The journey of life

“Knowledge is transferable, Wisdom is not“ Nobel laurate Herman Hesse opens his award-winning work Siddhartha with this profound statement. As we enter the 2 nd set of chapters in the Geeta, Krishna knows that he has transferred volumes of Life-changing knowledge in the 1 st six chapters. Hence, he aptly begins the 7 th chapter being called Gyan Vigyan Yoga loosely translated as the Yoga of Knowledge and Wisdom. This chapter is a pause, a bridge in our journey to introspect. The reason Krishna wants us to pause is that in the 1 st six chapters he has delivered a hard-hitting reality about You ( Twam ). Finishing with Dhyana yoga in the last chapter he wanted you to go deep within and realize that most of the ideas you have about life are false. In the next 6 chapters, Krishna the psychologist will step back and Krishna the scientist will take over as he talks about the higher reality ( Tat ). Hence, he uses the 7 th chapter as the bridge for us to internalize the knowledge a...

Let me ask a simple question: What are you thinking about right now? Just focus on whatever that thought is, whether it’s about an object, an experience or anything else. If you are able to do it for 12 seconds without thinking about anything else, you have achieved one unit of concentration ( dharana ) by the definition of yoga sutras. Further, if you are able to achieve 12 units of Dharana (144 seconds for mathematical minded) you have achieved one unit of Dhyana (meditation). Now this might be very different from your conceptual notion of meditation which probably looks like this: You are sitting peacefully in a tranquil location, cross legged, chanting a mantra or focusing on breath for one hour concentrated on an idol or an ideal. Obviously, this doesn’t happen easily for most and hence meditation ends up being a very frustrating & daunting experience for the majority. The 6 th chapter Dhyana Yoga is normally known as the chapter of Meditation, however, this chapter is much...