Eternal Universal Message of Bhagavad Gita - Part 1

04 Dec 2017 3433 Views

(NOTE: This is an expanded version of the FOREWORD written to a book entitled “Eternal Universal Message of Bhagavad Gita.” This book contains 140 discourses delivered over the years by Sri Ganapathy Sachchidananda Swamiji.)

  “I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavad-Gita. 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 and climate, had pondered and thus disposed of the same questions that exercise us.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson, American philosopher and poet

 

Sri Ganapathy Sachchidananda Swamiji has rendered discourses on the importance, significance and richness of Bhagavad Gita for many decades. Through His relentless pursuit, to make the eternal message reach common man, He delivered them in a simple practical way for people to apply it in their personal lives. His discourses were meaningful, profound, thoughtful, philosophical, and weighty, yet simple. All His devotees come away reflecting on the richness of the messages and how He makes them relevant to their daily lives in these troubled times.

The message was meant to serve as a guide for all of us to channel our lives, to find comfort and relief, to face the stressful and confusing situations we are facing in this modern and materialistic world. Many of His discourses have been published in Bhaktimala monthly magazine for more than twelve years. Only 139 discourses were published in Bhaktimala from 1992 thru 2007. These discourses are mines of treasures hidden in these magazines.

They were not easily and readily accessible to many of His devotees old and new. It was very hard to go back to these magazines to reap the benefits of these valuable discourses. This book entitled “Eternal Universal Message of Bhagavad Gita is being published to make these discourses reachable to the interested devotees.

The message of Bhagavad Gita is universal in nature and scope. It teaches us to be free from passion, fear, attachment, and gunas by purifying our thoughts, speech and mind. The message of Bhagavad Gita is not sectarian or communal. It is applicable to all times and the entire human race. Being eternal, it transcends the boundaries, cultures, time, religion, caste, and creed. These discourses were precursor to what was to come. In August 2015, Sri Ganapathy Sachchidananda Swamiji commanded children and youth, who were sitting in the newly inaugurated Karya Siddhi Hanuman Temple in Frisco, Texas USA, to memorize the entire Bhagavad Gita that contains 700 verses and chant them by the time He was to visit the following year.

Many children, with so much enthusiasm, gusto, and determination, agreed by saying “Yes, Appaji,” “Yes, Tataji,” and “Yes, Swamiji.” With that announcement history was in the making. Sri Swamiji asked Srikanth Challa to take the responsibility as teacher. The arduous, laborious, grueling and the very difficult task of memorizing the Bhagavad Gita verse by verse started. Parents and children went through the hard task of adjusting their time, foregoing their holidays, working around their school schedules, sacrificing their leisure time, and postponing their travels to make sure that the children would attend the Gita classes on a regular basis.

They all realized that it would be hard to catch up with the memorization even if they miss one class. Parents and children spent countless hours memorizing to make sure that they will be ready to chant all 700 verses by the time Sri Swamiji arrives in July 2016. History was made on July 17, 2016 with 43 children ages 6 thru 14 sitting for about four hours and chanting all 700 verses of Bhagavad Gita with Sri Swamiji sitting next to them, admiring and appreciating the discipline, dedication, and devotion of the children. More than 4000 people, along with special invited guests for this historical event, listened with awe, amazement, excitement and astonishment.

The sounds, rhythm, energy, and vibrations created by chanting touched the audience, infused them with vigor, infiltrated their bodies, touched their hearts and penetrated their souls.  By the time the chanting was completed, many people shed tears in appreciating the commitment, dedication and discipline of the children. Some of them have seen even Sri Swamiji wiping His tears. Many of them became speechless and left numbed, cherishing the unprecedented historical event.  Sri Swamiji’s power and blessings permeated the majestic Temple and cleansed the hearts of the people and purified the atmosphere. In 2017, about 131 children and adults completed memorizing all the verses of Bhagavad Gita from different cities in USA.  More than 60 adults completed the fluency reading of Bhagavad Gita. These children and adults went to Avadhoota Datta Peetham and chanted in the Mysore Ashrama on July 16, 2017.

The mammoth Nada Mantapam stage was bedecked with three huge cutouts.  One of them depicted Bhagavan Krishna as a charioteer weaving through the battlefield with Arjuna sitting behind him. A beautifully painted Chariot, being drawn by five horses, has decorated one-third of the back-stage. Second painting illustrates Arjuna being bent on his knees asking Lord Krishna to remove his confusion and soothe his wavering mind, with a background picture of Lord Krishna’s Vishwarupa.

