For Seekers by Seekers

­­­Namaste!

Bhagavad Gita has inspirations to change our life.

Do we know in human psychological personality, who is the boss?

Why are human being’s superior to animals?

And importantly, what is our self-identity?

Sloka 42 from Chapter 2 summarizes this very wisdom.

इन्द्रियाणि पराण्याहुरिन्द्रियेभ्य: परं मन: |

मनसस्तु परा बुद्धिर्यो बुद्धे: परतस्तु स: || 2.42||

BG 3.42: The senses are superior to the gross body, and superior to the senses is the mind. Beyond the mind is the intellect, and even beyond the intellect is the soul.

You must watch Rang de Basanti to understand the true meaning of this sloka. The movie portrays Aamir Khan and his four friends as cynical, carefree and totally wasted, BUT are inspired after their close friend dies when his fighter plane malfunctions and crashes.

Their sense of ‘self-identity’ shifts, changing their very life!

They become motivated by a higher goal, because of this incident. Leaving their hedonistic lifestyle, they become revolutionaries to take action.

Suddenly, the attitude of eat-sleep-be-merry, don’t care for anyone other than oneself goes away. They are inspired by the idea of ‘get rid of corruption’ just like Mahatma Gandhi, who was inspired by an idea of ‘freedom for India’.

Bhagavan Krishna tells us that there is a gradation to human personality and asks us to evaluate where our self-identity predominantly lies: sensual enjoyment driven life is at the lower end of the human spectrum. We are no different from animals in this aspect. Living the life of emotions, feelings is higher to sensual enjoyment. But that is not all.

Living the life of ideas, rational thoughts, concepts – like Rang de Basanti depicts in the transformation the friends go through is higher than emotionally driven life.

Gita real teaching starts where the movie stops. Beyond the intellect is the soul – Atma, and re-aligning our thoughts, emotions, to that is the best way of living life.

Hari Om!

Shri. Vivek talks of his relationship with food and in a funny way explains his motivation to do Chaturmasa, the four month seasonal fasting to get in tune with nature. He explains how this helped him change his relationship with food, and find new meaning to his professional work on sustainability and environment. While he does say it is work in progress, the benefits he has achieved in terms of weight loss or exerting mind over matter is truly inspirational. He also talks of how this has become a lifestyle change in him and gives very powerful advice for those who want to try getting back in tune with nature.

Pleased to present the 'A-ha moments' of about 15 seekers.

Thanks to lockdown, the Gita Study Group undertook the reading of Swami Dayananda's book 'The teaching of the Bhagavad Gita' ISBN 81-7094-395-7 published by Vision Books.

This episode is long - almost two hours but it is worth it if you listen to it.

You will learn how the Gita has transformed several of us from being mere onlookers to actually being converts into the fact that the Gita way of life is THE way.

Enjoy listening in,

In this episode, I interview my beloved brother, Shri. Mahesh Sengamedu who did his Chaturmasa 2020 fast for the first time along with some of us.

Learn about his dependence on food, enjoyment, addiction and how he worked on getting rid of dependence on food.

Learn also about his spiritual progress as well as his tips for first time Chaturmasis.

In this episode, I interview Shri. Ajay Gupta, a classmate of mine who did his Chaturmasa fasting for the first time in 2020.

Listen to his journey, his concerns when he started, and expected benefits.

Also listen to the results he has been able to achieve as well as if he would do it again or not.

Hear from him the recommendations for anyone who wants to try it!

In this episode, we are reviewing and sharing our thoughts on the conclusion of Gita, as per Swami Dayananda's book, The Teaching of the Bhagavad Gita.

Right from the beginning we are discussing few key concepts

- Karma yoga, bhakti yoga and sannyasa.

Following the doubts that Arjuna had in Ch 2 of Gita and also in the final conclusion of Gita, we also discuss 'what does it mean to take sannyasa' and we argue if it is really required or is there an alternate path to realize (get Moksha).

We also talk of intellectual value - subjective & objective as well as habitual value.

We once again go back and discuss what exactly is happiness. And, is sukha, dukha and ananda - are they different.

What are the different types of ananda: priya, moda, pramoda: happy, happier, happiest....

With this last GD we formally conclude our one year of study of the excellent book by Swami Dayananda.

Next week, we will revise the entire book - it will be free flow discussions.

Very insightful discussion today, especially on the guna classification and the personality types:

Trying to understand our natural proclivities

Why we do what we do. How to move the needle, without suppression

What does it mean to worship, work, do charity, do austerities in the context of the three gunas - sattva, rajas, tamas.

Is Rajas bad?

Understanding of mind, importance of a calm mind

Importance of food for calming mind.

Controversial topics like caste system and how it is referenced in Gita.

We also talk about how /why alcohol can be consumed, or dropped completely with a complete understanding of the goal and the need to increase our Sattva guna.

This is a mindblowing group discussion 'from seekers to seekers' where we discuss:

- What does it mean to have goal orientation and still not be attached to results?

- How can we practice it?

- What is goal orientation & happiness? How are they related?

- Is it wrong to have desires? 

- If we don't have desires, then are we just passive, with no motivation to make any change?

- What are the various qualities we need to cultivate to be eternally happy?

- What are the recommended methodologies to cultivate the qualities?

We also introduce the concept of 'painting' vs. 'sculpting' as two paths. Painting is equivalent to 'accruing things, experiences' - one stroke at a time because we think we are 'limited' beings. On the other hand, sculpting is equivalent to 'ridding ourselves of those qualities' that is not our true self - because true self is happiness unlimited.

Enjoy the talk. I am sure you will be glad you listened to this 90 minutes of wisdom from seekers - to you!