Sitaram Das lectures on Yoga | Trinidad Newsday

By SEETA PERSAD Monday, April 16 2012

Addressing an audience in a penal mandir recently, Hare Krishna devotee Sitaram Dass expounded from the Bhagavad Gita (text of Hindus) explaining three types of yoga. They are Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yog and Jyana Yoga.

“The Gita offers a survey of the different possible disciplines for attaining liberation through knowledge (jnana), action (karma) and loving devotion to God (bhakti), focussing on the latter as both the easiest and the highest path to salvation,” he said.

He went on to explain that Karma yoga is essentially acting, or doing one’s duties in life as dharma, without attachment to results. Constant sacrifice of action to the lord results in the devotee achieving peace and happiness. “It is action done without thought of gain. In a more modern interpretation, it can be viewed as duty bound deeds done without letting the nature of the result affect one’s actions,” Sitaram told the attentive crowd.

He read the English version of the Bhagavad Gita as interpreted by the founder of the Hare Krishna Movement, Bhaktivedanta Shrila Prabhupada. According to this text, Krishna advocates “Nishkam Karma” or selfless action as the ideal path to realise the truth. The very important theme of karma yoga is not focussed on renouncing the work; Krishna focusses on what should be the purpose of activity.

Actions must be performed to please the supreme otherwise these actions become the cause of material bondage. These concepts are described in the following verses: “Work done as a sacrifice for the lord has to be performed, otherwise work causes bondage in this material world.

“Therefore, O son of Kunti, perform your prescribed duties for His satisfaction, and in that way you will always remain free from bondage.”

Krishna’s direct word is as follows, “Fixed in yoga, do thy work, O winner of wealth, abandoning attachment, with an even mind in success and failure, for evenness of mind is called yoga”

“With the body, with the mind, with the intellect, even merely with the senses, the Yogis perform action toward self-purification, having abandoned attachment. He who is disciplined in yoga, having abandoned the fruit of action, attains steady peace.”

Bhakti yoga is summed up as a mode of worship which consists of unceasing and loving remembrance of God. “The point is that mere knowledge of the scriptures cannot lead to final release. Devotion, meditation and worship are essential,” Sitaram said.

As Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita: “And of all yogins, he who full of faith worships Me, with his inner self abiding in Me, him, I hold to be the most attuned.

“Setting aside all meritorious deeds (Dharma), just surrender completely to my will (with firm faith and loving contemplation). I shall liberate you from all sins. Do not fear.”

Jnana Yoga, he said, is a process of learning to discriminate between what is real and what is not, what is eternal and what is not. “When a sensible man ceases to see different identities due to different material bodies and he sees how beings are expanded everywhere, he attains to the Brahman (higher) conception,” he said, adding that those who see with eyes of knowledge and can also understand the process of liberation from bondage in material nature, attain to the supreme goal.

All the 18 chapters in the Gita are designated, each as a type of yoga. The function of the yoga is to train the body and the mind.

The Gita, is a 700-verse Hindu scripture that is part of the ancient Sanskrit epic Mahabharata.The context of the Gita is a conversation between Krishna and the Pandava prince Arjuna taking place in the middle of the battlefield before the start of the Kurukshetra War with armies on both sides ready to battle.

Responding to Arjuna’s confusion and moral dilemma about fighting his own cousins who command a tyranny imposed on a disputed empire, Lord Krishna explains to Arjuna his duties as a warrior and prince, and elaborates on yoga, Samkhya, reincarnation, moksha, karma yoga and jnana yoga among other topics.
source: Trinidad Newsday

Speak Your Mind

*

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.