1. Bhagavad Gita Chapter 8 - Lesson 2 of 8
Introduction To Bhagavad Gita: Of God
Śrīmad 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.
Introduction To Bhagavad Gita: Song Of God
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.
Introduction To Bhagavad Gita:
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.
Introduction To Bhagavad Gita: Song Of God
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).
Introduction To Bhagavad Gita:
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!
Righteous And Unrighteous Civilizations. What Happened During The Mahabharata?
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.
Look Into Your Life!
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.
What Happened During The Mahabharata?
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!
The Significance Of Mahabharat
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.
Character Sketch
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Śakuni, the maternal uncle of Duryodhana embodies the pattern of self-hatred, which is cunningness personified.
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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.
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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.
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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.'
śrībhagavānuvāca akṣaraṃ brahma paramaṃ svabhāvo'dhyātmamucyate bhūta bhāvodbhava-karo visargaḥ karmasañjñitaḥ
Bhagavān says: The indestructible, transcendental living entity is called Brahman and his eternal nature is called the self. Action pertaining to the development of the material bodies is called karma, or result based activities.
Powerful Cognition
Whatever samskaras or desires we bring, we bring enough energy to live them out and enough power of energy them also.
adhibhūtaṃ kṣaro bhāvaḥ puruṣaś cādhidaivatam adhiyajño'ham evātra dehe dehabhṛtāṃ vara
Physical nature is known to be endlessly changing. The universe is the cosmic form of the supreme Lord, and I am that Lord represented as the super soul, dwelling in the heart of every being that dwells in a body.
Everything, whether living or non-living, is an embodiment of the Supreme Soul.
antakāle ca māmeva smaranmuktvā kalevaram yaḥ prayāti sa madbhāvaṃ yāti nā'styatra saṃśayaḥ
Whoever, at the time of death, quits his body, remembering Me alone, attains My nature immediately. Of this there is no doubt.
Whatever you consider the highest ideal of your whole life, only that comes to your mind when you leave the body.
yaṃ yaṃ vāpi smaranbhāvaṃ tyajatyante kalevaram taṃ taṃ evaiti kaunteya sadā tadbhāvabhāvitaḥ
Whatever state of being one remembers when he quits his body, it is that state one will attain without fail.
Whatever you consider the highest ideal of your whole life, only that comes to your mind when you leave the body.
Introduction Before going into what happens at the time of death, let us understand how we assume the body, how we live through it and how we leave it.
Please understand that we create our whole body out of our fear, greed, guilt and our engraved memories, called the root thought patterns (saṁskāras). Whatever saṁskāras we have, we create the body to work them out, experience them and enjoy them. Once we have created the body and live our life,
When we came down to planet Earth, we came with enough energy to work out and complete our root thought patterns, saṁskāras. Listen! God never sends us empty handed. He sends us with everything. He sends us with our inner powers, but we have forgotten that we even have these great powers.
Your four inner powers are: the power of words or vāk śakti; the power of thoughts or mano śakti; the power of feeling or prema śakti; and the power of living or ātma śakti. Please listen! Karma refers to the unfulfilled desires that we create over many births, which pull us back again to take birth and fulfill them. We have three types of karma—sañcita, prārabdha and āgāmya.
Sañcita karma is our complete bank of unfulfilled karmas like our safety deposit or the files archived in our office vault. Prārabdha karma are those karmas that we have brought and come in this life, like files in filing cabinets which we access and work on regularly. Āgāmya karma are like the new files on our table that we keep creating — new karma that we create in every life.
We must exhaust all three types of karmas to experience enlightenment. Sañcita karma is all that we have accumulated over many births. Prārabdha karma is karma that we brought with us to work out in this life. Āgāmya karma is what we acquire newly in this birth.
Prarabdha Karma
Prārabdha karma is like our opening bank balance in this life. We have enough energy to exhaust this prārabdha karma. Then why do we feel that this life is not sufficient? Why do we feel unfulfilled? The problem is that after coming down, we forget what we came down for, the saṁskāras and desires that we brought to live out and complete.
Instead we accumulate more and more desires from family, friends and society. We accumulate desires from others in society and work out their desires in our life.
Understand that if we have lived 70 years, at the end of our life, when we leave our body, the whole scene, the whole 70 years appear before us as a flash, as a fast-forward movement. The whole thing appears in our consciousness again so that we can make the decision about our next birth.
