My Thapass during past 5 years - Bhagavad Gita

I started listening to Bhagavad Gita Thathwa pravachanam by Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha way back in 2016. it is almost 5 years now and I am through all the 735 episodes. Here, noting down how I got into it and what is learned from it. 

Bhagavad Gita is part of the great epic Mahabharatha. But, the Mahabharatha story that I read from various sources built mountains of confusions in me over the years. At the same time, many saints and well educated people viewing Mahabharatha as a unique valuable Epic added more oil to the fire of confusion. What was I missing which prevented me to understand the value of Mahabharatha? At the same time, I had never understood what was there in Bhagavad Gita. I thought it was a more interesting story told by Krishna to Arjuna. Trying to read and understand Bhagavad Gita took me to that level of almost losing my interest in it. All these were some 15 or 20 years ago. Basically two unresolved items -  lack of proper understanding of Mahabharatha and lack of understanding the Story of Bhagavad Gita.  

Hailing from Kerala, where the roots of Leftist thoughts are deep into society, while growing up there I had looked down on the culture, religion, or anything that makes India unique. After becoming a Computer Engineer, coming to USA, and earning well (at that time), it felt like the world was under my feet. But, a health issue which made me handicapped, completely changed the scene.. and I could not walk without crutches for almost 5 years.. and there were high chances of me being in wheel chair for the rest of my life. Even though, I lived in a place with state of the art Western Medical facilities, it was Traditional Chinese Medicine which brought back the confidence back in me and later Ayurveda which made me to walk without crutches. During this long period of treatment, a few other positive things also happened… not due to Western Medicines.. but by Traditional Medicines.. My 25 year old Asthma, which I could not control with all kinds of Western Medicines was brought under control in 3 days by a Traditional Chinese Medicine.. A skin eczema problem which could not be controlled by any of the Western Doctors I consulted was brought under control with a Rs.300 Ayurvedic medicine. These events changed my view towards the world… I started analyzing my thought process and understood that, all these years I have been living in absolute darkness. How can I remove all these darkness?  

The biggest lesson that I have learned in my life is that.. if you sincerely wish for something it will happen. 

During, the severe health issues, there was no Bhagvad Gita or Mahabharatha in my mind. But, after I started walking without crutches, in 2014 or 2015, a friend told me about Swami Bhoomanada Tirtha’s talks in Asianet on Bhagavatham or Bhagavad Gita and wanted me to open Youtube channel and listen to him exactly at that moment itself. I was not ready and politely refused  since I was in an active path of learning about health issues and Traditional Medicines (since that was my life saver, right?). In this process, it became more and more clear to me that, India is much richer in this aspect than any other country in the world. At that time, I did not realize that I was slowly getting pulled into the path to correctly understand the culture of India. And eventually, in 2016 I had the first urge to listen to Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha’s talks.. Now, almost 5 years have gone by.. Now, I understand why India is unique and distinct from rest of the world and why it survived over these many years. 

There are many pros and a very few cons to Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha’s talks. 

There are many who have given talks about Bhagavad Gita. Whom should we listen to? It depends on us… Frequency of the listener should match with frequency of the speaker. That’s what I wrote earlier..  “If you sincerely wish for something, it will happen”… and I got connected to Swami Bhoomanada Tirtha’s talks. He is extremely knowledgeable in Bhagavad Gita, Bhagavatham, Upanishads, Vedantha, Ramayanam.. everything. But, having knowledge is not good enough, one should have the ability to explain it in an easy and attractive style. Swamiji’s talking style is like a Grandfather talking to his children, wishing them well for everything in life, his Malayalam is so pure and clean, he is informative and persuasive etc… To me, once I started listening.. I could not stop that. 

Swami Bhoomanada Tirtha was not just explaining shlokas in Bhagavad Gita one by one. He covers the broad spectrum of Hinduism. Now, I understand more about Hinduism
- The core of Hinduism. How and why people are not able to reach the core of Hinduism? The equality expressed in the core of Hinduism supersedes everything  (e.g. Leftist thoughts, equality preached by many of those ideologies). Core of Hinduism will be acceptable to any Atheist in the world, if they are willing to listen to that.
- The true story of Mahabharatha (Majority of the confusions from childhood is over) and Bhagavad Gita.
- There are many other Gitas like Ashtavakra Gita, Uddhava Gita etc. 
- Vedas, Upanishads and how they are connected to Bhagavad Gita. 
- We know about Ramayana ( 24000 shlokas) but don’t know about Yoga Vasishtam (32000 shlokas).
- The fundamental message is the same in Bhagavad Gita, Upanishads, Yoga Vasishtam, Bhagavatham, Uddhava Gita, Ashta Vakra gita etc. 
- All of us are educated. What is that we missed in our education?
- Difference between Epic and History.
- Why Mahabharatha and Ramayana is superior to any other literature in the world and why it survived so long?
- What is Athman & what is Brahman? How well it explains the equality of everything in the universe.
- Vivekachoodamani by Shankaracharya and what he has done for Hinduism
- Importance of Krishna and Rama in Life.
- Story of Mahabali and the stupidity followed by Malayalis in celebrating Onam.
- What is the real Bhakthi? The Bhakthi followed by people are not the real Bhakthi. 
- What is Saankhya Philosophy?

 

There are many more..

Listening to Swami Bhoomananda’s talks went well for the first 50 episodes which was Mahabharatha Story told as a context leading to Bhagavad Gita. Then Bhagavad Gita started and everything went over my head. I continued to listen to 50 more episodes and then stopped. The problem was with me that, I thought Bhagavad Gita was a story.. while it was pure Philosophy. One day, I talked about Swamiji’s talks to a co-worker in office. He was 15 years younger to me.. but my tone was as if I had got enlightened. Within 5 minutes he realized what I lacked and asked me to listen to Swamy Sarvapriyananda’s “Who am I?” talk (again… If one sincerely wishes something, it will happen). After listening to that, I understood that Bhagavad Gita was not a story.. but a philosophy. Then I went back to Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha’s talks and started again from Episode 1. After that, I have not looked back. I have listened to many episodes multiple times, took a lot of notes.. Overall, I might have spent about 1200 hours over last 5 years…

Did I get enlightened? No.. That’s a long way to go.. and it may not happen during this life. Understanding from a theory point of view itself will help.. a lot. 
Do I know Bhagavad Gita shlokas? No. But, that can be learned if needed.
Am I an expert on these? No way. Like a snail, it is just a step forward, that’s all.

What are the minor cons of Swamiji’s talks…? The problem comes with Swamiji’s diverse knowledge from various sources. He may start explaining a shloka from Bhagavad Gita, then will go to Ramayana - Yoga Vasishtam - Bhagavatham - Viveka Choodamani - Upanishads… and then back to the Gita shloka. It may happen over 4 or 5 episodes and we may lose track from where it started. This was a real problem for me initially… but, eventually I overcame this by noting down what he talked about. Another minor issue was that, there are a lot of repetition about some topics… majority of the repetition is good to make the idea cemented in our brain… but, a few times it had tested my patience… 

I would highly recommend Swamij’s talks to everyone, provided you have the quality of persistence. His talks are rich with knowledge and information, but the only catch is the long duration of it. It does not matter if you decided not to listen to Swamiji’s talks. But, understanding the philosophy described in Bhagavad Gita is a must for everyone.. and I would sincerely suggest you find someone who talks about it and matches your frequency.

PS: In my opinion, don’t try to read and understand, but try to listen

[06/06/2021]