Sunday, August 16, 2015
Sri Krishna’s Jnana Yoga" – Br. Shankara”]
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August is a month for the study of Jnana Yoga, an approach to realization through analysis, discrimination, and reason. The goal is to regain your freedom from all limitation. Vedanta’s scriptures and teachers say that life’s misery — its pain, anxiety, and sense of imprisonment — is caused by seeing inaccurately, due to “maya.” As a jnana yogi, you may break through that framework of delusion and see only the Divine everywhere, in everything and everyone, including yourself.
Sri Krishna said to his friend and disciple Arjuna —
“I am in all hearts, I give and take away knowledge and memory; I am all that the Vedas tell, I am the teacher, the knower of Vedanta…
And since I, the Atman, transcend the mortal and even the immortal, I am known in this world and in the Vedas as the supreme Reality…
This is the most sacred of all the truths I have taught you. He who has realized it becomes truly wise. The purpose of his life is fulfilled.” — Bhagavad Gita, Ch. 15 (Devotion To the Supreme Spirit)
In this talk, Br. Shankara discusses what Krishna is saying about Himself, and what He means by “truly wise” and “the purpose of life.”
We explore qualified non-dualism (Vishishtadvaita); in this context the words Atman and supreme Reality gesture toward the same Truth, the simultaneously immanent and transcendent Godhead: Brahman, with attributes.