- TABLE OF CONTENTS -
Publishers Note
Foreword
Preface
Introduction
Prayer to Vyasa
Prayer to the Guru
Prayer to Lord Krishna
Gita Mahatmya
Gita Dhyanam
1. The Yoga of the Despondency of Arjuna
2. Sankhya Yoga
3. The Yoga of Action
4. The Yoga of Wisdom
5. The Yoga of Renunciation of Action
6. The Yoga of Meditation
7. The Yoga of Wisdom and Realisation
8. The Yoga of the Imperishable Brahman
9. The Yoga of the Kingly Science & the Kingly Secret
10. The Yoga of the Divine Glories
11. The Yoga of the Vision of the Cosmic Form
12. The Yoga of Devotion
13. The Yoga of Distinction Between The Field & the Knower of the Field
14. The Yoga of the Division of the Three Gunas
15. The Yoga of the Supreme Spirit
16. The Yoga of the Division Between the Divine and the Demoniacal
17. The Yoga of the Division of the Threefold Faith
18. The Yoga of Liberation by Renunciation
Essays_On_The_Gita
book
2.2.2.01 - The Author of the Bhagavad Gita
3.2.05 - The Yoga of the Bhagavad Gita
Bhagavad Gita
The Bhagavad Gita
bhagavad gita. ::: Song of the Bhagavan or Song of the Lord; a 700-verse episode composed about 200 BC and incorporated into the hindu epic Mahabharata in which Sri Krishna, the 8th Avatar of Vishnu, expounds the doctrine of selfless action done as duty, not for profit or recognition, but in a spirit of dedication to the one supreme being
Bhagavad Gita&
Bhagavad Gita ::: [the Song of the Blessed Lord", a celebrated scripture in the form of a dialogue between Krsna (Bhagavan) and Arjuna spoken on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, which occurs as an episode in the Mahabhdrata].
Bhagavad Gita: (Skr. the song, gita, of the Blessed One) A famed philosophic epic poem, widely respected in India and elsewhere, representing Krishna embodied as a charioteer imparting to the King Arjuna, who is unwilling to fight his kinsmen in battle, comprehension of the mysteries of existence, clearly indicating the relationship between morality and absolute ethical values in a Hindu philosophy of action. -- K.F.L.
Bhagavad Gita: Sanskrit for Song of the Divine One. The title of a celebrated philosophic epic poem, inserted in the Mahabharata (q.v.), containing a dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna, which clearly indicates the relationship between morality and absolute ethical values in the Hindu philosophy of action (Karma Yoga); it is considered to be one of the most influential philosophical poems of Sanskrit literature; the exact date of origin is unknown.
Bhagavad Gita, (tr.) Charles Johnston. London; John
bhagavad gita. ::: Song of the Bhagavan or Song of the Lord; a 700-verse episode composed about 200 BC and incorporated into the hindu epic Mahabharata in which Sri Krishna, the 8th Avatar of Vishnu, expounds the doctrine of selfless action done as duty, not for profit or recognition, but in a spirit of dedication to the one supreme being
Bhagavad Gita&
Bhagavad Gita ::: [the Song of the Blessed Lord", a celebrated scripture in the form of a dialogue between Krsna (Bhagavan) and Arjuna spoken on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, which occurs as an episode in the Mahabhdrata].
Bhagavad Gita (S) Literally: the song of the Lord. Holy book of the Hindus
KEYS (10k)
5 Bhagavad Gita
4 Anonymous
2 Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
1 The Bhagavad Gita
1 Satprem
1 Ken Wilber
1 Jason Bowman
1 Bhagavad Gita XI. 38
1 BHAGAVAD GITA A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
22 Devdutt Pattanaik
21 Bhagavad Gita
6 Elizabeth Gilbert
5 Paramahansa Yogananda
5 Deepak Chopra
5 Anonymous
4 Stephen Cope
3 Ram Dass
3 Eckhart Tolle
2 Vishnuvarthanan Moorthy
2 Swami Vivekananda
2 Swami Abhayananda
2 Sudha Murty
2 Jawaharlal Nehru
1:He is everywhere in the world and stands with all in His embrace. ~ Bhagavad Gita, #KEYS
2:Curving back within myself I create again and again. ~ Anonymous, The Bhagavad Gita , #KEYS
3:Yoga is the practice of tolerating the consequences of being yourself. ~ Bhagavad Gita, #KEYS
4:We behold what we are, and we are what we behold. ~ Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, The Bhagavad Gita , #KEYS
5:Performing the duty prescribed by (one's own) nature, one incurreth no sin. ~ Anonymous, The Bhagavad Gita , #KEYS
6:No one who does good work will ever come to a bad end, either here or in the world to come ~ The Bhagavad Gita, #KEYS
7:Even as men come to Me, so I accept them. It is my path that men follow from all sides, ~ Bhagavad Gita, (IV.11) , #KEYS
8:The cause of the distress of a living entity is forgetfulness of his relationship with God. ~ Anonymous, The Bhagavad Gita As It Is PURPORT, #KEYS
9:Even if the vilest sinner worships me with exclusive devotion, he should be accounted a saint, for he has rightly resolved. ~ BHAGAVAD GITA Bhagavad Gita XI. 38, #KEYS
11:The awakened sages call a person wise when all his undertakings are free from anxiety about results; all his selfish desires have been consumed in the fire of knowledge. ~ Bhagavad Gita, #KEYS
12:... with the heart concentrated by yoga, viewing all things with equal regard, beholds himself in all beings and all beings in himself. In whatever way he leads his life, that one lives in God. ~ Bhagavad Gita, 29.php">.php">29 2020-08-31, #KEYS
13:Perform all thy actions with mind concentrated on the Divine, renouncing attachment and looking upon success and failure with an equal eye. Spirituality implies equanimity. [Trans. Purohit Swami] ~ Anonymous, The Bhagavad Gita , #KEYS
14:The happiness which comes from long practice, which leads to the end of suffering, which at first is like poison, but at last like nectar - this kind of happiness arises from the serenity of one's own mind. ~ Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, The Bhagavad Gita , #KEYS
15:Anyone who is steady in his determination for the advanced stage of spiritual realization and can equally tolerate the onslaughts of distress and happiness is certainly a person eligible for liberation. ~ A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, The Bhagavad Gita , #KEYS
16:Recommended ReadingDavid Foster Wallace - Infinite JestDH Lawrence - The RainbowGabriel Garcia Marquez - Love in the Time of CholeraKarl Ove Knausgaard - My StruggleVirginia Woolf - To The LighthouseBen Lerner - The Topeka SchoolSally Rooney - Conversations With FriendsNell Zink - The WallcreeperElena Ferrante - The Days of AbandonmentJack Kerouac - Dharma BumsWalt Whitman - Leaves of GrassMichael Murphy - Golf in the KingdomBarbara Kingsolver - Prodigal SummerAlbertine Sarrazin - AstragalRebecca Solnit - The Faraway NearbyMichael Paterniti - Love and Other Ways of DyingRainer Maria Rilke - Book of HoursJames Baldwin - Another CountryRoberto Calasso - KaTranslation by S. Radhakrishan - Principle UpanisadsChogyam Trungpa - Cutting Through Spiritual MaterialismTranslation by Georg Feuerstein - Yoga SutraRichard Freeman - The Mirror of YogaTranslation by S. Radhakrishan - The Bhagavad GitaShrunyu Suzuki - Zen Mind Beginner's MindHeinrich Zimmer - Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and CivilizationSogyal Rinpoche - The Tibetan Book of Living and DyingJoseph Campbell - Myths of LightJoseph Campbell - The Hero With A Thousand FacesSri Aurobindo - SavitriThomas Meyers - Anatomy TrainsWendy Doniger - The Hindus ~ Jason Bowman, http://www.jasonbowmanyoga.com/recommended-reading , #KEYS
