1. Bhagavad Gita Chapter 12 - Lesson 2 of 14

Srīmad Bhagavad Gītā is the ultimate sacred scripture of yoga, Yogaśastra and the pristine glory of the Vedic culture, the eternal living tradition called sanātana-dharma. It belongs to the whole Universe for it is delivered to the Universe by the source and embodiment of

Universe. We salute and bow down to Bhagavān Śrī Kṛṣṇa, who spoke the Bhagavad Gītā out of His infinite love and compassion for all beings.

Whenever unrighteousness, adharma becomes predominant and dharma, righteous living declines and the Yoga of Enlightenment is lost,

Parabrahma Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Consciousness appears again and again to revive this sacred yoga, to protect and to enrich the devoted beings; and destroys adharma to re-establish the pure and everlasting dharma. Song

Gītā is also called Brahmavidyā the Knowledge of Brahman, the supreme absolute truth; it is Jīvan Mukti Vijñāna the Science of Living Enlightenment.

As with all scriptures, it is the knowledge and experience that is transmitted verbally as Śri Krṣṇārjuna Saṁvād, an intimate dialogue between Master of the world, Jagadguru Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa and His dear devotee and disciple, Arjuna. It is called śruti in Saṃskṛit, meaning something that is heard.

Gītā, as Bhagavad Gītā is generally called, translates literally from Saṃskṛit as 'Sacred Song of God'. Unlike

the Vedas and Upaniṣads, which are stand alone expressions of Truth, the Gītā is written into the greatest Hindu epic, the Mahābhārat, called a purāṇa, an ancient historical happening. It is part of the recorded history of the greatest tradition, the paramount civilization in all its Divine grandeur and its human complexity, so to speak.

No other epic or part of an epic has the special status and space of the Gītā. No other book but the Gītā gives a scientific, systematic, applied science of living joyfully in completion, while empowering the human actionfield with authenticity to evolve into a responsible Divine play-field.

Called the royal supreme knowledge rājavidyā rājaguhyaṁ (9.2), this one sacred book conveys the essence of knowledge contained in all written and oral vedic truths to enrich the simplest to complex humans at all planes. It holds within itself the direct key to every possible human enquiry, the solution to every dilemma of emotions, and the sublime righteous path and goal of every quest of rising or falling civilizations for every age, time or geography. As a consequence of the presence of the Gītā, the Mahābhārat epic itself is considered a sacred Hindu scripture.

Gītā arose from the super consciousness of Śri Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme God, the complete Incarnation Purṇāvatār, and is therefore considered Gītāśastra—the essential scripture, knowing which, one is liberated from all incompletions, yaj jñātvā mokṣyase asubhāt (9.1) and Gītopaniṣad—the essence of all Upaniṣads, the purest and highest knowledge to be ever known and cognized because it gives the direct experience of the Self pavitram idam uttamam pratyakṣāvagaṁ dharmyaṁ (9.2).

Gītā is the ultimate practical teaching on the inner science of spirituality that expresses as outer victory and success in life now and after. It is not, as some scholars incorrectly claim, a promotion of violence. It is about the impermanence of the mind and body, and the need to go beyond the mind, ego and logic.

The answers of the Divine, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, transcend time and space. Śrī Kṛṣṇa's message is everlasting and joyfully performed, and is as valid today as it was on that fateful battlefield over five thousand years ago. The science of Gītā is the eternal technique of living in completion; the song of Gītā is the eternal life-enriching nectar, having no expiry date, time or age!

Mahābhārat, literally meaning the great Bhārata, is a grand narration about the nation and civilization, which is now known as Bharat. It was then a nation ruled by king Bhārata and his descendants.

Your whole life is nothing but the Mahābhārat War. The Mahābharāt should be read again and again to understand the intricacies of life, the complications of life, and the ability to handle life. The true story of this perfectly recorded epic is about two warring clans, Kauravas and Pānḍavas, closely related to one another. Dhṛtarāṣṭra, the blind king of Hastināpur and father of the 100 Kaurava brothers was the brother of Pānḍu, whose children were the five Pānḍava princes.

It is a tale of strife between cousins and ultimately between dhārmic and adhārmic,

Since Dhṛtarāṣṭra was blind, Pānḍu was made the king of Hastināpura. Pānḍu was cursed by a sage that he would die if he ever entered into a physical relationship with his wives.

