Arjuna, who grew up with Krishna, questions how Krishna taught the science of the self to the sun god at the dawn of time.
Topics include:
- The role of karma in shaping our lives and bodies
- Why we don’t remember our past lives
- What happens when we are liberated
- The story of Jada Bharata
Additional topics include:
- Three obstacles to chanting
- The story of Kalman Shapira, the Rebbe of the Warsaw Ghetto
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[iTunes] [Stitcher] [Hipcast]Homework
Read verses and purports from Bhagavad Gita As It Is Chapter 4 Verses 7 and 8 [BG 4.7 – 4.8]
Mentioned in this podcast
Abbreviations used in these notes: BG for Bhagavad Gita
Books
- Bhagavad Gita As It Is
- Conscious Community: A Guide to Inner Work by Kalman Shapira
Verses
Arjuna said: The sun-god Vivasvān is senior by birth to You. How am I to understand that in the beginning You instructed this science to him?
The Personality of Godhead said: Many, many births both you and I have passed. I can remember all of them, but you cannot, O subduer of the enemy!
Although I am unborn and My transcendental body never deteriorates, and although I am the Lord of all living entities, I still appear in every millennium in My original transcendental form.
Vocabulary
Janma – birth
Veda – knowledge
Moksha – liberation
Samsara – the cycle of birth and death
Sadhu – a holy person who has renounced material life
Prasadam – literally “mercy”; food that has become sanctified by first offering it to God
Pranayama – yogic breathing techniques
Sat-chit-ananda – the inviolable qualities of all souls: eternity, self-awareness, bliss
Maya – illusion, “that which is not,” e.g. thinking the visible world to be the only reality