Gita Acharan

Samatva or equanimity is the crux of the preachings of every enlightened soul that has ever roamed this planet. Words, languages and methods could vary but the message is to attain samatva . Any preaching or practice contrary to this is dogmatic. In the context of the mind, it is the balance between the senses on one side and intellect ( buddhi ) on the other side. If one leans towards senses, one...

Change is constant in the physical or manifested world of objects and the unmanifested or atma remains changeless. So, a mechanism is needed to bring coherence between these two worlds. Metaphorically, it's like the ball bearing mechanism between a stationary hub and a rotating wheel or like a gearbox handling two different speeds from the engine and wheels. Similarly, it's a mechanism of senses,...

The Brain is an amazing organ for many reasons. One of its attributes is that it doesn't feel pain as its tissue doesn't have pain transmitting nociceptors. Neurosurgeons use this attribute to perform surgeries while the patient is awake. Physical pain and pleasure are the results of the comparison with a neutral state of the brain. This analogy applies to mental feelings of pain as well as pleasu...

The common observation one makes about the spiritual path is that it is difficult to follow. Krishna earlier assured such people (2.40) that small efforts bring big gains in Karma Yoga. He further makes it simple when he says, "He who appropriately ( yukta ) eats, relaxes, works, sleeps, and remains awake will find yoga the destroyer of suffering (6.17)." Yoga or spiritual path is as simple as eat...

Krishna says you are either your own best friend or your own worst enemy (6.6). To become one's own friend, he advised the path of equanimity towards the feelings of sukh-dukh (6.7), towards things like gold-stone (6.8) and towards people like friends-enemies (6.9) by controlling senses (6.8). Alternatively, Krishna suggests the path of meditation (6.10-6.15). Krishna says to remain secluded, devo...

Krishna spoke about treating gold, stone and a handful of soil as equal (6.8), further he said that he who has equal regard for the patrons, strangers, relatives, friends, enemies, meditators, hateful beings, righteous and ungodly, is the best (6.9). Krishna started with things and suggested treating them as equals. Then he moved on to people in our lives and told us to regard friends and enemies;...

Krishna says, "The Yogi, who is satisfied with jnana and vijnana ( jnana-vijnana-triptha-atma ), who remains unshaken, who has conquered the senses, to whom a lump of earth, stone and gold are the same, is said to be realised one" (6.8). Understanding awareness, curiosity, knowledge and experience will help us comprehend what Krishna said. Jnana is awareness about self and one is content when one...

After declaring that one is responsible for lifting up or degrading oneself (6.5), Krishna gives a path to discharge this responsibility when he says, "For him who has conquered his self, the self is his bandu (friend/relative) but for him who has not conquered his self, the self verily hostile like the enemy" (6.6). The key is conquering self. The word 'atman' meaning 'self' appears twelve times...

Krishna says, "Let man lift himself by himself, let him not lower himself; his self alone is his bandhu (friend/relative), his self alone is his enemy"(6.5). Like friendship, there are many dimensions to this existential verse. Firstly, this fixes the responsibility on each individual to lift themselves up. The usual tendency is to blame someone else like family, friends, co-workers, circumstances...

Krishna says, "Know yoga to be that which scriptures call sanyasa (renunciation); nobody becomes a yogi without renouncing sankalp (motive/will)" (6.2). Earlier it was said that the pursuits of a sage are free from kaam (lust) and sankalp ( kaam sankalp vargitaye ) (4.19). Krishna further says, "To the soul who is aspiring for perfection in Yoga, karma is said to be the means; to the sage who is a...

Life presents many ups and downs and it's all about how we handle them. It is natural that when one is going through a rough phase, one gets frustrated and gets attracted towards renunciation of karmas as we are all under the illusionary belief that our karmas as well as those of others bring us happiness or misery. Arjun is also going through this dilemma and wants to renounce the karma of fighti...

This audio helps us to understand Chapter 5 of the Bhagavad Gita known as Karma Sanyasa Yoga

This audio will give explanation for fourth Chapter of the Bhagavad Gita titled Jnana Karma Sanyasa Yoga.

This is the explanation to Chapter 3 of the Bhagavad Gita

This audio gives complete understanding about second Chapter of Bhagavad Gita

This one hour audio gives birds view of the Bhagavad Gita

Krishna says, "For those who are free of desire and anger, mind controlled, and self realised, are completely liberated both in this world and in the beyond" (5.26). The question is how to be free from the malady of desire and madness of anger. Every cyclone has a calm eye or centre. Similarly, our cyclone of desire and anger too has a desireless and wrathless centre within us and it's about reach...

The pineal gland is a pea sized, pine cone shaped organ situated at the center of the brain, directly behind the middle of two eyebrows. Physiologically it produces neurotransmitters melatonin and serotonin that are responsible for the sleep cycles as well as moods, respectively. It is also known as the third eye as it contains photoreceptors like a normal eye. All cultures have described it in va...

Once, an invader on horseback from Central Asia had occupied Delhi and wanted to have a victory procession. An elephant was decorated and upon mounting it, he asked for the reins of the elephant. When told that it is controlled by a mahout, he jumped down and summoned his horse, saying that he never rides on something whose reins are not in his hands. Similarly, we need to introspect as to whether...

Krishna says that those established in brahman (absolute), having a firm understanding of divine knowledge and not hampered by delusion, neither rejoice in getting something pleasant nor grieve on experiencing the unpleasant (5.20). We label situations and people as pleasant and unpleasant and essentially, it's dropping labelling (2.50). Krishna repeatedly tells Arjun to come out of the moha (delu...

Krishna says that whose mind and intellect are established in 'that' (spirit) and whose sins have been dispelled by awareness reach a state of no return (5.17). Unaware living is like living in darkness, where we keep falling and hurting ourselves. The next level is like experiencing some flashes of light where one attains awareness for a moment but falls back into ignorance. The final stage is li...

Krishna says that the Prabhu (Lord) creates neither doer-ship nor actions nor union with fruits of action for the world. The delusive cosmic nature is the originator of all these (5.14). The Lord is not a kartha (doer) but a Sristha (creator or creativity). There are two types of creations. One is like a potter who creates pottery and the creation (pot) gets separated from the creator for independ...

Krishna says that the yogis, having abandoned sangam (unity/attachment), perform action merely by the senses, body, mind and intellect for self-purification (5.11). It is interpreted that even though one abandons attachment in the present moment, his past karma-bandhan (bondage of action) needs to be attended to. Hence, he keeps performing actions. Another way to look at it is that once attachment...

Every physical system, including life, takes different inputs and produces certain outputs. We constantly measure or judge our outputs like words and deeds. We also judge the deeds of others as well as different situations around us. In fact, in the evolutionary process, judging threats was very important for survival itself. However, the issue is in the absence of standards for judging deeds and...

Life is a two way process. We receive various stimuli and we keep responding to them. In this context, Krishna says that the knower of truth, united with self, thinks that, "I do nothing at all even while I see, hear, touch, smell, eat, walk, sleep, breath (5.8) - talk, evaluate, accept and even my blink of eyes and the senses move among sense objects" (5.9). In this existential verse, Krishna is...