He therefore had no children. Vyāsa says that all the five Pānḍava children were born to their mothers Kuntī and Mādri through the blessing of divine beings. Pānḍu handed over the kingdom and his children to his blind brother.

Kuntī, who is the embodiment of tapas, spiritual penance, had received a boon when she was still a young unmarried adolescent, that she could summon any divine power at will to father a child. Before she married, she tested her boon. The Sun god, Sūrya appeared before her.

Karṇa was born to her as a result. In fear of social reprisals, she cast the newborn away in a river. Yudhiṣṭra, Bhīma and Arjuna were born to Kuntī after her marriage by invocation of her powers, and the twins Nakula and Sahadeva were born to Mādri, the second wife of Pānḍu. What happened during the MahabharatA?

Yudhiṣṭra was born to Kuntī as a result of her being blessed by Yama, the god of death, dharma and justice, Bhīma by Vāyu, the god of wind, and Arjuna by Indra, god of all the divine beings. Nakula and Sahadeva, the youngest Pānḍava twins, were born to Mādri, through the Divine Aśvini twins.

Dhṛtarāṣṭra had a hundred sons through his wife Gāndhārī. The eldest of these Kaurava princes was Duryodhana. Duryodhana felt no love for his five Pānḍava cousins. He made many unsuccessful attempts, along with his brother Duśśāsana, to kill the Pānḍava brothers. Kuntī's eldest son Karṇa, whom she had cast away at birth, was found and brought up by a chariot driver in the palace, and by a strange twist of fate, joined hands with Duryodhana.

Dhṛtarāṣṭra gave Yudhiṣṭra one half of the Kuru kingdom on his coming of age, since the Pānḍava prince was the rightful heir to the throne that his father Pānḍu had vacated.

Yudhiṣṭra ruled from his new capital Indraprastha, along with his brothers Bhīma, Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva.

Arjuna won the hand of princess Draupadī, daughter of the king of Pāñcāla, in a svayaṁvara, a marital contest in which princes fought for the hand of a fair damsel.

In fulfillment of their mother Kuntī's desire that the brothers share everything equally, Draupadī became the wife of all five Pānḍava brothers. Duryodhana persuaded Yudhiṣṭra to join a gambling session, where his cunning uncle Śakunī defeated the Pānḍava king.

Yudhiṣṭra lost all that he owned—his kingdom, his brothers, his wife and himself, to Duryodhana. Duśśāsana shamed Draupadī in public by trying to disrobe her. The Pānḍava brothers and Draupadī were forced to go into exile for fourteen years, with the condition that in the last year they should live incognito or ajyāta vāsa.

At the end of the fourteen years, the Pānḍava brothers tried to reclaim their kingdom. In this effort they were helped by Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the king of the Yādava clan, who is the eighth divine incarnation of Bhagavān Viṣṇu.

However, Duryodhana refused to yield even a needlepoint of land, and as a result, the Great War, the War of Mahābhārat ensued. In this war, various rulers of the entire nation that is modern Bharat aligned with one or the other of these two clans, the Kauravas or the Pānḍavas.

Kṛṣṇa offered to join with either of the two clans. He says, 'One of you may have Me unarmed. I will not take any part in the battle. The other may have my entire Yādava army.'

When the offer was first made to Duryodhana, he predictably chose the large and well-armed Yādava army, Nārāyaṇī Senā, in preference to the unarmed Kṛṣṇa.

Arjuna joyfully and gratefully chose his dearest friend, his life mentor and his Guru, Kṛṣṇa, Nārāyaṇa, to be his unarmed charioteer!

This whole history is such a beautiful happening. Mahābhārat is actually your life! Every character in the Mahābhārat teaches so much! We don't need to go anywhere for our life success or fulfillment or for anything else that we may desire. We don't need to study any other book to learn the human psychology or the science of living and leaving. Whether we seek righteous living—dharma; or we want to learn business or administration, economy or abundance—artha; or we want to create the best rich lifestyle—kāma; or we want to be a leader and want the enriching life of being enlightened mokṣa, for all these purposes, we don't need anything other than the Mahābharāt!

Study each character. We will not find any more characters in our life than the characters described in the Mahābharāt!

