Re: subtleties in the gītā
Originally Posted by
charitra
Why the time and place (in between the two senas (armies)), within the earshot of Kouravas AND Pandavas? Well, simply because KRISHNA WANTED IT THAT WAY. The sacred wisdom to be imparted to the warring senas of both the kouravas and Pandavas alike. Divine knowledge is meant for treading the path of the moksha for ALL sentient beings to adopt.
Private audience only was never the intended meaning of the texts. We have to be cognizant of the larger picture and should not be clouded by our own personal (effort and) accomplishments when we try to define the PURPOSE OF THE TEXTS like Gita, Vedopanishads and when we DEFINE the INTENDED TARGET AUDIENCES of the preachers of those texts. The great sages and rishis presumably wanted every sentient being to be enlightened by the wisdom packed in these invaluable treasures. It is however possible the wise men and women of the yore didnt want dubious characters to misread, misinterpret and mispreach those sacred verses , the likes of Ravana Parabrahma for instance. I saw a famous British comedian and a talkshow host sporting a large Krishna tattoo on his left shoulder stating on TV how he remained sober and clean for almost 10 yrs thanks to his meditation and yoga practice , he is not aspiring to become a preacher, he was able to exercise enormous self control, thanks to Krishna. ISKCON works hard to spread the message of Gita tirelessly and some people who received Gita in the streets have had their lives changed forever by just reading it. Namaste.
There is a reason why the secrets of making atomic bombs is not made public. All the universities demand certain qualifications for admission. Why not admit every one, without any pre-requisites? Let us be kind to every one!
Why there should not be any qualifying tests for studying or practising spirituality or bhagavad gita? The idea of religeous knowledge or the secrets of yoga being made available to all and sundry is a very diluted and actually harmful thought process. If you can't put into practice the teachings of one shloka of BG in your practical life, what exactly is your eligibility to study this shAstra?
Bhagavad Gita is much more than a discussion between a teacher and a disciple about to wage an all destructive war. Certainly a battle field is the last place on earth on which to deliver a sermon on the Atman.
The war here is purely spiritual, and kuruxetra denoting the mahA-vedi, the bhruvormadhya or the Ajna chakra or the mahA-smashAna is explained in our scriptures. The whole context here is about the internal yogic war that is going to be waged at the higher flights of religion, far removed from the mundane world. The eighteen chapters of the Gita describe the eighteen ladders of the yogic process, starting from arjuna-viShAda (which is the first limb of the yoga described in the Gita).
If you have noticed already, the number eighteen is a common theme of Mahabharata - eighteen parvas, eighteen chapters of Gita, eighteen akshauhinis of war, kuruxetra war lasting exactly eighteen days and so on. The number eighteen is a mystic number in this context and all these eighteen based ideas are intentionally included to convey an important spiritual idea. jaya, which is another name of Mahabharata denotes eighteen as well according to the kaTapayAdi samkhya ( ja = 8, ya =1).
This number eighteen stands for the sUxma deha of eighteen yogic principles: - five karmendriya-s, five jnAnendriya-s, five prANa-s, manas, buddhi, and ahaMkAra. The numeric symbol eighteen is used in Mahabharata to convey the tAtparya of Mahabharata (jaya or victory) as sharIra vijnAna (yogic science of the microcosm) dealing with the victory over the sUxma-sharIra.
Guard your Dharma, Burn the Myth, Promote the Truth, Crush the superstition.
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