Shreemad Bhagavad Gita (eBook)

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SHREEMAD BHAGAVAD GITA

Jai Gurudev!

The Shreemad Bhagavad Gita is a song of life. I will quickly summarise it.

Throughout Lord Krishna’s life, He always said things for the sake of uplifting everyone around Him. Note one thing: the people around Bhagavan Krishna were elevated souls. They were not just mere human beings. Each of them was, in reality, His manifestation Itself, reminding us that each of us in this world is only Him; it is only Him who is playing in the core of each of us. I would not say in the core of the heart, but in the core of the soul itself: transpiercing the ego of the soul itself, you will find only Him.

Realisation is not just something that people think about. Realisation is to attain Him, fully! But how to attain Him? He is not separate from you. Each action, whatever you do, is happening only by His Will. Without God’s Will, nothing is possible. You will see, later on, that everything is in His Plan, but in His Plan, He also gives choice. People often ask, “But do we have free will?” What free will do people have when they are completely surrendered? When you have a mind, the mind has the free will to choose. The Lord gives you choice: as long as you want to be separate from Him, of course you have a choice. But once you realise that you are part of Him, that He is the One who is acting, that He is the One who is doing everything, then you see that all is just His Will.

As you know, the Mahabharat is about the war between the Kauravas and the Pandavas. Why did the fight happen? It was for the kingdom and for material gain. The fight was about who would have the power: the Kauravas or the Pandavas. Here I have to clarify that both sides were Kauravas because they were from the dynasty of Kuru: even Arjuna’s father, Pandu, was from the dynasty of Kuru. The Kaurava King, Dhritarashtra, didn’t recognise the Pandavas as being part of the kingdom. Dhritarashtra was seated on the throne of Pandu, who was the rightful king. He was on the throne of the kingdom without even having had the raja abhishekam ritual done for him. How could Dhritarashtra be the king and sit on the throne of Hastinapur without the official acknowledgement of being the king of Hastinapur? It was only because of the word of his brother.

He was on the throne when the Pandavas came to ask, “Will you give us our share of the kingdom? We also have rights to this kingdom!” The Kauravas refused and plotted to kill the Pandavas. They gave them a house made of wax, which Duryodhan, the oldest son of the King Dhritarashtra, burned. The Pandavas ran away and escaped. So from the time that they were very young, they had this enmity between them.

Later the Pandavas got married. Arjuna married the daughter of Drupada, Draupadi. According to the rules of that time, one woman could marry five husbands. Nowadays it is the opposite! One man marries five women, seven probably. But at that time, there were rules, even for the kings. Lord Krishna Himself had 16,108 wives. But this was just to remind us that Lord Krishna is the Lord, you know? He could marry as many women as He wanted. And, He was individually present with each one! By His power, He was present with each wife.

Draupadi married the five Pandava brothers. According to the rules, when she was with one brother, it was for just one year, and during that one year, another brother couldn’t be with her. They all had to address her with respect. And when the couple was in their private chamber, the other brothers were not allowed in.

The Pandavas conquered a kingdom and named it Indraprastha, the kingdom of Indra, because Arjuna was the son of Indra. How was Arjuna the son of Indra? Pandu was cursed. He had two wives, Kunti and Madri. He was cursed that if he ever touched one of his wives, he would die on the spot, so they could not have children. Then, where did the Pandava brothers come from? In ancient times, in the time of Dwapara Yuga, people counted on the blessing of the sages, the blessing of the elders of the family, and the father and the mother. The blessing was very important because the power of the words which the blessing had, and the faith in God that people had during that time, made it happen. Pandu’s wife, Kunti, had the blessing that whenever she wanted to know something, she would know it. Whenever she wanted something from the devas, she would get it.

Kunti said to Pandu, “I have a special mantra. Let me use it to invoke the devas for their blessing.” She wanted to test the mantra. She was like everyone; people always have this little doubt: “Does this mantra really work or not? Is this blessing real or not? Let me try it!”

