How Gita transformed my life By Jyotsna Narayanswamy
M
y mother introduced me to the Gita during my childhood. In the nights, when we had power cuts, she would teach us the ‘sthita pragnya’ verses from chapter 2. I even remember participating in a Gita competition in my school which coincidentally was on the same set of shlokas. During my high school summer holidays, I first tried to read and understand the meaning of these verses from Swami Chidbhavananda’s book which was at home. I particularly liked the simple short stories at the end of the commentary on some of the verses by Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. One of the verses ‘aapurya-manam’ appealed to me so much that I ended up memorizing its meaning. When I started college, I began an attempt to learn to recite more chapters of the Gita with my mother and starting
with Gita Dhyanam. We almost finished the first chapter when I got into engineering college and due to time constraints, I stopped learning the Gita. I would just continue to sing the verses that I had learned once in a while and joined some group singing whenever I would get an opportunity. When I came to America to further my education, I bought a copy of Bhagavad Gita with me and would recite slokas occasionally. More than 10 years later, after I settled in Florida on a casual visit to one of our friend’s house. I got to know about a Gita chanting competition at a local temple on the same ‘sthita pragnya’ verses which I had learned as a child. Our friend provided me with the details and motivated me to participate. With a little practice, I could recollect the
A speaker at one of the competitions spoke very el oquently about The essence of the 18 chapters of the Gita and how Arjuna’s doubts and confusion were cleared by the end of eighteenth chapter where Arjuna said “nashto moha smratir labdha”.
verses and enjoyed participating in the competition. I introduced my son also to the Gita Dhyanam slokas and trained him to participate in the competition for his category. This re-kindled my Gita study. I then heard about a Gita chanting competition in the Chinmaya mission. A group of friends and their children who were interested decide to meet in the park on Sundays and practice Chapter 3 competition related shlokas. All our children are now in college but we all remember the wonderful memories of our study of the Gita at the park. A speaker at one of the competitions spoke very
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AUGUST 2021 - WWW.DESHVIDESH.COM
