Bhagavad Gita

The Bhagavad Gita is undoubtedly one of the most inspired texts that humanity possesses. In Hinduism it is considered a sacred text, and it is also the first written text that deals with yoga.

The entire text (700 verses) is a dialogue between the teacher (Krishna) and his disciple (Arjuna), where he instructs him in yoga just before starting a battle between the Pándavas and the Kauravas. Bhagavad Gita means " the song ( gita ) of Krishna ( Bhagavan ) ", although because bhagavan is a venerable title meaning "Lord," it is often translated as "The song of the Lord," or "The song of God". Also, due to its importance as a yoga text, it is known as Yoga upanishad .

This book (dating from the first millennium BC) is a kind of "Bible" for Hindus, but for us, yoga students, it is a compendium of wisdom, and what interests us is " the teaching " that the teacher gives his disciple, rather than the context on which the story is situated.

For Hinduists, Krishna is an avatar of the god Visnhu (the Conservative). The text is part of the great epic called Mahabarata , and has the quality of sruti (revealed text) and smriti (remembered text). Its authorship is unknown, although the wise Viasa is the author of the Mahabarata .

As in any religious text, there are numerous versions and translations , some of them faithful to the original in Sanskrit, others manipulated or stained according to the ideology of the one who translated it. There are illegible versions (due to its literality with the Sanskrit language) and very poetic versions (adapted to the Castilian language in this case). There are versions that are limited to reproducing the original text, and others full of comments between paragraph and paragraph by the translator, a fact that cuts the narrative and can create confusing ideas.

For me, the best version I know is that of 1896 by J. Roviralta Borrell , a Spanish theosophist. Srila Prabhupada's version is very good also if we read only the rough and faithful translation to the original text; The rest of the book are his comments, very tinged with his Hare Krishna ideology. There are dozens of versions, I don't know all of them.
Well, like any sacred text, it can have two interpretations: literal or symbolic . That is, we can believe that the story really happened and that Krishna was an incarnation of God, or interpret the text symbolically, assigning each character and situation in the story as a part of ourselves, as a universal archetype :

• Krishna : inner teacher (spirit).
• Arjuna : mature psyche (soul).
• Blind King Diritarastra and his son Dur and odhana ("how hard to gnaw"): personality.
• Sanjaya ( court seer): the storyteller, who has the ability to see beyond the material (intuition).
• Army of the Pándavas : The luminous forces that elevate us towards spirituality.
• Army of the Kauravas : The dark forces that drag us towards matter.
• Kurukshetra (plain where the battle takes place): Our body (the stage where everything happens to us).

Because it would be very long to explain the whole context of the story and unravel it completely, I have decided to make several videos where I will read the story and, from my understanding, I will add comments to clarify certain concepts. I will make a video per chapter (18 in total), and I hope this work can help those interested in this topic, as well as yoga teachers who want to delve into the origins of this discipline.


I are uploading the videos on my Youtube channel, and I will also upload them to Ivoox in Mp3 format.

Gopal

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BUDDHA: Life and teachings

Siddhartha Gautama, called the Buddha, has undoubtedly been one of the most influential personalities in the history of mankind. In this article we will make a brief summary of his life and his teaching.

Siddhartha was born in the city of Kapilavastu, in northern India, in the 6th century BC , in the full moon of May, in the bosom of the nobility. His mother, Queen Maya, died a few days after giving birth. There were several prophecies during his birth, one of them was that he would be a great king or a great renunciate , for this reason, his father, King Sudodana protected him from all religious teaching and kept him from suffering.

He married Yasodhara and had a son named Rajula, and at 29 years of age his life changed when he met for the first time in his life with an old man, a sick man, a corpse and an ascetic. From that moment he decided that he would overcome suffering and death, so he abandoned his family and his palace to become a renunciate .

For the next six years he wandered through India learning from different yoga teachers all kinds of techniques to achieve liberation. He underwent hard asceticism, fasting and long meditation sessions, until at age 35 he almost died drowned when bathing in a river, due to his weakness caused by mortifications and fasting. Then he understood: the secret was in balance, in the middle ... Not too many mortifications, not too much hedonism. Moderation, balance, not falling into excesses of any kind. For this reason he called his way, "the middle way.

"Shortly after he reached Nirvana, the supreme state, after a 49-day meditation in a row under a fig tree. From there, Siddhartha Gautama was known as "the Buddha," which means "the awake."

For the next 45 years he devoted himself to teaching his doctrine in northwestern India, until he died at 80 years of age. Later his disciples spread his teaching throughout Asia in what is now known as Buddhism. That was more than 2500 years ago ...
His teaching is based on the 4 noble truths :

1. There is suffering.
2. The origin of suffering is desire.
3. It is possible to free yourself from suffering.
4. The noble eightfold path is the path that leads to liberation.

The noble eightfold path consists of the following points:

1. Correct understanding.
2. Right thinking.
3. Right word.
4. Correct action.
5. Right livelihoods.
6. Right effort.
7. Correct attention.
8. Correct concentration.

In short : His teaching is based on moderation , ethics and compassion , and especially on meditation.

To follow the path of Buddha, from my point of view, it is not necessary to become a Buddhist or dress with any habit, it is enough to be moderate, compassionate and acquire the habit of meditating.
I have further developed the topic in the following video:


I highly recommend the following readings:

- Buddha, his life and teachings . Osho
- Siddhartha . Hermann Hesse

To set this article, some music with Tibetan incantations .

 

Gopal

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