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    The Easy Bhagavad-Gita
    The Easy Bhagavad-Gita
    The Easy Bhagavad-Gita
    Ebook141 pages2 hours

    The Easy Bhagavad-Gita

    By Koti Sreekrishna and Hari Ravikumar

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    About this ebook

    Two friends have a conversation at the outset of an epic war. One of them, Arjuna, is sad and confused in the face of imminent doom; the other, Krishna, decides to cheer him up and clear his doubts. Through the course of their battlefield dialogue Krishna assumes the role of a mentor and inspires Arjuna, teaching him the timeless wisdom of the ‘Bhagavad-Gita’.

    Krishna's universal message applies to the whole of human life, for it is an extension of his colorful, multi-dimensional personality: king, warrior, strategist, statesman, philosopher, musician, charmer, and above all a joyful participant in the game of life.

    The Easy Bhagavad-Gita is so exceedingly easy that a 5000 year-old discourse feels intimate, accessible, and contemporary. And it is a great place to start if one wants to know about India’s grand heritage, religion, art, culture, philosophy, and spirituality.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherKoti Sreekrishna and Hari Ravikumar
    Release dateOct 15, 2013
    ISBN9781301609154
    The Easy Bhagavad-Gita
    Author

    Koti Sreekrishna and Hari Ravikumar

    Koti Sreekrishna, PhD (b. 1953, Bangalore) studied biochemistry and worked as a research fellow with the Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Kentucky. After working with Phillips Petroleum Company and Marion Merrel Dow, he is currently a senior scientist in the Global Biotechnology division at the Procter & Gamble Company. His interests include philosophy, inter-religious dialogue, and studying the Hindu scriptures. He has previously authored a translation of the Purusha Suktam, a Hindu creation theme. He has served in the executive council of Hindu Society of Greater Cincinnati (HSGC) for several years and contributes articles to HSGC-Temple magazine. He is a distinguished Toastmaster.Hari Ravikumar, BE (b. 1984, Bangalore) studied mechanical engineering and then trained and worked as a software programmer with Infosys. Then he worked as the content manager of the Melton Foundation and also as the administrative director of the Subramaniam Academy of Performing Arts. He recently worked as a UI designer and product strategist with Ice Cream Labs, a Bangalore-based technology startup. He is on the advisory board of Pramiti, a school promoting alternative education. He is interested in Carnatic music, Eastern wisdom, mathematics, martial arts, comics, languages, and films. He co-wrote Roots and Wings, a book about the significance of human values.

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    Book preview

    The Easy Bhagavad-Gita - Koti Sreekrishna and Hari Ravikumar

    The Easy Bhagavad-Gita

    Koti Sreekrishna and Hari Ravikumar

    Published by W.I.S.E. (Wisdom In Simple English) Words Inc.

    6692 Summerfield Drive, Mason, OH 45040, USA

    [email protected] | +1-513-290-3064

    http://newbhagavadgita.in

    Copyright 2013 Koti Sreekrishna and Hari Ravikumar

    Smashwords Edition

    Smashwords Edition, License Notes

    This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

    Invocation

    Salutations to the supreme lord,

    the teacher of the world and

    the source of eternal bliss.

    Contents

    Preface

    Introduction

    Chapter 1

    Chapter 2

    Chapter 3

    Chapter 4

    Chapter 5

    Chapter 6

    Chapter 7

    Chapter 8

    Chapter 9

    Chapter 10

    Chapter 11

    Chapter 12

    Chapter 13

    Chapter 14

    Chapter 15

    Chapter 16

    Chapter 17

    Chapter 18

    Epilogue

    Glossary

    Preface

    In May 2011, we brought out The New Bhagavad-Gita, a modern English version of the ancient text so that it would be accessible to anyone who wanted to know more about the wisdom of the East. We were overwhelmed by the positive response we received. People from different parts of the world wrote to us appreciating several aspects of the book: the new insights, the lucid language, the methodical research, the beauty of the visual design, and the addition of illustrations. We are grateful to everyone who helped us during the preparation of The New Bhagavad-Gita and also to our readers for their wholehearted support, encouragement, and constructive criticism.

    Several of our friends requested us to produce an audio version of the book and we also felt that an audio book would be a great offering to readers who lead busy lives but have easy access to advanced audio technologies. We started preparing the script for recording the audio when we realized that the text needed editing and refining. We made some changes here and there but such haphazard fixing was inadequate, so we ended up rewriting the entire text by blending the translation and the explanatory notes, trans-creating the difficult verses, simplifying some of the difficult concepts, and reorganizing some verses within a given chapter in order to make the meaning clear. When we went through the final script, we felt that this could serve as a new book in its own right as an easy-to-read version for busy people. We hope it will also be easy to understand.

    This book is meant to be a light read, so we haven’t included some sections like the bibliography and the original text of the Gita (all of which can be found in The New Bhagavad-Gita). However, we have included a detailed introduction and glossary because we want this book to be complete in itself.

    We hope that you will embrace it as enthusiastically as we have produced it.