Any character we see in our life is mapped to Mahābharāt's one character. They are either half or full representation of some character.

To know how to handle them and even handle yourself, just see how Śrī Kṛṣṇa handles them and handle them the same way. The Mahābharāt war is a representation of life as it was lived in that age.

Vyāsa, its author is an unbiased historian who recorded the whole history as it happened without trying to apply any makeup. People ask whether the Mahābharāt war happened at all!

If the Mahābharāt was a story and not history, Vyāsa should receive multiple Pulitzer prizes for his highly creative work! The Mahābharāt is the longest literary work in the whole world with hundred thousand Saṃskṛit verses—the longest poem ever written with such delicate harmony of unmatched poetic perfection. It is larger than the Greek epics. Vyāsa had no computer, no tape recorder with speech-to-text capabilities. He dictated and Bhagavān Ganeṣa wrote it down!

• Yudhiṣṭra is embodiment of Integrity the power of words, vāk śakti.
• Bhīma is embodiment of Authenticity the power of thoughts, mano śakti.

Arjuna is embodiment of Responsibility—the power of feeling, prema śakti.

• Sahadeva is embodiment of Enriching the power of living, ātma śakti.
• Nakula is embodiment of causing reality for others.

• Śakuni, the maternal uncle of Duryodhana embodies the pattern of self-hatred, which is cunningness personified.

• Droṇa represents all the best knowledge one imbibes and the teachers one encounters, who guide us but are unable to take us through to the ultimate flowering of enlightenment. It is difficult to give them up since one feels grateful to them. This is where the Enlightened Master, the incarnation steps in and guides us.

• Duryodhana, represents one's ego or root-pattern, the most difficult to conquer as it leads one to self destruction. One needs the full help of the Master here. It is subtle work and even the Master's help may not be obvious, since at this point, sometimes the ego makes us deny and disconnect from the Master as well.

• Karṇa is the repository of all good deeds and it is his good deeds that stand in the way of his own Enlightenment. Śrī Kṛṣṇa has to take the load of Karṇa's puṇya, his meritorious deeds, before he could be liberated. The Enlightened Master guides one to drop one's attachment to good deeds arising out of what are perceived to be charitable and compassionate intentions. He also shows us that the quest for and the experience of enlightenment is the ultimate act of compassion that one can offer to the world. Bhagavan Ṣri Kṛṣṇa, the 8th most powerful purnāvatar of Ṃaha Viśnu, is the embodiment of pure celebration, boundless love, compassion, and completion.

Bhagavan Ṣri Kṛṣṇa is the only incarnation demonstrating and expressing Ṣarva Ṃangalatva all the auspicious qualities and all dimensions of an avatar during His physical happening. The līla Bhagavan Ṣri Krsna is one of sheer innocence and simplicity, in a peace-loving, diplomatic, conflict-free way.

Karṇa is the repository of all good deeds and it is his good deeds that stand in the way of his own Enlightenment. Śrī Kṛṣṇa has to take the load of Karṇa's puṇya, his meritorious deeds, before he could be liberated. The Enlightened Master guides one to drop one's attachment to good deeds arising out of what are perceived to be charitable and compassionate intentions. He also shows us that the quest for and the experience of enlightenment is the ultimate Till now everyone blames Bhagavan Sri Krishna for this Kurukshetra war but that's the greatest sacrifice Bhagavan Sri Krishna did to save the planet Earth. If Kurukshetra was not conducted at that time under the controlled conditions and direct supervision of Bhagavan Sri Krishna, planet Earth would not have survived more than three years.

act of compassion that one can offer to the world. Bhagavan Ṣri Kṛṣṇa, the 8th most powerful purnāvatar of Ṃaha Viśnu, is the embodiment of pure celebration, boundless love, compassion, and completion. Bhagavan Ṣri Kṛṣṇa is the only incarnation demonstrating and expressing Ṣarva Ṃangalatva all the auspicious qualities a nd all dimensions of an avatar during His physical happening. The līla Bhagavan Ṣri Krsna is one of sheer innocence and The wide spread availability of the Astra shastras without Shastra, without the knowledge and vision, was posing a huge threat to the whole of humanity and planet Earth, and for life itself. The greatest achievement of Bhagavan Sri Krishna is destroying all the weapons in one controlled condition and saving planet earth, eliminating the nuclear weapons and the knowledge of these nuclear weapons to save humanity from total annihilation.

conflict-free way.

simplicity, in a peace-loving, diplomatic,

Bhagavad Gītā appears in the heart of Mahābhārat in Bhīṣma Parva, the sixth chapter of its eighteen chapters. Veda Vyāsa, the narrator, in glorifying the Gītā sings, 'the one who drinks the water of Ganges (the sacred river for Hindus) attains liberation, what to speak of the one who drinks the nectar of Gītā?

