It is easy to deduce in the world that the life is not deterministic and everything is driven by laws which can only be reasoned, but not discovered.  The rules of the universe are possibly realizable, but not sensed.  Such realization is an abstraction, achieved through yoga when we may go beyond the bodily sense functions.  Thus, the realization is not physical, but is metaphysical where the body functions are neutralized.

Such is the enunciation in the Bhagavadgita, a text of seven hundred stanzas tucked inside the epic Mahabharata as a dialog between the legendary teacher SriKrishna and his student the warrior Arjuna.  The dramatic context of the composition is only poetic, but the contents and the word use are thoughtful and precise.  The Bhagavadgita has been the soul of India’s culture for the last two thousand years, though the origin of the concept is likely very old.

The important conclusion and the empowerment that the Bhagavadgita lends to our life is to find excellence in our work.  We are endowed with a body, a mind and our faculties.  We have no control why our abilities might appear limited.  But we have full control on how we may apply them.  The Bhagavadgita declares that any application when done with full heart and full mind, is complete in itself.  We are in yoga when we give ourselves completely to the task at hand. 

Such completeness rests on our objectivity in doing tasks.  Our objectivity is a function of our own perception of the universe.  We fail when we claim that there is something special in what we are.  We fail totally when we use sensory criteria in distinguishing objects.  All life is one and so our life is no different than the life of an insect.  Each object has a right to operate in this universe with its own properties, our living is objective when we appreciate the properties not diminish the object.

Shri Dwarkamai Vidypaeeth, the Sai Temple in Billerica, has been hosting a Bhagavadgita Jayanti since 2010, where we read and analyze a chapter from the book every year.  Through some traditional astronomy, the Bhagavadgita was believed to have been spoken on the Ekadasi day of the brighter part of the month Margashirsha during the epic war.  This year’s Ekadasi was last Tuesday.  The event at the Temple is scheduled on Sunday, December 23 at 4:30 PM.  I am attaching the flier for the event.  You may take time to attend.       

|