Bhagavad Gita

by Eknath Easwaran

Body, Mind & Spirit

Mentioned in 1 episode

The Bhagavad Gita, “The Song of the Lord,” is the best known and most read of all the Indian scriptures, featured on college reading lists, quoted in yoga magazines, found in all good libraries and bookstores, and recognized as part of the wisdom literature of all time. Easwaran held the Gita to be India’s greatest gift to the world, and he found in it his most profound source of inspiration. He started teaching classes on the Gita in Berkeley in the sixties, and continued to bring his unfailing enthusiasm to a wide audience throughout his life. Readers have always appreciated the authenticity of his translation, which regularly tops the bestseller list of its genre and has consistently been the bestselling book for Nilgiri Press. The Gita opens, dramatically, on a battlefield. Prince Arjuna, a great warrior and a man of principle, is about to face the treacherous relatives who have deprived his elder brother of his crown. Just as the battle is about to begin, however, Arjuna collapses in his chariot, his bow falling to his side, unable to face the inevitable slaughter ahead of him. Arjuna’s struggle is profoundly modern. He has lost his way on the battlefield of life, and turns to a higher, spiritual power to find the path once again. About to go into the fight of his life, he asks direct, uncompromising questions of his spiritual guide, Sri Krishna. Acting as Arjuna’s friend and charioteer, Krishna is in reality the Lord himself. In seven hundred verses of sublime instruction, Krishna talks of living and dying, of loving and working, of the nature of the soul and the paths we can take to realize our true Self, our true stature. For, as Easwaran points out, the Gita is not what it seems – it’s not a dialogue between two mythical figures at the dawn of Indian time. “The battlefield is a perfect backdrop, but the Gita’s subject is the war within, the struggle for self-mastery that every human being must wage” to live a life that is meaningful, fulfilling, worthwhile.

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