Third painting depicts Arjuna dropping his weapons on the ground with confused mind, seeking Lord Krishna to clear his depressed mind.  The stage was beautifully decorated with stunning paintings making us experience the similitude of Kurukshetra. With Sri Swamiji sitting along with Children on the stage, He was sending all the energy and vibrations to the children who were chanting the 700 slokas in Sanskrit.

In August 2017, more than 250 children enrolled in Bhagavad Gita Paarayana across USA. They have already completed memorizing five chapters by the third week of November 2017. By May 2018, they will complete the Paarayanam.

Of all the thousands of scriptures, why did Sri Ganapathy Sachchidananda Swamiji select Bhagavad Gita to be chanted by children? It is one of the forms of the perennial philosophical systems that embodies those universal truths that are eternally transcending the physical boundaries and time limitations. Bhagavad Gita would equip the children and youth to cope with the challenges they face, trials and tribulations they encounter in their daily life, problems they meet in the modern world, frustrations they may come across into the competitive world of work, adjustments they must make in the family life, ancient wisdom they may have to use to differentiate between the dharmic and adharmic values, and stress they may face in their hectic, hurried and materialistic world.  Bhagavad Gita would teach the high morals that promote peace and harmony. Bala Gangadhar Tilak observed, “The most practical teaching of the Gita, and one for which it is of abiding interest and value to the men of the world with whom life is a series of struggles, is not to give way to any morbid sentimentality when duty demands sternness and the boldness to face terrible things ... It is my firm conviction that it is of utmost importance that every man, woman and child of India understands the message of the Gita.”

 

Ever since it was first translated into English by Charles Wilkins in 1784, the influence of Bhagavad Gita in the western world is phenomenal, remarkable and unimaginable. It’s influenced crossed the boundaries of India, by attracting, philosophers, poets, transcendentalists, scientist, academicians, travelers, and statesmen.  Warren Hastings, Aldous Huxley, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Edwin Arnold, Arnold Toynbee, Robert Oppenheimer, W.D.P. Hill, R.C. Zaehner, Alberuniand many others were her admirers and believers. This is but natural because of it’s universal, nonsectarian, and spiritual appeal.  Its universal message transported them to a higher level of thinking, chartered them to think from a different perspective, and transcended the confines of normal human perceptions.

The relevance and importance of Bhagavad Gita is emphasized by  Ananda K Coomaraswamy,"....We must, however, specially mention the Bhagavad Gita as probably the most important single work ever produced in India; this book of eighteen chapters is not, as it has been sometimes called, a "sectarian " work, but one universally studied and often repeated daily from memory by millions of Indians of all persuasions; it may be described as a compendium of the whole Vedic doctrine to be found in the earlier Vedas, Brahmanas, and Upanishads, and being therefore the basis of all the later developments, it can be regarded at the focus of all Indian religion.”

In a similar vein, it captured the attention of many academicians. For Klaus Klostermaier, Bhagavad Gita is a unique literary manual. He acknowledges that it is not that easy to decipher it’s meaning and message.  He mentions the challenges of understanding Bhagavad Gita:

Whoever reads it for the first time will be struck by its beauty and depth; countless Hindus know it by heart and quote it in many occasions as an expression of their faith and their insights. All over India, and also in many places in the Western hemisphere, Gītā lectures attract large numbers of people. Many are convinced that the Bhagavad Gītā is the key book for the re-spiritualization of humankind in our age. A careful study of the Gītā, however, will very soon reveal the need for a key to this key book. Simple as the tale may seem and popular as the work has become, it is by no means an easy book and some of the greatest Indianists have grappled with the historical and philosophical problems it presents.”

 

Greatness of Bhagavad Gita

After narrating the entire Bhagavad Gita to Dhritarashtra, Sanjay says that his hair stood up as he listened to the dialogue between Vasudeva and Arjuna through the grace of Sage Vyasa who blessed him the vision of Cosmic form of Lord Krishna. He concludes with the statement: “Wherever is Krishna the Lord of Yoga, wherever is Partha, the wielder of the bow, there prevails prosperity, victory, glory and righteousness; that is my conviction.” (18:78). This verse is called ekashloki Gita and is Sanjaya’s answer to Dhritarashtra’s question about the war. Sanjaya says indirectly that there is no doubt that the Pandavas will win the war.

