Grace of Gita

Grace Of The Gita

Those Who Shall Study This Sacred Dialogue Of Ours Shall Worship Me With Knowledge-Sacrifice. This Is My Promise. (18.70 )

God And His Words Are One And The Same. The Study Of Gita Is Equivalent To Worship Of God. Life In Modern Society Is All Work And No Spirituality. Swami Harihar Says: "Daily Study Of Only A Few Verses Of The Gita Will Recharge Mental Batteries And Add Meaning To The Dull Routine Life Of Modern Society." For Serious Students, Daily Study Of One Chapter Of The Gita, Or Several Verses From The Forty Selected Verses Given In The End Of This Book Is Highly Recommended.

Whoever Hears This Sacred Dialogue With Faith And Without Cavil Becomes Free From Sin, And Attains Heaven ¾ The Higher Worlds Of Those Whose Actions Are Pure And Virtuous. (18.71 )

A Summary Of The "Glory Of The Gita" As Elaborated In The Scriptures Is Given Below. Reading This Glory Of The Gita Generates Faith And Devotion In The Heart That Is Essential For Reaping The Benefits Of The Study Of The Gita.

The Goal Of Human Birth Is To Master The Mind And Senses And Reach One's Destiny. A Regular Study Of The Gita Is Sure To Help Achieve This Noble Goal. One Who Is Regular In The Study Of The Gita Becomes Happy, Peaceful, Prosperous, And Free From The Bondage Of Karma Though Engaged In The Performance Of Worldly Duties. The One Who Studies Even Few Verses Of The Gita Every Day Is Not Tainted By Sin Just As Water Does Not Stain A Lotus Leaf.

The Gita Is The Best Abode Of Lord Krishna. The Spiritual Potency Of The Lord Abides In Every Verse Of The Gita. The Bhagavad-Gita Is The Storehouse Of Spiritual Knowledge. The Lord Himself Spoke This Supreme Science Of The Absolute Containing The Essence Of All The Scriptures For The Benefit Of Humanity.

All The Upanishads Are The Cows; Arjuna Is The Calf; Krishna Is The Milker; The Nectar Of The Gita Is The Milk; And The Persons Of Purified Intellects Are The Drinkers. One Need Not Study Any Other Scripture If He Or She Seriously Studies The Gita, Contemplates On The Meaning Of The Verses, And Practices Its Teachings In One's Daily Life.

The Affairs Of The World Run By The First Commandment Of The Creator - The Teachings Of Selfless Service - So Beautifully Expounded In The Gita. The Sacred Knowledge Of Doing One's Duty Without Looking For A Reward Is The Original Teaching That Alone Can Lead To Salvation. The Gita Is Like A Ship By Which One Can Easily Cross The Ocean Of Transmigration , And Attain Liberation.

It Is Said That Wherever The Gita Is Chanted Or Read With Love And Devotion, Lord Makes Himself Present There To Listen And Enjoy The Company Of His Devotees. Going To A Place Where Gita Is Regularly Chanted Or Taught Is Like Going To A Holy Place Of Pilgrimage. Lord Himself Comes To Take The Devotee To His Supreme Abode When One Leaves The Physical Body Contemplating On The Knowledge Of The Gita. The One Who Regularly Reads, Recites To Others, Hears And Follows The Sacred Knowledge Contained In The Gita Is Sure To Attain Liberation From The Bondage Of Karma And Attain Nirvana.

Though Engaged In The Performance Of Worldly Duties, One Who Is Regular In The Study Of The Gita Becomes Happy, And Free From Karmic Bondage. Sins Do Not Taint Who Is Regular In The Study Of The Gita. All The Sacred Centers Of Pilgrimage, Gods, Sages, And Great Souls Dwell In The Place Where The Gita Is Kept, And Read.

Help During Troubles Comes Quickly Where Gita Is Recited, And Lord Dwells Where It Is Read, Heard, Taught, And Contemplated Upon. By Repeated Reading Of The Gita, One Attains Bliss And Liberation. The One Who Contemplates On The Teachings Of The Gita At The Time Of Death Becomes Free From Sin And Attains Salvation. Lord Krishna Himself Comes To Take The Person To His Supreme Abode.

Gita Is The Heart, The Soul, The Breath, And The Voice Form Of The Lord. No Austerity, Penance, Sacrifice, Charity, Pilgrimage, Vow, Fasting, And Continence Equals The Study Of Gita.

