Ravi Ranganathan Podcast

Episode 71 covers twenty six divine values and six demonic values.

Episode 70 covers the final verses of chapter 15 where Bhagavan stresses the importance of sAstrAs. The episode also includes chapter appreciation, where Consciousness in some of the Indian darsans including vedanta and science are examined. 

The previous episode 68 covered who is the nourisher of the body and how nourishment is created for beings to have a life. Episode 69 covers who digests the food we eat and who is purushottama, the best person in the universe. When we say the best, there has to be at least three entities. The ordinary, the middle and the best. These three beings are covered in this episode.

What is the difference between a jeevAtma and paramAtmA? What does jeevAtmA move from one body to another mean? After death, what does jeevAtmA take along with it and how does it do it? Where is nourishment for our body coming from? Who is giving that nourishment? These are some of the questions for which BhagavAn is giving answers in this episode.

Episode 67 continues the metaphor of an Upside Down Tree from the previous episode. This upside down tree represents samsArA. Even though the samsArA itself is eternal, individual samsArA can be cut down. Bhagavan explains what tool should be used to cut this tree-of-samsArA.  This episode also explains the goal set for human beings. He also explains a streaming service that he had started long long ago and how his place looks like. Also the verse that gives the foundation for vishishtadvaita is covered in this episode.

This episode covers, how to identify a person who has crossed the three guNAs. BhagavAn gives 12 qualities of the person who has crossed the three guNAs.  This is like a short summary of the teachings in earlier chapters.  The chapter end with the answer to the question I asked in the first episode   BhagavAn himself answers who He is.

Episode 64 focusses on how to identify a person who has crossed the three guNAs, a guṇātītaḥ,  Bhagavan lists twelve qualities of the person who has crossed over the three guNAs.  In this epsiode we will also see what happens when a person crosses the three guNAs.  The chapter ends looping back to the beginning of the chapter. At the end of the chapter Bhagavan brings in a idea which is the seed for the following chapter 15.

Episode 63 of podcast "BG - Yah pashyati sa pashyati" - One who sees that person sees.

With BhagavAn's blessings, having finished thirteen chapters, Episode 63 starts chapter fourteen. Bhagavan has been talking about three guNAs from the very beginning of his teachings. In chapter two, he pointed out to arjuna that vedAs have stuff other than karma kANDA rituals and it teaches something called three guNAs. Subsequently every now and then this guNA propped up in His teaching. But for the sattva guNA, he did not even introduce the other two guNAs early on. He introduced the names one by one in different chapters. The one thing that was made clear was that the three guNAs are part and parcel of the prakriti and cannot be separated from the prakriti. Finally in this chapter Bhagavan gets into the details of the three guNAs. The names of the three guNAs, how they bind us, which is the strongest one among the three, what kind of result each one produces, the qualities of a person who has crossed the three guNAs, what happens when a person crosses the three guNAs are all described in this chapter. This is not a difficult chapter to understand in one or two listens. 

p.s: Entire chapters 17 and part of 18 also cover the three guNAs

Episode 62 continues the chapter 13 appreciations. This episode covers the interesting story of creation as per kashmir shaivism,  aadi sankara's imaginary dialogue to make his point that samsarA is a superimposition,  the idea of consciousness in  other Indian schools of thought and finally the right perception of the world.