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Session 1 of 5-Day Bhagavad Gita Retreat, held during the USA Jnana Yajna 2024.
Location: Residence Inn Marriott Tustin Orange County, 15181 Newport Ave, Tustin, CA 92780
Date: 20 June 2024

#bhoomananda #bhagavadgita #vedanta #california

In this session, Swamiji emphasizes that the Bhagavad Gita is an instruction given to deal with interactional life and activities. It is a secular dialogue, not a religious scripture. It shows how life can become glorious and blissful, if we can harness our inner resources.

In the war field, Arjuna confessed his narrow-mindedness, the constriction of his mind and his confusion regarding dharma. Accepting Sri Krishna as his teacher, he sought Shreyas (ever-lasting good and fulfilment of life). Just like Arjuna, Shreyas can be sought by everyone, in any situation.

Krishna stated clearly that wise people do not grieve over the dead or the living. The ‘I’, the sentience which animates and activates the body, is never destroyed. There was no time when the sentience was absent and there will be no time when it ceases to be. The body is prone to change--it is born, it grows, it declines and it finally dies. A wise man does not get deluded by death. A seeker must introspect and understand that death is a natural process and that the inner presence is ever-present, immortal.

How to live life? Bhagavad Gita gives a formula for living a fulfilled life. Life is an interaction between senses and the world objects. This interaction inevitably brings happiness and unhappiness at the mind level. Sukha and duhkha will come and go and are transitory. Knowing and understanding it, a seeker must develop tolerance for them.

Sri Krishna also highlights the truth that the ‘unreal’ (asat) will have no expression, and the ‘real’ (sat) will never cease to be. Since sukha and duhkha are transitory, they are not sat (real). They also cannot be asat (unreal), because they have come into expression. So, how to understand sukha and duhkha? They cannot be submitted to a rational expression, and so they are called illusory.

Swamiji urges all listeners to have faith in the strength and potential of the mind. The mind has the capacity to assimilate all kinds of interactional impacts. It is the same mind which obliterates all the wakeful impacts in sleep every day.

Shlokas chanted in the Satsang and the timestamps:
0:00 - Introduction
30:27 - कुतस्त्वा कश्मलमिदं.... Bhagavad Gita 2.2
30:39 - क्लैब्यं मा स्म गम:...Bhagavad Gita 2.3
38:10 - कार्पण्यदोषोपहतस्वभाव:... Bhagavad Gita 2.7
44:36 - अशोच्यानन्वशोचस्त्वं..Bhagavad Gita 2.11
57:50 - न त्वेवाहं जातु नासं न त्वं…Bhagavad Gita 2.12
1:05:28 - देहिनोऽस्मिन्यथा देहे... Bhagavad Gita 2.13
1:09:52 - मात्रास्पर्शास्तु कौन्तेय...Bhagavad Gita 2.14
1:16:34 - नासतो विद्यते भावो...Bhagavad Gita 2.16

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Narayanashrama Tapovanam, an Ashram located in Thrissur, Kerala, embodies the unique tradition of Guru-shishya Parampara, disseminating Brahmavidya (Science of Self-knowledge) through regular classes, satsangs, and above all, through learning in the association of a realized spiritual master.