Bhagavad Gita Discussion Groups

Gita discussions generally fall into three groups:

• Finding supportive statements
• Academic study
• Extraction of tools for self-realization

Most of the Gita groups are for finding supportive statements to back up or reinforce some other ideas besides what the Gita presents. Even the so called devotees of Krishna are found to be using the Gita for supportive statements. They even go to the extent to write into the Gita statements which are not in the Gita itself but which they require to legitimize their philosophies and conversion proposals.

For instance, in the Hare Krishna Movement which was founded by Srila Prabhupada, the central idea is to chant 16 rounds on a string of 108 beads. This action is supposed to do just about everything. However there is no statement in Bhagavad Gita which says that. And yet the Bhagavad Gita is used to support this idea of chanting those 16 rounds.

There are also persons who are not devotees of Krishna, who do not believe that Krishna alone is God as he declared, who use the Gita to support a philosophy of a spiritual disciplinary process. Even though these people have no confidence in Krishna as being exclusively God and are disinclined to accept any such statement from Krishna in the Gita, still they find parts of the Gita which they use to support their views or they twist statements of the Gita or write in statements for such support. The noted and very famous Shankaracharya who is attributed as being the first person to separate the Gita out of its parent text, the Mahabharata, did not particularly acclaim Krishna as God Exclusive, and still he used some of the philosophy and spiritual realization information from the text.

This is not weird. It is natural that as limited and very relative beings, we should always be looking for references, reputations and so on to back us up, to use as supportive bases for our proposals. Since the Bhagavad Gita is a global authority, it is likely that it will be used for supportive bases now and forever.

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The Gita is also used for academic study. This is how I like to present the Gita to newcomers. I prefer that a new comer not be bombarded by the indoctrination and intimidation what does along with conversion to a sect or religion. My view is that a person should study the Gita as if it is a text book, just as we studied Shakespeare or a history book in school. Then if the person is interested further, I feel he or she should study the Mahabharata because Gita was extracted from that text which has the practical circumstances under which the Gita was spoken.

In my opinion, it is a great injustice, to both the person reading the Gita and to someone else whom that person tells about the Gita, if the Mahabharata was not considered. I feel this about devotees of Krishna too, where many of them never read the larger context from which the Gita was extracted. They preach the Gita as if it is a discourse which occurred under religious circumstances, while in fact it was spoken under military conditions.

After someone has read the Gita, then read the Mahabharata, if that person is still interested in the Gita, then I feel that that person might become a devotee of Krishna. Otherwise I feel it is just the good ole religious conversion which is shallow in my view.

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The other reason for reading the Gita is extraction of tools for self-realization.

Many persons read the Gita once or twice and realize that they can steal some information for self-realization. I say steal because in the Gita, Krishna states certain conditions in which one can understand the Gita. Such conditions are that one has to be his devotee and friend and so on, as he told Arjuna. So if I am not his devotee and friend on par with what Arjuna, then to my view if I take something out of the Gita, then I am stealing ideas.

But so what?

Being a thief is my nature. From day one, as soon as I was shoved out of my mother’s pelvis, I began stealing left and right. Why should I changed now?

There are many yoga mystic techniques discussed in the Gita. When I first saw these, I thought it was a bonanza, so I begin to pilfer these one after the other. Some I found to be tricks because when I tried to use them, I could not. This is like when you try to steal a safe from a bank and you find out that it is bolted down in such a way, anchored in concrete that you cannot take it. You cannot have what is within it unless you come back during working hours and can convince the bank manager to open it.