One day she looked at the Sun, wondering, “Why is the Sun so red? Let me ask the Sun-god.” She invoked Surya Narayana and, of course, Surya Narayana appeared in front of her and asked, “What do you want?” Kunti said, “I don’t know. I just wanted to know why you are red.” But you see, when you invoke the devas, they have to give you something. They can’t just leave without giving you a blessing. Surya Narayana said, “Okay, you don’t know what to ask, but I have to give you something!” So Surya Narayana said, “I bless you with a son!” And, ping! The son was there! Kunti didn’t get pregnant. No! The son just manifested through the blessing, through the willpower of Surya Narayana. His name was Karna. She thought, “What can I do with a child? I don’t know what to do.” She was not yet married and she was a princess of Kunti-Bhoja. She became worried. “What will people say?” She couldn’t go and tell everyone, “Immaculate conception.”

Even when Mother Mary went to Joseph and said, “I am not pregnant by any man, it happened through the Holy Spirit,” did Joseph welcome it nicely? No! There were doubts in his mind, “How? Anybody can say that!” Like I was saying, “Only the mother knows who is the father.” The father can’t know whether a child is really his or not. Here it was the same! What to do? With a heavy heart, Kunti put the baby in a basket on the water so that the water could safely carry him somewhere, hoping that someone would get the baby and raise him.

This story is similar to the story of Moses. Moses’ mother also had to let go of her child, hoping that the child would have a good future. Because of the blessing of Surya Narayana, Kunti’s child was found and raised by a charioteer. That’s why Karna was called ‘suta-putra’ (the son of the charioteer). Later it was revealed that he was the eldest son of Kunti. Since he was not the son of Pandu, he was called Kaunteya (son of Kunti). When Kunti realised that the blessing had worked, she was reassured. Later, when she got married to Pandu, and he got the curse, she remembered the mantra and said, “I can have children. I don’t really need you to have a child.” Pandu said, “Poor me!”

Kunti first invoked the akash tattva. Akash here doesn’t mean the sky. It means the element ether, the ether tattva. Ether as an element is the void, what we nowadays call ‘the black hole’, the emptiness. When Kunti invoked the akash tattva, she had actually invoked all the devas saying, “Whoever hears my voice, come!” Yama answered Kunti’s invocation. Yama is the lord of death, who controls death: that’s why he is dark in aspect. Nobody knows about death – when death will come, where it will come, how it will come. It is unknown to the mind. It is unknown to normal people. That’s why when we talk about death, fear arises, no? Here akash tattva is this void. Yamaraj was pleased with Kunti’s invocation, so he appeared in front of her and blessed her with a son. Ping! A son was manifested! His name was Yudhishtir.

Then Kunti invoked Vayu, the wind God, Hanuman’s father. She got another blessing, another son: Bhima was born.

Next she invoked Indra, the king of the demigods, the king of Indra Loka. Here you have to understand what Indra Loka and the devas stand for. When you are on the spiritual path, you have a certain realisation of God Consciousness, yet you are still attached to the world. You have both: you have one foot in heaven and one foot on the earth. You are indecisive about where you want to put the next foot, because you’ll go either up or down. Indra has many good qualities, like all the other devas, but he also has an attachment to the world. Later you will see these contradictory qualities of Indra in his son, Arjuna. Arjuna was, of course, an elevated soul. Further on, we’ll see that Krishna and Arjuna have had a relationship, a bandhan (bond), through many lifetimes. In Chapter 4, Krishna reminds Arjuna of this, saying, “Look, our relationship is not just for this lifetime. Every time I have incarnated, you also incarnated.” This was the master plan of God. He plans everything before it happens, a long time before. The whole plan of Krishna’s life itself was in His control.

So Kunti invoked Indra and Arjuna was born. Arjuna represented the fire element, the fire tattva. After having three sons, Kunti was very happy, but Madri, Pandu’s other wife, was very sad. She thought, “Oh, you know, my sister…these sons are very nice. I would also like to have sons.” Of course, Pandu saw Madri’s sadness and asked Kunti, “As you have had the blessing of this mantra, could you please give this mantra to Madri?” Kunti was very happy to give it. She did not say, “Oh, that’s my mantra. I will keep it for myself. Let her not have any children.” Nowadays people would do this. Kunti gladly gave the mantra to Madri and with it, Madri invoked the Ashwin Kumars, the two brothers, who are the divine...