The Beautiful Bhagavad Gita

Originally posted by CuteAngel
NO, its not the same as the christian trinity...

All Religions contain concepts of God as Source, as all-that-is (which for the unenlightened mind is a "contradiction" and then manifest as various entities and personifications.

This is Universal.

reply to post by CuteAngel


You dont need other people to tell you, God gave you a brain, he gave you a mind to comprehend with, a soul so as to enable you to function. Make use of these things. You dont need the so called people claiming themselves to be teachers (i.e) the gurus, the babas, so on and so forth. The manuscripts are available for you to learn"

I take it from this you are self taught and feel comfortable telling others who post about this topic that they are wrong?

I know that I'm not an authority on Hinduism and the "Gita" which is Why I ask so many questions. I do know a few things about Christianity and its tenets.. and at least one other person here ...whom I assume is native Indian and hindu agree that there are some similarities in the Trinity in hinduism and christianity.
And there are recogized schools that teach the fundementals of hinduism and I'm assuming from your post that you have not attended any of them.

Try to remain calm...the is a difference between a formal education and self taught..

After reading some of this thread I purchased the Bhagavad Gita for myself.
Upon receiving it I opened it and let the pages fall where they would, this is what I read.

"From anger, complete delusion arises, and from delusion bewilderment of memory. When memory is bewildered, intelligence is lost, and when intelligence is lost one falls down again into the material pool."

How true these words are in these times.
This is indeed going to be a fabulous journey.
Thanks for the recommendation.

Have a great day

Originally posted by malakiem
Hi everyone! Nice thread Skyfloating. By any chance is there anything in the bhagavid gita that talks about becoming a god by any chance?

Many think that the scripture talks about humans being GODS or you being GOD because it says that The Self is God. But that is a western mis-interpretation of what Hindus mean by The Self. They dont mean you personally, they mean all-that-is.

As Bill Murray put it in Groundhog-Day: You are not THE God, you are A God

I have read the Bhagavad Gita and studied Buddhism. They are two of the most gentle reiligions in the world and they both give wisdom and insight of how to live a peaceable life and fruitful spiritual life.

Christianity, Judism and Islamic teachings are draconian in comparison. Easterners in my opinion have a much richer spiritual connection to the real world and the ethereal.

The two aforementioned religions are older and far more wiser.

It is rumorerd that Jesus spent his adulthood in India. Wonder what he learned there? Jesus definitely separates himself from the old testament and comes off as a divine and spiritual caring man/son of God. He spent his time with derelicts pretty much most of his lifetime. The story of Jesus is the only thing I can buy in Christianity.

Unfortunately, I have a great disdain for christians. They do not follow the loving and peaceable teachings Jesus tried to instill in us. Chritians focus far too much on hatred. Its quite disheartening.

Edited for egregious spelling errors. I'm sure I still missed something.

[edit on 7-3-2010 by brilab45]

reply to post by brilab45


Keep in mind that this particular American brand of modern hardcore-evangelizers are not actually "Christians" just like Suicide-Bombers are not actually "Muslims". That will build your tolernance.

I just bought the Bhagavad Gita As Is from amazon. Hopefully it's better than the tibaten book of the dead.

Has anyone who bought it because of this thread benefited from it?

What quite bothered me when reading this scripture, was that it began to show traits of a mass manipulation tool - even though there were some really soothing passages, and I could feel something really easing off whilst reading the beginning of the book..

..what became quite fast evident to me, was that there were the usual paradoxes here also.. the similar of what you might find inside a bible, only in abit different way.

For example, the book gives you the feeling that we are all merely instruments of god, and therefor all we do (including chopping a neighbours head off - not meaning to diss that in anyway, but just as an example), is totally acceptable and ok, if we do that with the understanding of being controlled by (the inner and outer control of) God.

Now that is quite striking in the end, since there is the idea, that we must simply drift and we can feel free if we stop resisting the will of god and simply go along with the reality with the understanding, of everything happening being of god - but still the book leaves also another idea, that we should follow god and try to find god, and that all would be saved simply by wanting to find god and all would be okay and that would be something that would evidently lead to finding god..

..now here is the paradox -> either we can, or we cannot affect anything that happens. Either everything we choose, are (thoughts or thoughtprocesses, happening insede us, leading to a certain conclusion, that in the end are all) determined by god, or they are not (and we have the force to affect the reality we are experiencing).