The Mahabharata says "sarva shaastramayii giitaa" meaning that the Gita is the essence all the scriptures. Sage Vyasa said that the Gita alone should be sung, heard and assimilated and there is no use of any other scripture when one has the Gita because it has originated from the lips of the Lord Himself. Gita Mahatyam or the Glory of Gita says that Gita contains the essence of all the four Vedas and, yet its style is so simple that after a little study, anyone can easily follow the structure of the words. As a reader grows in maturity, the same words reveal more and more facets of meaning and thought process and hence the Gita remains eternally new. The Lord Himself says in the Varaha Purana that, “Where the Gita is read, forthwith comes help. Where the Gita is discussed, recited, taught, or heard, there, O Earth, beyond a doubt, do I Myself unfailingly reside.”

The Bhagavad Gita has lessons for the young and old of any caste, creed and religion and teaches the technique of perfect living. It is for all ages; and it is universal. Where the Bhagavad Gita book is kept, and the study is conducted, there all the sacred places, the sacred rivers and all holiness are present. It is also said, where the Gita is read, there help comes quickly. Gita is for all times and all kinds of people whether he be recluse, spiritual or worldly.

According to Aldous Huxley, “The Bhagavad-Gita is the most systematic statement of spiritual evolution of endowing value to mankind. It is one of the most clear and comprehensive summaries of perennial philosophy ever revealed; hence its enduring value is subject not only to India but to all of humanity.”

"I would say to the readers of the Scriptures, if they wish for a good book, read the Bhagvat-Geeta .... translated by Charles Wilkins. It deserves to be read with reverence even by Yankees...."Besides the Bhagvat-Geeta, our Shakespeare seems sometimes youthfully green... Ex oriente lux may still be the motto of scholars, for the Western world has not yet derived from the East all the light it is destined to derive thence." He further stated,

"The Vedanta teaches how by 'forsaking religious rites' the votary may obtain purification of mind." And "One sentence of the Gita, is worth the State of Massachusetts many times over" Stephen Knapp has done extensive research on all Hindu scriptures, especially the basic instructions that are related in the Bhagavad-gita, and some of the benefits of studying it.

By reading and getting acquainted with Bhagavad Git, he says, “a person can acquire proper direction in life, a deeper realization of one’s true identity, and attain a level of self-confidence and peace by inward reflection and realization that can never be reached through ordinary, materialistic studies or endeavors. Furthermore, these can be applied to assist us in all aspects of life to help bring us to our higher potential in everything we do, materially or spiritually. This is the power and the importance of the Bhagavad-gitaand the instructions of Lord Krishna found within it.”

Aadi Shankaraachaaryais credited with separating Bhagavad Gita from Mahabharata and described it as the essence of all Hindu scriptures. “All the Upanisads are like a cow, and the milker of the cow is Lord Shri Krishna, the son of Nanda. Arjuna is the calf, the beautiful nectar of the Gita is the milk, and the fortunate devotees of fine theistic intellect are the drinkers and enjoyers of that milk.”

Sri Aurobindo calls Bhagavad Gita as a true scripture of human race and its message is applicable to all ages and all times. It should not be treated as a weapon for dialectical warfare and it is a gate to be opened up for spiritual truth and experience. “In the Gita there is very little that is merely local or temporal and its spirit is so large, profound and universal, that even this little can easily be universalised without the sense of this teaching suffering any diminution or violation; rather by giving an ampler scope to it than belonged to the country and epoch, the teaching gains in depth, truth and power. Often indeed the Gita itself suggests the wider scope that can in this way be given to an idea in itself local or limited.”

Wilhelm von Humboldt, the Prussian philosopher & founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin, acknowledged Bhagavad Gita as: "The most beautiful, perhaps the only true philosophical song existing in any known tongue ... perhaps the deepest and loftiest thing the world has to show."

 

Bhagavad Gita’s Influence

The Bhagavad Gita, Mahabharata, Ramayana, Upanishad and Puranasa have influenced the greatest minds across the globe for many centuries that include mathematicians, astronomers, physicist, Chemists, political leaders, scientists, artists, philosophers of diverse backgrounds.  Many Nobel laureates admired our scriptures as they provided spark and life into their research.

When doubts haunt me, when disappointments stare me in the face and I see not one ray of hope on the horizon, I turn to Bhagavad-Gita and find a verse to comfort me; and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow. Those who meditate on the Gita will derive fresh joy and new meanings from it every day.” Mahatma Gandhi.