It Is Difficult For Any Ordinary Person Like Us, Or Even For The Great Sages And Scholars, To Understand The Deep And Secret Meaning Of The Gita. To Understand Gita Completely Is Like A Fish Trying To Fathom The Extent Of The Ocean, Or A Bird Trying To Measure The Sky. Gita Is The Deep Ocean Of The Knowledge Of The Absolute; Only The Lord Has A Complete Understanding Of It. Nobody, Other Than Lord Krishna Should Claim Authority On The Gita.

O Arjuna, Did You Listen To This With Single-Minded Attention? Has Your Delusion Born Of Ignorance Been Completely Destroyed? (18.72 )

Arjuna Said: By Your Grace My Delusion Is Destroyed, I Have Gained Self-Knowledge, My Confusion With Regard To Body And Spirit Is Dispelled And I Shall Obey Your Command. (18.73 )

When One Realizes Him By His Grace, The Knots Of Ignorance Are Loosened, All Doubts And Confusion Are Dispelled, And All Karma Is Exhausted (Muu 2.02.08 ). The True Knowledge Of The Supreme Being Comes Only By His Grace.

Courtesy: http://www.gita-society.com/test/sec2/graceofgita.htm

Glory of Gita

Henry David Thoreau Says:
"In The Morning I Bathe My Intellect In The Stupendous And Cosmogonal Philosophy Of The Bhagvad-Gita, In Comparison With Which Our Modern World And Its Literature Seem Puny And Trivial."
	Ralph Waldo Emerson On The Gita:
"I Owed A Magnificent Day To The Bhagwad-Gita. It Was The First Of Books; It Was As If An Empire Spoke To Us, Nothing Small Or Unworthy, But Large, Serene, Consistent, The Voice Of An Old Intelligence Which In Another Age And Climate Had Pondered And Thus Disposed Of The Same Questions Which Exercise Us."
	Mahatma Gandhi Says:
"When Disappoint Stares Me In The Face And All Alone I See Not One Ray Of Light, I Go Back To The Bhagvad Geeta. I Find A Verse Here And A Verse There, And I Immediately Begin To Smile In The Midst Of Overwhelming Tragedies."
	Dr. Annie Besant On The Gita
"It Is Meant To Lift The Aspirant From The Lower Levels Of Renunciation, Where Objects Are Renounced, To The Loftier Heights Where Desires Are Dead, And Where The Yogi Dwells In Calm And Ceaseless Contemplation While His Body And Mind Are Actively Employed In Discharging The Duties That Fell To His Lot In Life."
	Swami Vivekananda Says:
	"The Gita Is A Bouquet Composed Of The Beautiful Flowers Of Spiritual Truths Collected From The Vedas And The Upanishads."
The Gita Wa s Preached As A Preparatory Lesson For Living Worldly Life With An Eye To Release, Nirvana. My Last Prayer To Everyone, Therefore, Is That One Should Not Fail To Thoroughly Understand This Ancient Science Of Worldly Life As Early As Possible In One's Life.
	--- Lokmanya Tilak
The Gita Is One Of The Clearest And Most Comprehensive Summaries Of The Perennial Philosophy Ever To Have Been Done. Hence Its Enduring Value, Not Only For The Indians, But Also For All Mankind. It Is Perhaps The Most Systematic Spiritual Statement Of The Perennial Philosophy.
	--- Aldous Huxley
I Believe That In All The Living Languages Of The World, There Is No Book So Full Of True Knowledge, And Yet So Handy. It Teaches Self-Control, Austerity, Non-Violence, Compassion, Obedience To The Call Of Duty For The Sake Of Duty, And Putting Up A Fight Against Unrighteousness (Adharma ). To My Knowledge, There Is No Book In The Whole Range Of The World's Literature So High Above As The Bhagavad-Gita, Which Is The Treasure-House Of Dharma Nor Only For The Hindus But Foe All Mankind.
	--- M. M. Malaviya

Interesting cases of Reincarnation

Clinical death is one of the biggest mysteries that modern science still cannot solve

Some people say they remember their previous lives and can describe what they saw and did when they were having other bodies hundreds or thousands of years ago.

Vladimir Zatovka, head of the reanimation department in the Kaliningrad regional hospital revealed many astonishing facts about life and death when journalists interviewed him several years ago. The experienced doctor believes that clinical death is one of the biggest mysteries that modern science still cannot solve. Indeed, patients who revive after clinical death say they get some mysterious information and learn new things. Journalists were slightly shocked to hear the doctor saying the soul actually exists and lives its individual life.