Bhagavad Gita simply leaves the reader into a mystical far reaching state of mind, that leaves this question - that is essential to all the teachings to the book - totally open.

Can we affect our reality, or can we not?

Either the book, and its original meaning, has been tampered with, or it has been deliberately created as is, to leave the ones thirsting after wisdom into a state of paradoxical allowance of everything.

It could be that this booklet has some original thruths inside it, that have later been adjusted to be a part of a bigger coctail of BS that was wanted to be ingested by those who are looking to gain deeper wisdom of existense - leaving them into a mindstate of allowing all atrocities as a form of god expressing himself through them, aswell as appreciating all beautiful things in the world as the manifestation of god, and expressions of the universal mind.

Could someone else who has read this book comment on these paradoxes?

There is also the notion of belief as a curing motive behind every action possible, man could take - which kind of makes me feel like there is something seriously wrong with this scripture (though it holds some beautiful paragraphs, and it is really soothing to read).

Personally I don't see that differing that much from the Christianic perspective of simply believing everything (at least everything within the bible) without questioning (which by the way could be the best plan ever a cosmic counterforce to god could have -> to have every word in some book accepted as truth, and to be believed in, without questioning).

edit: ..Personally this made me quite angry, since it seems that all religions and beliefsystems all over the world are infested with something that leaves their followers hanging in the air, withouth any real deep insight and concrete answers to anything.. This is just another question of belief, which from my point of view is simply a stupid mindset to take as ones personal guideline in life.

When we think about this logically, belief without logical basis, is the most potent way of doing something that does serious harm to ones self, ones family, and ones neighbours and society ... and the rest of the animal kingdom and humanity.

Belief without reality basis is like a guidance system that has no real destination..

[edit on 11-4-2010 by Jussi]

There are different versions of this book an Amaxon. Which is the best one to get?

Originally posted by Subconsciously Correct
There are different versions of this book an Amaxon. Which is the best one to get?

here is a good, online PDF.

www.thebigview.com...

Originally posted by gheybayten
3. when krishna shows his divine form to arjuna, arjuna sees discus and spears and things of that nature. however he doesn't see helicopters and flamethrowers and hand grenades. this just goes to show that the book is make believe. at least some of it is.

I practice a kind of meditation that is basically Jungian psychology with some extras, as well as some ... let's call it intuitive work. One thing that both make clear is that there are certain fundamental "forms and dynamics" that repeat not only throughout reality, but throughout the archetypal/imaginal fabric as well. The human mind will translate this energy that generally manifests as certain basic forms and dynamics, according to the database of experience the human brain has, and the prejudices (belief systems) of the individual.

Whether it discus and spear, or disk and staff, or something else in those general shapes and/or dynamics (concept models), very well might depend on the person perceiving something and writing it down.

It is not uncommon to perceive things outside (prior to or an outlier for) your normal vocabulary or experience -- I run into things that are ancient and I've never experienced in person (eg a chariot, a colored-red lion who is standing like a man and driving it, a "transparent cube", that sort of thing), as well as all the fantasy stuff that is impossible in our realm, but all these things are in my brain's database still. When I can't translate an energy, it's fairly obvious; I can't see it or wrap my head around it, and maybe if I work with it enough, the best I ever come by is seemingly randomly placed red cubes in the air or something even more offbeat.

I probably would not be able to do more than 'translate' any future thing into a model I already have in my brain. Even IF (which I doubt) someone were to perceive a far-future something, they'd have to bring it to verbal level with models they can wrap their brain around.

As a separate note, many of the 'forms and dynamics' that are fundamental, we think about intellectually as if they are 'concept' only, like a model. Some are surprisingly literal. I know little of vedic stuff. Most of my own experience I've felt was distinct to me; I've seen nowhere else for the last 15 years, until about a year ago, one offbeat 'symbolic translation' of one of the gnostic docs nailed a part of it hard and even had a chart or two incredibly similar to some I'd made myself. I have no idea how to feel about that since I'm not a christian (well, translated like that, neither is this doc, precisely). While I was relieved to find a source that had something in common with me, I found myself wishing it had been something different lol.

But although I know approximately zip about Vedic stuff, I've often felt that much of my experience, if I were to model it, would look like their deity statues. When a 'god' has 8 arms, in my inner world, that is the perfect representation of the fact that consciousness and identity combined, and I am 4th of 4 that combine to a larger something. (I assume everyone is. I have no idea, though.)

