedic period, the Varna system showed its signs of appearance with the classification of Brahmin. The word Brahmin was not used out of any sense of respect. Devas were called kavi and also Brahman but not as Brahmin. The word Brahmin was out of place in the composition of Kavis. They came to be related to rituals and were called the Vedagya Brahmins. It was they who first created distinction in their ranks for financial gains in performance of rituals. This discrimination was based on professional competition. The Kavis began to challenge this discrimination since its very inception. They voiced their grave concern over it.

In the beginning of Rg Veda period, the word Brahman was used but it did not indicate any Varna. Then the word Rajanya followed it. The use of this word Rajanya indicates that even in the later Vedic period the word Kshatriya was not known. The word Rajanya was used in context of a divine power or the power of governance of the king or any other power. During those days, there existed two types of political orders. One based on Kingship and based on power of ganas or other type of peoples rule. Rajanya was used for kings and other ruling powers or even for a powerful person. It was never used in context of caste.

It can therefore be safely concluded that the caste was never known to exist in the Vedic era.

(to be contd)

OM or AUM

OM is the symbol of essence of Hinduism. It denotes oneness with the Supreme, the amalgamation of the physical being with the spiritual. It is the most holy syllable, the first sound of the Almighty - the sound from which materializes each and every other sound, be it of music or of language.

In the Upanishads this sacrosanct syllable appears as a mystic sound, regarded by scriptures as the very basis of every other sacred mantra. It is the sound not only of beginning but also of termination. The past, present and future are all included in this one sound. The syllable OM also represents the TRIMURTI (triad) of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.

Shiva's drum produced this sound and because of it came the notes of the octave, for ex., SA, RI, GA, MA, PA, DHA, NI. By this sound Shiva created and recreated the universe. OM is also the sound form of Atman.

The Upanishads state that everything, existent and non- existent, can be comprehended by uttering the sacred syllable of OM. Meditation on OM gratifies every need and ultimately leads to salvation. Nearly all the prayers and recitals of sacred passages are prefixed by the sound of OM.

Musically, it is also held that the term OM or AUM is made up by three base notes ' A ' 'U' 'M' or the basic 'SA' 'PA' of the fundamental scale and again Sa (the base note) of the immediately higher scale. When says these notes in continuity, all the basic notes from SA to NI are heard. Similarly when one pronounces AUM correctly, all the basic sounds also echo. It is the traditional way of clearing all the obstacles in the vocal chord to make one chant the hymns correctly. Their unison makes one not only sound resonating but also is essential for chanting a Mantra (Incantation) properly. All the Vedic Mantras have 'OM' or' AUM' as the first word.

Gita XIII—The Individual self

Reality is, in its own nature, infinite, absolute, untrammeled, inalienably possessed of its own unity and bliss. The cosmic process has assumed five stages which are matter (anna), life (prana), mind (manas), intelligence (vijnana) and bliss (ananda). There is an inner direction given to things by reason of their participation in the creative onrush of life. The human being is at the fourth stage which is intelligence or vijnana. He is aware of the universal reality which is operating in the whole scheme. He seems to know matter, life and mind. He has mastered, to a large extent, the material world, the vital existence and even obscure workings of mentality but has not yet become completely illumined consciousness.

The divine dwells in the inmost being of man and cannot be extinguished. It is the inner light, the concealed witness, that which endures and is imperishable from birth to birth, untouched by death, decay or corruption. It is the principle of the jiva, the psychic person which changes and grows from life to life and when the ego is completely harmonized by the Divine, it ascends into spiritual existence which is its destiny and until this happens it travels between birth and death.

Gita XII--- Brahmanda or Cosmic Egg

Cosmic egg or Brahmanda includes within itself the totality of manifested being. All later developments are contained within it in a germinal form. It contains the past, the present and the future. Arjuna sees the whole world form, visvarupa, in one vast shape. He sees the form of the divine bursting the very bounds of existence, filling the whole sky and the universe, worlds coursing through it like the cataracts.