One of the doctor's patients, Irina Lakoba was in coma for about a month after she seriously suffered in a traffic accident. She recovered from coma and turned out to be quite a different person. Before the accident, the woman worked as an engineer at a large fish company for twenty years. But when she regained consciousness after the coma, the woman said she saw herself being a little girl standing on the bank of some south river and even began speaking some strange language. Experts from the philology department of the Kaliningrad University stated that was one of Swahili dialects. Later, the woman began composing verses in this dialect and even translated them into Russian, English and French, the languages that she had never learnt before the accident.

Shortly before Irina recovered from coma, the doctor talked to her husband. They met in a room two floors above the ward where the patient stayed. But when the woman recovered, she told precisely what both men were talking about during that meeting. What is more, she described things which she could not see and hear when she was in coma. She said she had seen and heard everything because she could walk about the hospital. At that, she said she was watching her body staying in bed and was shocked to see it was old and ugly. She said she was a little healthy girl while walking about the hospital.

This is real reincarnation, the doctor says. Followers of esoteric doctrines, Hinduists and Buddhists never hesitate that there is no death at all; they believe the soul reincarnates endlessly. But people brought up according to the Orthodox traditions and scientific atheism can hardly believe it is so. It was a couple of decades ago that reincarnation was considered a myth, but now it is forming a scientific conception that is winning an increasing number of supporters.

It took American reanimatologist Raymond Moody thirty years within which he wrote several books about the after-life phenomenon before he managed to convince majority of his readers that cardiac arrest and cessation of brain activity do not mean the end. Those patients who revived from the dead told the doctor similar stories about the light they saw at the end of a long tunnel, about dead relatives who came to tell about new life coming and about a better world. Moody and his followers collected thousands of evidence of this sort; all stories told by patients coincide in every particular detail, which means these stories cannot be a forgery.

The conclusions made by Moody give people some hope for immortality; but at the same time they have already won lots of opponents. Famous psychiatrist Stanislav Grof is the most competent critic of Moody's conclusions. He conducted experiments with those patients who revived after clinical death. During the experiment, Stanislav Grof arrived at a conclusion that the tunnel many people see during their clinical death is in fact an impression of a baby going through the long and narrow birth canal. Thus, the bright light they see at the end of the tunnel is in fact an obstetrics ward where babies are delivered. As it turned out, even people who never went through clinical death see the same tunnel when put under hypnosis.

Other opponents to Moody, physician Paul Kurtz, physiologist Jack Kowan and neurobiologist Elizabeth Clark state that the vision of a tunnel is produced with those parts of the dying cerebral cortex that controls vision. This happens because of oxygen deficit in dying cells; as a result, stimulation waves form concentric circles. We can see such circles after we dive and stay under water too long or hang with the head down. The dying consciousness sees the circles as forming a tunnel. Materialist researchers are sure that all the rest are fancies and dreams that people have in an unconscious state.

However, even these experts cannot explain why even patients whose brain no longer functions still see the tunnel, the bright light and dead relatives. Russian neurophysiologist Natalya Bekhtereva wrote about the thought and its origin in her works. She said that human brain is the greatest mystery, and it will take incredibly much time before scientists study it.

The lack of oxygen in tissues and organs is not the reason why people experiencing clinical death see their bodies lifeless on an operating table or in a reanimation ward and hear what doctors or other patients say.

Researcher from Holland Van Lommel studied the phenomenon while working with patients and arrived at a conclusion that dying people see visions at the moment when their central nervous system cuts off. This in its turn proves that consciousness is not a brain function. Doctors verified clinical death of one of Lommel's patients. A tube for mechanical ventilation of lungs was inserted into the patient's larynx. For that, the patient's denture was taken out. In an hour and a half, the man's heart started beating; in a week the patient came to his senses and asked to give him his denture. But doctors could not remember where they put the denture. Then, the patient said he saw where doctors had put the denture, as he was soaring above the body when the doctors were saving his life.

French woman Annel Besier living in Moscow says she can recollect her previous lives. She wrote a book about her previous reincarnations. Annel is sure that it is not necessary to die to experience reincarnation. The author does not remember the exact number of her reincarnations. According to the karma doctrine, each of us has had thousands of reincarnations, and our soul does not always reincarnate into the human body, it may also belong to an animal.