17:As Korzybski and the general semanticists have pointed out, our words, symbols, signs, thoughts and ideas are merely maps of reality, not reality itself, because "the map is not the territory." The word "water" won't satisfy your thirst. But we live in the world of maps and words as if it were the real world. Following in the footsteps of Adam, we have become totally lost in a world of purely fantasy maps and boundaries. And these illusory boundaries, with the opposites they create, have become our impassioned battles. Most of our "problems of living," then, are based on the illusion that the opposites can and should be separated and isolated from one anotheR But since all opposites are actually aspects of one underlying reality, this is like trying to totally separate the two ends of a single rubber band. All you can do is pull harder and harder-until something violently snaps. Thus we might be able to understand that, in all the mystical traditions the world over, one who sees through the illusion of the opposites is called "liberated." Because he is "freed from the pairs" of opposites, he is freed in this life from the fundamentally nonsensical problems and conflicts involved in the war of opposites. He no longer manipulates the opposites one against the other in his search for peace, but instead transcends them both. Not good vs. evil but beyond good and evil. Not life against death but a center of awareness that transcends both. The point is not to separate the opposites and make "positive progress," but rather to unify and harmonize the opposites, both positive and negative, by discovering a ground which transcends and encompasses them both. And that ground, as we will soon see, is unity consciousness itself. In the meantime, let us note, as does the Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita, that liberation is not freedom from the negative, but freedom from the pairs altogether: Content with getting what arrives of itself Passed beyond the pairs, free from envy, Not attached to success nor failure, Even acting, he is not bound. He is to be recognized as eternally free Who neither loathes nor craves; For he that is freed from the pairs, Is easily freed from conflict. ~ Ken Wilber, No Boundary , #KEYS
18:Who could have thought that this tanned young man with gentle, dreamy eyes, long wavy hair parted in the middle and falling to the neck, clad in a common coarse Ahmedabad dhoti, a close-fitting Indian jacket, and old-fashioned slippers with upturned toes, and whose face was slightly marked with smallpox, was no other than Mister Aurobindo Ghose, living treasure of French, Latin and Greek?" Actually, Sri Aurobindo was not yet through with books; the Western momentum was still there; he devoured books ordered from Bombay and Calcutta by the case. "Aurobindo would sit at his desk," his Bengali teacher continues, "and read by the light of an oil lamp till one in the morning, oblivious of the intolerable mosquito bites. I would see him seated there in the same posture for hours on end, his eyes fixed on his book, like a yogi lost in the contemplation of the Divine, unaware of all that went on around him. Even if the house had caught fire, it would not have broken this concentration." He read English, Russian, German, and French novels, but also, in ever larger numbers, the sacred books of India, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Ramayana, although he had never been in a temple except as an observer. "Once, having returned from the College," one of his friends recalls, "Sri Aurobindo sat down, picked up a book at random and started to read, while Z and some friends began a noisy game of chess. After half an hour, he put the book down and took a cup of tea. We had already seen him do this many times and were waiting eagerly for a chance to verify whether he read the books from cover to cover or only scanned a few pages here and there. Soon the test began. Z opened the book, read a line aloud and asked Sri Aurobindo to recite what followed. Sri Aurobindo concentrated for a moment, and then repeated the entire page without a single mistake. If he could read a hundred pages in half an hour, no wonder he could go through a case of books in such an incredibly short time." But Sri Aurobindo did not stop at the translations of the sacred texts; he began to study Sanskrit, which, typically, he learned by himself. When a subject was known to be difficult or impossible, he would refuse to take anyone's word for it, whether he were a grammarian, pandit, or clergyman, and would insist upon trying it himself. The method seemed to have some merit, for not only did he learn Sanskrit, but a few years later he discovered the lost meaning of the Veda. ~ Satprem, Sri Aurobindo Or The Adventure of Consciousness , #KEYS
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1:Subject thyself to thee. ~ Bhagavad Gita XII. 11, #NFDB
2:Bhagavad Gita as a great ~ Vishnuvarthanan Moorthy, #NFDB
3:Nothing here below should trouble the sage. ~ Bhagavad Gita, #NFDB
4:Thou art the sovereign treasure of this universe. ~ Bhagavad Gita, #NFDB
5:Swami Vivekananda LECTURES ON THE BHAGAVAD GITA ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
6:Poor souls are they whose work is for a reward. ~ Bhagavad Gita. 2.49, #NFDB
7:For there is nothing so powerful to purify as knowledge. ~ Bhagavad Gita, #NFDB
8:Just a little progress is freedom from fear.—Bhagavad Gita ~ David Richo, #NFDB
9:There is in this world no purification like knowledge. ~ Bhagavad Gita IV. 3, #NFDB
10:Thou hast a right only to work, but never to its fruits. ~ Bhagavad Gita. 2.47, #NFDB
11:He is everywhere in the world and stands with all in His embrace. ~ Bhagavad Gita, #NFDB
12:Be focused on action and not on the fruits of action.” Bhagavad Gita ~ Paul Jarvis, #NFDB
13:They have conquered the creation, whose mind is settled in equality. ~ Bhagavad Gita, #NFDB
14:He sees the one Spirit in all beings and he sees all beings in the one Spirit. ~ Bhagavad Gita, #NFDB
15:The supreme Brahman without beginning cannot be called either Being or Non-being. ~ Bhagavad Gita, #NFDB
16:That which is not cannot come to being and that which is cannot cease to be. ~ Bhagavad Gita. II. 16, #NFDB
17:And now a surprise: Beethoven was deeply inspired by his reading of the Bhagavad Gita. ~ Stephen Cope, #NFDB
18:I see of Thee neither end nor middle nor beginning, O Lord of all and universal form. ~ Bhagavad Gita, #NFDB
19:It is better to follow one's own law even though imperfect than the better law of another. ~ Bhagavad Gita, #NFDB
20:Modern polarity is nothing but the ‘dual world’ described by Krishna here in the Bhagavad Gita ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
21:Not overjoyed at gaining what is pleasant, nor disturbed, overtaken by what is unpleasant. ~ Bhagavad Gita, #NFDB
22:When you feel the suffering of every living thing in your own heart, that is consciousness ~ Bhagavad Gita, #NFDB
23:We are born into the world of nature; our second birth is into the world of spirit.”—Bhagavad Gita ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
24:Whoever has perfected himself by the spiritual union, finds in time the true science in himself. ~ Bhagavad Gita IV. 38, #NFDB
25:Nacemos al mundo de la Naturaleza; cuando nacemos por segunda vez, es al mundo del espíritu. BHAGAVAD GITA ~ Wayne W Dyer, #NFDB
26:If a Beethoven could give us in music the spirit of the Bhagavad Gita, what a wonderful symphony we should hear! ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
27:thy heart upon thy work, but never on its reward,” Krishna tells his student Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita.) ~ Jennifer Senior, #NFDB
28:Selling religion was by no means unique to Scientology. The Hare Krishnas sold copies of the Bhagavad Gita; the ~ Janet Reitman, #NFDB
29:When you feel the suffering of every living thing in your own heart, that is consciousness ~ Bhagavad Gita #BeefBan #CowSlaughterBan, #NFDB
30:The wise weep not for the dead nor the living: all of us were before and shall not cease to be hereafter. ~ Bhagavad Gita. II. 11, 12, #NFDB
31:For those in whom self-knowledge has destroyed their ignorance, knowledge illumines sunlike that highest existence. ~ Bhagavad Gita V. 16, #NFDB
32:All work has inadequacies; even fire is enveloped by smoke.—Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 18, verses 47 and 48 (paraphrased). ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
33:Learn then, in brief, matter and its nature, qualities and modifications and also what the Spirit is and what its power. ~ Bhagavad Gita XIII, #NFDB
34:The mind is restless, violent, powerful, obstinate; its control seems to me as difficult a task as to control the wind. ~ Bhagavad Gita VI. 34, #NFDB
35:The soul that dwells in the body of every man is unslayable, and therefore thou shouldst not weep for all these beings. ~ Bhagavad Gita. II. 30, #NFDB
36:The mind is restless, strong, insistent, violently disturbing; to control it I hold to be as difficult as to control the wind. ~ Bhagavad Gita VI, #NFDB
37:When thy understanding shall stand immovable and unshakeable in concentration, then thou shalt attain to the divine Union. ~ Bhagavad Gita 11. 53, #NFDB
38:In our household, the Bible, the Koran and the Bhagavad Gita sat on the shelf alongside books of Greek and Norse and African mythology ~ Barack Obama, #NFDB
39:...where there is One, that One is me; where there are many, all are me; they see my face everywhere.
