The Yoga of Self Discipline. The divine Self is present in everything and is constantly beckoning to us... Detachment and practice are the keys to Self knowledge. Sri Krishna offers instructions for meditation. The chapter concludes extolling Bhakti Yoga.Visit:  Vanamali Ashram’s Bhakti Yoga Home Page

Gita Chapter 6

The Song Celestial unfolds a dialogue of the advice given by an avatar or God incarnate. The recipient of the message is Arjuna, the prototype of the struggling human soul who is ready to receive the great knowledge by his close companionship and increasing nearness to the divine Self within himself. 




This symbolic companionship of Krishna and Arjuna, the divine and the human soul is further dramatized by the fact that their dialogue takes place amidst the din and clamor of a battlefield. The teacher in the Gita is therefore not only the God who is transcendent but also the God in man who unveils Himself through an increasing knowledge... 
                                                                     Vanamali, Nitya Yoga.  
























Aldous Huxley, asserts that ‘The Bhagavad Gita occupies an intermediate position between scripture and theology; for it combines the poetical qualities of the first with the clear-cut methodicalness of the second. ‘The book may be described’ writes Ananda K. Coomaraswamy in his admirable Hinduism and Buddhism, ‘as a compendium of the whole doctrine to be found in the earlier Vedas, Brahmanas and Upanishads, and being therefore the basis of all the The later developments, it can be regarded as the focus of all Indian religion...

...But this focus of Indian religion is also one of the clearest and most comprehensive summaries of the perennial philosophy ever to have been made. Hence its enduring value, not only for Indians, but for all mankind’.

The Bhagavad Gita (Song Celestial) offers an understanding of The Great Mystery, which has inspired many of the giants of the Western intellectual tradition. The transcendentalist poets Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman were students of The Bhagavad Gita. Thoreau wrote: ‘In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous cosmological philosophy of The Bhagavad Gita, in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial.’

Emerson, referring to the Gita, wrote: ‘It was the first of books. It was as if an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another age . . . had pondered and thus disposed of the same questions which exercise us.’

This is a series of discourses on the liberating teachings of the Srimad Bhagavad Gita (Song Celestial) by Mataji (Mother) Vanamali, Vanamali Gita Yogasram, Rishikesh, North India.

Vanamali Mataji is the author of The Lila Hindu World Heritage Library. Her books include: a translation of the Srimad Bhagavad Gita, Nitya Yoga, a commentary on the Bhagavad Gita,  Sri Krishna Lila, Sri Rama Lila, Sri Shiva Lila, Sri Devi Lila, Sri Hanuman Lila, Lilas of the Sons of Shiva, Gurudeva  and The Taste Divine. Sri Devi Lila is published in the U.S. as  Shakti: Realm of The Divine Mother , Sri Hanuman Lila  as  Hanuman: The Devotion and Power of The Monkey God.

Each talk is introduced with the Sanskrit invocations and chanting of the Gita chapter. Then Mataji Vanamali offers a line-by-line illumination of Shri Krishna's liberating teachings.

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Introduction: The first in a series of 23 discourses on the Bhagavad Gita. These talks were given at a time when I was truly inspired by the charioteer of Partha. I was in a state of ecstasy and hardly knew what I was saying. Now when I look back on these talks I am amazed at my audacity in having dared to write on something about which I knew little more than nothing. But looking back over my life I see that I seem to have continued to dare to write on things about which I knew very little. I know now that my courage which I did not even question at any time, rose from the depths of my ignorance, which again I did not question. It was only because I did not question anything that I was made into a channel through which the divine charioteer chose to reveal Himself. I knew nothing and therefore I was an empty vessel like Arjuna and by His grace, I was chosen as one of the many bards who have sung the glory of the “Song of the Lord.” I feel sure that out of all the five Pandavas, He chose Arjuna who was certainly not a scholar or a saint, for these very reasons – that he was an empty vessel, waiting for the Lord to come and fill him. May HE fill all of you who listen to these discourses with HIS grace. Aum tat Sat

Gita Intro Part A

Introduction: The first in a series of discourses on the Bhagavad GitaThese talks were given at a time when I was truly inspired by the charioteer of Partha. I was in a state of ecstasy and hardly knew what I was saying. Now when I look back on these talks I am amazed at my audacity in having dared to write on something about which I knew little more than nothing. But looking back over my life I see that I seem to have continued to dare to write on things about which I knew very little. I know now that my courage which I did not even question at any time, rose from the depths of my ignorance, which again I did not question. It was only because I did not question anything that I was made into a channel through which the divine charioteer chose to reveal Himself. I knew nothing and therefore I was an empty vessel like Arjuna and by His grace, I was chosen as one of the many bards who have sung the glory of the “Song of the Lord.” I feel sure that out of all the five Pandavas, He chose Arjuna who was certainly not a scholar or a saint, for these very reasons – that he was an empty vessel, waiting for the Lord to come and fill him. May HE fill all of you who listen to these discourses with HIS grace. Aum tat Sat

Gita Intro Part B

The first chapter is called Arjuna Vishada  Yoga: Union By Means Of The Despondency Of Arjuna. The word Yoga means union. Thus any activity which enables us to obtain union with the Divine can be called a yoga. ...The message of the Gita is thus addressed to the fighter- the man of action... life is the battlefield of Kurukshetra which each one of us has to learn to face and fight our way through, before we can reach the other side which is Dharmakshetra. Each chapter begins with the sanskrit chanting of the chapter the english discourse follows. Visit: www.vanamaliashram.org

Gita Chapter 1

The second chapter is called Sankhya yoga but actuallyit deals entirely with Vedanta. The eternal nature ofthe atman and the ephemeral mature of the body isrevealed to Arjuna. "The atman is eternal, immortal,never born and therefor can never die. It is pureconsciousness and pure existence. That which isexistent can never cease to exist. This is one of thelaws of physics - energy can never be destroyed. itcan only change its form. One body falls and thejivatman flits to another body through which it canbest fulfill its destiny. Visit: www.vanamaliashram.org

Gita Chapter 6

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