And when I see those pictures in this thread, the lovely golden stuff? This is the world I live in, in my head. Chariots, and the 'flying wheel' one image shows a person with -- that's an example of form/dynamics that are "surprisingly literal". Many of these things come to us as still images in pictures, but they are energetic identities just like we are... but quite a bit more.

What little I have heard of Vedic stuff, I got from what I think is one of the best books on UFOlogy I ever read, though I admit I haven't read many, but I had a great deal of alleged-experience for several years. (I say alleged because I really have no idea what the hell was going on.) It's called "Alien Identities" by Richard Thompson. I was told to read it in reverse -- part II, the vedic stuff, first, then part I, the modern UFOlogy stuff, second -- so I did, and I thought my brain was going to break, the parallels were so ridiculously obvious.

I have the Bhagavad Gita on my shelf, a paperback I bought when I was about 16. I've never read it. I have no idea why, just never had the urge, but just never felt like a book to get rid of in my annual parsing.

All I know is, if so much of the imagery related to this, so well relates to the experience that I, a mostly clueless western midwest single mom has inside, then I'm willing to grant there might be something deeper to it all than any kind of religion or fiction could aspire to.

RC

reply to post by RedCairo


Wow

reply to post by Jussi


I think those things about cutting off people's heads and the like isn't to be taken literally at all, they are all allegories, layer upon layer.

I'm going to buy it and read it myself, sounds absolutely wonderful and fascinating.

Originally posted by Solasis
I'm working on reading it right now. Only through the first two chapters, haven't had the focus for the third yet, but it is quite beautiful. I don't think I actually believe in it, but it's full of good thoughts.

My main purpose in posting here is to head off all the people who claim that the epic poem that the Baghvad Gita is an element in contains nuclear warfare. That's an outright myth. will it come up? Probably not. But if it was going to... don't bother

Nuclear war is not in the Gita it's in the mahabharata, which is the longer story that includes the Gita as just one part of a very long saga. The reference to nuclear war is found in there, not the Gita, the Gita is only spirituality.

I like this book too. Some of the teachings are really useful and make sense even to this date. I haven't read it completely though.

Originally posted by Subconsciously Correct
There are different versions of this book an Amaxon. Which is the best one to get?

I think this is the best one

www.amazon.com...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1290388805&sr=8-1

since it includes a comprehensive introduction, as well as an intro to each chapter that is directed to the Western mind, and the translation and introduction is done by Eknath Easwaran who is considered one of the best English Language proficient Gita and Upanishad scholars of our time.

The Forward and Introductoin alone is absolutely outstanding, so much so I think I might return to this thread and type it in by hand (quoted).

There is most definitely something of profound importance here for spiritual seekers or aspirants who, for whatever reason may be turned off by "Churchianity", or even for Christians wishing to deepen their faith as these teachings are probably not unlike the detailed instructions Jesus would have given his desciples but which are missing for the most part from the gospels.

Before I got the book I imagined that it would be comprised of lots of myth and allegory and Jungian archetypes, and while the backdrop is just that, internally is contains the most direct and straighforward instruction for the spiritual life and the ultimate gnosis or knowledge of God.

To all but the materialist atheist, who will not be able to grasp it's significance or value, or who will not be in a position to "grok" of it, I cannot recommend it enough.

"Seek and you shall find, knock, and the door will be opened to you."

The Classic of Indian Spirituality

Forward, by Eknath Easwaran

Imagine a vast hall in Anglo-Saxon England, not long after the passing of King Arthur. It is the dead of winter and a fierce snowstorm rages outside, but a great fire fills the space within the hall with warmth and light. Now and then, a sparrow darts in for refuge from the weather. It appears as if from nowhere, flits about joyfully in the light, and then disappears again, and where it comes from and where it goes next in that stormy darkness, we do not know.

Our lives are like that, suggests an old story in Bede's medieval history of England. We spend our days in the familiar world of our five senses, but what lies beyond tha, if anything, we have no idea. Those sparrows are hints of something more outside - a vast world, perhaps, waiting to be explored. But most of us are happy to stay where we are. We may even be a bit afraid to venture into the unknown. What would be the point, we ask. Why should we leave the world we know?

Yet there are always a few who are not content to spend their lives indoors. Simply knowing there is something unknown beyond their reach makes them acutely restless. They have to see what lies outside - if only, as George Mallory said of Everest, "because it's there".

