What I have been up to these days.
March 29th, 2011
Since I have been off Facebook, I have been spending more time reading Paramahansa Yogananda’s God Talks with Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita.
I have to admit, its not the easiest read.
I am now on page 130 of 500 of ONE volume. And its taken me 2 weeks to get here. (And to be honest, I am sure I have skipped more than half of it.)
The Husband and I have been religious about reading on a nightly basis. He is currently obsessed with improving his memory..and has been reading a lot on that.. (or he was until yesterday, not sure what tonight will bring…) and I have been trying to get thru this book slowly.
Painfully, while the Husband plays fun memory games on the iPad!
Dont get me wrong, the wisdom and the breakdown of the Gita is amazing. He explains so much of the Gita, provides a reason for every single person in the Gita, explains every single event in terms of the internal battles that we face inevitably at some point in life and it is fascinating. Kind of like watching Sixth Sense, when you realize Bruce Willis was dead all along.. (OO..by the way.. spoiler alert…), kind of like when everything comes together like a well coordinated dance and makes sense.
I am mostly loving the book, but when Paramahansa Yogananda spends time breaking down the Sanskrit translations, I cannot help but feel bored. I am getting sleepy right now just thinking about it.
I have learnt a lot. But I wish the book was simpler. I wish it had colorful pictures and cartoons. And games.
Anyway, I digress. I am going to finish both volumes of the book, (even if I skip more than half of it) because there are definitely things to pick up, to learn and to dwell on.
Since reading the book, I have started mediating (read: breathing deeply as I lie in bed about to fall asleep while listening to some mantras.. Okay.. I am cheating and not really meditating, but it is still progress).
I bought myself a new diary..(There is always a reason to shop!). To write my own gita every night. The battles between the good and bad in me. The habits that are adding to my karmic debt and the actions that are paying off my karmic debts.
Man’s search for meaning and guidance in life is such a painful process, but we all contemplate on such things at least at some point in life..
A few things I would like to get answers on, if at all possible, are:
1. What are our samskaras?
2. What is our karmic debt?
3. More simply, what is right? And what is wrong? How do you differentiate between the 2 when life is so grey?
4. What am I looking to achieve with these words of wisdom?
At this point, my eventual goal in this journey is to ensure that when I am at my deathbed, I would be at peace with the person I have been in this life.
At peace with what I have left behind, the memories, the teachings (If I so dare..), and the warmth.
I have a long way to go to become the person I can to be.
I don’t mean to say I am a bad person and I need to be a good person, no. What I mean to say is that I need to be a master of my domain. (Ha! Ha!)
I am a good person as we all inherently are, but I need to conquer my 100 evil cousins (Referencing Duryodhan and his 99 siblings from the Gita.. notice how I bring it all together.)
My mind and my habits.
My emotions and my affiliations.
My associations and my judgements.
I think we all do. As cliche as it sounds, to just be more open, loving and accepting.
I am sure all of us.. okay.. maybe some of us.. have a long way to go in this journey. Some of us will admit to it, some of us, the lucky ones, are completely content as we are.
I was going to make this a really long blog about the things that have touched me from this book, but that would require more time. I will definitely keep coming back to write about this book and the teachings. I also thought I was making sense, but now I am not sure. So I am signing off now. Until next time!
Categories: Learnings, Musings, Uncategorized | 1 Comment
