Since the beginning of the pandemic Rukmini Chaitanya has been teaching the Bhagavad Gita online for the benefit of all spiritual seekers searching for meaning, purpose, solace, and the answers to life’s deepest questions. We call this group “our spiritual family”. Each week our gatherings are a joyful spiritual experience amongst great company with students from all over the world.
This upcoming course “The Heart of the Bhagavad Gita” focuses on chapter 12 & 13. This will be a continuation of learning for people who are already part of the group. Newcomers are most welcome! Rukmini Chaitanya will start with the background story of the Mahabharata, an introduction to the Bhagavad Gita and a summary of the first 11 chapters before diving deep into the mysteries and the beauty of the 12th & 13th chapter.
The Bhagavad Gita is a message of divine wisdom addressed to mankind for all times, in order to help human beings face and solve the ever-present problems of birth and death, of pain, suffering, fear, bondage, love, and hate. It enables man to liberate himself from all limiting factors and reach a state of perfect balance, inner stability, and mental peace, complete freedom from grief, fear, and anxiety. Human drama is revealed within the Bhagavad Gita’s eighteen chapters. This is the experience of everyone in this world, the drama of the ascent of man from a state of hopelessness, utter dejection, sorrow, and total breakdown, to a state of perfect understanding, clarity, renewed strength, and triumph.
The twelfth chapter indicates that the path of devotion is easier than the path of knowledge. In this path the aspirant worships God in His Cosmic Form of the Supreme Personality. He develops a loving relationship with Him, adores Him, remembers Him and chants His glories and Name. He thus effects union with the Lord and attains not only His formless aspect but also the Lord as the manifest universe. The path of knowledge, whereby the aspirant meditates on the formless Brahman, is more difficult as he has to give up his attachment to the body from the very beginning. He has to have dispassion for the things of the world.
The thirteenth chapter is one of the most significant, most illuminating, most inspiring and most mystical portions of the Bhagavad Gita. The Lord gives us a wonderfully revealing insight into the human individual. It is the metaphysics of man, the unknown. The immortal Soul, with its physical embodiment, is the main theme of this discourse. The supreme transcendental Spirit, which is the eternal substratum beyond both, is also described in a wonderful manner. The knower of the Supreme Reality is instantly liberated.
There are the most significant, most illuminating, most inspiring, and most mystical portions of the Bhagavad Gita.