I want to give you one more understanding: karma or saṁskāra means any desire that is not completely experienced by you. By nature you are a fulfilled complete being. But whenever you do not fulfill any action completely, with totality, you create a hangover.
Power Of Samskaras
You create a recorded memory of that action, a saṁskāra. A saṁskāra is not merely a dead memory stored in your unconscious mind; it has the power to make you repeat that action again and again till the desire is fulfilled. Please be very clear, saṁskāra is living energy because it has the power to make you repeat the same action again and again as a pattern.
It can make you travel the same path over and over again. that is why saṁskāras are called engraved memories, the root thought patterns. The more you travel on a path, the more it will be strengthened.
How To Get Out Of Samskaras?
But if you have completed with that pattern by living a single saṁskāra totally, completely, that saṁskāra leaves you! It drops from your being; you are liberated from it. Completion directly liberates you from karma. Completion directly leads you to experience the Truth.
Social conditioning divides everything into pleasure and pain. Even this decision — 'What kind of life will I choose in my next birth? What kind of body will I take?' – is based upon your social conditioning. You decide to achieve whatever you think is the highest thing in life. You automatically run behind whatever is kept as an ideal in front of your eyes.
Whatever you consider the highest ideal of your whole life, only that comes to your mind when you leave the body. What you remember at Death, So you attain Kṛṣṇa says, 'Whatever state of being one remembers when he quits his body, O Kaunteya, that state he will attain without fail.'
What exactly happens at the time of leaving the body? We should understand that. When a person leaves the body, he goes through seven layers of his being.
The first and the outermost layer is the physical layer. When a person leaves the body, it creates tremendous pain in his whole system, what the Upaniṣads liken to 'thousands of scorpions stinging at a time.'
There will be tremendous pain at first. We may ask, 'Why pain?' It is because our being wants to stay in the body, but the body cannot host the being anymore.
In natural death, the body is exhausted, so we leave the body. In an accident, the body is damaged. Naturally there will be tremendous pain. But one thing: there is an automatic mechanism in our being, an automatic painkiller mechanism. What happens is, the moment the pain becomes unbearable, we fall into coma. If we fall into coma, we will not experience pain.
But the big problem is that we die in unconsciousness when we die in coma. That is the worst thing, because we remain unaware of why we took this birth, and we will not be able to make the decision about the next birth consciously.
About The Pranic Body
At the time of death, the moment we leave the physical body, we go to the next level, the prāṇic body or the prāṇic layer in us. The prāṇic body refers to the layer responsible for the inhaling and exhaling of prāṇa, the life giving energy in our body. The prāṇic body is filled with all our desires.
Our prāṇa and desires are closely related. If our desires change, immediately the circulation of our praṇa changes. Similarly, if we change the circulation of prāṇa, our whole mind changes. Our mind and prāṇa are closely connected.
The next layer we cross in the process of death is the etheric body. Here, all the painful experiences that we had in life are stored. These four layers are hell.
When the energy crosses these four layers: physical body, prāṇic body, mental body and etheric body, the being undergoes hell. Understand that hell is. not situated in a place above our heads, but in these four layers, comprising all our desires, guilt and painful experiences. where is hell?
Guilt Is The Only Sin
We had such and such inadequate data and only that much intelligence to process the data at that time. Based on that, we made the decision. Guilt is a wedge inserted in our being. It creates uneasiness between you and your being. Be very clear, the worst sin is guilt. Guilt is the only sin; nothing else is a sin on planet Earth.
If we complete with guilt, at least our personality will be integrated and authentic. When our personality is integrated, we will naturally become pure and energetic.
Keep Your Layers Clean
During our life in the body, if we have kept these four layers clean and complete, we never enter hell. That is, if we can technically clean these layers; through meditation, through the process of completion. If we keep these layers clean with the proper meditation techniques, we will never have a problem at the time of leaving the body. We will have a clear highway. Straightaway we will travel!
Path Beyond Punya And Karma
That is what Kṛṣṇa says: This is the path on which a man can easily leave and liberate himself, and also the path on which he can suffer and destroy himself. Both ways are now shown by Kṛṣṇa. These are the major obstructions when we leave the body. After these first four layers, the three inner layers where all our blissful memories are stored are called heaven. Even if we are stuck there, we need to move on. Please be very clear, even our puṇya, merits, are karma. Even that will not allow us to become enlightened. We may feel good, ecstatic, for a few days. After that our mind takes that also for granted. In the case of heaven also, we will take it for granted after a few days. When you take it for granted, you have to come back to take another body, another birth.
