The Bhagavad Gita / Edition 2

by Eknath Easwaran

Overview

The Bhagavad Gita, “The Song of the Lord,” is probably the best known of all the Indian scriptures, and Easwaran’s clear, accessible translation is the best-selling edition. The Gita opens dramatically, with prince Arjuna collapsing in anguish on the brink of a war that he doesn’t want to fight. Arjuna has lost his way on the battlefield of life, and turns to his spiritual guide, Sri Krishna, the Lord himself. Krishna replies in 700 verses of sublime instruction on living and dying, loving and working, and the nature of the soul.

This book includes an extensive and readable introduction, which places the Gita in its historical setting, explains the key concepts, and brings out the universality of its teachings. Individual chapter introductions prepare the reader for the main themes, and notes, a Sanskrit glossary, and an index are included.

Although the battlefield is a perfect backdrop, for Easwaran the Gita’s subject is the war within, the struggle for self-mastery that every human being must wage. Arjuna’s dilemma is acutely modern, and the Gita’s message remains as relevant for us now as it was for ancient India.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781586380199
Publisher:	Nilgiri Press
Publication date:	05/17/2007
Series:	Easwaran's Classics of Indian Spirituality , #1
Edition description:	Second Edition
Pages:	296
Sales rank:	7,441
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Eknath Easwaran was director of the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation, which he founded in 1961 in Berkeley, California, after coming to the United States on the Fulbright exchange program as a professor of English literature in 1959. He is the author of many books on the practice of the spiritual life, including Meditation (1978), Gandhi the Man (1972), and Take Your Time: Finding Balance in a Hurried World (1994). Easwaran died in 1999.

Table of Contents

	Introduction	7
1.	The War Within	47
2.	The Illumined Man	57
3.	Selfless Service	71
4.	Wisdom in Action	81
5.	Renounce & Rejoice	91
6.	The Practice of Meditation	99
7.	Wisdom from Realization	111
8.	The Eternal Godhead	119
9.	The Royal Path	129
10.	Divine Splendor	137
11.	The Cosmic Vision	147
12.	The Way of Love	159
13.	The Field & the Knower	165
14.	The Forces of Evolution	175
15.	The Supreme Self	181
16.	Two Paths	187
17.	The Power of Faith	193
18.	Freedom & Renunciation	201
	Notes	7
	Glossary	225
	Index	239

Editorial Reviews

The most important, the most influential, and the most luminous of all Hindu scriptures.” —R.C. Zaehner

From the Publisher