Gītā is the essential nectar of the Mahābhārat, bhāratamṛta sarvasvam as it is directly spoken by Nārāyaṇa, Bhagavān kṛṣṇa Himself.'

The armies assembled in the vast field of Kurukṣetra, now in the state of Haryana in modern day Bharat. All the kings and princes were related to one another, and were often on opposite sides. Facing the Kaurava army and his friends, relatives and teachers, Arjuna was overcome by remorse and guilt, and wanted to walk away from the battle out of total powerlessness unbecoming an invincible warrior among warriors.

Śrī Kṛṣṇa's dialogue with Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukṣetra out of His utmost concern and love for him and humanity is the content of Bhagavad Gītā. Of its seven hundred and forty-five (745) verses, Bhagavān Śrī Kṛṣṇa sings the Gītā in six hundred and twenty (620) verses responding to Arjuna's fifty-seven (57) enquiries.

Śrī Kṛṣṇa persuades Arjuna to give-up his powerlessness unfitting an Ārya—the spiritually evolved one who understands human life and urges him to raise himself again as Parantapa—the conqueror of enemy, and take up arms and vanquish his enemies. They are already dead,' says Śrī Kṛṣṇa, 'All those who are facing you have been already killed by Me. Go ahead and do what you have to do. That is your responsibility. Do not worry about the outcome. Leave that to Me.'

śrī Bhagavānuvāca mayyāveśya mano ye māṁ nityayuktā upāsate I śraddhayā parayo'petās te me yuktatamā matāḥ

Lord Kṛṣṇa says: Those, who by fixing their mind on Me eternally, and those who are steadfast in worshiping Me with supreme faith, I consider them to be perfect in Yoga, ready to be united with Me.

If we use His words properly with integrity and authenticity, we will have the experience of completion, of devotion. We will radiate His words, we will enrich with His love.

Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa says, those who fix their mind on Me eternally and those who are steadfast in worshipping Me with supreme faith, I consider them to be perfect in yoga, ready to be united with Me. Bhagavān says, 'Those who are established in their consciousness that expresses devotional gratitude, bhakti, are always engaged in Me. Those who focus on the transcendental faith, meaning the experience that they undergo at the time of Cosmic experience, they are engaged in Me. Both are ultimate. Both are united in Me.

Saṃskṛit is a beautiful language. We can make any meaning out of any word. That is why thousands of commentaries on the Gītā are possible, yet the Gītā is still new. No book has been commented upon by so many masters, as much as the Gītā has been. Each master gives his own meaning.

Again, I insist that if a person who has not had a spiritual experience starts expressing, lecturing, he will naturally be in trouble and create trouble for others as well. In the same way that the blind leads the blind, both end up in trouble. A person without any spiritual experience, when he translates or talks, he automatically does only 'text torturing.' Real Completion Expresses as Enriching with Love.

Understand this small example: Let us say I draw a diagram and explain the concept of an experience that I have had to you. Later, you present only an audio CD of this session to a friend who did not attend this lecture. You have not had the experience; you merely translate my experience. How much can you explain? He will not be able to grasp much. He will miss my body language completely.

You can not explain accurately either, because you are not the one who had the experience. A person who just has the audio recording or a book copy, cannot understand much. Like that, Bhagavad Gītā is a transcription of the audio recording. Even the voice modulation is not there. How much can you translate or interpret?

That is why Vivekananda emphasized, again and again, not to read or listen to anything expressed by a person who has not personally experienced the truth. Most importantly, he said, 'Bother about who is speaking, rather than what he is speaking.' He emphasized the personal experience. He added, 'All the books in the libraries in this world cannot lead you to the truth. Once you have realized the truth, you do not need books.' Spiritual experience transcends mind and ego. It is pure, uncolored and permanent. By expressing an understanding of someone's experience, one may express a fact or an opinion at best, but never the truth. Truth must be experienced to be expressed.