E. Sreedharan, who spent three decades managing Indian Railway System and Delhi Metro, was asked as to why he distributes Bhagavad Gita to his employees. He said, “When I started reading our old scriptures, like the “Bhagavad Gita,” I found it was useful for day-to-day life, so I started practicing it.  I consider it an administrative gospel, one that will help you in doing things like running an organization like this. His favorite quote that influenced his was, “Do your work without expecting any return out of it. It is called AsangathuVaa. You do it for the sake of the society, of the organization you work for.”

Annie Besant, who supported Home Rule for India and also translated Bhagavad Gita talks about the impact it would have within the individual, “That the spiritual man need not be a recluse, that union with the divine life may be achieved and maintained in the midst of worldly affairs, that the obstacles to that union lie not outside us but within us—such is the central lesson of the Bhagvad Gita."

Albert Schweitzer found in Gita "a profound influence on the spirit of mankind by its devotion to God which is manifested by actions.

Juan Mascaro says, “The greatness of the Bhagavad Gita is the greatness of the universe, but even as the wonder of the stars in heaven only reveals itself in the silence of the night, the wonder of this poem only reveals itself in the silence of the soul.”

Aldous Huxley remarked: “The Gita is 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 Bhagavadgita is perhaps the most systematic spiritual statement of the Perennial Philosophy.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson was greatly influenced. “For a self-conceited modish life, made up of trifles, clinging to a corporeal civilization, hating ideas, there is no remedy like the Oriental largeness. That astonishes and disconcerts English decorum. For once, there is thunder it never heard, light it never saw, and power which trifles with time and space. I am not surprised to find an Englishman like Warren, who had been struck with the grand style of thinking in the Indian writings, depreciating the prejudices of his countrymen while offering them a translation of the Bagavat(Gita).”

 

Why Children?

Why did Sri Swamiji encourage children to learn Bhagavad Gita? Do they learn faster and better than adults? Do they absorb and digest better than adults? Do they retain more information than adults? According to science, a brain contains about 100 billion brain cells called neurons. This number remains the same irrespective of the age and would not actually change very much at all from birth to death. Then the question is how do the children learn faster and remember better than adults.

The main difference between children and adults is found only in the number of connections among the neurons. As we grow, the connectivity to each of the neurons changes a lot.

The number of connections change as we learn new things and have different experiences. There is a common adage that a child’s brain can absorb and soak up information like a sponge. Is there any scientific evidence to prove it?  Scientists reveal that there is a fundamental difference between the learning processes between children and adults known as synaptogenesis and synapse elimination or pruning, respectively.

Children have more neurons establishing more and more connections with other neurons as they start learning. Every sound they hear, every sensation they experience, every movement they make, and every stimulation they are prodded to are all stored in the brain.  These neural connections cause the brain to learn anything and everything as the brain is developing at a faster rate with very little effort.

This learning process is known as synaptogenesis. Research has shown that among adults, the learning process is different. Brain starts to discriminate and try to specialize the areas that need to be stored.

At this stage, brain collects lot of useful as well as useless by spending more energy. Instead of overloading the energy, adults use their brain to eliminate the pathways/ neural connections to reduce the overload.

An effort will be made as to what is useful and relevant based on special interest and start eliminating or pruning the information instead of storing everything that comes to the brain. This process is calledsynapse elimination or pruning. Most of experts who are concerned about children’s brain and their education believe that children could connect their neurons with other neurons compared to adults. As a result, they can learn much more easily than adult can do.

Thus, it is advised that it is better for parent or teacher to expose their children to lots of different stimulations and experiences to allow more and more connections to be formed as often as possible. Some experts also proved that the foreign words are easier to remember in a childhood age than in adult age. Secondly, research also showed that joy, energy and innocence peak between the ages of six and nine years, before children start worrying about how they look, what their friends think and how well they do at school. The Galaxy Research poll of Australian parents found that children are bestowed with boundless energy and enthusiasm, have retained a sense of awe and wonder with the world and remain uninhibited in their behavior at this age.

It is the best time for children to learn about many things such as foreign languages or any new material.

According to Alison Gopnik, children’s “brains are more active and more flexible, with more connections per brain cell, than the brains of adult human beings, the researchers have discovered. By age three, the child's brain is actually twice as active as an adult's. It has some 15,000 synapses or connections per neuron, many more than in the adult brain.” The more you stimulate their brain, the more connections to neurons are established. With more connections, they will think better, learn faster, and draw logical conclusions.

