The Bhagavad Gita does not contain higher wisdom. Bhagavad Gita is intended for those who are incapable of thinking rationally.
The earliest part of Bhagavad Gita deals with religion because it is for mentally immature persons, but in the latter part, you get philosophy as that is intended for the intellectually evolved. You can’t make all men into genius, and therefore religion is provided for them.
Bhagavad Gita has been interpreted in a thousand ways, according to the pundit's capacity to understand the test of all these is the reason. Only a few understood Gita.
In the statement in Bhagavad Gita which says that the path of the unmanifest is harder than others, this path means Gnana Yoga.
The Upanishads and Gita do not give detailed explanations because the knowledge of those days was not as advanced as it is nowadays. However, there are odd words here and there which give hints.
Reason fills all these gaps and brings the old Vedanta up-to-date, otherwise, it will die out. What was right for antiquity will not suit these scientific days.
Bhagavad Gita gives dualistic worship of "God” only for the lower minds; it also indicates the Advaitic wisdom for the more evolved.
To see "Brahman in action" he must act. Therefore, if he remains inactive in a cave can never see Brahman.
The true meaning of "kill doubt" is not to refrain from inquiry as Pundits, yogis and religionists say, but to tackle every doubt and to go on until you answer or solve it satisfactorily and thus the doubt disappears.
Lord Krishna tells Arjuna to fight is misrepresented by half-Vedantins as an order to kill other human beings, because they are mere Ideas, Illusory, whereas whole Vedanta says these ideas too are Brahman, and the Self and hence no killing really occurs. Only when you see all individuals, especially the Self as imagined ideas, can you rise to see them later as Brahman? Thus, there are two stages. You must first see the self as illusory before you see others as illusory. ~ CH.2 v.16
Bhagavad Gita gives dualistic worship of "God” only for the lower minds; it also teaches Advaita for the more evolved.
Likewise, thinkers and poets of the Age of Devotion (Bhakti) of the 16th century believed in a God with attributes who became very tangible when incarnating as Avatar and was attainable simply through love and devotion rather than scholastic and intellectual meditation.
For the religious people, the Bhagavad Gita became the main vehicle of inspiration with its qualified and deistic Monism, rather than the scholastic and esoteric path shown by Sage Sankara’s Advaitic path.
Sage Sankara never rejected devotional prayer (Bhakti) or denied its value for he held that it was a necessary but intermediate stage for the adept on his journey to the ultimate realization of the true nature of the Universal Essence.
People worship God in various ways, not knowing the Truth. At different levels, at different epochs, in different lands, people have different conceptions of God. They have quarreled because they did not know the truth about God.
The conflict of opinions among mystics and religionists proves that all are imagining God as they like, not knowing God.
Vedanta Lord teaches us in the Gita and in it, he lashes out against the karmakanda. It is generally believed that the Buddha and Mahavira were the first to attack the Vedas.
It is not so. Lord Krishna himself spoke against them long before these two religious leaders. At one place in the Gita, he says to Arjuna: "The Vedas are associated with the three qualities of Sattva, rajas, and tamas.
You must transcend these three qualities. Full of desire, they (the practitioners of Vedic rituals) long for paradise and keep thinking of pleasures and material prosperity. They are born again and again and their minds are never fixed in samadhi, these men clinging to Vedic rituals.
“In another passage Lord Krishna says: "Not by the Vedas is Self to be realized, nor by sacrifices nor by much study. . . . "
Bhagavad Gita 2:46:~ "A man of true knowledge who has attained enlightenment, has the same use for all the scriptures as one has for a small reservoir of water in a place flooded on all sides."
Lord Krishna taught the Karma and Bhakti yogis their own paths only in order to lead them up to the Gnana yoga path, which is the highest and the real object of his teaching.
Lord Krishna confesses that the oldest wisdom of India (our true Advaita philosophy) has been lost: people misinterpret and falsify it today as they did then. It is not yoga but the philosophic truth. But nobody knows it. The teachers of philosophy and leaders of mysticism or religion do not want to inquire into truth and have no time for it. (Gita ~ Chap ~IV~ v.2)
Why is the word Yoga used in so many different senses in the Gita? Because there are grades and the highest demands concentrated brains, not sitting mindless and imagining you are seeing God.
In Gita Chap.IV where Lord Krishna says: ~ “This yoga has been lost for ages" the word yoga refers to Gnana yoga, not other yogas: the force of the word this is to point this out.
Lord Krishna describes some of the other yogas but devotes this chapter separately to Gnana Yoga. So one sees even in those ancient days people did not care for Advaita; they wanted religion; hence Gnana got lost. That is why Krishna calls it "the supreme secret." Krishna points out that the yoga must-see "Brahman in action."
Gita Chap.IV:~ “He who achieves perfection in Yoga finds the Self in time." This means that after his yoga is finished, he begins the inquiry into ultimate truth, and in due course, this inquiry produces the realization of the universal spirit as the result.
Understanding what is God is not so easy. Religious people can only imagine God based on their beliefs.
That is why Lord Krishna Says Ch ~V: ~ “Those who know the Self in truth.". The last two words (tattvataha) are usually ignored by pundits, but they make all the difference between the ordinary concept of God and the truth about God.
Lord Krishna himself says that he can do nothing to make a man intelligent straight away. The adepts give Prasad, blessing, initiations, mantrams, etc. only to confer temporary peace of mind, to help one to get rid of worries, but not to confer Gnana. The capacity to receive it must first be inborn in man by evolutionary degree.
Bhagavad Gita: ~ brahmano hi pratisthaham- Brahman is considered the all-pervading consciousness which is the basis of all the animate and inanimate entities and material. (14.27)
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Maha Gita: ~ Krishna's Gita is a hodgepodge containing everything; hence it suits everyone because there is something in it for everyone. It is difficult to find any tradition whose voice is not found in the Gita. It is difficult to find anyone who does not take solace from the Gita. But for such people, Ashtavakra's Gita will prove very difficult.
Ashtavakra is not for synthesis -- he is a man of truth. He speaks the truth just as it is, without any artifice or coloring. He is not concerned about the listener, he does not care whether his listener will understand or not. Such a pure expression of truth has never happened anywhere before, nor has it ever happened again.
People love Krishna's Gita because it is very easy to extract one's own meaning from it. Krishna's Gita is poetic: in it, two plus two can equal five, two plus two can also equal three. No such tricks are possible with Ashtavakra. With him, two plus two are exactly four. Ashtavakra's statements are statements of pure mathematics. There isn't the least possibility for poetic license here. He says things as they are, without any sort of compromise.
Reading Krishna's Gita a devotee extracts something of which he can make a belief because Krishna spoke on bhakti, devotion. The karma yogi extracts his belief because Krishna has spoken on karma yoga, the Yoga of action. The believer in knowledge finds what he wants because Krishna has spoken on knowledge as well. Somewhere Krishna calls bhakti the ultimate, somewhere else he calls knowledge the ultimate, again elsewhere he calls karma yoga the ultimate.
Krishna's statements are very political. He was a politician, a perfect politician. Just to say he was a politician is not right; he was a shrewd politician, a real diplomat. In his statements, he considered and included many things. This is why the Gita suits everyone, why there are thousands of commentaries on the Gita. No one is concerned with Ashtavakra because to accept Ashtavakra you are going to have to drop yourself -- unconditionally. You cannot bring yourself along. Only if you stay behind can you come near him? With Krishna, you can bring yourself along. With Krishna, there is no need to transform yourself. With Krishna, you can fit just as you are.
Hence the founders of each tradition have written commentaries on Krishna's Gita -- Sankara, Ramanuja, Nimbarak, Vallabha -- everyone. Each has extracted his own meaning. Krishna has said things in such a way as to allow multiple meanings; hence I call his Gita poetic. You can draw out any meaning you like from a poem.
Krishna's statements are like clouds surrounding you in the rainy season: you see in them whatever you want. Someone may see an elephant's trunk, someone sees the whole body of Ganesha, the elephant God. Someone may not see anything. He will say, "What nonsense you talk! They are clouds, vapor -- how is it you see forms in them?"
Krishna's Gita is just like this -- you will be able to see whatever is in your mind. So Sankara sees knowledge, Ramanuja sees bhakti, Tilak sees action -- and each returns home in a cheerful mood thinking that what Krishna says is the same as his belief.
This kind of suspicion often arises with Krishna too. Centuries have passed and commentaries on Krishna keep on coming. Each century finds its own meaning, each person finds his own meaning. Krishna's Gita is like an inkblot... it is the statement of the perfect politician.
You cannot extract any beliefs from Ashtavakra's Gita. Only if you drop yourself as you move into it, will Ashtavakra's Gita become clear to you?
Ashtavakra's message is crystal clear. You won't be able to add even a small bit of your own interpretation to it. Hence people have not written commentaries on Ashtavakra's Gita. There is no scope for writing a commentary; there is no way to distort or twist it. Your mind has no chance to add anything. Ashtavakra has given such an expression that no one has been able to add or take anything from it, even though centuries have passed. It is not easy to give such a perfect expression. Such skill with words is very difficult to come by. This is why I say we are starting off on a rare journey. ~OSHO
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There are two kinds of audiences - the ordinary ones who desire the transitory heaven and other pleasures obtained as a result of ritual sacrifices, and the more advanced seeker who seeks to know the truth beyond the form, time, and space. The Bhagavad Gita is meant for the first audience, to help lead its followers along the way. The Ashtavakra Gita, with its emphasis on the Advaitic wisdom, is meant for those who wish to go beyond such transient pleasures.:~Santthosh Kumaar
