Abstract
This chapter establishes the text and the leadership context of the Bhagavad Gı̄tā. The Gı̄tā is a non-sectarian spiritual text with a universal message for living a life of meaning and purpose and for leading from our authentic self. Although traditionally interpreted as a religious-spiritual text, the Gı̄tā encompasses great practical life and leadership lessons for modern times. It shows how to manage oneself, as a necessary prelude to leading others. The Bhagavad Gı̄tā’s call for selfless action inspired many leaders of the Indian independence movement including Gandhi, who regarded it as his “spiritual dictionary.”
The Bhagavad Gı̄tā, a philosophical poem par excellence, has been extolled as “the scripture of scriptures” within the corpus of Indian spiritual texts. Its unusual battlefield setting, highly practical orientation, and deep philosophical import have endeared it to people from all walks of life looking for guidance in both the sacred and secular realms. While there are many books that aspire to present spiritual truths in practical terms, perhaps there is no other book which presents such an integral vision of attaining the ultimate purpose of life (mokṣa or liberation) while fully engaged in the proceedings of life.
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Notes
- 1.
Swami Venkatesananda, trans., Vāsiṣṭha’s Yoga (New York, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993), 87.
- 2.
Abbreviated form of the Bhagavad Gītā.
- 3.
Mohandas K. Gandhi, Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth (New York, NY: Dover Publications, 1983), 233. See also: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi article in Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved May 15, 2017: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mahatma-Gandhi/Resistance-and-results
- 4.
A Parthasarathy cited in Dennis Waite, Back to the Truth: 5000 Years of Advaita (Winchester, UK: John Hunt Publishing, Ltd., 2007), 519.
- 5.
As quoted in Lou Marinoff, Plato, Not Prozac! Applying Philosophy to Everyday Problems (New York, NY: Harper, 1999), iii.
- 6.
Christopher Key Chapple, Editor’s Preface with a User’s Guide to the Word-by-Word Analysis of the Bhagavad Gītā. In Winthrop Sargeant, trans., Bhagavad Gītā, the 25th anniversary edition (New York, NY: New York State University Press), ixx.
- 7.
Cited in Will Durant, The Case for India (New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1930), 6.
- 8.
Naranjan Saha, Bhagavad Gītā: A bird’s eye view of its historical background, formation, and teaching. Indian Council of Philosophical Research. Published online: Feb 2017. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40961-017-0098-6.
- 9.
Swami Prabhāvananda & Christopher Isherwood, trans., The Song of God: Bhagavad- Gītā/with an introduction by Aldous Huxley (New York, NY: Harper, 1951/2002), 22.
- 10.
J. A. B. van Buitenen, ed. and trans., The Bhagavad Gītā in the Mahabharata: A Bilingual Edition (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1981).
- 11.
K. W. Bolle, The Bhagavad Gītā: A New Translation (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1979), 224.
- 12.
R. N. Minor (Ed.), Modern Indian Interpreters of the Bhagavad Gītā (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1986), 5.
- 13.
See Peter M. Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization (New York, NY: Doubleday, Revised and updated edition, 2006), 76. Peter M. Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, & Joseph Jaworski, Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future (New York, NY: Crown Books, 2008), 92.
- 14.
Mahatma Gandhi & John Strohmeier (Eds.), The Bhagavad Gītā According to Gandhi (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2009), xvi.
- 15.
Cited in S. Radhākrishnan, The Bhagavad Gītā: With an Introductory Essay, Sanskrit Text, English Translation, and Notes (London, Great Britain: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1958), 10.
- 16.
See: Kay Koppedrayer, Gandhi’s “Autobiography” as commentary on the “Bhagavad Gītā.” International Journal of Hindu Studies, 2002, 6 (1), 47–73.
- 17.
A. L. Harman, The Bhagavad Gītā: A Translation and Critical Commentary (Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas Publishers, 1973), vii–viii.
- 18.
Verse
Verse यदा यदा हि धर्मस्य ग्लानिर्भवति भारत । अभ्युत्थानमधर्मस्य तदात्मानं सृजाम्यहम् ॥ ४.७ ॥
Verse
Verse yadā yadā hi dharmasya glānirbhavati bhārata / abhyutthānamadharmasya tadātmānaṁ sṛjāmyaham //4.7//
Verse
Verse Whenever righteousness is on the decline, and unrighteousness in on the rise, I send Myself forth into the world—to protect the good (paritrāṇāya sādhūnāṁ), to destroy the wicked (vināśāya ca duṣkṛtām), and to re-establish the sacred dharma (dharmasaṁsthāpanārthāya): 4.8.
- 19.
A. L. Harman, The Bhagavad Gītā, op. cit., viii. Prof. Harman is improvising on BG 18.46: svakarmaṇā tam abhyarcya siddhiṁ vindati mānavaḥ: By performing one’s work as an offering to the Creator, one attains supreme fulfillment.
- 20.
Naranjan Saha, Bhagavad Gītā: A bird’s eye view of its historical background, formation, and teaching. Indian Council of Philosophical Research. Published online: Feb 2017. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40961-017-0098-6.
- 21.
Swāmī Rāmsukhdās jī, a modern saint-seer who pondered over its mysteries for over nine decades, used to say that the Gītā teaches the art of seeking the sacred in the temporal, vyavahār mein paramārtha ki kalā.
- 22.
Huston Smith, Foreword. In Winthrop Sargeant, trans., Bhagavad Gītā, the 25th anniversary edition (New York, NY: New York State University Press), x.
- 23.
R. D. Rānāde, The Bhagavad Gītā as a Philosophy of God Realization (Bombay, India: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1982).
- 24.
Throughout this book, capital “S” in the word “Self” denotes our real Self—our true nature—while lower case “s” in the word “self” refers to the ego or empirical personality.
- 25.
Eliot Deutsch, The Bhagavad Gītā, Translated with Introduction and Critical Essays (New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1968), 190.
- 26.
Will Durant, The Story of Civilization Part 1: Our Oriental Heritage (New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1963), 561.
- 27.
See: Sunil Kumar Bhattacharjya, The Original Bhagavad Gītā (Complete with 745 verses, including all the rare verses) (Delhi, India: Parimal Publications, 2014), 11.
- 28.
Ibid., 11.
- 29.
Ibid., 17–18.
- 30.
See Avin Deen’s response: Mahabharata (Hindu epic): Why do some Indians think Mahabharata is superior to all other epics ever written? Retrieved June 21, 2017: https://www.quora.com/Mahabharata-Hindu-epic/Why-do-some-Indians-think-Mahabharat-is-superior-to-all-other-epics-ever-written
- 31.
Christopher Key Chappel, Editor’s Preface with a User’s Guide to the Word-by-Word Analysis of the Bhagavad Gītā. In Winthrop Sargeant, trans., Bhagavad Gītā, the 25th anniversary edition (New York, NY: New York State University Press), ixx.
- 32.
“On the tree of Indian wisdom, there is no fairer flower than the Upanishads and no finer fruit than the Vedanta philosophy.” ~Paul Deussen, Outline of the Vedanta System, vii.
The Upaniṣads, the Brahma Sutra, and the Gītā—form the “triple standard” (prasthāna-traya) on which Vedāntic schools of philosophy are based.
- 33.
See: Eliot Deutsch, Advaita Vedanta: A Philosophical Reconstruction (Honolulu, HI: The University of Hawaii Press, 1973), 3.
- 34.
K. Satchidananda Murty, Revelation and Reason in Advaita Vedanta (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1959), 3.
- 35.
Ibid., xvii.
- 36.
See: K. Satchidananda Murty, Revelation and Reason in Advaita Vedanta, xvii.
- 37.
Once a seeker, approached a great soul, a Mahātmā, and asked, “Revered Sir, how many Upaniṣads do I have to study to know myself?” The Mahātmā replied with a question: “How many mirrors do you need to look at yourself?”
- 38.
Professor Karl Jaspers, a preeminent German philosopher of the last century, once told Professor K. Satchidananda Murty, that “there was no metaphysics superior to that of Śaṅkara.” See: K. Satchidananda Murty, Revelation and Reason in Advaita Vedanta (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1959), xvii. [emphasis added].
“In his short life of thirty-two years Sankara,” wrote Will Durant, “achieved that union of sage and saint, of wisdom and kindliness, which characterizes the loftiest type of man produced in India. Sankara establishes the source of his philosophy at a remote and subtle point never quite clearly visioned again until, a thousand years later, Immanuel Kant wrote his Critique of Pure Reason.” See: Will Durant, Story of Civilization: Our Oriental Heritage (New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1954), 546–547.
Śaṅkara ’s fundamental Vedāntic stance can be summarized as follows: That the Brahman (Absolute) is One, without a second, and is of the nature of Pure Consciousness and bliss; that It is always, absolutely, one with the Ātman (Self). ब्रह्म सत्यम् जगन्मिथ्य जिवो ब्रह्मैव न परः। brahma satyam jaganmithya jivo brahmaiva na paraḥ:—ब्रह्मज्ञवलि २० (brahmajñavali 20)—Brahman is real, the world is unreal; the individual self and the Supreme Reality are one and the same. Śaṅkara, in his commentary to Brahma Sūtra 3.2.7, explicitly states, “At no time has the Jiva ever not been one with Brahman” (न कदाचिज्जीवस्य ब्रह्मणा सम्पत्तिर्नास्ति na kadācit jīvasya brahmaṇa sampattir nāsti); that the manifold world of appearance is verily an expression/projection of Brahman alone (sarvam hi nānatvam Brahmani kalpitameva) and is ultimately non-real (mithyā); that Brahman (Ultimate Reality) is of the nature of satyam-jñānam-anantam— existence, consciousness, infinitude; that self-less actions (nishkāma karma) play a preparatory role in purifying the mind to receive the wisdom of Self-knowledge; that ignorance (avidyā) alone is the cause of human bondage; Self-knowledge (ātam-jñānam) alone is the means to liberation; and that the spiritual freedom or liberation (mukti or mokṣa) is not possible until one realizes or attains the knowledge of oneness of the Self, Ātman, and the Absolute, Brahman (brahmātma’aikya-bōdham). All this, of course, is from the empirical standpoint (vyavahārika-dṛʹsti); however, from the transcendental standpoint (paramārthika dṛʹsti), the Self is ever-free and does not need to be liberated. This freedom is eternal and is the very nature of the seeker indeed: nityatvānmokṣasya sādhakasvarūpāvyatirekācca (Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad. 3.3.1).
- 39.
तत्इदम्गीता-शास्त्रं समस्त-वेदार्थ-सारसङ्ग्रह-भूतं tat idam gītā-śāstraṁ samasta-vēdārtha-sārasaṅgraha-bhūtaṁ.
- 40.
Gītā 4.1–3. See: Sahaja-Gītā: The Essential Gītā—Simplified, p. 53.
- 41.
See Swami Paramarthananda, 4 Discourses on the Gītā, Discourse no. 1: Introduction.
- 42.
Brahman refers to the Absolute Reality or Pure Existence-Consciousness. Not to be confused with Brahmin, which denotes the priestly caste in Hinduism.
- 43.
Improvising on this theme, Rabindranath Tagore, India’s poet Laureate, avers, “He alone knows Truth who realizes in his own soul those of others, and in the soul of others, his own.” Quoted in Louis Fry & Mark Kriger, Towards a theory of being-centered leadership: Multiple levels of being as context for effective leadership. Human Relations, 2009, 62 (11), 1667–1696.
- 44.
K. A. Krishanswamy Iyer, Collected Works of K. A. Krishnaswamy Iyer (Holenarasipur, India: Adhyatma Prakash Karyalaya, 2006), 239.
- 45.
Swāmī Gambhīrānanda, Bhagavad Gītā with the commentary of Śaṅkarāchārya (Calcutta, India: Advaita Ashrama, 1984), 15.
- 46.
R. D. Rānāde, The Bhagavad Gītā as a Philosophy of God Realization (Bombay, India: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1982), 108.
- 47.
See also, BG 6.28: brahmasaṃsparśam atyantaṃ sukham aśnute: experiences the ultimate bliss of union with Brahman, the Absolute.
- 48.
W. D. P. Hill, The Bhagavad Gītā: A Translation and Commentary (Madras, India: Oxford University Press, 1928/1953), 72.
- 49.
R. D. Rānāde, The Bhagavad Gītā as a Philosophy of God Realization, 108–109.
- 50.
Ibid., 109.
- 51.
Ira Schepetin, IRA Schepetin gives a talk about The Bhagavad Gītā. Published on YouTube on October 13, 2017. Retrieved May 30, 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5Vl6OUezVY&t=239s
- 52.
Ibid.
- 53.
P. Lal, The Mahabharata of Vyasa: Condensed from Sanskrit and Transcribed into English (Lake Gardens, Kolkata: Writers Workshop 2010), 370.
- 54.
Mission statement of Ramakrishna Order, slightly modified: Ātmano mokṣārtham jagat hitāya ca (आत्मनो मोक्षार्थम् जगत् हिताय च) is a mantra in the Rig Veda. Literally, it means, “for the freedom of the Self and for the welfare of the world.” Since the Self, ātmā, is never bound and is ever-free, by “Self-freedom ” the mantra really means “ Self-knowledge.” Through Self-knowledge, one realizes one’s intrinsic freedom. See Karan Singh, Hinduism (New Delhi, India: Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 2005), 71.
- 55.
See: Gītā 5.25 & 12.4. labhante brahmanirvāṇam…sarvabhūtahite ratāḥ: 5.25: Working for the wellbeing of all beings, sages attain liberation in the Absolute. We have Gandhi’s testimony inspired by the teachings of the Gītā: “What I want to achieve,—and what I have been striving and pining to achieve these thirty years,—is Self-realization, to see God face to face, to attain Moksha. I live and move and have my being in pursuit of this goal. All that I do by way of speaking and writing and all my ventures in the political field are directed to this same end.” See: M. K. Gandhi, An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth (New York, NY: Dover Publications, 1983), viii.
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Dhiman, S. (2019). Introduction: Text and the Leadership Context of the Gītā. In: Bhagavad Gītā and Leadership. Palgrave Studies in Workplace Spirituality and Fulfillment. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67573-2_2
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