 

Harold Chugani of Children’s Hospital of Michigan conducted research to find out the process of learning among children by using PET scans to examine the brain structures and concluded that the brains that were metabolizing the most glucose were the most active. The brain continues to consume glucose at this feverish pitch through age 10 and then slows down until age 16, when it levels off at adult values. He also observed that the child's brain burns much more glucose than an adult's brain because it must maintain trillions of connections between neurons, more than twice as many as are ultimately retained. Researchers also reveal that “If we teach our children early enough, it will affect the organization or 'wiring,' of their brains." It will stay with them whatever they learn during their formative years even if they discontinue the process. Chugani says, "Once a child has learned an instrument, he or she can stop playing, then pick up the instrument 20 years later and do much better than an adult just starting out."

 

Martha Pierson, a neurobiologist at Baylor College of Medicine, argues that "Children need a flood of information, a banquet, a feast." Early education, she adds, "shapes the basic architecture of the computer (brain). If you are exposed to enough things, you'll develop a processor that can handle the flood of data that life throws at you later." Some people argue that children are better learners. It is thought that kids are less afraid to take risks having less responsibilities and less vulnerability for mistakes. A child’s environment is a big motivational factor in their learning. They are at school studying many different subjects all day, playing different sports, and taking part in different extra-curricular activities.

This child environment contrasts with adults who are usually focused on one subject area and are less open to different learning opportunities in their lives. It is believed that children are more creative, spontaneous and energetic than adults, making them better learners. Adults may be less inclined to be corrected and feel like they have learnt what they need to know in comparison to a learning toddler. The human brain is a storehouse of feelings, thought processes and experiences.

“It receives, stores, processes, generates, visualizes and sets in motion a chain of thoughts, which then gets converted into action. Though an abstract entity, the mind holds the key to superior intelligence and memory. The brain, which is the repository of all thoughts of the past and the present can be trained, honed and motivated to realised its full potential and become a window of the future. The mantras of the Vedas are the secret but powerful agents to improve the mind as the vibrations caused in the brain by the Vedic mantras provide the mind with the most conducive environment for growth.” (Ojas Foundation)

Why Memorize?

Why did Sri Swamiji ask the children to learn Bhagavad Gita by heart? What good does it do the learner? Memorization of information based on repetition is as old as human history. It served the purpose of preserving the cultures and helped develop the individual personalities. In every society we find children learning the alphabets of their mother tongue and other languages.  Similarly, if we look at all school going children, they will be learning the multiplication of the tables and the spelling of the words. As they move up to middle school and high schools, they will be memorizing many mathematical formulas, algorithms, chemical numbers, poetry and historical dates. 

At the high school level, the elements and their chemical numbers must be memorized by rote. Many times, teachers use rote learning without even realizing they do so. In the early stages of civilization and even before writing on palm leaves started, the vast reserves of material is passed on orally from one generation to another.  It has become an end itself.  The information acquired by rote learning cannot be stripped from the learner, it is always with him, and travels along with him allowing him to tap the knowledge at will. At an early age they may not know the meaning of the scriptures the learn by heart, but they will slowly absorb, digest and dissect the meaning of the scriptures they memorized.

 

Vyaas Houston says, “Learning in his tradition is a yajna, an act of offering rather than possessing. Tapping into an unlimited memory is a constant and wondrous process of discovery that is without doubt unique to every individual.” Memorization will allow us to absorb the information that can be stored and retrieved at one’s will; learn the elusive phrases at early age that defy one to learn after certain age; permit you to hammer every word for precise pronunciation; makes you twist your tongue for proper clarity and crispness; and save so much time that could have been wasted by repeatedly looking for the same information, and infuse confidence in knowing that he can retrieve the information from the memory bank. As we memorize the sloka and chant the slokas, they keep reverberating in our mind, instilling energy, minimizing the evil tendencies and accumulating the dharmic virtues. One would enjoy repeating the mantras as he gets more pleasure and happiness. One can chant these mantras during the whole day before getting down from the bed, while cooking food, eating food, going to school, before the exam time, before going to bed and so on to avert any potential problems. They will help us to stop worrying and keep remembering the essence of the mantras directed toward a specific deity. According to Brad Leithauser,

“The best argument for verse memorization may be that it provides us with knowledge of a qualitatively and physiologically different variety: you take the poem inside you, into your brain chemistry if not your blood, and you know it at a deeper, bodily level than if you simply read it off a screen.” Catherine Robson puts the point succinctly: “If we do not learn by heart, the heart does not feel the rhythms of poetry as echoes or variations of its own insistent beat.”

