Practice Report - Alfredo D - Monday 10/1/2012
Meditationtime Forum Post
Date: Posted 5 years before Sep 30, 2017
Alfredo 5 years ago
ॐ नमः शिवाय
AM Practice
Woke up at Brahma-Muhurta
Svadhyaya: Having reviewed “Uddhava Gita Explained”, started with great expectations the “Bhagavad Gita Explained”. Chapter 1 contains a great summary of the events leading to the great battle at Kurukshetra near current Delhi. This is very uncommon to find in most translations, thus readers often miss the background from the Mahabharata, which, although not critical, is important to understand the context from which the Gita is excised. I liked the translation of “dharmakshetre” as “the place of settling political affairs”. There has been quite a bit of pussyfooting with this word in other translations.
Dedication: Practice dedicated to Lord Shiva after mantra and incantation to the Mahayogi, Maheshwara.
Breath Infusion: 30 minutes of Bhastrika prânâyâma infusing breath on the navel. Kundalini arose once towards the end of the session while doing the kneeling asanas as usual. The practice was compromised in a sense due to being conducted for the 1st time in a motel room (Tampa, FL) where I will be staying for 6 weeks during weekdays (returning home on weekends).
Meditation: 45 minutes meditation on the back of the head. There was nothing specific of note, but the usual struggle to keep the concentration focused (dharana), and the attempts to elongate it into Dhyana. Same as above as I find the center of gravity here.
Dream recall: One dream recalled of neutral import.
PM Practice: No pm practice possible due to work schedule.
MiBeloved 5 years ago
The word dharma is used frequently in India. It has come to the point where people say that it has no English equivalent. This might be because the word has meaning according to its context so that any hard and fast meaning may be upset if the word was used in certain other situations.
Roughly translated a general meaning for dharma is righteous lifestyle where righteous is defined as the way of life which is consistent with the stipulations in the books like the Manu Samhita.
However when we are dealing with kings, royal families, we are dealing with law, order and the political means of enforcing that. Arjuna was the chief enforcer on the battlefield of Kurukshetra and the magistrate who was giving him orders from behind was Krishna.
It was a political not a religious situation and this is the first thing one has to get straight. Otherwise since the religious people have cradled the text as their exclusive property, there arises this misconception that the Gita concerns ashrams and religion.
It has to do with politics and war.
Kurukshetra was the traditional battlefield when there was a feud between warring clans. Diplomacy failed and as is our history, the next step was warfare.