Part 2: Bhagavad Gita Chapter 8 - Lesson 2 of 8
Children to learn about four inner powers and three types of karma. To understand why we assume the body. To understand what happens when we leave the body. GOALS:
Assessments
- What are root thought patterns (saṁskāras) and (unfulfilled desires) Karma?
- What are the four inner energies vāk śakti, mano śakti, prema śakti and ātma śakti ?
- What are the three types of karma-sañcita, prārabdha and āgāmya ?
- What is the sequence of events at the time of death?
Materials Needed:
- Paper, pencil & eraser 2. Acrylic paint and brush
Procedure
Make a stylized (abstract) drawing of "Yama - the God of Death". Feel free to be innovative and make your own unique "Yama". While you make your masterpiece, let us tell you a story about Yama:
One story goes like this: There was a king who lived for a hundred years. Then Yama, the god of death comes and tells him, 'Your life is over, O King, come now, it is time, let us go.' The king says, 'What is this? You gave me such a beautiful kingdom, such a beautiful life, such wonderful wives, kids; you have given me everything. 100 years is too short to enjoy this life. Please bless me with 100 more years.'
Yama explains that no extension is possible. The king continues to plead, 'No, please bless me with another 100 years.' Yama says, 'Alright, if one of your sons gives his life, I will extend yours as an exchange offer.' Somehow one son agrees to give his life for his father and the king gets 100 more years.
After 100 years when Yama appears again, the king does not realize that his time is up and says, 'What is this? I asked for 100 years and you have come so soon.' Yama tells him that 100 years are over. The king pleads again, 'Please help me somehow; I did not realize that 100 years are gone. Please give one more extension.' Yama tells him it is too much and that a second extension is not possible. However the king begs Yama to let him live a few more years. Finally he gets one more extension.
The next time when Yama comes, again the king is in the same mood. Now Yama gives a beautiful teaching. He says, 'By pouring oil on it, you can never put out the fire. Now it is time, you must come.' The king understands and follows Yama.
Inference
By chasing our desires, we can never feel fulfilled. Only more desires will come up. By fulfilling our desires, we can never hope to have contentment. When we acquire more and more desires from the outer world, we naturally feel that life is not sufficient, that we had not been given time or resources to fulfill these desires. We must understand the nature of desire. It is like a fire that can never be satiated. Unconsciously giving into desires without restraint leads to a feeling of discontentment.
Procedure:
Let us contemplate upon the four inner powers we hold, namely:
- the power of words or vāk śakti;
- the power of thoughts or mano śakti;
- the power of feeling or prema śakti;
- and the power of living or ātma śakti.
Let us try to remember at least one incident from our lives, where we, intentionally or accidentally, demonstrated the power of any one or more of these shaktis and the life events of your choice simply manifested without any effort!
For example, Joyce wanted to have an earthen clay pot. But could not convince her parents to buy one. She went for a walk in the evening and to her surprise two unused clay pots were sitting on the public sidewalk. The owner had no use for it and had given them away. Joyce manifested mano sakti
Let us share our powerful stories with our friends and listen to theirs.
Inference:
Four inner powers are: the power of words or vāk śakti; the power of thoughts or mano śakti; the power of feeling or prema śakti; and the power of living or ātma śakti.
When you create the right space inside you, all the events of your choice will simply flow into your life without any effort!
Topic Of Discussion Is:
"What exactly happens at the time of leaving the body?" What kind of experiences surface as the soul passes through each of these seven layers of the being ?
Start the discussion from the First Layer or sthula sharira (gross body), Second Layer or prana sharira (pranic body), Third Layer or mana sharira (mind), Fourth Layer or vijnanamaya kosha (intellect), Fifth Layer or karana sharira (causal body), Sixth Layer or ananda sharira (bliss), Seventh Layer or atman (consciousness), corresponding to experience of bodily pain, desires, guilt, painful memories, unconscious state, happy memories, and consciousness awareness respectively.
Conclusion:
what Kṛṣṇa says: This is the path on which a man can easily leave and liberate himself, and also the path on which he can suffer and destroy himself. Both ways are now shown by Kṛṣṇa. workshop of the day: