Class Summary for Oct 1, 2024 - Chapter-4 Slokas 13-15

Summarized by Rajesh

Summary of last class
Faith (unshakeable faith in God) versus Belief
Saw Gurudev’s videos and Prarabhda (free will) - we are given whatever equipment that we get but how we operate is our free will 

Reviewed Verses 13, 14 & 15
Krishna is making reference to the 4 variants - it is like a division of labor based on capabilities and quality of thinking, but not birth.  The misconception has resulted in the caste system and resulted in lots of problems
A person can go through the different varnas even throughout your life or even during a day
Krishna also says he is not bound to any of the varnas
There is nowhere that it’s been told that a brahmana’s kid has to be a brahmana.  The caste system could have wrongly taken up because kids generally would follow similar professions as their parents.
We discussed about an example of a brahmana family who has 4 kids and 1 becomes a priest, 1 goes into the military, 1 becomes a businessman, etc.  This is dependent on our own tendencies or vasanas.  There was more discussion in the group about the social evils of the caste system.

Ashrama scheme
Brahmacharya - learning, mainly to meet the needs of your life (Artha, Karma, Dharma and Moksha)
Grihasta - focusing on Karma Yoga (right attitude of doing work, doing action without any expectation)
Vanaprastha - generally do Upasana Yoga (meditation, rituals), this is where we do less actions
Sanyasa - focus on Jnana Yoga (Shravanam, Mananam & Nidhityasanam)
These used to be sequential but in Kali Yuga, there seems to be more overlap.  For instance, we oscillate between Brahmacharya (learning for work), Grihasta and Sanyasa (learning about Jnana)
Letting go and detaching ourselves
Ishwara Arpana is anything that we do, we dedicate it to the Lord
Prasada Buddhi is accepting anything that is given as prasadam from God

Videos
Video 13
3 gunas - colors in personality (white is Satvic, red is Rajas, black is Tamasic).  We have all the 3 colors and gunas in us, even varying within the day
4 types of personality based on gunas & karma
A engineer’s son need not be an engineer, he could also be a dull idiot
Video 14
I am the author of all of them but I am not bound by it - says the Lord

Subjective Analysis:
 Learn to recognize ONE-ness and practicing letting go (little at a time)!


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