    Koti Sreekrishna

    Hari Ravikumar

    ~

    Introduction

    Over the years, human beings have changed in significant ways. Even with our limited ability to see into our ancient past, we like to believe that we have evolved, refined our senses, heightened our aesthetics, and acquired exquisite tastes. We have also hunted, waged wars, spilled blood, destroyed the natural environment around us, and caused a whole lot of trouble to one another.

    As we dive deep into this ocean of human activity, filled with astonishing achievements and abysmal atrocities, we’re intrigued to observe that in spite of some seeming changes, some of the basic human qualities remain unchanged; for example, human emotions. The ‘way we feel’ has mostly been the same though it has taken different forms and characteristics.

    It is both interesting and beneficial to who we are now to know what the ancient people felt about life, growth, thought, awareness, death, and the universe. The quiet wisdom of our ancestors, often disguised as records of experiences or imaginative poetry, might give us some inspiration and insights into our own lives.

    What we call ‘scriptures’ differ from other genres of literature, for they deal with a different kind of reality and operate at a different level of consciousness, often quite removed from our day-to-day life. They give us a completely different perspective on things and often awaken us to a broader realm of reality.

    The Bhagavad-Gita is one such scripture from ancient India.

    Hinduism

    Hinduism is the major religion of India with a worldwide following of over a billion people. In its original and purest form, it is a sanaatana dharma (loosely translated as ‘eternal truth’ or ‘timeless religion’) that represents over five thousand years of contemplation, tradition, and continuous development in the Indian subcontinent. One who follows Hinduism is called a ‘Hindu’ (the term originally referred to a person living in India).

    Hinduism has no single founder. Many ancient seer-sages, both men and women, contributed to its scriptures. Hindu scriptures are numerous and diverse. Most of them are written in Sanskrit. Sanskrit, like Latin, is the root language for several languages; both Sanskrit and Latin belong to the same language family.

    The word ‘scripture’ comes from the Latin scriptura, meaning ‘that which is written’, but the equivalent terms in Sanskrit for Hindu scriptures are shruti, ‘that which is heard’ and smriti, ‘that which is remembered’.

    Rishis (the seekers of truth) of ancient India contemplated on creation, human nature, refining basic instincts, the purpose of life, the workings of the physical world, and the metaphysical dimensions of the universe. The collective consciousness of the rishis is called ‘Veda’. The literal meaning of the word ‘Veda’ is ‘to know’ or ‘knowledge’.

    Vedas are the foremost revealed scriptures in Hinduism. Every Hindu ceremony from birth to death and beyond is drawn from the Vedas. There are four Vedas: Rig, Yajur, Sama, and Atharva. These comprise the shruti texts. Though any body of knowledge can be called a Veda, like Ayurveda (health manual), the term shruti applies only to the four Vedas.

    The rishis taught this collected wisdom to their disciples, who in turn taught it to their disciples. Thus, this knowledge was passed on for many generations, without a single word being written down. Even today, traditional students of the Vedas learn the hymns orally from a guru (teacher). A verse from the Rig Veda (10.191.2) poignantly captures the intellectual atmosphere of those times:

    Come together, speak together,

    let your minds be united, harmonious;

    as ancient gods unanimous

    sit down to their appointed share.

    The concluding portion of the Vedas, called ‘Upanishads’ or ‘Vedanta’, contain anecdotes, dialogues, and talks that deal with body, mind, soul, nature, consciousness, and the universe. Of the many Upanishads, ten are very important: Isa, Kena, Katha, Prashna, Mundaka, Mandukya, Taittiriya, Aitareya, Chandogya, and Brihadaranyaka.

    Post-Vedic texts form another set of scriptures, the smriti, which were composed by a single author and later memorized by many generations of scholars. These include the Ramayana and the Mahabharata (the epics), Astadhyayi (grammar), Manusmriti (law), Purana (old episodes), Nirukta (etymology), Sulba Sutras (geometry), Grihya Sutras (running a family), and a whole body of texts governing architecture, art, astrology, astronomy, dance, drama, economics, mathematics, medicine, music, nutrition, rituals, sex, and warfare, among others.

    The Bhagavad-Gita (or simply ‘Gita’), which is a small part of the epic Mahabharata, is an important and widely read scripture of Hinduism. It is one of the most comprehensive summaries of Hinduism.

    The Sanskrit word for Creation is srishti, which means ‘pouring forth’. It is not ‘creation’ but rather an outpouring, an expansion, a change. The idea of creation is discussed in different ways in the Vedas. One hymn (Nasadiya Sukta) proposes a brilliant conceptual model for creation while another (Hiranyagarbha Sukta) raises and answers many questions about god and creation. Yet another hymn (Purusha Sukta) describes in detail the process of creation. Amidst all these varied views, there is a single underlying idea: one became everything.

    Another contention is that the concept of god is subsequent to creation. Hinduism has many gods but only one Supreme spirit. The Vedas make a clear distinction between god and brahman, the Supreme spirit, which is beyond all creation and destruction.

    Hindu timeline spans trillions of years and time is considered cyclical rather than linear; so we have eternal time cycles one

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