Bhagwad Gita
To begin with, When I joined the class, the first thing came in my mind was, “what is the purpose of Bhagvad Gita?, What does Gita teach us?”.Also, I have been hearing about the things like good karma/ bad karma and how it works in our lives.I also wondered about how our good karma pay back with good things and bad karma leads to unfavourable things? Is it all about moksa?? But I can say that the purpose of learning about Gita is to help us discover the fact that we are truly limitless.
In the first class of Geeta, Gagan Gupta Sir began the class with an interesting story of the Gita which was about the battle led up between Krishna and Arjuna to take back his kingdom.In the story, Arjuna did not want to fight.He did not understand why he had to shed his family’s blood for a kingdom that he didn’t even necessarily want.In his eyes, killing his evil and killing his family was the greatest sin of all. He casts down his weapons and tells Krishna he will not fight. Krishna, then, begins the systematic process of explaining why it is Arjuna’s dharmic duty to fight and how he must fight in order to restore his karma.The purpose of this story was to allow a person to work off their karma, accumulated through lifetimes of action.
The main concepts I have learned in the Geeta till now was about dharma, karma, raga, dvesha……. What I understood about dharma is all about ‘law’ or ‘duty.'( knowledge of the right thing) Every being is subject to a cycle of birth and death in which one has to come to Earth to work off their karma by fulfilling their dharma — or duty — in a given lifetime. It was explained by an example of crossing the road to reach “ POOJA ABHISHEK” building. To reach to the building, we have two options: taking a shortcut and cross the road on wrong side or we can follow dharma to go all way till Ambika Niketan circle, take a U-turn and reach at the destination point.So, all about dharma is to follow your knowledge about what needs to be done…
Moving on to Karma, what I have learnt about this concept is : people have a debt of karma to work off in their lifetime, and do so either by fulfilling or avoiding their dharma. Every action has a karmic consequence and so karma either accumulates or dissolves until the cycle of birth and rebirth ends.It was explained by an example of a journey from home to the desired destination.If we ride a bike from our home and reached to the desired destination safely that means your good karma ( Punya) is reverting to you.and if you met with an accident that means your bad karma (papa) and others papa connected with each other and it is reverting to you in a negative result.
Last but not the least, talking about raga and dvesha, Raga means desire and dvesha means what we don’t desire to happen.Raga and Dvesha are the two Doshas or faults in the mind that have brought us to this world.All the emotions come under the category of Raga-Dvesha.Pleasure and pain, Harsha and Soka are due to Raga-Dvesha. If Raga and Dvesha vanish from the mind, Harsha-Soka also will disappear.It was explained by an example: If an object gives pleasure, you get Raga for the object. But when there is Viyoga (separation) from the object, as in the case of death of your dear wife or son, you get immense pain which is indescribable. Suppose you are in the habit of taking fruits after food. Fruits give you pleasure. You get Raga (liking) for fruits. But if you cannot get fruits in a place, you get pain.
Moreover, during the session, it was an amazing experience of listening to the past experiences of Gagan sir that he faced in America in order to connect all the sanskrit chanting of the Geeta.Some of them I could relate myself with him about keeping a “ Big goal” in life so that other small pain will not be a reason to bother oneself.
To sum up with, the biggest takeaway from the session for me is the power of meditation.The highest form of meditation comes when a person not only can free themselves from selfish action, but also focus entirely on the divine in their actions. In other words, Krishna says that he who achieves divine union with him in meditation will ultimately find freedom from the endless cycle of rebirth and death.