Volume One of
The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living
The End of Sorrow
by E K N A T H E A S W A R A N
To my Teacher
Eknath Chippu Kunchi Ammal
my Grandmother & my Playmate
N I L G I R I P R E S S
20160831
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Table of Contents
PREFACE
A Living Tree
INTRODUCTION
The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living
CHAPTER ONE
The War Within
CHAPTER TWO
Self-Realization
CHAPTER THREE
Selfless Service
CHAPTER FOUR
Wisdom in Action
CHAPTER FIVE
Renounce and Rejoice
CHAPTER SIX
The Practice of Meditation
Passage for Meditation
Glossary & Guide to Sanskrit Pronunciation
Index
The Books of Eknath Easwaran
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PREFACE
A Living Tree
This practical commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, one of the greatest scriptures of the world, has grown out of the weekly talks given by Sri Eknath Easwaran to a group of his devoted students and friends in Berkeley. [Easwaran is the given name by which he is known among his friends; Eknath is the name of his ancestral family. Sri is used in India as a respectful form of address.] The talks, beginning in May 1968, have been carefully recorded and transcribed weekly with the help of many members of Easwaran’s ashram, or spiritual family. The transcribed lectures were then compiled and edited under Easwaran’s close supervision.
The Gita class, like all of Easwaran’s classes, is primarily a preparation and inspiration for the practice of meditation as well as a commentary on a particular scripture. Group meditation follows the hour-long talk, in which Easwaran usually covers one or two verses from the Gita. In these impromptu talks, he may apply the verse to the biggest challenges facing the world today or direct his comments to solving the personal problem of a friend in the audience. But whether talking about local incidents in Berkeley or international issues, his unchanging purpose is to inspire his listeners to practice the Gita in their daily life and to make the Gita a driving force in their consciousness. The purpose of this book is to enable Easwaran’s readers, also, to translate the timeless values of the Gita into their daily living through the practice of meditation.
Easwaran began studying Sanskrit, the language of the ancient Hindu scriptures, at the age of ten in his village school in Kerala state, India. He also studied Sanskrit at his ancestral Shiva temple under a priest from a community which is well known in India for its pure Sanskrit tradition. Thoroughly familiar with the Gita in the original Sanskrit, Easwaran is also perfectly at home in English, though Malayalam is his mother tongue. In interpreting the scriptures, however, he relies on neither his Sanskrit nor his English scholarship, but on his experience in meditation and his personal practice of the spiritual life. He grew up in a large joint family in the matrilineal tradition of Kerala, and he considers his mother’s mother, the flower of the Eknath family, his spiritual teacher.
It is said that every spiritual teacher has a particular context in which he or she flourishes best. Easwaran is an educator. Formerly, he would say, it was education for scholarship, education for degrees; now it is education for living. Before he came to the United States he was chairman of the Department of English at the University of Nagpur and was devoted to his students and the literature he taught them. After coming to this country on the Fulbright exchange program in 1959, Easwaran began giving talks on meditation and the spiritual life, and the response was so great that in 1961 he established the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation in Berkeley to carry on his work of teaching meditation. Since that time, except for one return to India, he has been giving ongoing classes each week on the practice of meditation and commenting on the writings of the great mystics of all religions, including the Yogasutras of Patanjali, the Little Flowers of St. Francis, the writings of Meister Eckhart, the Upanishads, the Bhaktisutras of Narada, the Dhammapada of the Buddha, the Sermon on the Mount, Thomas a Kempis’s Of the Imitation of Christ, and the Bhagavad Gita. He also teaches courses on meditation and on Mahatma Gandhi for the University of California Extension, Berkeley. In Nagpur, he likes to tell us laughingly, he had a reputation for always dragging Sri Ramakrishna into his lectures on Shakespeare and Shaw. Now, in these talks on the Gita, it is Shakespeare who illustrates the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna. and St. Francis. The content has changed, but the context in which Easwaran flourishes cannot be very different: a small but extremely devoted group, perhaps eighty to a hundred, mostly young people of the sort who gravitate to a university town, gathered around in a semicircle to drink in the words of a man who is talking not about something he has read or something he has thought out, but about something he has experienced in his own life.
So this is a very special kind of book. Easwaran likes to say that it has grown like a tree because it issues directly from his life, which is so completely rooted in the Gita that every day he gains a deeper understanding of its teachings during even the most commonplace experiences: sharing ice cream with the ashram children in Santa Rosa, walking with friends down Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, watching a mime with his wife in San Francisco’s Union Square. Every Tuesday night in class this tree would flower, and we would hear these incidents retold as precise, profound illustrations of the Gita’s applicability to our modern world. You can follow these incidents in this book, week by week, and at the same time you can trace the growth of the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation itself: the long months of looking for an ashram site, the building and remodeling when Ramagiri Ashram was acquired, the arrival of Easwaran’s mother and nieces from India. The result is a living document which, as Easwaran says, is still growing even now, and which will continue to grow as it is read and absorbed by others into their own lives.
