Preface

The Bhagavad Gita gives utterances to the aspirations of the pilgrims of all sects who seek to tread the inner way to the city of God. we touch reality deeply. Where men struggle fail and triumph. Millions of Hindus for centuries have found comfort

In this great book which sets forth precise and penetrating words, the essential principles of a spiritual religion which are not contingent on ill founded facts, unscientific dogmas or arbitrary fancies. The essential purpose of Bhagavad Gita is to lead us a way out of bondages and not merely enjoin action.

With a long history of spiritual power, it serves even today as a light to all who will receive illumination from the profundity of its wisdom which insists on a world wider and deeper than wars and revolution can touch. In Gita it is attributed by a profound seer who sees the truth in its many sidedness and believes in its saving power.

Bhagavad Gita is both metaphysics and ethics. Brahma vidya and Yagasastra, the science of Reality and art of union with Reality. To appreciate and understand it, we must follow rigorous discipline. we must cleanse the mind of all distraction and purge the heart from all corruption to acquire spiritual wisdom. God’s light dwell in the self and nowhere else. It shines a like in every living being and one can see it with one’s mind steadied.

Bhagavad Gita is called an upanisad, since it derives it main inspiration from that remarkable group of scriptures – the upanisads. The Gita gives us a vision of truth impressive and profound, though it opens up new paths for the mind of man, it accepts assumptions which are part of the tradition of past generations and embedded in the language it employs. Gita restates the central teaching of the upanisads. The upanisads are the milker, Arjuna is the calf, the wiseman is the drinker of the nectar of wisdom or spiritual knowledge – like Gita is the excellent milk.

The Gita has been recognised for centuries together an orthodox scripture of the Hindu religion possessing equal authority with the upanisads, and the Brahma sutra and the three together form the triple canon of Prasthana thraya.

The upanisads contain many different suggestions about the nature of the Absolute and its relation to the world. The Brahma sutra is so terse and obscure that it has been used to yield a variety of interpretations. The Gita gives a mere consistent view and of the commentators, who wish to interpret the texts to their own ends, becomes more and more difficult. After the decline of Buddhism in India, different sects arose, the chief being advaita or non-dualism. Vishista advaita or qualified non-dualism, dvaita or dualism and suddha advaita or pure non-dualism.

The various commentators on the Gita were written by teachers of those of the others. These writers are able to find in the Gita their own system of religious thought since the authority of Gita suggests one eternal truth which we are seeking, from which all other truths derive, cannot be shut up in a single formula. Again we receive from the study and reflection of the scripture as much living truth and spiritual influence as we are capable of receiving.

The Bhagavad Gita makes out that the one Reality which is of the nature of undivided consciousness, is called Brahman, the supreme self or Lord Isvara. he is the ultimate principle, the real Self in us as well as the God of worship. it is the pure Self – Self unaffected by any action or experience, detached, unconcerned. In its dynamic cosmic aspect, it not only supports but governs the whole cosmic action and this very self which is one in all and above all is present in the individual jiva.

According to Gita world is a scene of an active struggle between good and evil in which God is deeply interested. He pours out his wealth of love in helping man to resist all that makes for error, ugliness and evil. As he is completely good, merciful and his love is boundless, he is concerned about the sufferings of the world and world beings. God is omnipotent because there are no external limits imposed on God, but willed by him. the law of karma does not limit his omnipotence. The reign of law is the mind and the will of God and cannot be regarded as a limitation of his power.

The emphasis of the Gita is on the Supreme, as the personal God, who creates the perceptible world by his nature [prakriti]. He resides in the hearts of every being [XVIII -61]. He is the enjoyer and Lord of all sacrifices [IX -24]. He stirs our hearts to devotion and grans our prayers [VII 22]. He enters into personal relation with us in worship and prayer.

Lord Krishna brings to the ignorant the light of knowledge, to the feeble the power of strength, to the sinner the liberation of forgiveness to the suffering the peace of mercy, to the comfortless, the comfort for He is the joy and bliss – the above of peace, He destroys the sorrow of creatures and gives them happiness. Thou are radiance, valour, strength, vitality, wrath [against wrong] fortitude. Therefore, let us pray Lord Krishna the author of Bhagavad Gita to fill us with radiance, valour, strength, vitality, fortitude and institute that wrath into us which thou possess. Tat astu – may it be so.

The Gita represents Brahmaloka or the world of God not as itself the eternal, but as the farthest limit of manifestation. Ananda is the limit of our development and we grow into it from the level of vijnana. When the purpose of the cosmos is reached, when the kingdom of God is established, when it is on earth as it is in heaven, when all individuals acquire the wisdom of spirit and are superior to the levels of being in which birth and death take place, the cosmic process is taken over into that which is beyond all manifestation.

With the above introduction, I present my humble contribution of another commentary on Gita. The purpose of writing this commentary on Gita is not with the intention of presenting anything new but recollect how much I have understood about the great masterpiece of Bhagavad Gita. Writing the commentary has been an wonderful experience which I shall ever cherish as the best moments of my life.