Hari Om,
We started the class with Gita Chanting. Best wishes to all our participants of Gita Chanting regionals Yagna!! happening this weekend.
We continued our discussion of Chapter 13 values.
Why do we need to live by values?
It is the individuals that make up the society. If the individuals are healthy, noble and divine then the entire society will turn into one too. Individual perfection is the means for total perfection. Bhagavad Gita gives us 20 values to live by as they are prerequisites to gain Self Knowledge. We covered a few topics in our previous class and discussed the rest this week.
Purity: Not merely the physical cleanliness, but also inner purity in thoughts.
Group discussion Questions: How to extend personal purity to our surroundings?
How to remove mental impurities such as ego, anger, envy etc…
Steadfastness: consistency of purpose and concentration of all efforts towards achieving goals.
Group discussion Questions: Hitler and Martin Luther King both set goals and persevered to make these goals a reality. What was the difference?
Self Control; Indifference to Sense Objects
Group discussion Questions: Describe 1. path of pleasant vs path of goodness 2. Suppression vs Sublimation
Absence of Egoism
Group discussion Questions:
Vishwamitra never gave up trying to achieve his goal of becoming Brahma Rishi. Isn't that perseverance? Why is his early life considered Egoistic?
Perception of evil in birth, death, old age, sickness and pain
(Metamorphosis causes pain when we are stuck to a particular stage in life)
Group discussion Questions: was this value responsible for the greater advances we have made in science in the last few centuries?
With a discussion of all the other values, the final value stated was - Perception of the End Of True Knowledge.
The first nineteen values enumerated by lord Krishna prepares us to recognize the divine. Along with it, developing a sense of deep appreciation and gratitude for the world, nature, our family, friends and even our enemies and every living thing around the world will lead us to true knowledge. Through the vision of oneness we can experience the omniscience and omnipresence of God and become one with him.
With this discussion, we completed chapter 13. The next class we will be starting Chapter 14.
Pranams
Sirisha and Rashmi