Easwaran has chosen to comment on the eighteen chapters of the Gita in three volumes, each volume covering six chapters. It is said that these three parts of the Gita illustrate the profound truth of the Upanishads, Tat tvam asi: “That thou art.” The first six chapters are an exposition of tvam, ‘thou,’ the Atman, and reveal the nature of our real, eternal Self. The second six chapters concern Tat, ‘That’: Brahman, the supreme Reality underlying all creation. The last six chapters explain asi, ‘is,’ the relationship between tvam and Tat: the identity of the Self within and the supreme Reality, which unites all existence into one whole. The Gita develops this truth, “That thou art,” in practical terms: by discovering our real Self, we realize the indivisible unity of life and become united with the Divine Ground of existence.
Easwaran would like to convey his appreciation to everyone who has helped with this book, including those who have attended the Gita talks with sustained enthusiasm over the years. He wishes to express his deep love to all the members of his spiritual family who have assisted in translating, recording, transcribing, editing, and printing this commentary on the Gita.
In turn we, the editors, speaking for everyone who has helped, feel that working on this book has been a great privilege. Nachiketa, the student in the Katha Upanishad, tells Yama, “A teacher of this, another like you, is not to be found. No other boon is equal to this at all.” The combination of enlightenment and practical, effective teaching in these pages is rare indeed, difficult to find in the modern world.
–The Editors
INTRODUCTION
The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living
There is no significant problem in life which cannot be referred to the Bhagavad Gita for a per
fect solution. The Gita is one of the most powerful of the Sanskrit scriptures of ancient India, but in my eyes it is neither philosophy nor theology, metaphysics nor poetry. It is a practical manual for daily living in any age, in any religious tradition, and my commentary is an attempt to apply its teachings specifically to the problems facing us in modern life.
Today there is an urgent need for such a manual. We see this reflected in our newspapers, magazines, books, movies, and television programs, but most of all in our daily living. Life has never seemed more futile. In spite of all our technological advances and material prosperity, we have no peace of mind and live in fear and anger in the midst of increasing violence. We are caught in the lurid dream that the pursuit of pleasure will lead us to joy, the pursuit of profit will lead us to security, and most of us have no other purpose in life than this driving urge to bring about our own private fulfillment even if it is at the expense of other persons, races, or countries.
The Bhagavad Gita shows us how we can awaken from this dream. In Sanskrit, the language of the Gita, the underlying Reality of life is called by a simple but very powerful name: advaita, ‘not two.’ In the words of a lovable mystic of modern India, Meher Baba, “You and I are not ‘we’; you and I are One.” There is no division, no fragmentation in life at all; no matter how much we may appear to differ on the surface, the welfare of each one of us is inseparable from the welfare of all others. Even on the level of the body, we know that in cancer the whole organism is eventually destroyed when even a single cell begins to pursue its own course independently of the rest. Similarly, the Bhagavad Gita tells us, you and I cannot fulfill ourselves by going our own way. We can find lasting fulfillment only by contributing to the joy and fulfillment of others, in which our own joy and fulfillment are included. This is not a philosophical platitude, but a practical principle which we must learn to live by if our civilization is to survive.
Every mystic will interpret the scriptures in accordance with the urgent needs of the times. Though the Bhagavad Gita is timeless, it too must be interpreted in accordance with the needs of the times – the yugadharma in Sanskrit, the ‘special law of the age.’ In commenting on the Gita, I always stress the indivisible unity of life because this is the need of our time. I do not stop with the family of man, but extend this unity to all life and to the environment as well. It is the urgent need of our time to recognize the unity of all forms of life, and the intimate relationship between water, earth, air, plants, and all creatures. I am a vegetarian not only because my ancestors were, but also because I perceive this unity. Ecologists have begun to tell us that there is an interpenetrating relationship among all things which we can violate only at our peril. Jacques Cousteau, who has devoted his life to studying the oceans of the earth, tells us: “We forget that all life-cycles are one. Environment is one too. There is no such thing as an environment of a single species, of man for example.” Spiritual living and sound ecological practice go together. A vegetarian diet respects this partnership among all forms of life and meets man’s nutritional needs with a minimum demand on the earth’s resources.
Salvation, Self-realization, nirvana, moksha – these are just different words for the same discovery of the unity of all life. This is what we have come into life to accomplish, and until we have accomplished this, we have not attained fulfillment. Even one person attaining this goal elevates the entire consciousness of mankind. As Philo of Alexandria said: “Households, cities, countries, and nations have enjoyed great happiness when a single individual has taken heed of the Good and Beautiful. Such men not only liberate themselves; they fill those they meet with a free mind.” In the Hindu spiritual tradition there is an unbroken continuity of illumined men and women who have verified the supreme goal in their lives. There is always someone with us in India to embody the ideals of spiritual living, and through their personal life such people are able to inspire those around them to follow the supreme goal. When they write a commentary on the scriptures, it is in the light of their own experience and enables us to practice their teachings in our daily life.