There are many people who remember their previous lives. Muscovite Olga Kuleshova, 37, knows perfectly well that before her birth 37 years ago she was a violinist living in England (she has partially retained the skills although she never learnt to play the violin). Before that, she served in the house of a rich magnate in India. Olga says that 200 years ago she was a concubine of a Turkish sultan and also that in Medieval Italy Michelangelo was her tutor in painting. Indeed, Olga can draw resembling the Michelangelo style and speaks the old Italian language (she says she never learnt the language). May this be true? There is no opportunity to verify this.

Academician with the Russian Academy of Sciences Vlail Kaznacheyev says the reincarnation phenomenon is undoubted, as it has been given much confirmation. However, none of the hypotheses currently existing as concerning the issue can actually explain the phenomenon. Unfortunately, there is no scientific theory of reincarnation.

But is not it better to be unaware of what is going to happen after we die? Nothing, immortality or endless reincarnation? Each of us hopes there is no end to life, but we never think that this eternity may be even worse than death. Academician Kaznacheyev is sure that life we are having now and here is the only undoubted wonder.

Natalia Leskova

Courtesy: http://english.pravda.ru/science/19/94/377/15151_reincarnation.html

Physical immortality after death

Medical experts state that imperishable remains of senior lama of East Siberian Buddhists, Dasha-Dorjo Itigelov who died in 1927 are similar to tissues of a living man.

Khambo lama Dasha-Dorjo Itigelov (1852-1927) died not far from the Russian city of Ulan-Ude, the place where the well-known Ivolginsk datsan (spiritual center for Russian Buddhists) was built in 1947. When dying, the lama bequeathed that his sarcophagus must be opened some time later to see in what condition the remains would be. The lama died meditating sitting in the lotus pose, the way typical of a yoga leader.

Since that, the lama remains were unearthed three times, in 1955, 1973 and 2002. Monks of the Ivolginsk datsan say that each time the remains proved to be intact; they were not exposed to decay. It even seemed that the man just died.

After the last exhumation, the monks decided not to bury the body and placed it into a special glass pack sarcophagus. The sarcophagus was mounted in a special room; it is taken out of the room for the faithful to see the remains. It is prohibited to take photos or video of the lama dead body. The monks say this contradicts Buddhist traditions. Last time the sarcophagus was opened September 11, 2002 in presence of members of the Russian Buddhist traditional sangha and also medical experts.

Head of the identification department in the Russian Forensic Medical Expertise Institute Doctor of medical sciences Viktor Zvyagin told a Nezavisimy Vzglyad newspaper correspondent that identity of the lama body was confirmed by eyewitnesses who had taken part in the previous exhumation. Researchers were astonished at the phenomenon and asked the monks to let them have some of the lama's hair and nails for an analysis. Viktor Zvyagin says that in many parameters the body of the lama looks like a living man's body. Indeed, the skin is flexible, the joints can be moved and so on. Researchers were incredibly surprised when an infrared analysis of the lama tissue samples revealed them to be absolutely resembling tissues of a living man.

The imperishability phenomenon is now well known. There are several reasons why dead bodies can remain intact within thousands of years. Artificial or natural mummification is one of the reasons. Viktor Zvyagin says that natural mummification can be found not only at South African cemeteries. The researcher said that archeologists discovered up to 200 mummies in good condition during the archeological dig on Moscow's Manezh Square. Am ancient cemetery was located there many years ago.

Besides mummification, dead bodies can remain intact also thanks to peat tanning and adipocere treatment which makes dead bodies some kind of a soap. The dead body of Private Doctor of the Russian tsar family Botkin was found in this very condition. Viktor Zvyagin says that no thorough analysis of the doctor's body was done; experts just conducted a tomography analysis to find bullets in the body.

However, none of the above-mentioned methods was used to make the lama's dead body imperishable. Buddhists say that only the most advanced yoga can fall into some particular condition before death and purify themselves so that his dead body could not decay. They also say that besides Itigelov's body, there are just three intact remains of Buddhist saints who are kept in China, India and Vietnam. A Tibetan monastery where one of the imperishable bodies was kept was destroyed in 1959 and the dead body was gone.

It may happen so that the imperishability phenomenon is not an absolute privilege of religious figures only.

Viktor Zvyagin says that during an archeological dig in Italy 15 years ago a dead body of a simple girl was found in this condition. Unfortunately, the researcher says no thorough analysis of the discovery was done. He also adds that researches of this type are at their earliest stage today.

Courtesy: http://english.pravda.ru/science/19/94/378/15173_immortality.html