The Bhagvad Gita is universally renowned as the jewel of India’s spiritual wisdom. Spoken by lord Krishna, the supreme personality of Godhead to his intimate disciple Arjuna. The Gita’s seven hundred concise verses provide a definitive guide to the science of self realization. No other philosophical or religious work reveals in such a lucid or profound way the nature of consciousness, the self, the universe and the supreme.

Generally, people are not educated in this confidential knowledge; they are educated in external knowledge. As far as ordinary education is concerned, people are involved with so many departments: politics, sociology, physics, chemistry, mathematics etc. There are so many departments of knowledge all over the world and many huge universities, but there is, unfortunately, no university or educational institution where the science of the spirit soul is instructed.

The Bhagvad Gita is life time study. It’s meanings are virtually infinite, so that new things will be continually point us in the right direction spiritually. Further it conveys to us the necessary perspective for success in spiritual life.

There is a film on “ Invitation to world Literature: The Bhagvad Gita” will screen at the Rubin Museum of art in New York city on Wednesday, 25th January at 1-00 pm. Let’s glimpse over an interview that had taken place between Gadadharan Pandit Dasa, a monk in the bhakti yoga tradition since September 1999, residing to a temple in the East village of Manhattan and a film maker Joshua Seftel. (WGBH, Annenberg Media)

Saftel said that when he was in a college, a Hindu monk came up to him and handed him The Bhagvad Gita, he didn’t know what to do with this book so he just took it and brought it to home. But didn’t open it for twenty years. The reason was he felt intimidated by it, and he felt it wouldn’t be relevant to him. It wasn’t until he worked on the film about Bhagvad Gita that he realized its everywhere.

This is the position of every common man who have no idea about the real treasure of our real being  buried in it. There are some who came to know what The Bhagvad Gita is. E.g. Albert Einstein, has said that when I read the Bhagvad Gita and reflect about how God created this universe every thing else seems so superfluous.

The Bhagvad Gita did influence the lives of very prominent western people- not just Indian people like Mahatma Gandhi but also Marti Luther King Jr., Emerson, Thoreau, Oppenheimer and many more. Gandhi has said, “When doubts haunt me, when disappointments stare me on the face, and I see not one ray of hope on the horizon, I turn to The Bhagvad Gita and find a verse to comfort me and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrows. Those who meditate on The Gita will derive fresh joy and new meanings from it every day”.

When Saftel , a film maker asks to Pandit, “ Would you say the main character, Arjuna, is having a nervous breakdown?” And the answer was, well, here it what Arjun says, “ My hair is standing on end, My skin is burning, My mind is whirling, My bow is slipping from my hand. I can no longer stand here any longer”.

If you can’t stand on your own feet and thinks that your holding are slipping from your hand, then that would qualify as nervous breakdown. This was the answer of Pandit.

Arjun felt nervous because he was unknown of his real self. Before he was awakened he was under pressure of Rjas and Tamas. Krishna told him that what he saw and felt was all that his belief followed. To stay still and satisfied one should peruse one’s duty selflessly. Gnyan cannot be without Karma-duty. The man has to understand this in real term. In some of the colleges like management colleges, principals of Karma-Yoga are being taught. It is necessary to know what Karma is. Karma means any kind of action, including thought and feeling. But it also means the effect of action. For Karma is both action and reaction. Karma yoga is a path of union with God through external action performed in a detached and selfless manner, dedicated to God alone who is seen as its origin and its goal. This includes the performance of ones own duty and service of humanity. We all are Arjuna who is unaware of our real self, potentiality, power that is in us. Let’s know and make others to know.

Saftel in his interview says, In our film, Amitav Kaul says that he had a breakthrough in under standing Hinduism and The Gita after seeing star wars. Pandit replied, “Yes, the scene where Obi Wan tells Luke about “the force”. That’s why in Hinduism many say “happiness is found within”, because the divine is there. We are not able to access it because we are so busy doing so many things and progressing materially.

Material compassion, lamentation and tears are all signs of ignorance of the real self. Compassion for the eternal sole is self realization.

Let’s quote here Henry David Thoreau saying,” In the morning I bath my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagvad Gita in compassion with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial.”

Saftel asks about the “Matrix” (a movie). Pandit replied that there is definitely a good amount of Gita in The Matrix. Neo is very much like Arjuna because in this movie we see that Neo is looking for something. He sits on his computer. He knows that the world he sees around him isn’t every thing. There is something more than this. He just can’t figure out what it is. When he finally meets Morpheus, his guru or teacher, Morpheus says, “you know it’s out there you just don’t know what it is. It’s kind of like a thorn. You have always felt it.

What Nehruji says, “The Bhagvad Gita deals essentially with the spiritual foundation of human existence. It is a call of action to meet the obligations and duties of life; yet keeping in view the spiritual nature and grander purpose of universe.”

A dear reader, Education is the manifestation of perfection already in man. This purpose serves only when we make the students familiar about Indian Literature. And this Granth is itself the last atom that blasts within and Aghyan-darkness with Avidya, Rag Dvesh, Abhinivesh is gone.

The Bhagvad Gita is a true scripture of the human race a living creation rather than a book, with a new massage for every age and a new meaning for every civilization.