God’s real being is veiled by the play of prakriti and its modes. The world is said to be deceptive as God hides Himself behind His creation. The world is not a deception but the occasion for it. The world and its changes constitute the self-concealment of God or obscuring of the creator by His creation. Man is inclined to turn towards the objects of the world instead of directing his mind to the creator. God seems to be a great deceiver as He creates the world and its sense objects and turns our senses outward. The proneness to self-deception lies in the desire for the things of sense which actually leads man away from God. The world or objectified nature or samsara is fallen, enslaved, alienated and it is full of suffering, as alienation from inward being is suffering.

This relative unreality of the world is confirmed by the self-contradictory nature of the process of becoming. There is a struggle of opposites in the world of experience, and the real is above all opposites.

Gita XI: Being and Non-being

The Spirit which transcends all dualities, when looked at from the cosmic end becomes sundered into the transcendental subject facing the transcendental object. Subject and object are the two poles of the one Reality. They are not unrelated. The principle of objectivity, mulaprakriti, the unmanifested (avyakta) potentiality of all existence is of the very nature of the creative Logos, Ishvara. The eternal “I” confronts the pseudo-eternal “not-I.” As the “not-I” Prakriti (nature), is a reflection of the Self, it is subordinate to the Self. When the element of negation is introduced to the Absolute, its inwardness is unfolded in the process of becoming. The original unity becomes pregnant with the whole course of the world.

Cosmic process is the interaction between the two principles of being and non-being. God is the upper limit with the complete control of non-being and matter or prakriti, is the lower limit of the being. The Gita does not uphold a metaphysical dualism; for the principle of non-being is dependent on being. Non-being is a necessary moment in reality for the unfolding of the Supreme. If the world is what it is, it is because of the stress. The world of time and change is ever striving to reach perfection. Non-being which is responsible for the imperfections is a necessary element in the world. Only because of this, the ideas of God are actualized. The divine forms and matter belong to the one spiritual whole. When it is lifted into incorruption, when it becomes completely illuminated, the purpose of the supreme is realized and the world is restored to its origin in pure Being, above all distinctions.

Why is there non-being? Why is there the fall or the precipitation of from absolute being to becoming? Why is the world a perpetual strife between being and non-being? Absolute being is behind and beyond the world and in the world; He is also the Supreme Living God, loving the world and redeeming it by His Grace. WE cannot account for the world but can only construe its nature, which is strife between being and non-being, in the process of becoming. Pure being is above the world and pure non-being is below the lowest existent. If we go lower still, it is absolute nothing, it is absolute non-entity. In the world of true becoming, samsara, we have the conflict between the two principles of being and non-being.

Gita X: Nirguna (above quality) and Acintya (inconceivable)

If the fundamental form of the Supreme is nirguna, beyond quality and acintya, inconceivable, the world is an appearance which cannot be logically related to the Absolute. In the unalterable eternity of Brahman, all the moves and evolves is founded. They exist by It, they cannot be without It, though it causes nothing, does nothing, determines nothing. While the world is dependent on Brahman, Brahman is not dependant on the world. This one sided dependence and the logical inconceivability of the relation between the Ultimate Reality and the world are brought out by the word, “maya.”

Maya does not imply that the world is an illusion or is non-existent absolutely. It is delimitation distinct from the unmeasured and immeasurable. By why is there this delimitation? We cannot answer this at empirical level. In this journey, we have embarked on, it may be revealed to us or maybe not. It solely depends on us.

In every religion, the Supreme Reality is conceived as infinitely above our time order, with its beginning and end, its movement and fluctuations. God, in the Christian religion, is represented as without variableness or shadow of turning. If this were all, there would be an absolute division between the Divine life and this pluralistic world, which would make all communions between the two impossible. If the Supreme Reality were unique, passive and immobile, there would be no room for time, for movement, for history. Time, with its processes of change and succession, would become a mere appearance. But God is living principle, a consuming fire. It is not question of either an Absolute with an apparent multiplicity or a living God working in this pluralistic universe. The Supreme is both this and that; Eternity does not mean the denial of time or history. It is the transfiguration of time. Time derives from eternity and finds fulfillment in it. In the Bhagavad-Gita, there is no antithesis between eternity and time. Krishna unites the eternal and historical. The temporal movement is related to the inmost depths of eternity.

