1. Bhagavad Gita Chapter 3 - Lesson 2 of 11

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.'

na hi kaścitkṣaṇamapi jātu tiṣṭhatyakarmakṛt kāryate hyavaśaḥ karma sarvaḥ prakṛtijairguṇaiḥ

Surely, not even for a moment can anyone stand without doing something. He is always in action, despite himself, as this is his very nature

Let your body and mind work without disturbing your inner space of completion.

karmendriyāṇi saṁyamya ya āste manasā smaran indriyārthānvimūḍhātmā mithyācāraḥ sa ucyate

He who restrains the sense organs, but who still thinks of the objects of the senses is deluded and is called a hypocrite

Bring Completion and Become One.

yastvindriyāṇi manasā niyamyārabhate 'rjuna karmendriyaiḥ karmayogam asaktaḥ sa viśiṣyate

He who begins controlling the senses by the mind and performs selfless work through the sense organs is superior, O Arjuna

Life has no purpose, only meaning.

niyataṁ kuru karma tvaṁ karma jyāyo hyakarmaṇaḥ śarīrayātrāpi ca te na prasiddhyedakarmaṇaḥ

Do your prescribed work, as doing work is better than being idle. Even your own body cannot be maintained without work

Even if you sit still in one place, you are sitting, you are breathing, is it not? The internal functions in your body are happening. The breath that you take in carries prāna, the life energy that sustains you. So, you cannot say you are not doing anything.

People ask, 'Swamiji, you say that life is purposeless. Then I may as well just lie down and relax. Who will give me food? Who will pay my bills?' When Swamiji says life is purposeless, he is not asking you to just lie down and relax in your house. All he is saying is, 'Let your body and mind work without disturbing your inner space of completion. You don't have to sell your inner bliss to have outer comforts.'

The problem is that you never trust your body and mind. You always trust your ego and it finally dumps you! Be very clear, your body and mind will do their work. All you need to do is keep quiet and relax from your ego.

Śrī Kṛṣṇa says, 'A karma yogi, one who lives the path of authenticity in action, is a man who relaxes into nitya ānanda (eternal bliss) and does his work from the space of completion.'

You always think, 'If I relax mentally thinking life is purposeless, how will I know what is right and what is wrong?

How will I finish my work on time?'

When you worry about what is right and what is wrong, you will not make small mistakes, you will commit big blunders..

When you take the jump, you will naturally make some small mistakes.

Don't worry about them. Putting up with that mistake is what is caled penance, tapas. Penance is nothing but accepting and completing with the small mistakes you make and restoring your integrity and authenticity when the conscious transition happens in your being.

When you move from worry to bliss, when you move from falsehood to truth, when you move from incompletion to completion, you will make a few mistakes. You will fall and rise just like a baby learning to walk. When babies learn to walk, they always fall the first few times.

But just because of that, can you say they should never walk? Even if they make one or two small mistakes, they have to stand up and start walking.

Life is like a river.

If you place your hands in the river and keep them open, the river will always be there in your hands. But if you try to hold it, you will have only empty hands!

If you just allow it to happen it will continuously flow through you. The moment you try to possess it, you will have only empty hands. You will not be able to have life itself. Never think that having comforts in the outer world will give you inner completion.

All developed countries are filled with depression. They have the best roads, the best infrastructure, but their people are depressed. Never think outer space will give you inner space. If you want inner space, you need to work towards creating it. You need to understand the science of completion and the creation of inner space.

Whatever you choose, whether material life or spiritual life, you will always feel you are missing the other part.

As long as you think you are the mind, as long as you live with the mind, you will have this problem of material life versus spiritual life. The space of completion or incompletion, purposelessness or purposefulness does not work logically.

It explodes in all dimensions. As long as you are caught up with material goals or spiritual goals, you travel only in one direction of incompletion, because you think you are body or mind.

The more you are caught up with purposes, the more you think you are the body or the mind. When you realize the purposelessness of it all, you will straightaway fall into the depths of your being.

See, it is like each part of your incompletion claims, 'I am you!' For example, if your name is Sundar, each part of the broken you claims, 'I am Sundar!' 'I am Sundar!' and who screams loudly, he thinks he is Sundar. And one of the worst things is one part of you spends so much of energy to disprove that the other part is not you.

So finally, whoever wins, whoever loses, who is the loser? You! One part of you winning is not you winning. Unless your whole wins, you are a loser! When you bring integrity into your thinking, you become aware of every anxiety you go through, every fear you go through; you see how you are responsible for creating negativity in your life, and you also see how you can align yourself with yourself, and the world can just align itself with you.

By nature, man has to work. The senses have to be engaged in some action.

Even if you try and control them and do nothing externally, the very act of restraint is an action in itself

'Extrovert' is not something negative. Extrovert senses will always be alive, creative, active and contributing.

Kṛṣṇa says, your senses, by nature are programmed to go out! You are programmed to work, to go out.

The choice is really about how to work. Here, Kṛṣṇa gives the answer to that. He says that we should perform work without unnecessarily being bothered about whether or not it will fetch the results that you expect.

When do you get worried or afraid? It is when there is an unwritten expectation, an unconscious desire to achieve something as the result of an action.

Neither expression nor suppression is the solution. Only completion is the solution.

Let a child understand when we keep quiet and relax from our ego, our body and mind will do their work.

Understand that we can accept and complete with the small mistakes we make and restore our integrity and authenticity. Let children understand to bring integrity to their thinking and detach from the results of work and expectations.

• 1. If life is purposeless, should we just down and do nothing?
• 2. What does worry cause us to do?
• 3. What is courage of authenticity?
• 4. What should we do if we make small mistakes?
• 5. Who is responsible for creating negativity in your life?
• 6. What are your senses by nature programmed to do?
• 7. How should we work?
• 8. What does Kṛṣṇa say we should drop?

Part 2: Bhagavad Gita Chapter 3 - Lesson 2 of 11_English_part_2.md

Materials needed:

• ❖ Paper
• ❖ Colour pens

Sit with swamiji Write at least 10 sentences on what you trust about your body and mind. For example: I trust my third eye is real. Read these affirmation sentences in front of swamiji's photo

Inference: The affirmations with body and mind will help them trust body and mind

Tell a story as if you are God or Mother Nature and have to take care of everything in the world. What would all your commitments be? Second, tell a story as if you are a king or a queen and explain what all your commitments would be. Do the same as a mom or dad and finally as a kid. Now that we know from this exercise that our commitments are really small and that we can really keep them, let's be integrated with our commitments starting from today.

Connect them to the fact that Integrity means honoring every word you utter to yourself and others.

Have the children discuss situations when they are authentic at one time and inauthentic at other times. They have to be in the same authentic space always.

Build authenticity as the pattern in your inner space. Authenticity has to be practiced in every dimension of your life.

Conclusion: Life has no purpose, only meaning