 

Mahatma Gandhi says it is important to understand the meaning and chanting the purpose of chanting of a mantra. “There is a definite advantage in memorizing these scriptures. It will stay with us all the time even when our faculties may get impaired. It will prove to be a guiding light during moments of despair and distress. One cannot imagine of any other source more reliable than Gita during such disasters.”

How Does Bhagavad Gita Guide Youth?

Youth is the future of the humanity, wealth of the nations and source of inspiration for the existence of humanity. Shaping them and guiding them properly, not only enrich their own lives but will be better citizens of the world who can fashion the future.  The present generation across the globe are experiencing stress, pressures, troubles, tribulations, uncertainties and anxieties.

Sri Swamiji recognizing the predicament of the youth, is advocating Bhagavad Gita as an antidote for all the contemporary ills and evils. He knows that Bhagavad Gita will purify their hearts, destroy their negative thinking, help develop healthy outlook toward life, build strong personality to counter peer group pressures, will help develop concentration of mind, and inspire positive attitude toward future.

Bhagavad Gita is powerful, thought provoking, illuminating, enchanting, enlightening and life chanting book. This is the essence of the scriptures. It is a living manual, a powerful guide and an eternal message for the young and old of any caste, creed and religion; and teaches the technique of perfect living. In today’s world, Children face numerous challenges in the schools, with the friends, and at homes.  Children in foreign countries are in constant struggle to fit in the “foreign” society without losing their parental culture. In this material world, Bhagavad Gita teaches us to overcome the challenges, resolve the impediments, harmonizes the material and spiritual world, develop set of life changing values, instill self-confidence, develop concentration of mind, overcome negative thoughts, evolve positive outlook toward life, develop strong personality, and recognize the richness of ancient wisdom. 

It imparts us the highest morals and ethics that enable us to integrate them in to our daily life without being carried away with temptations, jealousy, enmity, sensual thinking and illusionary unrealistic expectations. Bhagavad Gita will help us to be realistic and help us to discriminate between right and wrong. By reading and digesting Bhagavad Gita, seeds will be sown in the young minds to cultivate good values and virtuous ethics, and to remain calm when faced with confusion, despondency, and uncertainty in life.

They will be introduced to the concepts of individual responsibility, selfless action, belief in God, hard work, discipline, importance of Guru tattva, permanence of the soul, impermanence of the body, reincarnation, and freedom of choice that would enable them to lead a meaningful and fulfilling life. This compelling, powerful and important book has all the answers for every human being who is aspiring to live in this modern world that is beset with uncertainty and stressful environment.

Bhagavad Gita would equip the children, youth and adults to cope with the challenges they face in life, trials and tribulations they encounter daily; problems they encounter in the modern world; frustrations they may be bumped into the competitive world of work; and adjustment they must make with their friends and family members. This ancient wisdom will help them to differentiate between the dharmic and adharmic values, right and wrong, trivial and significant.

It will help them to face the hectic, hurried and materialistic world without being distressed.   Bhagavad Gita would teach the high morals that remain with them forever to find meaning and purpose in life.

 

While addressing the youth at “Gita Champions League,” Radha Swami of ISKCON said that, “Our children are our future. We need to protect them, nourish and develop their minds. However, television, movies and the Internet together expose the children to violence, pornography and insanity, as a result of which they can easily get influenced and succumb to negative thoughts and actions.” However, the teachings of ‘Bhagwad Gita’ can influence young minds and give a positive and morale-boosting exposure, help students remain focused and assist in taking ethical decisions.

One of the 10th grade student writes that it is easy to get distracted and carried away with the peer pressure. Like Arjuna we all get confusion without having focus and concentration. Gita gives the required guidance and advise to achieve the desired goals. Aishwarya T Anish says,

“The Gita has different interpretations for different individuals, like poetry. It is a beautiful, even enchanting a book which is very simple yet very profound at the same time. It surely helps one on the way to the spiritual fulfillment and it is sure to enlighten one in some way or the other. And for a student, it is more than the best spiritual, enlighten-yourself-find-success kind of book you can get in your life.”

 

 

 

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