Gita IX: God, the goal to God, the guide

According to the Bhagavadgita,”at midnight, in the thickest darkness, the Dweller in every heart revealed Himself in the divine Devaki (she is the mother of Krishna. He is said to be born of Vasudeva and Devaki) for the Lord is self hidden in the hearts of all beings.” The glorious radiance arises from the blackest of black nights. In mysteries and revelations, night is rich. The presence of night does not make the existence of light less real. But for night, there can be never human consciousness of light. Birth of Krishna in the darkest of stormy night is manifestation of redemption of Humanity. The incarnation of Krishna is not much of conversion of Godhead into flesh as of taking up manhood into God.

In Gita, Krishna, as teacher guides his pupil, Arjuna to attain the status that He has Himself attained. Arjuna has not yet received the saving truth. He is fighting with the forces of darkness, falsehood, limitations and mortality which bar the way to the higher world. When his whole world seems to have fallen apart, when he is unaware of law of action, he takes refuge in his higher self, typified by Krishna, the jagadguru, the world teacher, and appeals for the grace of enlightenment.

Every individual is a pupil, an aspirant of perfection, a seeker of God and if he seeks earnestly, with faith, God the goal, becomes God the guide. It must be mentioned here that so far as validity of teachings in the Gita is concerned, the realities of spirit are the same now as they were thousands of year ago and difference of race and nationality do not affect them. The essential thing is truth or significance.

Gita VIII---Creation and Incarnation

Creation and incarnation, both belong to the world of manifestation and not to the absolute spirit.

If the Infinite God is manifested in finite existence throughout time, then its special manifestation at one given moment by which nature is but the free fulfillment of that same movement by which the divine plenitude freely fulfills itself and inclines towards the finite.-God is present in the creatures by essence, presence, power. The relation between the absolute, infinite, self-existent and immutable and finite human individual who is enmeshed in the temporal order is unimaginably intimate though difficult to define and explain. Once God has granted us free will, He does not stand aside leaving us to make or unmake ourselves. Whenever by abuse of freedom unrighteousness increases and the world get stuck in a rut, He creates Himself to lift the world from out of its rut and set it on new tracks. Out of his love He is born again and again to renew the work of creation on a higher plane.

The Supreme who is ever ready to protect the worlds has four forms. One of them dwell on earth practicing penance; the second keeps watch over the erring humanity; the third is engaged in activity in the world of men, and the fourth is plunged in the slumber of a thousand years. The Hindu tradition makes out that the avatars are not confined to human level. The presence of pain and imperfection is traced not to man’s rebellious will but to a disharmony between the creative purpose of God and the actual world. The Gita points out that there is a Divine Creator who imposes His forms on the abysmal void. Prakriti (nature) is the raw material, the chaos out of which order is to be evolved, and a night which is to be illumined.

If God is looked upon as saviour of man, He must manifest Himself, whenever the forces of evil threaten to destroy human values. An avatar is a descent of God into man ant ascent of man into God, which is the case with the liberated soul. Though the Gita accepts the belief in avatar as the Divine limiting Himself for some purpose on earth, possessing in His limited form the fullness of knowledge, it also lays stress on the eternal avatar, the GOD in man, the Divine consciousness always present in the human being. Krishna’s avatar is an illustration of the revelation of the spirit in us, the Divine hidden in gloom.

Gita VII...Krishna, the teacher

Krishna plays an important part in the story of Mahabharata where he is presented as the friend of Arjuna. He preaches the virtues of austerity, charity, uprightness, non-violence and truthfulness. The book is called Bhagavad-Gita because Krishna is known as the Bhagavan (GOD). Gita was taught by Krishna when during the fight between the Kauravas and Pandavas, both the armies had got ready for war and Arjuna had become depressed.

In the Gita, Krishna is identified with Supreme Lord, the unity that lies behind the manifold universe, the changeless truth behind all appearances, transcendent over all and immanent in all. Krishna is called Paramatman which implies transcendence; the essential life of all.

