The Message of the Gita with Excerpts from the Mahabharatha, Part 1

Why Should You Read The Gita & The Maha Bharatha?

Among the many charges leveled against the Gita, the most prominent is that since Krishna advocated to Arjuna that he should be prepared to fight to defend his life and the life of his brothers, family, relatives and supporters from those who had already committed violence and repeatedly attempted murder against them, that therefore somehow, Krishna advocated violence. Ergo, such critics say, the Gita is a violent book, inferior somehow to other books.

A full reading of even just the Gita will amply reveal just how extraordinary Krishna's character is. Krishna is revered in the Gita, indeed in the entire Maha Bharatha and the Bhagavatha as the most complete incarnation of the 'male' half of God (for indeed, while God is declared in the Vedas -and repeatedly in every important holy book of 'Hinduism' - as being beyond gender, by the subtle logic of the Vedas, the One can therefore be equally seen as ungendered or as male/female, depending on whether we are trying to see the manifestation of the One as the One or in the many.) upon Earth since the beginning of this, current Yuga Cycle. 

(The Yuga Cycle begins with the Satya Yuga - the Age of Truth and ends with the Kali Yuga - The Age of Untruth, ultimately transforming into a new Satya Yuga - hence the use of the word 'cycle'. This idea that the Earth is very, very ancient and that time moves in cycles is one of the central ideas of the Ancient Way the original name of the 'religion' that is today called 'Hinduism'. Indeed Hinduism is much more than a religion - more complete than any other modern way of assessing our state of existence that is available to us, even in this day of scientific enlightenment and for this reason alone it is indeed worthy of your time.)

A little knowledge is, however, worse than none- a dilemma our current environmental crisis sadly illustrates. That is not to say science is to be given up - in fact, exactly the opposite is true. We need to delve farther and drink deeper of the nectar of Truth to overcome the foibles of the present. Therefore, I urge all who read these lines to make the effort to read the entire Mahabharatha, indeed and the entire Gita in its original Sanskrit (with suitable word by word translations and good interpretations from authoritative sources such as Hindu pandits and monks) at the very, very least before you make up your mind about what Krishna, and the Ancient Way advocate or do not advocate. Do not leave it to the detractors to make up YOUR mind for you. 

The Gita is a sublime work of the highest order that teaches us to view the Universe and our place in it as a whole. The Gita tells us that God and you and Universe and others - and that includes all other creatures and inanimate objects in it- are not separate entities, but rather that you should view everything as One in order to really make sense of it all.

The Truth is subtle. You will need to work for it. And you get it, it will slip through your grasp like air. For none can know the true nature of the One, since perfection is not in the many, but only in the One and we are often lost in the Maya of the many. The Gita will teach you how to negotiate the intensely interesting questions of how the One manifests as the many and how to go from 'trying to become more knowledgeable' about it to 'being as you are'.  (The manifestation of the One as many happens with a male-female duality. The One has appeared as female as often as male. Indeed, women have written parts of the Vedas, fought equally with the men in the ancient wars, ruled kingdoms and homes since the ancient times.) 

Simply 'Being' is the key, but the Gita shows you that that is not necessarily an inert state as the simplest reading implies. Rather it is a state of intense activity and impels one upon an arc of duty and peace with an empathetic impersonal zeal that frees you and empowers you. Personally, I have found that an understanding of the concept of zero in Mathematics is an important aid to understanding the concept of how One, many and nothing can all be one and the same thing. Indeed, the conceptualization and use of 'zero' is another great gift of the Ancient Way i.e. 'Hinduism' to the modern world - and indeed in my opinion only Hinduism could have come up with the concept of zero, so vital to all Science for without Math, science cannot translate to predictable use. For within Hinduism this idea is so central to raising the consciousness to a higher plane, that it occurs from the very oldest works to the best new works. So I urge all who seek to understand the 'religion' of 'Hinduism' to also brush up on the zero and how and why is becomes necessary in Mathematics. Those looking for a scientific connection to the Gita should also read the thoughts and works of Erwin Schroedinger, the Austrian Quantum Physicist who declared that the Gita inspired him in many of his revolutionary insights into the true behavior of material nature at the most fundamental level.