The Bhagavad Gita ~ Krishna Dwaipayana Vyasa,#NFDB
40:The knowledge which sees one imperishable existence in all beings and the indivisible in things divided know to be the true knowledge. ~ Bhagavad Gita, #NFDB
41:Each time that the mobile and inconstant mind goes outward, it should be controlled, brought back into oneself and made obedient. ~ Bhagavad Gita VI. 26,, #NFDB
42:Make pain and pleasure, loss and gain, victory and defeat equal to thee, then turn thyself to the battle, so shalt thou have no sin. ~ Bhagavad Gita II. 38, #NFDB
43:After his retirement, Pranabananda wrote Pranab Gita, a profound commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, available in Hindi and Bengali. The ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
44:Difficult is union with God when the self is not under governance; but when the self is well-subjected, there are means to come by it. ~ Bhagavad Gita XI. 38, #NFDB
45:É melhor viver o nosso próprio destino de forma imperfeita do que uma imitação da vida de outra pessoa na perfeição"
Bhagavad Gitav ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,#NFDB
46:The act done under right rule, with detachment, without liking or dislike, by the man who grasps not at the fruit, that is a work of light. ~ Bhagavad Gita 18.23, #NFDB
47:The man who has conquered himself and is tranquillised, remains fixed in his highest self, whether in pleasure or pain, in honour or in disgrace. ~ Bhagavad Gita, #NFDB
48:I now understand why my guru told me not to read other commentaries onthe Bhagavad Gita. He didn't want my mind influenced by human opinions. ~ Paramhansa Yogananda, #NFDB
49:It is impossible for man who has a body to abstain absolutely from all action, but whoever; renounces its fruits, is the man of true renunciation. ~ Bhagavad Gita. 18.11, #NFDB
50:Where Krishna yokes the mind and Arjuna bears the bow, there is always fortune, success, dominion, stability, and law. That is my opinion.—Bhagavad Gita: ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
51:The man whose understanding is in union with the Spirit, casts from him both good doing and evil doing; get this union, it is the perfect skill in works. ~ Bhagavad Gita. II- 50, #NFDB
52:All existences are unmanifest in their origin and beginning, manifest in their middle and unmanifest again in their passing; what cause is here to lament ? ~ Bhagavad Gita. II. 28, #NFDB
53:Knowledge is better than practice, concentration excels knowledge, the renunciation of fruits concentration; peace is the immediate result of renunciation. ~ Bhagavad Gita.XII. 12, #NFDB
54:The Bhagavad Gita says: Recognize sorrow as of the essence. When there is time, there is sorrow. We can't rid the world of sorrow, but we can choose to live in joy. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
55:The most revealing books are the Holy Koran and the Holy Bible. The Bhagavad Gita is a great book as well, and the works of Buddha. These are the major influences on the world. ~ RZA, #NFDB
56:Arjuna, that which is born will die and that which will die will be born. So it is pointless to cling and mourn. —Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 2, Verse 27 (paraphrased). ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
57:One beholds it as a mystery, another speaks of it as a mystery, another learns of it as a mystery and even when one has learned of it, there is none that knows it. ~ Bhagavad Gita II 29, #NFDB
58:The Bhagavad Gita—that ancient Indian Yogic text—says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
59:I believe what it says in the scriptures and in the Bhagavad Gita: 'Never was there a time when you did not exist, and there never will be a time when you cease to exist.' ~ George Harrison, #NFDB
60:Vanessa Rey chose the words for her own headstone, taking her theme from the Bhagavad Gita. "Certain is death, for the living, certain is life, for the dead." Think about that. ~ Mike Carey, #NFDB
61:When his thought and feeling are perfectly under regulation and stand firm in his Self, then, unmoved to longing by any desire, he is said to be in union with the Self. ~ Bhagavad Gita VI.18, #NFDB
62:When the thought of a man is without attachment, when he has conquered himself and is rid of desire, by that renunciation he reaches a supreme perfection of quietude. ~ Bhagavad Gita XVIII. 49, #NFDB
63:And of all that are Yogins I deem him to have most yoga who, with his inner Self taking refuge in Me, hath faith in Me, and loveth Me and worshippeth Me. ~ Sri AurobindoTranslationsBhagavad Gita, #NFDB
64:The Bhagavad Gita—that ancient Indian Yogic text—says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
65:The Bhagavad Gita--that ancient Indian Yogic text--says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
66:Arjuna, your mind is your friend and your enemy. If you control the mind, it is your friend. If your mind controls you, it is your enemy.—Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 6, verses 5 and 6 ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
67:Some look on the soul as amazing, some describe him as amazing, and some hear of him as amazing, while others, even after hearing about him, cannot understand him at all. —Bhagavad Gita ~ Ashish Dalela, #NFDB
68:The uncontrolled mind Does not guess that the Atman is present: How can it meditate? Without meditation, where is peace? Without peace, where is happiness? (Bhagavad Gita, II. 62, 63, 65) ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
69:Work done with anxiety about results is far inferior to work done without such anxiety, in the calm of self-surrender. [...] They who work selfishly for results are miserable. — "Bhagavad Gita. ~ J D Salinger, #NFDB
70:Arjuna, your mind is your friend and your enemy. If you control the mind, it is your friend. If your mind controls you, it is your enemy.—Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 6, verses 5 and 6 (paraphrased). ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
71:Who everywhere is free from all ties, who neither rejoices nor sorrows if fortune is good or ill, his is a serene wisdom.
Intro to Part 3, Chapter 1. Credit was given to The Bhagavad Gita. ~ Deborah Moggach,#NFDB
72:I chose to take the oath of office with my personal copy of the Bhagavad Gita because its teachings have inspired me to be a servant-leader, dedicating my life in the service of others and to my country. ~ Tulsi Gabbard, #NFDB
73:Always perform your duty efficiently and without attachment to the results, because by doing work without attachment one attains the Supreme.- Bhagavad Gita There is only one kind of magic and this is ‘doing.’ ~ Gurdjieff, #NFDB
74:In the Bhagavad Gita, one of the oldest and most beautiful spiritual teachings in existence, nonattachment to the fruit of your action is called Karma Yoga. It is described as the path of “consecrated action. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
75:Arjuna, those who cleanse themselves with contemplation and meditation discover me, embrace me, find shelter in me and are liberated from yearning, fear and anger.—Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 4, Verse 10 (paraphrased). ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
76:We live in a world of careers. Work, as Sri Krishna points out in the Bhagavad Gita, is a necessary path for everyone attaining enlightenment. It is something that we all do. Some people work very hard at not working. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
77:In the Bhagavad Gita, there is no long discussion, nothing elaborate. The main reason for this is that everything stated in the Gita is meant to be tested in the life of every man; it is intended to be verified in practice. ~ Vinoba Bhave, #NFDB
78:The Bhagavad Gita is not as nice a book as some Americans think...Throughout the Mahabharata ... Krishna goads human beings into all sorts of murderous and self-destructive behaviors such as war.... The Gita is a dishonest book . ~ Wendy Doniger, #NFDB
79:The Bhagavad Gita deals essentially with the spiritual foundation of human existence. It is a call of action to meet the obligations and duties of life; yet keeping in view the spiritual nature and grander purpose of the universe. ~ Jawaharlal Nehru, #NFDB
80:it is not the institution, ultimately it is you and you alone who can change your life by hard work.’ Probably he was not aware that he was following the philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita: ‘Your best friend is yourself and your worst enemy is yourself. ~ Sudha Murty, #NFDB
81:For the first time i began to think, consciously and deliberately of religion and other worlds. The Hindu religion especially went up in my estimation; not the ritual or ceremonial part, but it's great books, the "Upnishads," and the "Bhagavad Gita." ~ Jawaharlal Nehru, #NFDB
82:Arjuna, there is nothing in the three worlds that I need to do or gain. Yet I work, for if I don’t, others won’t, and I will be the cause of confusion and destruction of all that has been created.—Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 3, verses 22 to 24 (paraphrased). ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
83:The cultivation of this quality of “evenness” is a central principle of the Bhagavad Gita. It is called samatva in Sanskrit, and it is a central pillar of Krishna’s practice. When the mind develops steadiness, teaches Krishna, it is not shaken by fear or greed. ~ Stephen Cope, #NFDB
84:Void of wishes, controlled in mind and spirit, abandoning all desire of external possession, satisfied with what comes to him, free from liking and disliking and from all jealousy and envy, equal in success and failure, he acts and is not bound by his actions. ~ Bhagavad Gita, #NFDB
85:"Bhagavad Gita" is an examination of consciousness and the desire of human beings and the quest that we have as human beings to understand ourselves; that it was a map, you might say, for exploring the territory that leads us to find out things about ourselves. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
86:Bhagavad Gita, “The Song Of God.” It is a philosophical dialogue, written by some illumined sage of the time (and attributed to the legendary sage, Vyasa), which offers the most comprehensive and definitive expression of the Samkhya philosophy ever written. ~ Swami Abhayananda, #NFDB
87:Arjuna, the senses exist beyond the physical; mind beyond the senses; intelligence beyond the mind. Beyond intelligence is your sense of self. By knowing who you really are you will conquer all yearning.—Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 3, verses 42 and 43 (paraphrased). ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
88:For if a man moves among sensible objects with the senses delivered from liking and dislike and obedient to his self, he attains to serenity. By serenity is born the slaying of all sorrows, for when the heart is serene, the intelligent mind soon comes to its poise. ~ Bhagavad Gita, #NFDB
89:If we argue that since all bodies are perishable, one may kill, does it follow that I may kill all the women and children in the Ashram? Would I have in doing so acted according to the teaching of the Bhagavad Gita, merely because their bodies are perishable? What, ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
90:There are some who see by contemplation the self in themselves by the self, others by union through the understanding, and others again know not, but hear of it from others and seek after it, and all these, even they who hear and seek after it, pass over beyond death. ~ Bhagavad Gita, #NFDB
91:The "Bhagavad Gita" is actually a very good text for yoga - the yoga of love, the yoga of action or karma, the yoga of understanding of intellect, and the yoga of reflection and meditation. I think it's a very important map for understanding the nature of consciousness. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
92:Grow attached, and you become addicted; Thwart your addiction, it turns to anger; Be angry & you confuse your mind; Confuse your mind, you forget the lesson of experience; Forget experience, you lose discrimination; Lose discrimination & you miss life's only purpose ~ Bhagavad Gita, #NFDB
93:Arjuna, fair or unfair, the results of any action depend on five things: the body, the mind, the instruments, the method and divine grace (luck? fate?). Only the ignorant think they alone are responsible for any outcome.—Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 18, verses 13 to 16 (paraphrased). ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
94:As the Bhagavad Gita says, ‘There never was a time when I was not . . . there will never be a time when I will cease to be.’ Since time and space began together – as both St Augustine and the big bang attest – the Bhagavad Gita has a point. The chicken and the egg arrived at the same time. ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
95:The man in whom all desires disappear like rivers into a motionless sea, attains to peace, not he whom they move to longing. That man whose walk is free from longing, for he has thrown all desires from him, who calls nothing his and has no sense of ego, is moving towards peace. ~ Bhagavad Gita II. 70-71, #NFDB
96:Arjuna, in age after age, whenever humanity forgets its potential and functions as it should not, I manifest to inspire those with faith and shake up those without faith, so that humanity never ever forgets what it is capable of.’—Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 4, verses 7 and 8 (paraphrased). ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
97:The Bhagavad Gita--the ancient Indian yogic text--says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection. So I have started living my own life. Imperfect and clumsy as it may look, it is resembling me now, thoroughly. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
98:The Bhagavad Gita—that ancient Indian Yogic text—says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection. So now I have started living my own life. Imperfect and clumsy as it may look, it is resembling me now, thoroughly. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
99:Although some popular religious texts such as the New Testament, Quran, Bhagavad Gita, Tao Te Ching, or Tibetan Book of the Dead contain interesting insights and stories, it is the Jewish religious texts such as the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures) that contain valuable information on acquiring wealth. ~ H W Charles, #NFDB
100:He who sees that in inaction there is an act and that in works there can be freedom from the act, is the wise among men...When a man has given up the fruit of his works and is eternally content and without dependence upon things, then though occupied in works, it is not he that is doing any act. ~ Bhagavad Gita. 4.18,20, #NFDB
101:Arjuna, he who does not hate anyone, is friendly and compassionate always, is not possessive and self-indulgent, stable in pleasure and pain, forgiving, contained, controlled and firm in his love for me, in heart and head, is much loved by me.—Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 12, verses 13 and 14 (paraphrased). ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
102:Percy (One) Our new dog, named for the beloved poet, ate a book which unfortunately we had left unguarded. Fortunately it was the Bhagavad Gita, of which many copies are available. Every day now, as Percy grows into the beauty of his life, we touch his wild, curly head and say, “Oh, wisest of little dogs. ~ Mary Oliver, #NFDB
103:The great scriptures of yoga ― The Bhagavad Gita, The Yoga Sutras, and The Upanishads ― clearly describe how the subtle causes of external war emanate from the internal world. The real causes of war lie rooted in the individual's unwillingness to listen to the voice of the heart, the inner conscience. ~ Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, #NFDB
104:Potent Quotes “Whatever you do, or eat, or give, or offer in adoration, let it be an offering to me; and whatever you suffer, suffer it for me. Thus you shall be free from the bonds of Karma which yield fruits that are evil and good; and with your soul one in renunciation you shall be free and come to me.”—Bhagavad Gita ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
105:Life consists in action,' Aristotle said, 'and its end is a mode of action, not a quality.' The same with Hamlet, or Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, or Neo in The Matrix: characters who have overcome their doubts and fears, then pushed them aside and acted. It is this action that elevates them into the realm of 'heroic figures. ~ Syd Field, #NFDB
106:Bhagavad Gita is very relevant to modern times when you see things like global warming, climate chaos, changing weather patterns, natural disasters like hurricane Katrina, extreme poverty, economic disparities, social injustice, war, and terrorism - these are the projection of a collective consciousness that's in disarray. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
107:Arjuna, ignore the onslaught of external stimuli and focus between your eyebrows, regulating inhalation and exhalation at the nostrils, to liberate yourself from fear, desire and anger, and discover me within you, I who receive and consume every offering of your yagnas.—Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 5, verses 27 to 29 (paraphrased). ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
108:In the man who contemplates the objects of the senses, attachment to them is born, from attachment is born desire, and from desire is born the wrath of desire; from that wrath delusion and from delusion error of the memory in the reason; from the error loss of understanding, and by the loss of understanding he goes to perdition. ~ Bhagavad Gita. II. 63, #NFDB
109:The whole of Chapter Six in the Bhagavad Gita is devoted to Krishna’s teachings on this practice: “Whenever the mind wanders, restless and diffuse in its search for satisfaction without, lead it within; train it to rest in the Self,” instructs Krishna. “When meditation is mastered, the mind is unwavering like the flame of a lamp in a windless place. ~ Stephen Cope, #NFDB
110:Next comes svadhyaya or study. This means study that concerns the true Self, not merely analyzing the emotions and mind as the psychologists and psychiatrists do. Anything that will elevate your mind and remind you of your true Self should be studied: the Bhagavad Gita, the Bible, the Koran, these Yoga Sutras, or any uplifting scripture. Study ~ Swami Satchidananda, #NFDB
111:Do you know the Bhagavad Gita?” “No, sir, not really; though my eyes and mind have run through its pages many times.” “Thousands have replied to me differently!” The great sage smiled at Master in blessing. “If one busies himself with an outer display of scriptural wealth, what time is left for silent inward diving after the priceless pearls? ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
112:Without contemplation there is no tranquillity and without tranquillity how shall there be happiness? The mind that orders itself according to the motions of the senses, carries away the intelligence as the wind carries away a ship on the sea. Therefore only he whose senses are drawn back from the objects of sense, has a firmly seated wisdom. ~ Bhagavad Gita II. 666-68, #NFDB
113:Everyone makes their own path, and I must make mine. The Bhagavad Gita - and ancient Indian Yogic text - says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life perfectly. So now I have started living my own life. Imperfect and clumsy as it may look, it is resembling me now, thoroughly. It is mine. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
114:Arjuna, to expand your mind, use intelligence to draw your mind away from sensuality, so that there is no self-obsession, aggression, arrogance, desire, anger, possessiveness, attraction or repulsion. You are content in solitude, consuming little, expressing little, connected with the world and aware.—Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 18, verses 51 to 53 (paraphrased). ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
115:I think the greatest truths, the ones that you find in every culture that has any sort of history of reflection of writing, the greatest truth is that there's nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so. That's the way Shakespeare put it. But you get basically the same idea from Buddha, from the Bhagavad Gita in India, and from the Stoics in ancient Greece and Rome. ~ Jonathan Haidt, #NFDB
116:So do not be concerned with the fruit of your action-just give attention to the action itself. The fruit will come of its own accord. This is a powerful spiritual practice. In the Bhagavad Gita, one of the oldest and most beautiful spiritual teachings in existence, non-attachment to the fruit of your action is called Karma Yoga. It is described as the path of "consecrated action. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
117:So do not be concerned with the fruit of your action — just give attention to the action itself. The fruit will come of its own accord. This is a powerful spiritual practice. In the Bhagavad Gita, one of the oldest and most beautiful spiritual teachings in existence, nonattachment to the fruit of your action is called Karma Yoga. It is described as the path of “consecrated action. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
118:Arjuna, immerse your mind in me and I will uplift you from the ocean of recurring death. If you cannot do that, then practise yoga and work on your mind. If you cannot do that, then do your work as if it is my work. If you cannot do that, then make yourself my instrument and do as I say. If you cannot do that, then simply do your job and leave the results to me.—Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 12, verses 6 to 11 (paraphrased). ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
119:Arjuna, you have control over your action alone, not the fruits of your action. So do not be drawn to expectation, or inaction.—Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 2, Verse 47 (paraphrased). Those who believe in karma do not blame. They do not judge. They accept that humans live in a sea of consequences, over which there is limited control. So they accept every moment as it is supposed to be. They act without expectation. This is nishkama karma. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
120:In an effort to teach myself self-restraint and self-control, I decided that until I completed my engineering degree, I would wear only white saris, refrain from sweets, sleep on a mat and take baths with cold water. I aimed to become self-sufficient; I would be my best friend and my worst enemy. I didn’t know then that such a quote already existed in the Bhagavad Gita where Krishna says, ‘Atma aiva hi atmano bandhu aatma aiva ripu atmanah’. ~ Sudha Murty, #NFDB
121:I think the Bhagavad Gita is about both the forces of light and the forces of darkness that exist within our own self, within our own soul; that our deepest nature is one of ambiguity. We have evolutionary forces there - forces of creativity, and love, and compassion, and understanding. But we also have darkness inside us - the diabolical forces of separation, fear and delusion. And in most of our lives, there is a battle going on within ourselves. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
122:It came to my mind that in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, in Indian spiritual literature, and in the Bhagavad Gita, and when I started reading about outstanding yogis and people of exceeding spiritual power such as Ramana Maharshi, or Yogananda, they all had the ability to do what we would call - I don't know what you would even call it - psychic phenomenon, magic, transform objects, be able to perceive the future, the past and the present simultaneously. ~ Fred Alan Wolf, #NFDB
123:Freedom from pride and arrogance, harmlessness, patience, sincerity, purity, constancy, self-control, indifference to the objects of sense, absence of egoism,...freedom from attachment to son and wife and house, constant equality of heart towards desirable or undesirable events, love of solitude and withdrawal from the crowd, perpetual knowledge of the Supreme and study of the principles of things, this is knowledge; what is contrary in nature to this, is ignorance. ~ Bhagavad Gita, #NFDB
124:I heard about Bhagavad Gita very early in my childhood, from the age of five onwards. It was one of the earliest things I started to read when I started to read. And it was very much a part of my consciousness. In the beginning, I saw the "Bhagavad Gita" as a text that was very classical, much like the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" - a mythical saga that showed the eternal conflict between good and evil. But much later, as I grew up, I realized that it was much more than that. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
125:What is the sign of a man settled in the fixity of his soul and his understanding? When he casts from him all desires that come to the mind, satisfied in himself and with himself, when his mind is undisturbed in pain and without desire in pleasure, when liking and fear and wrath have passed away from him, then a man is fixed in his understanding. He who is unaffected in all things by good or by evil happening, neither rejoices in them nor hates, in him wisdom is established. ~ Bhagavad Gita, #NFDB
126:All manifest things are born from that which is unmanifest at the coming of the day, and when the night arrives they dissolve into the unmanifest; thus all this host of beings continually come into existence and they disappear at the advent of the night and are born with the approach of the day. But beyond the non-manifestation of things there is another and greater unmanifest state of being which is supreme and eternal, and when all existences perish, that does not perish. ~ Bhagavad Gita, VIII. 18, 20, #NFDB
127:there are many remarkable parallels between the (revised) metaphysical vision of Plotinus and that of the Bhagavad Gita. These parallels arise from the fact that both Vyasa and Plotinus had directly experienced these truths in their visionary revelations, as have innumerable other souls. We must not forget, however, that Plotinus must certainly have had some introduction to the Indian metaphysics through his guru, Ammonius, who was said to be conversant with both the Persian and Indian metaphysics. ~ Swami Abhayananda, #NFDB
128:Bhagavad Gita - For many it’s highly respected life science or way of living or simply a fictional book or a Hindu’s guidebook for life, "hmm", there are tons of such perspectives and everyone like to see it in the way in they wants to see it. There have been many books published on this with adequate details and various perspectives presented by various saints & scholars. Even here, in front of you - one more thought! As a common man, who lives among 5000 million people, searching still ~ Vishnuvarthanan Moorthy, #NFDB
129:In union by a purified understanding, controlling himself by a firm perseverance, abandoning the objects of the senses, putting away from him all liking and disliking, when one resorts to solitude, lives on little, masters speech and mind and body, ever in meditation and fixed in withdrawal from the desires of the world, when he has loosened from him egoism and violence and pride and lust and wrath and possession, then calm and without thought of self, he is able to become one with the Eternal. ~ Bhagavad Gita XVIII. 51-53, #NFDB
130:That Bhagavad Gita instruction to be unattached to the fruits of your actions is the key. If you are a parent raising a child, don’t get attached to the act of raising the child. That doesn’t mean you’re not a loving, active parent. Your job is to love and nurture, feed and clothe, take care and guard the safety of the child, and guide him or her with your moral compass. But how the child turns out is how the child turns out. Ultimately he or she is not your child; who they turn out to be is up to God and their own karma. Your ~ Ram Dass, #NFDB
131:I engaged - started engaging in yoga as a physical practice, but very quickly found out there was something broader to it, and that it was actually helpful for my pain, and started to get into meditation, started to study the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita and a lot of the scriptures associated with yoga, the Yoga Sutras, and very quickly came to this conclusion that this had a huge impact on my ability to lead, but, more importantly, the ability to control my sympathetic nervous system, which had a direct tie to the pain in my arm. ~ Mark T Bertolini, #NFDB
132:Abandoning without exception all desires born of the will, controlling by the mind the senses in all directions, a man should gradually cease from mental action by the force of an understanding held in the grasp of a constant will; he should fix his mind in the self and think of nothing at all, and whenever the restless and mobile mentality ranges forth he should draw it back from whatever direction it takes and bring it again under control in the self alone: for when the mind has thus been quieted, there comes to man the highest peace. ~ Bhagavad Gita. VI. 24-26, #NFDB
133:Ma’s pet peeve was how the Western world misunderstood the theory of karma. “I mean it’s the Bhagavad Gita they’re bastardizing. What is all this ‘karma’s a bitch’ nonsense!” Ma loved to say. The entire “what goes around comes around” thing was a backward view of karma. Karma was simply Sanskrit for action, and the theory was that your actions are the only thing under your control, as opposed to the fruits of your actions, which are not. And since actions always bear fruit, you were better off focusing your energy on your own actions, rather than worrying about the results you wanted them to produce. ~ Sonali Dev, #NFDB
134:By what is man impelled to act sin, though not willing it, as if brought to it by force? It is desire it is wrath born of the principle of passion, a mighty and devouring and evil thing; know this for the enemy. Eternal enemy of the sage, in the form of desire it obscures his knowledge and is an insatiable fire. The senses are supreme in the body, above the senses is the mind, higher than the mind is the understanding and higher than the understanding the spiritual Self. Know then that which is higher than the understanding, by the self control thyself and slay this difficult enemy, desire. ~ Bhagavad Gita III. 36. 37. 39. 42. 43, #NFDB
135:If you turn back time and look, 5100 years ago in the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna did the same thing. He has been the first HR manager India knows. When Arjuna was so depressed and was not ready to do his job, Lord Krishna was with him in the battlefield, and told him all sorts of things. First, He warned Arjuna that people would blame him for sure. Then He incited Arjuna's ego and tried to wake him up. And then He offered His disciple different incentives, saying, "If you win, you will have the kingdom. If you lose, you will enjoy Heaven. Come on, fight." In many ways, Lord Krishna lifted Arjuna out of that depression. ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, #NFDB
136:Arjuna, immerse your mind in me and I will uplift you from the ocean of recurring death. If you cannot do that, then practise yoga and work on your mind. If you cannot do that, then do your work as if it is my work. If you cannot do that, then make yourself my instrument and do as I say. If you cannot do that, then simply do your job and leave the results to me.—Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 12, verses 6 to 11 (paraphrased). My deha is different from yours. My hungers are different from yours. My assumptions are different from yours. My capabilities are different from yours. My experiences are diferent from yours. My expressions are different from yours. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
137:Arjuna, way back, Brahma created humans through yagna and declared that yagna will satisfy all human needs. Use yagna to satisfy the other and the other will satisfy you. If you take without giving, you are a thief. Those who feed others and eat leftovers are free of all misery. Those who cook for themselves are always unhappy. Humans need food. Food needs rain. Rain needs exchange. Exchange needs action. Exchange began with divinity, that primal spark of humanity. Those who indulge themselves, those who do not repay it backwards, as well as pay it forward, break the chain, are miserable and spread misery.—Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 3, verses 10 to 16 (paraphrased). ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
138:Father was a strict disciplinarian to his children in their early years, but his attitude toward himself was truly Spartan. He never visited the theater, for instance, but sought his recreation in various spiritual practices and in reading the bhagavad gita. Shunning all luxuries, he would cling to one old pair of shoes until they were useless. His sons bought automobiles after they came into popular use, but Father was always content with the trolley car for his daily ride to the office. The accumulation of money for the sake of power was alien to his nature. Once, after organizing the Calcutta Urban Bank, he refused to benefit himself by holding any of its shares. He had simply wished to perform a civic duty in his spare time. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
139: Tennessee Claflin Shope
I was the laughing-stock of the village,
Chiefly of the people of good sense, as they call themselves -Also of the learned, like Rev. Peet, who read Greek
The same as English.
For instead of talking free trade,
Or preaching some form of baptism;
Instead of believing in the efficacy
Of walking cracks -- picking up pins the right way,
Seeing the new moon over the right shoulder,
Or curing rheumatism with blue glass,
I asserted the sovereignty of my own soul.
Before Mary Baker G. Eddy even got started
With what she called science
I had mastered the "Bhagavad Gita,"
And cured my soul, before Mary
Began to cure bodies with souls -Peace to all worlds!
~ Edgar Lee Masters,#NFDB
140:Thomas Merton, of course, constitutes a special threat to Christians, because he presents himself as a contemplative Christian monk, and his work has already affected the vitals of Roman Catholicism, its monasticism. Shortly before his death, Father Merton wrote an appreciative introduction to a new translation of the Bhagavad Gita, which is the spiritual manual or “Bible” of all Hindus, and one of the foundation blocks of monism or Advaita Vedanta. The Gita, it must be remembered, opposes almost every important teaching of Christianity. His book on the Zen Masters, published posthumously, is also noteworthy, because the entire work is based on a treacherous mistake: the assumption that all the so-called “mystical experiences” in every religion are true. He should have known better. ~ Seraphim Rose, #NFDB
141:Morality is a just a shadow of right action. Right action isn’t the highest degree of morality any more than agapè is the highest degree of love. When you understand and are able to act from right action, morality is no longer necessary; it’s instantly obsolete and discarded. This is at the heart of the Bhagavad Gita. Arjuna, as a moral creature, throws down his weapon and refuses to launch a war. Krishna converts him to a creature of right action by freeing him from delusion and Arjuna takes up his weapon and launches the war. Right action has nothing to do with right or wrong, good or evil, naughty or nice. It is without altruism or compassion. Morality is the set of rules and regulations that you use to navigate through life when you’re still trying to steer your ship rather than let it follow the flow. ~ Jed McKenna, #NFDB
142:Krishna, what happens to he who strays from the path of insight? Does he lose out on both: happiness promised by wisdom and pleasures promised by indulgence? Does he perish like a torn cloud?—Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 6, verses 37 and 38 (paraphrased). Krishna replies that nothing is wasted or destroyed in the cosmos. All efforts are recorded and they impact future lives. Knowledge acquired in the past plays a role in the wisdom of future lives. Those unsuccessful in realization in this life will be reborn. Their efforts will not go in waste. They will ensure they are born in a wise family, where they can strive again. They will be driven to wisdom on account of memories and impressions of previous lives. By striving through many lives, they untangle themselves to unite with divinity.—Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 6, verses 41 to 45 ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
143:Krishna, what happens to he who strays from the path of insight? Does he lose out on both: happiness promised by wisdom and pleasures promised by indulgence? Does he perish like a torn cloud?—Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 6, verses 37 and 38 (paraphrased). Krishna replies that nothing is wasted or destroyed in the cosmos. All efforts are recorded and they impact future lives. Knowledge acquired in the past plays a role in the wisdom of future lives. Those unsuccessful in realization in this life will be reborn. Their efforts will not go in waste. They will ensure they are born in a wise family, where they can strive again. They will be driven to wisdom on account of memories and impressions of previous lives. By striving through many lives, they untangle themselves to unite with divinity.—Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 6, verses 41 to 45 (paraphrased). ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
144:A world created based on judgement evokes rage. Life becomes a battleground (rana-bhoomi) like Kuru-kshetra, where both sides feel like victims, where everyone wants to win at all costs, where someone will always lose. A world created by observation evokes insight, hence affection, for we see the hunger and fear of all beings. Life becomes a performance on a stage (ranga-bhoomi) aimed to nourish and comfort the other, while deriving nourishment and comfort from their delight. Krishna’s performance (leela) leads to him being worshipped as Ranga-natha, lord of the stage. He never judges, so he sees no one as a victim. This is how he begins The Gita: Arjuna, you grieve for those whom you should not feel sorry for, and you argue as if you are a man of wisdom. But the wise grieve for no one: neither the living, nor the dead.—Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 2, Verse 11 (paraphrased). ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
145:Let us now turn for a moment to the word karman which has been cited above. The meanings of the verbal root kar, present also in the Latin creare and the Greek κραίνω [kraino], are to make, do, and effect. And significantly, just as the Latin facere is originally sacra facere, literally “make sacred,” and as the Greek πoιέω = ἱερoπoιέω [poieo = hieropoieo], so karman is originally and very often not merely “work” or “making,” but synonymous with yajna, “sacrifice” and also with vrata, “sacred operation,” “obedience,” “sphere of activity,” “function,” and especially as in the Bhagavad Gita, with dharma, “justice” or “natural law.” In other words, the idea is deeply rooted in our humanity that there is no real distinction of work from holy works, and no necessary opposition of profane to sacred activities. And it is precisely this idea that finds such vivid expression in the well-known Indian philosophy of action, the “Way of Works” (karmamarga) of the Bhagavad Gita. ~ Ananda K Coomaraswamy, #NFDB
146:in the Bhagavad Gita. One stanza reads: “Offering the inhaling breath into the exhaling breath and offering the exhaling breath into the inhaling breath, the yogi neutralizes both breaths; thus he releases prana from the heart and brings life force under his control.”2 The interpretation is: “The yogi arrests decay in the body by securing an additional supply of prana (life force) through quieting the action of the lungs and heart; he also arrests mutations of growth in the body by control of apana (eliminating current). Thus neutralizing decay and growth, the yogi learns life-force control.” Another Gita stanza states: “That meditation-expert (muni) becomes eternally free who, seeking the Supreme Goal, is able to withdraw from external phenomena by fixing his gaze within the mid-spot of the eyebrows and by neutralizing the even currents of prana and apana [that flow] within the nostrils and lungs; and to control his sensory mind and intellect; and to banish desire, fear, and anger.”3 ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
147:Honor was wearing an ankle-length black skirt and a flowing blouse, with flat shoes that seemed to anchor her to the ground. Her gray-black hair shone in the spotlight. She was not a young woman. She had been through plenty. “I believe that we don’t choose our stories,” she began, leaning forward. “Our stories choose us.” She paused and took a sip of water. Her hand, I noticed, was steady. “And if we don’t tell them, then we are somehow diminished.” Diminished. The word went through me like a bolt. I pulled out the small notebook I carry with me and scribbled down what she had just found the grace to say. There it was. All of it. I thought of my favorite passage in the Gnostic Gospels: If we bring forth what is within us, it will save us. If we do not bring forth what is within us, it will destroy us. And what the Bhagavad Gita has to say about dharma: Better is one’s own dharma though imperfectly carried out than the dharma of another carried out perfectly. I knew about the struggle for authenticity. The mining for words to collect together what felt impossibly broken. I wanted to gather up in my arms all that was lost to me. I wanted nothing less than to remake my world. A writer afraid of her own subject—whatever it might be—is a frozen creature, trapped in the inessential. ~ Dani Shapiro, #NFDB
148:Questioner: How did you learn all that you are talking about, and how can we come to know it? KRISHNAMURTI: That is a good question, is it not? Now, if I may talk about myself a little, I have not read any books about these things, neither the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, nor any psychological books; but as I told you, if you watch your own mind, it is all there. So when once you set out on the journey of self-knowledge, books are not important. It is like entering a strange land where you begin to find out new things and make astonishing discoveries; but, you see, that is all destroyed if you give importance to yourself. The moment you say, “I have discovered, I know, I am a great man because I have found out this and that,” you are lost. If you have to take a long journey, you must carry very little; if you want to climb to a great height, you must travel light. So this question is really important, because discovery and understanding come through self-knowledge, through observing the ways of the mind. What you say of your neighbour, how you talk, how you walk, how you look at the skies, at the birds, how you treat people, how you cut a branch—all these things are important, because they act like mirrors that show you as you are and, if you are alert, you discover everything anew from moment to moment. Questioner: Should we form an ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #NFDB
149:The Krishnas' resolution was brilliant. They switched to a fund-raising tactic that made it unnecessary for target persons to have positive feelings toward the fund-raisers. They began to employ a donation-request procedure that engaged the rule for reciprocation, which, as demonstrated by the Regan study, is strong enough to overcome the factor of dislike for the requester. The new strategy still involves the solicitation of contributions in public places with much pedestrian traffic (airports are a favorite), but now, before a donation is requested, the target person is given a "gift"—a book (usually the Bhagavad Gita), the Back to Godhead magazine of the Society, or, in the most cost-effective version, a flower. The unsuspecting passerby who suddenly finds a flower pressed into his hands or pinned to his jacket is under no circumstances allowed to give it back, even if he asserts that he does not want it. "No, it is our gift to you," says the solicitor, refusing to accept it. Only after the Krishna member has thus brought the force of the reciprocation rule to bear on the situation is the target asked to provide a contribution to the Society. This benefactor-before-beggar strategy has been wildly successful for the Hare Krishna Society, producing large-scale economic gains and funding the ownership of temples, businesses, houses, and property ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
150:Towards the end of our conversation in the churchyard today I got the impression that pastor Jón thinks that all gods that men worship are equally good. In the Bhagavad Gita, which pastor Jón cites, Krishna is reported as saying, as I recall: You are free to address your prayers to any god at all; but the one who answers the prayers, I am he. Is this what pastor Jón means when he says that all gods are equally good except the god that answers the prayers, because he is nowhere? Neither of these two standpoints can be accommodated within the framework of our confession of faith. The god who speaks through Krishna's words isn't particularly pleasant, either, because he alone controls the card-game and the other gods are only dummies and he is the one who declares on their cards. At any rate this god is rather far removed from the seventy-year-old grandfather with the large beard who came to breakfast with the farmer Abraham of Ur accompanied by two angels, his attendants, and settled in with him, and whom the Jews inherited and thereafter the pope and finally the Saxons. When Krishna says he is the one god who answers prayers, then this is actually just our orthodox god of the catechism, the one who says: I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no other gods before me. Pastor Jón says, on the other hand, Thou shalt have all other gods before the Lord thy God. What is the answer to that? ~ Halld r Kiljan Laxness, #NFDB
151:Does rough weather choose men over women? Does the sun beat on men, leaving women nice and cool?' Nyawira asked rather sharply. 'Women bear the brunt of poverty. What choices does a woman have in life, especially in times of misery? She can marry or live with a man. She can bear children and bring them up, and be abused by her man. Have you read Buchi Emecheta of Nigeria, Joys of Motherhood? Tsitsi Dangarembga of Zimbabwe, say, Nervous Conditions? Miriama Ba of Senegal, So Long A Letter? Three women from different parts of Africa, giving words to similar thoughts about the condition of women in Africa.'
'I am not much of a reader of fiction,' Kamiti said. 'Especially novels by African women. In India such books are hard to find.'
'Surely even in India there are women writers? Indian women writers?' Nyawira pressed. 'Arundhati Roy, for instance, The God of Small Things? Meena Alexander, Fault Lines? Susie Tharu. Read Women Writing in India. Or her other book, We Were Making History, about women in the struggle!'
'I have sampled the epics of Indian literature,' Kamiti said, trying to redeem himself. 'Mahabharata, Ramayana, and mostly Bhagavad Gita. There are a few others, what they call Purana, Rig-Veda, Upanishads … Not that I read everything, but …'
'I am sure that those epics and Puranas, even the Gita, were all written by men,' Nyawira said. 'The same men who invented the caste system. When will you learn to listen to the voices of women? ~ Ng g wa Thiong o,#NFDB
152:The Yoga system of Patanjali is known as the Eightfold Path. 9 The first steps are (1) yama (moral conduct), and (2) niyama (religious observances). Yama is fulfilled by noninjury to others, truthfulness, nonstealing, continence, and noncovetousness. The niyama prescripts are purity of body and mind, contentment in all circumstances, self-discipline, self-study (contemplation), and devotion to God and guru. The next steps are (3) asana (right posture); the spinal column must be held straight, and the body firm in a comfortable position for meditation; (4) pranayama (control of prana, subtle life currents); and (5) pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses from external objects). The last steps are forms of yoga proper: (6) dharana (concentration), holding the mind to one thought; (7) dhyana (meditation); and (8) samadhi (superconscious experience). This Eightfold Path of Yoga leads to the final goal of Kaivalya (Absoluteness), in which the yogi realizes the Truth beyond all intellectual apprehension. “Which is greater,” one may ask, “a swami or a yogi?” If and when oneness with God is achieved, the distinctions of the various paths disappear. The Bhagavad Gita, however, has pointed out that the methods of yoga are all-embracing. Its techniques are not meant only for certain types and temperaments, such as those few persons who incline toward the monastic life; yoga requires no formal allegiance. Because the yogic science satisfies a universal need, it has a natural universal appeal. A true yogi may remain dutifully in the world; ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
153:Rules vary with context. In the Ramayana, which takes place in Treta yuga, Vishnu is Ram, eldest son of a royal family. In the Mahabharata, which takes place in Dvapara yuga, Vishnu is Krishna, youngest son of a noble family, who is raised by cowherds but who performs as a charioteer. They are expected to behave differently. Ram is obligated to follow the rules of the family, clan and kingdom, and uphold family honour. Krishna is under no such obligation. This is why Krishna tells Arjuna to focus on dharma in his context (sva-dharma) rather than dharma in another’s context (para-dharma). Arjuna, better to do what you have been asked to do imperfectly than try to do perfectly what others have been asked to. All work has inadequacies; even fire is enveloped by smoke.—Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 18, verses 47 and 48 (paraphrased). In the Ramayana Ram upholds rules, while Ravana breaks them. In the Mahabharata Duryodhana upholds rules, while Krishna breaks them. As eldest sons of their respective clans, Ram and Duryodhana are obliged to uphold rules. Ravana, son of a Brahmin, and Krishna, raised by cowherds, are under no such obligations. Dharma, however, is upheld only by Ram and Krishna, not Ravana and Duryodhana. Ram is constantly concerned about his city Ayodhya’s welfare, while Ravana does not care if his Lanka burns. Krishna cares for the Pandavas, who happen to be the children of his aunt, but the Kauravas do not care for the Pandavas, who happen to be the children of their uncle. Dharma thus has nothing to with rules or obligations. It has to do with intent and caring for the other, be it your kingdom or your family. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
154:In fact, Hinduisms pervading influence seems to go much earlier than Christianity. American mathematician, A. Seindenberg, has for example shown that the Sulbasutras, the ancient Vedic science of mathematics, constitute the source of mathematics in the Antic world, from Babylon to Greece : the arithmetic equations of the Sulbasutras he writes, were used in the observation of the triangle by the Babylonians, as well as in the edification of Egyptian pyramids, in particular the funeral altar in form of pyramid known in the vedic world as smasana-cit (Seindenberg 1978: 329). In astronomy too, the "Indus" (from the valley of the Indus) have left a universal legacy, determining for instance the dates of solstices, as noted by 18th century French astronomer Jean-Sylvain Bailly : the movement of stars which was calculated by Hindus 4500 years ago, does not differ even by a minute from the tables which we are using today". And he concludes: "the Hindu systems of astronomy are much more ancient than those of the Egyptians - even the Jews derived from the Hindus their knowledge . There is also no doubt that the Greeks heavily borrowed from the "Indus". Danielou notes that the Greek cult of Dionysos, which later became Bacchus with the Romans, is a branch of Shivaism : Greeks spoke of India as the sacred territory of Dionysos and even historians of Alexander the Great identified the Indian Shiva with Dionysos and mention the dates and legends of the Puranas . French philosopher and Le Monde journalist Jean-Paul Droit, recently wrote in his book "The Forgetfulness of India" that the Greeks loved so much Indian philosophy, that Demetrios Galianos had even translated the Bhagavad Gita . ~ Fran ois Gautier, #NFDB
155:Arjuna, there is a banyan tree that grows upside down, its roots in the sky and its trunk below. The wise know that Veda constitutes its leaves. The branches go up and down, as a consequence of nature’s tendencies, nourished by experiences. The aerial roots that grow down are actions born of desire that bind it to the realm of men. Wisdom alone can cut these downward roots, enabling discovery of the reverse banyan tree, with its primal roots, before enchantment of the senses began and obscured the view.—Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 15, verses 1 to 4 (paraphrased). The banyan tree is sacred to the Hindus. It symbolizes immortality (akshaya). But it is unique in that it has primary roots and secondary roots. The latter grow from its branches and eventually become so thick that it becomes impossible to distinguish them from the main tree trunk. In this verse, Krishna visualizes a banyan tree growing from the sky, its primary roots rising up into the sky, its secondary roots growing down to the earth. Thus, it is being nourished from above and below. The primary root rising from the sky is nourished by inner mental reality. The secondary roots going down to the earth are nourished by external material reality. The tree is who we are. We are nourished from within as well as without. Within is the atma that is immortal and infinite, and so does not suffer from the anxieties of the mortal and the finite. It is neither hungry nor frightened, nor does it yearn for validation. Without is the world of things, people, our relationships, our desires and frustrations. When we derive value from the outside, we assume that our identity is the anxious aham. So Krishna advises Arjuna to use the axe of knowledge (gyana) to cut down all secondary roots, take refuge in the primary root of atma and liberate himself. This is moksha, liberation, where we no longer seek validation from the outside, but feel eternally validated from the inside. Moksha is liberation from fear. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
156:How important was mantra to Gandhi’s transformation? Extremely. When done systematically, mantra has a powerful effect on the brain. It gathers and focuses the energy of the mind. It teaches the mind to focus on one point, and it cultivates a steadiness that over time becomes an unshakable evenness of temper. The cultivation of this quality of “evenness” is a central principle of the Bhagavad Gita. It is called samatva in Sanskrit, and it is a central pillar of Krishna’s practice. When the mind develops steadiness, teaches Krishna, it is not shaken by fear or greed. So, in his early twenties, Gandhi had already begun to develop a still-point at the center of his consciousness—a still-point that could not be shaken. This little seed of inner stillness would grow into a mighty oak. Gandhi would become an immovable object. Rambha had given Gandhi an enchanting image to describe the power of mantra. She compared the practice of mantra to the training of an elephant. “As the elephant walks through the market,” taught Rambha, “he swings his trunk from side to side and creates havoc with it wherever he goes—knocking over fruit stands and scattering vendors, snatching bananas and coconuts wherever possible. His trunk is naturally restless, hungry, scattered, undisciplined. This is just like the mind—constantly causing trouble.” “But the wise elephant trainer,” said Rambha, “will give the elephant a stick of bamboo to hold in his trunk. The elephant likes this. He holds it fast. And as soon as the elephant wraps his trunk around the bamboo, the trunk begins to settle. Now the elephant strides through the market like a prince: calm, collected, focused, serene. Bananas and coconuts no longer distract.” So too with the mind. As soon as the mind grabs hold of the mantra, it begins to settle. The mind holds the mantra gently, and it becomes focused, calm, centered. Gradually this mind becomes extremely concentrated. This is the beginning stage of meditation. All meditation traditions prescribe some beginning practice of gathering, focusing, and concentration—and in the yoga tradition this is most often achieved precisely through mantra. The whole of Chapter Six in the Bhagavad Gita is devoted to Krishna’s teachings on this practice: “Whenever the mind wanders, restless and diffuse in its search for satisfaction without, lead it within; train it to rest in the Self,” instructs Krishna. “When meditation is mastered, the mind is unwavering like the flame of a lamp in a windless place. ~ Stephen Cope, #NFDB
157:Quran: A Simple English Translation (Goodword ! Koran) (Khan, Maulana Wahiduddin;Goodword) - Your Highlight at location 221-228 | Added on Friday, 10 April 2015 19:41:32 Those who are introduced to the Quran only through the media, generally have the impression that the Quran is a book of jihad, and jihad to them is an attempt to achieve one’s goal by means of violence. But this idea is based on a misunderstanding. Anyone who reads the Quran for himself will easily appreciate that its message has nothing to do with violence. The Quran is, from beginning to end, a book which promulgates peace and in no way countenances violence. It is true that jihad is one of the teachings of the Quran. But jihad, taken in its correct sense, is the name of peaceful struggle rather than of any kind of violent action. The Quranic concept of jihad is expressed in the following verse, ‘Do greater jihad (i.e strive more strenuously) with the help of this [Quran]’ (25:52). Obviously, the Quran is not a weapon, but a book which gives us an introduction to the divine ideology of peaceful struggle. The method of such a struggle, according to the Quran, is ‘to speak to them a word to reach their very soul’ (4:63). ========== Quran: A Simple English Translation (Goodword ! Koran) (Khan, Maulana Wahiduddin;Goodword) - Your Note at location 228 | Added on Friday, 10 April 2015 19:41:45 jihad ========== Quran: A Simple English Translation (Goodword ! Koran) (Khan, Maulana Wahiduddin;Goodword) - Your Highlight at location 232-235 | Added on Friday, 10 April 2015 19:43:12 It is true that there are certain verses in the Quran, which convey injunctions similar to the following, ‘Slay them wherever you find them’ (2:191). Referring to such verses, there are some who attempt to give the impression that Islam is a religion of war and violence. This is totally untrue. Such verses relate, in a restricted sense, to those who have unilaterally attacked the Muslims. The above verse does not convey the general command of Islam. ========== Quran: A Simple English Translation (Goodword ! Koran) (Khan, Maulana Wahiduddin;Goodword) - Your Highlight at location 239-244 | Added on Friday, 10 April 2015 19:44:16 This division of commands into different categories is a natural one and is found in all religious books. For instance, the Gita, the holy book of the Hindus, pertains to wisdom and moral values. Yet along with this is the exhortation of Krishna to Arjuna, encouraging him to fight (Bhagavad Gita, 3:30). This does not mean that believers in the Gita should wage wars all the time. Mahatma Gandhi, after all, derived his philosophy of non-violence from the same Gita. The exhortation to wage war in the Gita applies only to exceptional cases where circumstances leave no choice. But for general day-to-day existence it gives the same peaceful commands as derived from it by Mahatma Gandhi. ========== Quran: A Simple English Translation (Goodword ! Koran) (Khan, Maulana Wahiduddin;Goodword) - Your Highlight at location 244-245 | Added on Friday, 10 April 2015 19:44:39 Similarly, Jesus Christ said, ‘Do not think that I came to bring peace on Earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.’ (Matthew, 10:34). ========== ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
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8 Philosophy
6 Integral Yoga
2 Occultism
8 Aldous Huxley
5 Sri Ramana Maharshi
4 Satprem
3 Sri Aurobindo
11 Talks
8 The Perennial Philosophy
4 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
2 The Secret Doctrine
1.01_-_An_Accomplished_Westerner, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
Humanly speaking, Sri Aurobindo is close to us, because once we have respectfully bowed before the "wisdom of the East" and the odd ascetics who seem to make light of all our fine laws, we find that our curiosity has been aroused but not our life; we need a practical truth that will survive our rugged winters. Sri Aurobindo knew our winters well; he experienced them as a student, from the age of seven until twenty. He lived from one lodging house to another at the whim of more or less benevolent landladies, with one meal a day, and not even an overcoat to put on his back, but always laden with books: the French symbolists, Mallarm, Rimbaud, whom he read in the original French long before reading the Bhagavad Gita in translation. To us Sri Aurobindo personifies a unique synthesis.
He was born in Calcutta on August 15, 1872, the year of Rimbaud's Illuminations, just a few years before Einstein; modern physics had already seen the light of day with Max Planck, and Jules Verne was busy probing the future. Yet, Queen Victoria was about to become Empress of India, and the conquest of Africa was not even completed; it was the turning point from one world to another.
1.02_-_The_Eternal_Law, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
gods is also, at the same time, the country of a monolithic faith in Oneness: "One, He presides over all wombs and natures; Himself the womb of all." (Swetaswatara Upanishad V.5) But not everyone can at once merge with the Absolute; there are many degrees in the Ascent,
and one who is ready to understand a little Lalita's childlike face and to bring her his incense and flowers may not be able to address the Eternal Mother in the silence of his heart; still another may prefer to deny all forms and plunge into the contemplation of That which is formless. "Even as men come to Me, so I accept them. It is my path that men follow from all sides," says the Bhagavad Gita (IV,11). 14 As we see, there are so many ways of conceiving of God, in three or three million persons, that we should not dogmatize, lest we eliminate everything, finally leaving nothing but a Cartesian God, one and universal by virtue only of his narrowness. Perhaps we still confuse unity with uniformity. It was in the spirit of that tradition that Sri Aurobindo was soon to write: The perfection of the integral Yoga will come when each man is able to follow his own path of Yoga, pursuing the development of his own nature in its upsurging towards that which transcends the nature. For freedom is the final law and the last consummation.15
Nor does an Indian ever ask: "Do you believe in God?" The question would seem to him as childish as: "Do you believe in CO2?"
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All quotations from the Upanishads, the Veda, and the Bhagavad Gita in this book are taken from Sri Aurobindo's translations.
15
1.03_-_PERSONALITY,_SANCTITY,_DIVINE_INCARNATION, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
Bhagavad Gita
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Bhagavad Gita
1.03_-_Self-Surrender_in_Works_-_The_Way_of_The_Gita, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
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The greatest gospel of spiritual works ever yet given to the race, the most perfect system of Karmayoga known to man in the past, is to be found in the Bhagavad Gita. In that famous episode of the
Mahabharata the great basic lines of Karmayoga are laid down for all time with an incomparable mastery and the infallible eye of an assured experience. It is true that the path alone, as the ancients saw it, is worked out fully: the perfect fulfilment, the highest secret1 is hinted rather than developed; it is kept back as an unexpressed part of a supreme mystery. There are obvious reasons for this reticence; for the fulfilment is in any case a matter for experience and no teaching can express it. It cannot be described in a way that can really be understood by a mind that has not the effulgent transmuting experience. And for the soul that has passed the shining portals and stands in the blaze of the inner light, all mental and verbal description is as poor as it is superfluous, inadequate and an impertinence. All divine consummations have perforce to be figured by us in the inapt and deceptive terms of a language which was made to fit the normal experience of mental man; so expressed, they can be rightly understood only by those who already know, and, knowing, are able to give these poor external terms a changed, inner and transfigured sense. As the Vedic Rishis insisted in the beginning, the words of the supreme wisdom are expressive only to those who are already of the wise. The Gita at its cryptic close may seem by its silence to stop short of that solution for which we are seeking; it pauses at the borders of the highest spiritual mind and does not cross them into the splendours of the supramental
1.03_-_Some_Practical_Aspects, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Occultism
p. 112
the silent activity of woodland creatures and insects. Yet no city-dweller should fail to give to the organs of his soul and spirit, as they develop, the nurture that comes from the inspired teachings of spiritual research. If our eyes cannot follow the woods in their mantel of green every spring, day by day, we should instead open our soul to the glorious teachings of the Bhagavad Gita, or of St. John's Gospel, or of St. Thomas Kempis, and to the descriptions resulting from spiritual science. There are many ways to the summit of insight, but much depends on the right choice. The spiritually experienced could say much concerning these paths, much that might seem strange to the uninitiated. Someone, for instance, might be very far advanced on the path; he might be standing, so to speak, at the very entrance of sight and hearing with soul and spirit; he is then fortunate enough to make a journey over the calm or maybe tempestuous ocean, and a veil falls away from the eyes of his soul; suddenly he becomes a seer. Another is also so far advanced that this veil only needs to be loosened; this occurs through some stroke of destiny. On another this stroke might well have had the effect
p. 113