Those who express their experience as devotion, see the world, upāsate. The word upāssana can be translated in many ways. When we see the Divine in everybody, when we express the truth of the spiritual experience, whatever we do is upāssana.

Please be very clear, when we can't see the Divine in people around us, we can't see the Divine in any statue or any Master either. If we don't see the Divine in living beings, we cannot see the Divine in a God or a Guru. Rāmānuja lived on planet Earth for a long time and inspired thousands of people in the path of spirituality and meditation. One young man asked Rāmānuja, 'Master, please tell me how I can achieve bhakti, achieve God, achieve devotion?' Rāmānuja asked him, 'Have you ever loved anybody in your life?' This man was shaken. He said, 'I am a pure brahmacāri, a celibate. How can you ask me this question? I came to learn about God and you ask me this question?'

The relationship you carry with you is projected as the relationship with the world! I tell you, when you bring integrity in your relationship with others, honoring the words you gave or completing the words you gave, the way others look at you will be transformed immediately. To truly love and enrich someone whom we spend our life with, to prevent familiarity from breeding contempt, we need to complete with others and our self, and drop our 'I' and 'mine'. Being established in that consciousness of completion or expressing it towards enriching the Universe is the same. When a person is merged, when a person is established, he automatically radiates. If love is not happening, if the expression is not happening, the person has not experienced it. When the real experience of completion happens, it automatically expresses as enriching.

Experience is not something we can possess and keep in our cupboard. No! Experience will possess us and it will radiate as enriching through us. This is because we cannot possess an experience. Only the experience can possess us. When experiences possess us, whatever we do will be a song. Any word that comes out will be a song. Our being will be so light. We will simply float. Our body language will radiate grace. All our expressions will be a great enriching service to humanity.

An Enlightened man never keeps quiet nor does he talk, he just sings. That is why the Gītā is given in the form of a song. The Gītā is not prose. It is poetry. Great truths can never be expressed in logic. They can only be expressed through poetry. Prose is logic. It is bound.

It is rigid. But poetry is emotion. It is love and it flows.

Kṛṣṇa says that a person established in the consciousness of completion is great; however, the person who expresses, who shares, who automatically radiates the power of living by enriching is as great as the one who is established. The truth is that if a man is established in consciousness, he will radiate, he will enrich, and he will sing.

When the real experience of completion happens, it automatically expresses as enriching.

• ❖ Can a person who has not had any spiritual experience teach the scriptures? Why?
• ❖ What is enriching others with spiritual truths? Why is enriching others with love important? Is enriching equal to devotion?
• ❖ Why is the Bhagavad Gita in the form of a song?

1. Printouts of famous paintings

• 2. Paper, pencil, crayons

The class coordinator will distribute the print outs of famous paintings, for example: Mona Lisa (Leonardo Da Vinci), Shakuntala (Raja Ravi Verma), the Last Supper (Leonardo Da Vinci), The Starry Night (Vincent Van Gogh), The persistence of Memory (Salvador Dali), Guernica (Pablo Picasso) etc. Each child must attempt at making a copy of the original painting.

A copied painting is most likely to deviate from the original in certain details like colour, shape, size etc or even the idea behind the image, depending on the skill and authenticity of the copier. Same way, a copied experience deviated from the original.

Let's play chinese whispers. Make the children sit in a circle. Then the class coordinator shall whisper a sentence or phrase to one child, who shall then whisper it to the next child, and the cycle will continue till the last child in the circle hears it. This last child will have to announce what he heard to the class. If the last child hears it exactly as the teacher had first said, then the whole group wins. Repeat the cycle till the group gets it right.

A direct spiritual experience is better than trying to understand the ultimate truths from someone else's spiritual experience.

Part 2: Bhagavad Gita Chapter 12 - Lesson 2 of 14_English_part_2.md

Topic of discussion is

"Truth must be experienced to be expressed."

By expressing an understanding of someone's experience, one may express a fact or an opinion at best, but never the truth. Truth must be experienced to be expressed.