The representation of an individual identical with the universe self is a very familiar concept in Hinduism. In the Upanishads, the fully awakened soul merges with the Absolute One. In the Gita, Krishna says, “delivered from passion, fear and anger, absorbed in me, taking refuge in me, many purified by the austerity of wisdom have attained to my state of being.”

The ego holds something other than, to which it should abandon itself. In this abandonment, one can find true liberation of the soul. A liberated soul uses its body as a vehicle for manifestation of the eternal. The divinity claimed by Krishna is the common reward of all those who seek spirituality. Krishna is everywhere and in each one of us, as ready to speak to us now as ever was anyone else. He is not a bygone personality but the indwelling spirit, an object for our spiritual awakening.

God is never born in the ordinary sense. Processes of birth and reincarnation which imply limitations do not apply to him. When the lord is said to manifest himself at a particular time, particular occasion, it means that it takes place with reference to finite being. God is born for the protection of the good, the destruction of the evil and the upholding the righteousness.

Krishna is an incarnation or descent of the Divine into the human form. Krishna is human embodiment of Vishnu. The assumption of the human nature by the Divine Reality, like the creation of the world, does not take away from or add to the integrity of the Divine.

Gita VI...Trinity----Creator, Preserver and Destroyer

The divine pattern and potential matter, both of which derived are from GOD; who is the beginning, the middle and the end, are Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.

God with creative ideas is Brahma, and who pours out his love and patience is Vishnu. When the conceptual becomes cosmic, God is represented by Shiva. Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva are fundamentally one though conceived in a threefold manner.

Vishnu is the internal controller who pervades the whole universe. He gathers to himself in an ever increasing measure, the position and dignity of external supreme. Krsna, the teacher of GITA, becomes identified with Vishnu, the ancient lord of the sun, and Narayana, an ancient God of cosmic character and the goal.

The real is the supracosmic, eternal, space less Brahman who supports this cosmic manifestation in space and time. He is the universal spirit, paramatman, who ensouls the cosmic forms and movements. He fills our being, illumines our understanding and sets in motion its hidden springs.

Though God controls it, he too has the element of negativity or Maya. He puts forth his active nature and controls the souls who work out their destinies along lines determined by their own natures. God is impersonal Absolute as well as the immanent will; He is uncaused cause, the unmoved mover. The boundless universe in an endless space and time rests in Him and not Him in it.

Gita V...All pervading Supreme God

For the supreme, it can be said, “thou art the woman; the man; the youth; the maiden. Thou face all directions." He is not visible; He can only be known with the heart; the mind. Those who know him this way become immortal. He is the Universal God who Himself is the Universe which He includes within His own self. He is the light within us. He is the Supreme Being whose shadow is life and death.

The Supreme is Immutable and the Unthinkable. He is the source of all that is, He is himself immovable. The Eternal Reality not only supports His existence but also is the active power is the world. God is both transcendent, dwelling in light, inaccessible, yet "more intimate to the soul than the soul itself. The Supreme is at once the transcendental, the cosmic and the individual reality. In its transcendental aspect, it is pure self, unaffected by any action or experience, detached, unconcerned. In its dynamic aspect, it not only supports but governs the whole cosmic actions and this very Self which is one, all in all, above all; is present in all individuals.

If the universe consists of thinking individuals, who can be influenced but not controlled, for God is not a dictator, conflict is inevitable. The world consists of free spirits meaning that evil is possible and probable. One cannot seek truth, beauty and goodness if there is no evil, error or ugliness.

Without negativism, there can never be positivism. For the Gita, the world is scene of an active struggle between good and evil. As God is completely good, His love is boundless, He is concerned about the suffering of the world. God is omnipotent as there are no external limits to his power. The social nature of the world is not imposed on God, but is willed by Him. The law of Karma does not limit the omnipotence of God. The reign of law is the mind and will of God and cannot be regarded as a limitation of His power.

The emphasis of the Gita is on the Supreme as a God who is close to us at a personal level. He resides in everyone's heart, God stirs our heart, grants our prayers; He is the source and sustainer of values. We can seek Him on a personal level only by our faith, worship and prayers.