My own approach to the spiritual life appeals to many men and women today, partly because I have not retired from the world – I live very much as a family man, a good husband, son, and friend – but also because I have tried to combine the best of West and East. I live together with forty friends at our ashram, or spiritual community, and though I have heavy responsibilities in guiding our work, I take time for recreation. I go with friends to the theater; I am fond of Western and Indian classical music; I like to take the children to the ice cream parlor and the dogs to the beach for a run. But perhaps what appeals most deeply is that I understand the difficulties of living in the modern world. Before taking to meditation, in my ignorance of the unity of life, I too committed most of the mistakes that even sensitive people commit today. As a result, I understand how easy it is to make those mistakes, and I know how to guide and support those who are trying to learn a wiser way of living.
I am a believer in the little man and do not look to governments and corporations to set the world right. In India, the tropical sun dries up almost all vegetation during the hot season, and a shade tree is a precious shelter from the deadening heat. The leaves of the tamarind tree are very small, but they are packed so closely together that they give better shade than the large leaves of the banana tree. My Grandmother, my spiritual teacher, used to point to the tamarind tree and remind me that a large number of little people, working together closely, can accomplish much more than a few big people. The Lord within, whether we call him Krishna, Christ, the Buddha, or Allah, is the source of all power, and when we live for others in accordance with the unity of all life this power flows into our hands, enabling us to take on the biggest problems facing the modern world. In Hindu mythology, Ganesha, the elephant god, is the symbol of the Lord’s power. The elephant is a huge, strong creature, but very gentle. Often he does not know his own strength. His eyes are so small that in India we say he thinks he is only a small creature, not capable of much. He never knows his own size. My Gita commentary is aimed at ordinary men and women who think they are small, who do not realize their real stature.
Even if it takes us a whole lifetime to learn to practice the teachings of the Gita, we shall have made a valuable contribution in life. You and I can make a contribution to the spiritual evolution of humanity by learning to resolve the terrible civil war described vividly in the Gita. This war is continually raging within every one of us, and the two armies in conflict are all that is selfish in us pitted against all that is selfless in us. It is a lifelong struggle between the demonic and the divine.
The Bhagavad Gita, which is found in the Hindu epic the Mahabharata, is the most influential scripture to come down the ages in India. It is the quintessence of the Upanishads, giving us their perennial wisdom in a manner that can be systematically practiced. The Upanishads, which come at the end of the Vedas and are among the oldest, most revered Hindu scriptures, contain flashing insights into the nature of life and death. The Gita gives order to the insights of the Upanishads and tells us how to undertake spiritual disciplines to become aware of the supreme Reality always.
My surmise is that the Gita was originally an Upanishad which has been inserted into the Mahabharata, its first chapter serving as a bridge between the epic story and the upanishadic teaching in chapters two through eighteen. Perhaps this interpretation cannot be substantiated by scholarship, but in the traditional invocation to the Gita we find this verse
Sarvo ‘panishado gavo dogdha gopalanandanah Partho vatsah sudhir bhokta dugdham gitamritam mahat
All the Upanishads are cows milked by Krishna, the cowherd boy, and Arjuna is the calf. Those who are wise and pure drink the milk, the supreme, immortal nectar of the Gita.
The Gita also uses the dialogue form of the Upanishads and is especially similar to the Katha Upanishad, where Yama, the King of Death, teaches the teenager Nachiketa how to attain immortality through Self-reali
zation. In the Gita, the dialogue is between Sri Krishna (a full incarnation of Vishnu, the Preserver in the Hindu Trinity) and Arjuna, a young prince who represents you and me. Arjuna is a man of action, living in the midst of society and confronting essentially the same problems that challenge us today. His friend and spiritual teacher, Sri Krishna, is the Lord of Love who dwells in the depths of our consciousness. He is the Atman, our real Self.
To practice the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita no amount of intellectual study can be of much help, because intellectual knowledge, by its very nature, has little power to transform character, conduct, and consciousness. Meditation is the mighty instrument which enables us to bring the timeless teachings of the Gita into our life, day by day, step by step.
In the Hindu scriptures meditation is called Brahmavidya, the supreme science, in which all human desires are completely fulfilled. If we practice meditation sincerely, systematically, and with sustained enthusiasm, our physical and emotional problems find their solution, all of our artistic and creative capacities come to full maturity, and we are able to contribute to the welfare of our family and community. We live in the world as integral members of our society, and by transforming ourselves, we transform those with whom we live. This is joyful living; it is not running away from problems but facing problems with a quiet confidence and unfailing insight that come to us day by day in the practice of meditation.
In order to bring the teachings of the Gita into our daily lives and to practice meditation, we must observe the simple rules of right living. On the strength of my own small spiritual experience, let me indicate here the eight-point program which I have found extremely useful in my own life. This body of disciplines, which can enable us to fulfill the supreme goal of life, Self-realization, can be followed by every person capable of some resolution, some endurance, and some sense of dedication.
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