Vrindavan Bhagavad Gita Study Group

Summarized by Bala Dhandapani: Chapter 3 – Unfoldment through Action - April 16, 2024 After a recap of the April 9 th  session, the class watched Gurudev’s video on Verse 21 Summary: Theme was on leaders of the society.  Kids do what the parents do, hence it is important to be a good example for people to follow the leader.  Krishna emphasizes to Arjuna to go and fight and do his duty.  Jodiji chanted slokas 25, 26 and 27 Summary Sloka 25:   An ignorant person works with a selfish desire (attachment), whereas the wise man works for the welfare of the community without any selfish desire or attachment  (but does have a desire – not selfish though). Sloka 26:  A wise person will inspire an ignorant by leading as an example.   Sloka 27:   All activities are carried out by the 3 modes of material nature.  The 3modes are Satva, Rajas and Tamas gunas.  In ignorance, the soul is deluded by false identification with the body thinks itself t...

Summarized by Yamini K: Slokas 20-22: Krishna is the lord of 3 worlds and does not need to do any duties. But he is still doing them to show others looking up to him as example. Because just like everyone followed what King Janaka did, O Arjuna, you have to perform your duties so others can follow your example 23-24: If Krishna did not do his duties properly or completely stoped, the world is going fall apart...to say, he is comparing himself to the bramhan within us. He is trying to appeal to Arjuna, why he should perform his action. The karma laws also apply to God when he takes an avatar.  When Rama kills Valli, and Valli asks him why he killed him by sneaking up to him, he says in the next life he is the one who is going to kill him. That is how Krishna gets killed by an archer. krishna is saying if I don't do my duties, world will destroy dud to adharma Right actions are contagious. That is why it is important that Janaka , me and you have to do the right thing so the world fo...

Summarized by Anuradha Bhaskara: Started with prayers, followed by Pranayama and guided meditation. We recapped of what was covered in the previous class:- Working with Vasanas, how should we be  doing. Journey of Fear of missing out to Joy of Missing out. We went over the Shlokas from 14-19. Shlokas 14-16:- All the actions are Yagnas. Due to sacrifices performed rains fall and due to which crop grows and gives  us food. Rain is very important for the agriculture to be cultivated well. How ones duties are interlinked to the nature. Entire echo system is dependent on everyone and how  we perform our duties or yagnas. We all have to do our duties unattached. Shlokas 17-19:- Interesting message is given by Lord Krishna, Give up attachment to the results of the work and do it. That is the way of doing any action. Be always detached from the act. Theme:- Any type of food comes thru Agriculture, which comes thru Rain which in turn comes due to Yagna. Because of the Rain there i...

Summarized by Aishwarya Ramani After a recap of last week's discussion, we dove into a discussion of what is unintelligent action.  We discussed Gurudev's writeup on Chapter 3 verse 9 where he mentions unintelligent actions and the bonds created by them.   Every living being performs actions. Actions of animals are instinctive. They only have the intelligence needed for survival. We humans are thinking beings. Once we have taken care of the basics (Maslow's hierarchy), we no longer need to act instinctively. We can focus on acting with intent, which is to do something to get something. What we do, can be intelligent or unintelligent. We talked about the effects of intelligent vs unintelligent action.   We talked about the white coat syndrome in this context. White coat syndrome, or white coat hypertension, is the term for when you get a high blood pressure reading in a doctor's office and a normal reading at home. The anxiety of being around doctors in white coa...

  Summarized by Rajesh Last class summary The path of karma can clear our Vasanas (but with the right attitude) We need to act Right action in the direction of Dharma is punyam and wrong action away from Dharma is papam We spoke about the path of knowledge and action Swamiji’s Videos Verse 3 If everyone’s tastes are different, imagine the varieties of emotional states that people have Jnanayoga - intelectual, rational, logical, step-by-step, for people that need explanation Karmayoga - to those of those are restless at the body level, dynamic people, service for society Gurudev applies this to the Gunas but we need to realize that we are in different Gunas during different times, so both paths must be taken Verse 4 State of actionlessness - by retiring from all your activities, you cannot reach the state indicated by the word actionlessness.  Inactivity <> actionlessness. Escapists from the world cannot realize religion We cannot give up this world, since it doesn’t it b...

  Summarized by A K Srinivasan Mani-ji recommended a few books that are relevant to the study of the Gita, in particular, the following books:  • Many Lives, Many Masters, by Brian L Weiss, MD  • Same Soul, Many Bodies, by Brian L Weiss, MD  • Mahabharata, by C Rajagopalachari  Dr. Brian, a trained psychiatrist, practices past-life therapy and hypnosis and delves into his patient’s past to arrive at solutions. “Using past-life therapy, he was able to cure the patient and embark on a new, more meaningful phase of his own career. With more than one million copies in print, Many Lives, Many Masters is one of the breakthrough texts in alternative psychotherapy and remains as provocative and timeless as it was when first published”.  Class went thru a brief recap of Chapter 2.  Class urged to practice the sadhana package everyday.  Chapter 3  -  Karmayoga.  Class reviewed feedback on video by Swami Abhedananda, CM, South Africa, on...

  Summarized by Rajesh Question - Can we not receive enlightenment w/o God’s grace? Discussion - Grace at the highest level could be that if we made some progress in our previous life, we will start from that point going forward.  An extreme example is Duryodhana - where he says he knows what the right thing to do is but he can’t do it - that essentially he hasn’t been touched by grace.  We should talk about grace in a positive sense, such as that out of 100+ people signed up for the Whatsapp group,  a dozen or so people found the grace to attend the class. Gurudev quote on the chat: When the frequency of our thoughts upon the Lord becomes as high as the frequency with which we now remember the ego-idea, we shall come to realise the Brahman-ideal as intimately as we now know our own ego. Verses 69-72, completing chapter 2, are setting the stage to proceed to the next chapter.  Though Bhagavan talks about a sage, he will have to rope Arjuna back to Karma Yoga....