Thursday, October 27, 2011

LESSONS FROM THE BHAGWAT GITA




1. Strength is important on the inside, do everything even renunciation from a position of strength. Do nothing out of weakness.
2. Fear nothing, have extreme fearlessness and extreme compassion, be gentle. Don’t fear anybody or anything and let no one fear you.
3.”Bear with them”, remain equanimous to external factors, control mind.
4. Soul cannot kill nor can be killed.
5. Action and meditation, both are important, internal and external.
6. Make continuous effort to move or transform from Tamas to Rajas to Sattva state.
7. Beings come from the unknown, live in the known and go back into the unknown. So what is there to be worried about?
8. Make pleasure and pain, gain and loss, conquest and defeat, the same. Work with balanced attitude, calm attitude, then, you will achieve great results.
9.  Be a Yogi, be equanimous, evenness of mind.
10. Perform actions abandoning attachment, remaining unconcerned as regards success or failure. This evenness of mind is known as Yoga.
11. Control the senses, sense organs.
12. One who restrains the organs of action, yet entertains thoughts of sense objects in mind, is a hypocrite.
13. One who controlling the senses by the mind, remains unattached, directs the organs of action to the yoga of action, excels.
14. Do actions free from attachment, for sake of Yajna, to give and not to take (in mind), and then there will be no bondage.
15. Action cannot be avoided, take action but for others welfare, without personal attachment.
16. Action is because of Prakriti – nature, our ego assumes that we are doing it.
17. Forces of nature act with forces of nature, inside to outside, outside to inside, know this, don’t get attached.
18. Sense organs and sense objects these are forces of nature that act and react with each other; our mind is in between, when mind gets involved ego develops, craving and aversions develop.
19. Desire unrestrained, anger and uncontrolled mind covers true knowledge.
20. Beyond body and sensory organs, is the mind, beyond mind is the intellect and beyond intellect is the atman.
21. Be a Rajarshi, be without craving, without fear and anger, have control and discipline of the mind and thinking.
22. Nirvikalpa – without mental modifications, a state of no mind.
23. Let the mind be satisfied all the time; then detachment will come, work will not be work anymore, it will become enjoyable.
24. With faith and shraddha, discipline and control the senses,   and be free.
25. Renunciation and action are one when the mind is focused on the self, in tapas, with detachment, in the spirit of yoga.
26. With sense organs under control, immerse in self, recognize it as the same self in all beings, work like a Yogi, for the benefit of all. Detachment comes.
27. Detachment alone can set you free, one is basically free, it is the bondage of sense organs that imprisons us, we cannot become what we are not.
28. Humans have two natures, one internal and the other external, all action is because of nature, let the internal nature be supreme.
29. At the level of the self (above intellect) all life forms are the same, there is no difference, there is absolute equality and unity.
30. Develop equanimity; stay equidistant from pleasantness and unpleasantness, both extremes. Stay unattached from / to external factors / contacts and become free from external environment.
31. Our six enemies; Kama (unrestrained lust), Krodha (anger), Lobha (greed), Moha (delusion), Mada (arrogance or pride), Matsarya (jealousy). All connected to external contact and leading to unhappiness.
 32. Dependence on external factors brings unhappiness; freedom from external factors brings happiness.
33. Control your desires; you are your own friend and enemy.
34. Let the supreme self be the object of constant realisation.
35. Conquer your senses such that mud stone and gold seem the same.
36. Retire into solitude and practice concentration of the mind.
37. Let the heart be serene and fearless.
38. Avoid extremes, be moderate in everything you do, not too much austerities or too much indulgence.
39. From a scattered mind become a gathered mind.
40. When seeing the self by the self, one is satisfied in the self.
 41. Sense organs have no role, the self can be realized only by trained buddhi i.e. intellect.
42. Control of the mind can be achieved through Abhyas, Vairagya and Sraddha.
43. Earth, water, fire, air, space, mind, intellect and ego are the lower eight parts of nature. Intelligence and conscience are the two higher parts of nature.
44. Maya is like the magic of the magician. When you get involved in the magic you are caught but when you are focused on the magician you can’t get caught in his magic. The maya is very difficult to cross if we do not focus on the mayavi, the one who crates the magic.
45. The gunas are also maya. Tamas pulls one deeper into maya, rajas retain one in maya and Sattva helps one to pull out of maya. Sattva is not the highest reality, it only shows the direction.
46. There are four seekers of the mayavi / magician. The distressed, the seeker of knowledge, the seeker of wealth and the spiritually wise one who seeks for the sake of love, which is the best.
47. Craving and aversion are the two main obstacles.
48. Beyond the manifest is the unmanifest. When one is steadfast, disciplined and detached, in pursuit of the unmanifested, one surely attains it.
49. Strive for the unmanifest and the unmanifest will help you to advance further, through intellect, Buddhi, the unmanifest will help you to advance.
50. It is the body conscience that holds us back from understanding the universal atman, the Brahman. The whole function of knowledge and intellect is to penetrate the surface and see the one behind the many.
51. One who does work for me alone and has me for his or her goal, is devoted to me, is free from sensory attachments and bears no enemity towards any being, he or she will attain to me. 
                                                                                                                                 (From Chapters 1 to 11)

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