Welcome to Vedicology. My name is Praveen Saanker. By choosing to read this page, I assume you are interested in accessing the timeless wisdom of the Gita to apply the same in your daily life. You are interested to learn the Bhagavad Gita to practice mindful living.
How to Practice Mindful Living through the Bhagavad Gita?
However, the first question that may come to any person’s mind is, What can a book written more than 5000 years ago educate us today when just about everything has changed? How can we Practice Mindful Living through the Bhagavad Gita, a book that is so ancient?
The Bhagavad Gita represents the essence of life as detailed in the vast ocean of Vedic scriptures. As a ship would sway violently in a turbulent ocean, our lives are always troubled by internal and external forces. Bhagavad Gita is so powerful that it can calm down the ocean of one’s inner self, thus enabling and arming us with the knowledge to deal with problems of the outside world. Years ago, this book completely changed my perspective on life and transformed how I deal with daily problems. Today I am more mindful of my existence, and you can also benefit from this exercise.
How do we apply Gita’s timeless wisdom to our daily lives?
The Bhagavad Gita has endured the test of time because the questions raised by Arjuna remain particularly relevant today. When Arjuna is faced with the biggest challenge of his life on a battlefield, he asks a most consequential question: “Krishna, what is my dharma (duty)?”. In answering this insightful question, Lord Krishna systematically deconstructs the psychology of human thought and its components: and that’s what we shall discuss during our program. How do we apply the timeless wisdom of the Gita in our daily lives?
We have several commentaries, and interpretations of the Bhagavad Gita have been translated into almost all the world languages. Very prominent English translations and commentaries are available in the market by intellectuals like Dr S. Radhakrishnan, Mahatma Gandhi, Lokmanya Tilak, Eknath Easwaran, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Kashinath Trimbak Telang, Edwin Arnold, Christopher Isherwood, Franklin Edgerton, among others. I don’t intend to discuss what’s available in most of these English translations or great commentaries since they are all available for you to access and learn.
Our Approach to Practice Mindful Living through the Bhagavad Gita
I want to discuss practising the Gita in our daily life and making the Gita a driving force in Our consciousness. As you all know, when a person writes a commentary on the scriptures, it is in the light of their own experience. It enables us to practice their teachings in our daily life.
My approach to the spiritual life is not that of a monk or sannyasin, because I have not retired from the world – I live as a family man, a husband, a dad to my two sons, a son to my parents, and a friend. Though I have heavy responsibilities in my current grihastha phase (householder stage of life), I take time for journeys into my inner self. So, I can understand the challenges of living in today’s world. Like any grihastha, I made the same mistakes as most people today. Because of this, I can help and guide those who intend to try to live more wisely.
I believe in the power of human beings and how we can work towards setting the world right. Even if it takes us a whole lifetime to learn to practice the teachings of the Gita, we shall have made a valuable contribution by taking the first step forward.
The Program structure for Mindful Living through the Bhagavad Gita
“Mindful living through the Bhagavad Gita” program is open to anyone beyond the age of 21. This program would be more suitable for participants in their grihastha phase of life (Gṛihastha means “being in and occupied with home, family” or “householder”). While the program is open to anyone, regardless of gender, religion, caste, or geographical location, we expect the participant to be fully involved. This is a free program from a financial perspective, but with a strong emphasis on your commitment to learning. This program requires a time commitment of two hours/per week from your end. The programme will be in the English language and will commence on Saturday, 4th March 2023.
The whole program structure is in such a way that we give importance to the ancient way of learning the Gita and discuss how these principles can work well by adapting it to the present-day life of a householder. The program contains one learning video every week. I shall record a “one-hour” session every week and upload it on our telegram group so that each of you can watch the learning video at your convenience. During this session, I shall chant each verse, and explain the meaning of the verse. After explaining the meaning, I shall chant each verse 3-4 times so that you can chant along with me and learn to chant each verse during the session. So during each session, we all learn 4-5 verses together, along with the meanings. Apart from these sessions, we shall have live zoom sessions once every 15 days to assimilate our learnings and discuss how these learnings can be applied to our daily lives. So, during our zoom sessions, we shall discuss the modern-day practical applications of the Gita. We shall discuss how the teachings of the Gita can enable us to be more mindful of our existence. We shall learn how the Gita can bring out the best in each one of us from the context of living as a householder with all our responsibilities. This program is open-ended. Our objective is to understand the Bhagavad Gita and try to implement a few of these teachings in our present-day life. Please note that we aren’t under any pressure to complete learning the whole Gita in a few days or months. The whole idea is to get into a learning mode, be more mindful of what we do daily, commence our inner journey, and, in the process, become a better version of ourselves. A version that we truly want to be. So, yes..there is no end date for this program.
In case we haven’t got introduced before, here is a link to my profile https://vedicologyindia.com/praveen-saanker-founder-of-vedicology-india-psychotherapist-life-coach/ . You can also go through my LinkedIn page here https://www.linkedin.com/in/praveensaanker/
If you are interested in learning along with me, please fill up the form below, and I shall reach out to you. Please mention your current location, occupation, email id and contact number. Let me also take this opportunity to invite you to join our telegram learning channel, where you can find information and access many of our free learning programs. You can join us by clicking the telegram button at the top of this page.