In the following, I present to you, excerpts of my humble understanding of this great work of Sage Vyasa, the great teacher who put down the Maha Bharatha (inclusive of the Gita) many thousands of years ago, for the benefit of all humanity. I bow to him, as my Guru, as indeed I bow to all who have taught me yet and all who will in the future, as the many forms of Vyasa, the teaching form of Krishna. My sincere thanks also to the Hare Krishna society for the original Sanskrit verses they made available on the internet for all to see and read.

For those of you seeking an American connection to the Gita and the Maha Bharatha, I urge you to read more of and about Henry David Thoreau, the father of the modern environmental movement, Ralph Waldo Emerson, the sage of Boston and the Transcendental movement. Thoreau died expressing how he still believed, even after years, that upon identifying with the Indian--as the ideal, anti-cultural, childlike, naïve, yet self-reliant human, he was accepting the universal progress of humankind. (The reference to Thoreau was taken from a source whose web address I have neglected to preserve. My sincere apologies and thanks)

Thoreau calls the time period of the Gita “another state of being”. As indeed it was. First of all, people lived a lot longer. Yudhisthira lived for more than 140 years. This allowed them to 'process' life in a way few of us are able. Arjuna & Karna were  14 foot high, the Gandiva, the bow wielded by Arjuna was 12 foot long. Indeed the Puranas and the Upanishads and the Ramayana insist that people lived much longer and were much more capable in the very old times. These old books insist that we have powers of the mind in the old days that are scarcely believable today - the able to order matter through the mind. We are now, in a sense, somewhat 'fallen', in physical stature, general health and lifespans. That is not to say we didn't evolve in other ways. Or that we cannot recover the old strengths. Nor does it mean that Evolution is wrong. Indeed, the Ramayana, set in prehistoric India, unknown millenia ago, recounts the earliest 'complete Manushya', the stage of that evolution when humanity began to identify as something distinct from the primates. The story of Hanuman and the alliances Rama makes with the kingdom of Kishkinda are the echoes from those early eras.

Humanity has forgotten more than it remembers. We are indeed fallen, in a sense, rising higher at the same time. Evolution raises our best attributes and sometimes that means the less desirable attributes decay, rot and fall away. That can be a messy process, where sometimes progression appears as regression and vice versa. A wonder, is what we are. And we are destined for many more wonders yet! Of that, I have no doubts.

Dating the Maha Bharata Time Period 

An authoritative article is published in Telugu by the Tirumala Tirupati Devastaanam, authored by Shri Janamaddi Hanumanta Rao, based on the research effort by a team led by Pandit Radhashyaam Shaastri of Sourashtra University. Pandit Shaastri used the astrological information provided by Veda Vyaasa (Position of the stars etc) within the text of the original Sanskrit verses of the Maha Bharatha itself. Often in the text, star positions in various constellations are cited, for various major events narrated. 

According to the Pandit-ji, the Maha Bharata war was estimated to have started on 3067B.C. on the 22nd November. In the Sanskrit original texts, Sage Vyasa describes the astrological positions of the Sun, Moon, Rahu, Saturn, Guru, Mangala and Sukra planets on the first day of the war. By looking at the position based on the Panchangam, (Indian Calendar), and matching it with the position of the stars described by Vyasa and comparing it with the Julian Calendar, one can arrive at the precise dates for the war.

 The fifth century mathematician, Arya Bhatta, calculated the date of the Mahabharata War to be approximately 3100 B.C. from the planetary positions recorded in the Mahabharata. Aryabhatta incidentally was an accomplished Mathematician and Astronomer who also gave a value for Pi as 3.14, the oldest known formulation of this important geometric constants.