He is responsible for creation, preservation and dissolution of the universe. He has both higher and lower values. The living represents the higher and material medium, the lower. God is responsible for the ideal plan and the concrete medium through which the ideal becomes actual, the conceptual, the cosmic. God is at the same time, wisdom, love and perfection.

Gita Update

With a busy schedule, I haven't been able to do my Gita analysis. Yes, I do read it every day becos it is what is needed to sustain me.

Back!

I shd be back with a BANG! My cast is off. Undergoing physiotherapy.

Should post in few more days! Please do chk this space!

will be back in aug

i have dislocated my right elbow. hence difficult to type and post anything long. sorry. i will be back for my gita analysis in aug.

Gita IV...Ultimate Reality

The Gita does not give any arguments in support of its metaphysical position. The Upanishads affirm the reality of a Supreme Brahman, one without a second, without attributes or determinations, who is identical with deepest self of man. Spiritual experience centres around a sovereign unity which overcomes the duality between the known and the unknowing. The inability to conceptualise and experience leads to such description as identity, pure and simple. Brahman, the subsistent simplicity is its own object in an intuition which is its very being. It is a pure subject whose existence cannot be ejected into external or objective world.

Brahman cannot be described. Silence can be the only way to it. One of the Upanishad says: “Where everything indeed has become the self itself, whom and by what should one think? By what should he be known, the universal knower?” The duality between knowing and knowable is characteristic only then discursive thought is transcended. The eternal one is so infinitely real that we dare not even give It the name of One since oneness is an idea derived from worldly experience. We speak of It as the non-dual, advaita, that which is known when all dualities are resolved in the Supreme Identity. According to Bhagavad-Gita, The supreme is said to be “unmanifest, unthinkable and unchanging.” “Neither existent nor non-existent.” Contradictory products are attributed to indicate the inapplicability of empirical determinations. “It does move yet it moves. It is far away yet it is near.” The twofold nature of the supreme as being and as becoming has been brought out by these predicates. He is para or transcendent and apara or immanent, both inside and outside the world.

The Supreme is that “from which these beings are born, that by which they live and that into which, while departing, they enter.” According to the Vedas “He is the God who is on fire, in water, who pervades the entire universe; He who is in plants, in trees, to Him we make our obeisance again and again.” “Who would have exerted, who would have lived, if this Supreme bliss had not been in the heaven?” “He, who is one and without any colour, by the manifold wielding of His power, ordains many colours with a concealed purpose and into whom, in the beginning and the end, the universe dissolves, He is the GOD. May he endow us with an understanding which leads to good actions.

Gita III...Different Schools of Thought

According to Ramanujan (11th century AD) Gita is a type of personal mysticism, God dwells in the secret places of the human soul, but He is unrecognised by it so long as the soul does not acquire the redeeming knowledge. Only by serving God with our whole heart and soul we can acquire this knowledge. The wretchedness of sin, the deep longing for the divine, the intense feeling of trust and faith in God’s all conquering love, only all these can take us to the ultimate knowledge.

Madhav (1199 to 1276 AD) advocates’ dualistic (dwaita) philosophy from his interpretation of Gita .According to him, it is self-contradictory to look upon soul as identical with the supreme in one sense and different from him in another. The two must be regarded as eternally different from each other. He holds the opinion that we must give up the distinction between “mine” and “thine” and hold that everything is subject to the control of God.

Nimbaka (AD 1162) adopts the theory of dwaitaadwaita (dual-non-dual doctrine). He holds that the soul, the world and God are different from each other; yet the existence and activity of the soul and the world depend
on the will of God.

Vallabh (AD 1479) develops what is called sudhadwaita or pure non-dualism. The ego when pure and unblinded by illusion and the Supreme Brahman are one. Souls are particles of God like sparks of fire and they cannot acquire the knowledge necessary for obtaining release except by the grace of Supreme. Devotion to God means release. Bhakti is truth associated with love.

There are many schools of thought. The Hindu tradition believes that the different views are complementary not contradictory.

