The Bhagavad Gita Author: Eknath Easwaran | Language: English | ISBN:
B004DI7R5G | Format: EPUB
The Bhagavad Gita Description
In the Bhagavad Gita, Prince Arjuna asks direct, uncompromising questions of his spiritual guide on the eve of a great battle. In this expanded edition of the most famous —and popular — of Indian scriptures, Eknath Easwaran contextualizes the book culturally and historically and explains the key concepts of Hindu religious thought and the technical vocabulary of yoga. Chapter introductions, notes, and a glossary help readers understand the book’s message. Most importantly, this translation uses simple, clear language to impart the poetry, universality, and timelessness of the Gita’s teachings.
- File Size: 412 KB
- Print Length: 297 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1586380192
- Publisher: Nilgiri Press; 2nd edition (June 1, 2009)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B004DI7R5G
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13,467 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Religion & Spirituality > Hinduism - #2
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in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Hinduism > Bhagavad Gita
This an especially natural and graceful translation somewhere between poetry and prose by a man who really understands the message of the Gita. This can be seen from reading Eknath Easwaran's wise and penetrating Preface written especially for this, the Vintage Spiritual Classics Edition, edited by John F. Thornton and Susan B. Varenne for Vintage Books.
Easwaran shows that the differing paths to self-realization and liberation that the Gita presents are a comprehensive whole. "The thread through Krishna's teaching, the essence of the Gita, can be given in one word: renunciation. This is the common factor in the four yogas" (p. xxxviii). Easwaran goes on to explain that what is being renounced is not material, although on first blush it seems that way. What is renounced are the fruits of action. Renunciation is not only the essence of karma yoga, but the essence of the bhakti, jnana and raja yogas that Krishna presents as well. The key is an amazing spiritual and psychological insight into human nature: we are miserable when we are concerned with the results of what we do, but we are freed when we devote the fruits of our work to God. What is renounced is also the delusion of a material self that acts, the famous slayer and the slain. Unlike some other, rather foolish, translations that try to find some artificial substitute for the word "yoga," an endeavor entirely alien to the Gita, Easwaran embraces the understanding. He writes, "the Gita is Brahmavidyayam yogashastra, a textbook on the supreme science of yoga" (p. xxxvi)
It is also clear from what Easwaran writes in the Preface that he understands meditation and the path of moksha gained when one is beyond the pair of opposites that dominate our material existence.
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