Excerpts of Essence of Bhagavad Gita 6.0

Namaste Divine Soul,

Sharing the next part of excerpts from “The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita” Explained by Paramhansa Yogananda, as remembered by his disciple Swami Kriyananda.

With due respect and uprightness towards the scripture; this is to mention that no tempering, whatsoever, has been done with the original material and the excerpts has been put as it is from the holy book.

– Perform those actions which your duty dictates, for action is better than inaction. Without action, indeed, even the act of maintaining life in the body would not be possible.

– The religious rite of yagya symbolically offers the ego- self into the sacrificial fire for purification. One who aspires to liberation should do everything in a spirit of Self- offering to God. God’s power itself, then, is symbolized by the fire of yagya.

– Visualize yourself every night, before going to sleep, offering every thought and feeling that is centered in the ego, along with every desire and attachment, into the blazing fire of God’s love.

– Very few human beings are ready for the highest spiritual blessing: the help of a true guru. That all human beings need any help they can get, however, is surely very evident to anyone but the most arrant egotists.

– The fact is that man, having reached that high ledge on the evolutional climb up the mountainside of consciousness where he finds himself the proud possessor of an ego, wants to enjoy it for a time.

– In our love for other people, it is best always to give them impersonal love: to see God in all, and not to look to others for personal gain.

– Love should be expressed as a concern for their well- being; its impersonality should be without Self- interest.

– As a way of encouraging mankind to look to subtler energies for help, rather than depending solely on one’s own strength and ingenuity, mantras were also given in the Vedas for purely personal gain: wealth, power, an increase of family, etc.

– The thought was that, to seek such things from sources higher than anything material would direct gratitude toward those sources, causing people to depend more in higher help than in ego generated power.

– Without the whole-hearted assent of one’s will and of one’s whole consciousness, that noblest of all ends- the pure consciousness of Bliss itself- cannot be achieved.