As one very popular verse declares: “from the view-point of body, I am thy servant, from the view-point of ego, I am a portion of theory, from the view-point of the self, I am thyself. This is my conviction.”

God is experienced as Thou or I according to the plane in conscious centres.

Gita II.....Conflicting beliefs into single unity

It was Krishna's intention not to proclaim any transcendent dogma of salvation but to render Arjuna to undertake the special services of the almighty, will of the God who decides the fate of the battles.

In true Hindu spirit, many conflicting beliefs have been worked into a single unity, that is, to find the Ultimate Truth. The entire world of manifestations and multiplicity is not real in itself but seems to be so for those who live in ignorance. Only the wisdom that the Universal reality and the individual self are identical can bring us redemption. After this realisation, the ego dissolves; the wandering ceases and we find perfect joy and blessedness.

Karma is essential as a means of purification of the mind. And when wisdom is attained, Karma falls away.

Brahman, the highest reality, is spirit but not without attributes (as held by one stream of thought). He has self consciousness with knowledge of Himself and a conscious will to create the world and bestow salvation on His creations. He is infinite and eternal. God is both the instrumental and the material cause of the world.

God is the supporting, controlling principle of the soul, even as the soul is supporting principle of the body. God and soul are one. God is the inner guide who dwells deep within the soul and as such is the principle of its life. Immanence, however, is not identity.

Gita I... Eternal and Imperishable

Gita has something eternal and imperishable, applicable to all ages and all countries. The intellectual expressions and psychological idiom are the products of time while the permanent truths are capable of being lived and seen by a higher than intellectual vision at all times. Gita contains ancient wisdom which is as relevant today as it was then. It will be just relevant as to the end of time if there is any.

This great scripture has living value as it is a restatement of the truths of the eternity in the accents of our present times.

Gita is the journey within us seeking the way to be one with GOD. It provides light with its wisdom and reinforces renewal of spiritual life. It shows us the meaning and value of existence, the essence of eternal values and the path in which the ultimate mysteries are illuminated by the light of the reason and moral intuition.

There has to be balance between mind and the spirit so as to keep the material world one. Gita is ethics and metaphysics, science of reality and art of union with that very reality. Rigorous discipline is necessary to comprehend fully the truths of the spirit. In order to acquire spiritual wisdom, we need to cleanse our mind of all distraction and purge the heart from all corruption.

Renewal of life is can only happen with knowledge of truth. Outer desire and inner quality can never be divided because by doing so we violate the integrity of human life. These two orders of reality, empirical and transcendent are closely interwoven.

The biggest question is how can we live in the highest self and yet continue to work in this world? We find answers in Gita with new emphasis. It gives us vision of truth, impressive and profound, opens up new avenues for the mind of man, it accepts assumptions which are part of tradition of the past generations and embedded in the language it employs. The different elements which had been competing within Hindu system have been brought together and integrated into a comprehensive synthesis, free and large, subtle and profound.

Krishna, as the teacher, amalgates the different currents of thoughts, the Vedic cult of sacrifice, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad theism and tender piety, the Sankhya dualism and the Yoga meditation. He brings all these elements into organic unity, shows us how different lines of thought converge towards the same end.

Introduction

The intrinsic relation of sciences to humanities is one of the means to ends. The concept of right and wrong ,the study of the ideas centering round these concepts...on these the action and happiness of humanity depends. A balanced culture should bring about the sciences and humanities into harmony.

For this purpose, Gita is a valuable aid for understanding of the supreme ends of life. It teaches us the permanent truths, gives us intellectual vision, tells us about the ancient wisdom of the scripture.

Views on Gita

The Bhagavad Gita is a passage of 701 verses in the epic Mahabharata . It is revered as a sacred text of Hindu philosophy. The name 'Bhagavad Gita' translates to "the song of the divine one", Bhagavat being a title of Krishna. Commonly referred to as The Gita, it is a conversation between Krishna and Arjuna which takes place on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, just prior to the start of climactic war.


Will post my views on Gita here....While I do it I, I too will get to understand it better, I hope! I need to do it.