This is true of adventurers of every kind, but especially of those who seek to explore not mountains or jungles but consciousness itself: who's real drive, we might say, is not so much to know the unknown as to know the knower. Such men and women can be found in every age and every culture. While the rest of us stay put, they quietly slip out to see what lies beyond.

Then, so far as we can tell, they disappear. We have no idea where they have gone; we can't even imagine. But every now and then, like friends who have run off to some exotic land, they send back reports: breathless messages describing fantastic adventures, rambling letters about a world beyond ordinary experience, urgent telegrams begging us to come and see. "Look at this view! Isn't it breathtaking? Wish you could see this. Wish you were here."

The works in this set of translations - the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Dhammapada - are among the earliest and most universal messages like these, sent to inform us that there is more to life than the everyday experience of our senses. The Upanishads ar the oldest, so varied that we feel some unknown collectors must have tossed into a jumble all the photos, postcards, and letters from this world that they could find, without any regard for source or circumstance. Thrown together like this, they form a kind of ecstatic slideshow - snapshots of towering peaks of consciousness taken at various times by different observers and dispatched with just the barest kind of explanation. But those who have travelled those heights will recognize the views: "Oh, yes, that's Everest from the northwest - must be late spring. And here we're south, in the full snows of winter."

The Dhammapada, too, is a collective - traditionally, sayings of the Buddha, one of the very greatest of these explorers of consciousness. In this case the messages have been sorted, but not by a scheme that makes sense to us today. Instead of being grouped by theme or topic, they are gathered according to some dominant characteristic like a symbol or metaphor - flowers, birds, a river, the sky - that make then easy to commit to memory. If the Upanishads are like slides, the Dhammapada seems more like a field guide. This is lore picked up by someone who knows every step of the way through these strange lands. He can't take us there, he explains, but he can show us the way: tell us what to look for, warn about missteps, advise us about detours, tell us what to avoid. Most important, he urges us that it is our destiny as human beings to make this journey ourselves. Everything else is secondary.

And the third of these classics, the Bhagavad Gita, gives us a map and a guidebook. It gives a systematic overview of the territory, shows various approaches to the summit with their benefitrs and pitfalls, offers recommendations, tells us what to pack and what to leave behind. More than either of the others, it gives a sense of a personal guide. It asks and answers the questions that you or I might ask - questions not about philosophy or mysticism, but about how to live effectively in a world of challenge and change. Of these three, it is the Gita that has been my own personal guidevbook, just as it was Mahatma Gandhi's.

These three texts are very personal records of a landscape that is both real and universal. Their voices, passionately human, speak directly to you and me. They describe the topography of consciousness itself, which belongs as much to us today as to these largely anonymous seers thousands of years ago. If the landscape seems dark in the light of sense perception, they tell us, it has an illumination of its own, and once our eyes adjust we can see in what Western Mystics call this "divine dark" and verify their descriptions for ourselves.

And this world, they insist, is where we belong. This wider field of consciousness is our native land. We are not cabin dwellers, born to a life cramped and confined; we are meant to explore, to seek, to push the limits of our potential as human beings. The world of our senses is just a base camp: we are mean to be as much at home in consciousness as in the world of physical reality.

This is a message that thrills men and women in every age and culture. It is for such kindred spirits that these texts were originally composed, and it is for them in our own time that I undertook these translations, in the conviction that they deserve an audience today as much as ever. If these books speak to even a handful of such readers, they will have served their purpose.

~ Eknath Easwaran

Very illuminating Introduction to follow at a later date.

Best Regards,

NAM

Originally posted by NewAgeMan
reply to post by Jussi

 

I think those things about cutting off people's heads and the like isn't to be taken literally at all, they are all allegories, layer upon layer.

I'm going to buy it and read it myself, sounds absolutely wonderful and fascinating.

Yeah, perhaps I was too eager to find the answer to everything while reading it for the first time.

Got to say it is really a good read, and I would recommend it to many.

Edit: coming to think of it, the Bhagavad Gita seems to describe an aspect of ones souls inner behaviour, that is important to understand in order to fulfill ones goals..

reply to post by Skyfloating
Yes I remember getting mine a long time ago, and still pull it out quite often.

" If you travel at the speed of mind for a Billion years, you will still know nothing of the Creator. "