Skip to main content

The Art of Man Making - Evergreen Classic

January 26, 2014
India's Republic day is a good day for me to resume posting to this blog after a hiatus of over 8 weeks. The impetus for this came from listening to Param Pujya Gurudev Swami Chinmayanandaji's audio talks on the "Art of Man Making". The audio and the accompanying book are the results of 114 talks on All India Radio by Pujya Gurudev in the 1960s. The talks are wonderful, crisp, lyrical at times, yet always marked by the razor-sharp insights into the Bhagavad Geeta, the familiar hallmark of Pujya Gurudev's teaching. As he sets the context for the first chapter, Gurudev vividly lays out the setting of the Bhagavad Geeta.
(the Upanishads) are given out in an atmosphere of quietude and in an inner mood of total dispassion. The hum of the Ganges, the hymn of the eternal snow peaks and the salubrious climate are all conspicuous witnesses in the Upanishadic literature. Even the students who listen to the declaration of these Rishis are calm and cool, self-controlled and unagitated, and they hear these words of wisdom with a quiet and serene intellect.

This songful and quiet environment has been completely replaced in the Geeta by the atmosphere of strife and stress, dust and fury, stress and strain, pulls and pressures. The inner mood and outer atmosphere are suggestive of dynamic service to the society and its members. Unlike the Upanishads, in the Geeta, the Lord himself addresses the Pandava Prince, mentally agitated and intellectually confused. Yet, the message of the Upanishads and the Geeta are one and the same. Hence, the glory of the Geeta lies not in what she states, but how she states it.

Vyasa deftly chose Lord Krishna as his mouthpiece to give out the immortal message of the Geeta amidst the din and roar of a national war to a confused and confounded hero of the day. Thus, Vyasa, by his masterly setting of the Geeta, has brought down religion from the snow-capped Himalayas to the work-a-day world to bless man in his day-to-day existence. Religion is never to be practiced in jungles and forests alone.

The Art of Man Making CD and the book are an invaluable tool for a student of the Bhagavad Geeta. Do yourself a favor and get them today.

Hari Om and Namaskaar until the next post
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Geeta Dhyānaṁ 2 - Vyāsā's Vast Intellect

January 7, 2013 Previously on Geeta Jayanti, I had posted on the eternal debt of gratitude to Mother Geeta that is the basis of Geeta Dhyānaṁ. I love Param Pujya Gurudev 's commentary on the Geeta Dhyānaṁ. Pujya Gurudev's commentary is after the introduction to the Bhagavad Geeta in the commentary on Chapters 1 & 2 published by the the Chinmaya Mission. I personally believe it should be a book by itself. After invoking Mother Geeta, we now pay tribute to the wise Vyāsa Rishi - the Guru whose Jayanti marks Guru Pūrnima every year. Pujya Gurudev starts His tribute to Veda Vyāsā in his commentary on the 1st verse of the Dhyānaṁ. Vyāsa, the father of the Vedās, who, first collected, edited and published the Veda texts and who thereafter, gave us the dialectics of Vedānta in his Brahma Sūtra, himself a great man of realization, was indeed well fitted for the job. The ancient seer had both the mastery of the theoretical science of religion - Hinduism and also the practical expe
Post a Comment
Read more

Geeta in Literature - IF by Rudyard Kipling

September 12, 2011 I came across a nice YouTube video that is an animation of Rudyard Kipling reading his famous poem IF . The full text sourced from wikisource is below: If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too: If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise; If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim, If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same: If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools; If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And los
Post a Comment
Read more

In every field, let Dharma flourish - क्षेत्रे क्षेत्रे धर्म कुरु

August 9, 2012 Swamini Vimalanandaji has done a series of talks at the Ahmedabad Management Association (AMA) called "406 SMS – Sure Mantras for Success from Bhagwad Geeta" (item 406 at this AMA link ). In this she has a very interesting take on the 1st line of the Bhagavad Geeta. धर्मक्षेत्रे कुरुक्षेत्रे  १-१ dharmakShetre kurukShetre 1-1 <i> on the holy plain of Kurukshetra... </i> Swamini turns that slightly and says,  क्षेत्रे  क्षेत्रे  धर्म कुरु -   kShetre  kShetre  dharma kuru. Swamini goes on to establish that we can use this mantra to make that: "In every aspect of society,  must be pervaded by Dharma" Hari Om and Namaskaar until the next post
Post a Comment
Read more