The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living, Volume 3: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary: Chapters 13-18 To Love Is to Know Me (The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living, 3) - Softcover

Easwaran, Eknath

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1586381369 ISBN 13: 9781586381363

Publisher: Nilgiri Press, 2020

Synopsis

A comprehensive manual for living a spiritual life, based on a verse-by-verse commentary on India’s timeless scripture – from the author of its best-selling translation.

(The ebook The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living 9781586381455 includes all three volumes in this series.)

The Bhagavad Gita is set on the battlefield of an apocalyptic war between good and evil. Faced with a dire moral dilemma, the warrior prince Arjuna turns in anguish to his spiritual guide, Sri Krishna, for answers to the fundamental questions of life.

Easwaran points out that Arjuna’s crisis is acutely modern. The Gita’s battlefield is the struggle for self-mastery that every human being must wage. Arjuna represents each of us, and Sri Krishna is the Lord, instructing us in eighteen chapters of lofty wisdom as we face the social, environmental, and global challenges that threaten our world today.

Easwaran is a spiritual teacher and author of deep insight and warmth. His verse-by-verse commentary interprets the Gita’s teachings for modern readers, explaining the Sanskrit concepts and philosophy and applying them with practicality, wisdom, and humor to every aspect of our work, our relationships, and our lives. With everyday anecdotes, stories, and examples, he shows that the changes we long to see in the world start with the transformation of our own consciousness.

The practical exercises recommended by Easwaran to achieve transformation are part of a spiritual program he developed for his own life. They are accessible to people from all backgrounds and cultures. Urging us to adopt a higher image of the human being, he assures us that peace and unity are within reach.

Each volume of this series covers six chapters of the Gita. Each may be read on its own, but all three volumes together form an in-depth, verse-by-verse explanation of this ancient scripture and its relevance today. Each volume includes instructions in Easwaran's eight-point program of passage meditation.

Volume 1: The first six chapters of the Gita explore the concept of the innermost Self and source of wisdom in each of us. Easwaran explains how we can begin to transform ourselves, even as householders engaged in busy lives.

Volume 2: The next six chapters of the Gita go beyond the individual Self to explore the Supreme Reality underlying all creation. Easwaran builds a bridge across the seeming divide between scientific knowledge and spiritual wisdom, and explains how the concept of the unity of life can help us in all our relationships.

Volume 3: The final six chapters put forth an urgent appeal for us to begin to see that all of us are one – to make the connection between the Self within and the Reality underlying all creation. Global in scope, the emphasis is on what we can do to make a difference to heal our environment and establish peace in the world.

Easwaran’s commentary is for all students of the Gita, whatever their background, and for anyone who is trying to find a path to wisdom, love, and kindness in themselves and our troubled world. Written as an authoritative, accessible guide to a much-loved scripture, it is a handbook for finding peace and clarity within.

This second edition incorporates revisions made across all three volumes following the author’s final instructions.

About this title

About the Author

Eknath Easwaran (1910-1999) brings to this volume a rare combination of credentials: knowledge of Sanskrit, an intuitive understanding of his Hindu legacy, and a mastery of English. More than two million copies of his books are in print, including his best-selling translations of the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads. Born in India, Easwaran was a professor of English literature at a leading Indian university when he came to the United States in 1959 on the Fulbright exchange program. He founded the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation in 1961 and gave talks on the Indian classics, world mysticism, meditation, and spiritual living for 40 years. His meditation class at UC Berkeley in 1968 was the first accredited course on meditation at any major university. Easwaran lived what he taught, giving him lasting appeal as a spiritual author and teacher of deep insight and warmth.

From the Back Cover

“It is impossible to get to the heart of those classics unless you live them, and [Easwaran] did live them. My admiration of the man and his works is boundless.” – Huston Smith, author of The World’s Religions, reviewing Easwaran’s translation, The Bhagavad Gita

In this verse-by-verse commentary on India’s most famous scripture, Eknath Easwaran, author of the best-selling translation of the Bhagavad Gita, interprets the Gita’s wisdom for modern readers. With everyday stories and touches of humor he shows how this ancient text sheds light on every aspect of our lives. In later chapters he explains how the Gita’s insights can be applied to address the social, economic, and environmental problems threatening our world today.

The Bhagavad Gita is set on the battlefield of an apocalyptic war between good and evil. Faced with a dire moral dilemma, the warrior prince Arjuna turns in anguish to his spiritual guide, Sri Krishna, for answers to the fundamental questions of life.

Easwaran presents Arjuna’s crisis as acutely modern. The Gita’s battlefield is the struggle for self-mastery that every human being must wage. Arjuna represents each of us, and Sri Krishna is the Lord, showing us the path to peace and meaning.

The third volume in this three-part series covers chapters 13–18 of the Gita. These chapters make an urgent appeal for us to see that all of us are one – to make the connection between the Self within and the Reality underlying all creation. Global in scope, the emphasis is on what we can do to make a difference to heal our environment and establish peace in the world.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

3. Among the wise, some say that all action should be renounced as evil. Others say that certain kinds of action – self-sacrifice, giving, and self-discipline –should be continued.
4. Listen, O Bharata, and I will explain three kinds of renunciation and the central truth underlying them.

There are people in the spiritual traditions of both East and West who hold that any kind of worldly activity taints us, getting us embroiled in self-centered activities and relationships. Trying to find ways to remove the threat of war, to help deal with the problems of poverty and hunger, to make our neighborhoods safe from violence again – all these agitate the mind and make it difficult to concentrate on spiritual disciplines. Why not forget about the state of the world, retire into the mountains somewhere, and lead a life of simple tranquility?

One of the most cogent arguments against this is that it doesn’t work. Anybody’s mind can calm down, at least on the surface level, when there is nobody around to contradict you. But left on its own, the mind goes on dwelling on itself; the ego becomes bloated. If somebody says something critical – asks, perhaps, what your way of life is contributing to the world – you blow up. Just beneath the surface of the mind, every samskāra is still there. What progress has been made? The mind, with all its same old problems, is busier than ever.

Today, to avoid the problems of stress and tension, we are advised to “let go” and “take it easy.” Even experts sometimes say, “What does it matter? Go with the flow.” By now I don’t suppose I have to name the guna. Recently I was surprised to read the advice of a prominent physician on how to deal with stress: “Rule Number 1 is, don’t sweat the small stuff. Rule Number 2 is, it’s all small stuff.” To me, this is a most depressing view of life and of human capabilities. Such attitudes are often considered spiritual, but this is a gross misunderstanding. Not only the Gita but Jesus and the Compassionate Buddha too teach a message of active love and selfless service. There is no conflict between what Christian mystics call the active and the contemplative lives, between meditation and selfless action; they go together as naturally as breathing out and breathing in. “What a person takes in by contemplation,” Eckhart says, “he pours forth in love.”

The Buddha approaches this problem from another angle. He would ask, “What about the law of karma?” All of us have accounts which have to be balanced somehow. I can illustrate this from bank accounting practices in British India. In those days, the agent of the Imperial Bank of India – British, of course – used to live on the bank premises upstairs, and as a rule none of the clerks, who were Indian, were allowed to leave until the books were balanced. I remember my friends in the bank occasionally coming home at midnight. The bank agent could afford to take his time. He could go upstairs, have a leisurely dinner, and then saunter down again to see how his staff were doing. And as soon as debits and credits were balanced, the doors were unlocked and everybody was released to go home.

Edition details

• Publisher: Nilgiri Press
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1586381369
• ISBN 13: 9781586381363
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 498