Gita – How an Ancient Manuscript can Help You Today
About This Project
How an Ancient Transcript Can Help Today
The Gita is an ancient manuscript considered by many to be one of the most renowned guides for a meditation in a development and happiness. It was written in 500 B.C. and it’s said the three aspects of the book illuminate the art of living, opening the heart, and the wisdom understanding who we are.”
“When doubts haunt me, when disappointments stare me in the face, and when I see not one ray of light on the horizon, I turn to the Gita.” -Mahatma Gandhi
Isaac Bentwitch is a medical doctor by training. He lives in Israel and currently works as Head of Innovation at The Technion, Israel’s leading university of technology. He’s also a profoundly philosophical man, inspired by the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita, or “Gita, A Timeless Guide for Our Time,” as he titled his new translation of the ancient Sanskrit Text.
Gita: Your sorrow is in vain, for the truly wise never mourn neither the living nor the slain.… there was never a time we were not me, or you, or these enemy kings, nor can there be any future in which we ever cease being.
Bentwich spent twelve years transcribing the text, which is a conversation between an Indian prince named ‘Arjuna’ and his master, otherwise assumed to be God. And the two of them are not speaking on some green hilltop, or in a calm classroom- they’re urgently talking to each other just before the Prince is forced into a bloody battle he does not wish to fight. And isn’t that life for all of us?
“The urgency of the battle is what draws us so powerfully to this dialogue, because you know we’re all facing our little battles as it were in life career parenting a spiritual search. life is fraught with challenges and difficulties and so the setting of this dialogue which invites us to actually listen to the inner voice of our soul is a is a powerful invitation.”
“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.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nobody really knows who wrote the Gita. Like the Bible, or the Koran, or other significant scriptures. This is a tiny scripture in comparison. It’s basically a poem of wisdom a form of 700 verses. it is a dialogue between a disciple and master
The Gita says only the person who knows one’s own inner self – knows true happiness.
Gita: Only one who knows Inner self – know true happiness. Happiness pure; Bitter first, but then lo what sweetness, From illusions sorrow – the cure.
The goal of the Gita is to encourage its readers to go beyond thoughts and intellect and memories. We may tend to live inside our mind inside our thoughts preconceived notions and even when we deal with these deeper questions we tend to deal with them as though it was a riddle. Gita invites us to go beyond the thoughts and emotions and discover our inner selves.
“I go to the Upanishads to ask questions” – Niels Bohr“
Path of action is where we start. How do we act in the world? How do we go tomorrow and buy groceries? How do we deal with our next day a domestic or work a problem? That’s the path of action, which asks; How do we live life in such a way that every day does not end with us feeling more in a worn out but more elevated?”
Bentwich says the path of action is followed by the path of devotion. How to open the heart, the intuition and the devotion in our heart. This allows us to go beyond intellect, because intellect can only get you so far.
“This is the book that enlightened me most in my whole life” – Johann Wolfgang Goethe
Bentwich says devotion or intuition allows us to appreciate the oneness and the sublime aspect of nature around us. We see a unity when the mind is calm, and for all of us at some times the mind is calm. We see it during sunset, or the chirping of a bird, all of a sudden the world seems more than just the noise. We feel a unity around us, a blessed unity. If we’re careful enough in looking and finally opening the way to realize that we are part of that unity, in fact we are Life itself. We are the divine itself.
“Quantum theory will not look ridiculous to those who have read the teachings of the Gita.” – Werner Karl Heisenberg
One of the things that is so striking about the Gita, is its timeless ability to translate to modern day questions. some of the world’s most significant luminaries, scientists, quantum physicists, spiritual teachers, poets and musicians have been inspired by it.
“The Gita deals with the very structure of the universe and consciousness and who we really are. Understanding that as quantum physics helps us realize – it seems as though I am separate than you. But in reality, you know it’s a soup of atoms and subatomic particles and there is a unity underlying it. This is the unity that the Gita and Vedanta philosophy describe.”
“Multiplicity is only apparent. The Unity and continuity of wave mechanics is entirely consistent with the Vedanta concept of All in One” – Erwin Schrodinger
The unity that unites us all, is everywhere around us. In our connection, in our cellular structures, and in our internal beauty.
“Beauty in the world is always around us. It is we that are sometimes open to see it and experience it and oftentimes regretfully we’re blind to it. we feel this these ebbs and tides of the degree of cleanliness of the windows of the soul and the mind throughout the day. And so beauty is when we are in those blessed times, when we are reminded and can melt into that which we are part of always. That’s where the true beauty is. And it’s always there.”