The Gita
Alysson Johnson
World Religions
September 16, 2014
The Bhagavad Gita in Everyday Life My journey with The Bhagavad Gita (The Gita) has been an evolving one. It started out as a fun story that I was reading for class but it has evolved into a story that has left impressions on me. I never thought I would really take another religion seriously because I feel like I am so grounded in my own, but I have learned to really appreciate The Gita for its teachings and what it has done for other cultures. I never even realized it before this class, but I was already practicing some of the teachings of The Gita on my own. In my yoga classes over this summer, I dedicated myself to my practice using some of the qualities found in Bhakti Yoga. This is ironic because The Gita says that Bhakti yoga is, “the path taken by most of the mystics of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam” and I happen to practice Christianity. I realize I was uniting my mind and body to a devoted practice in my yoga classes. A teaching of The Gita that I had not had in my life before but am now aware of is self-realization. The Gita talks of itself being, “a handbook for Self-realization and a guide to action”. The idea of self-realization is so appealing to me; one would be crazy to not want to realize who they are. The most important thing I have taken from this idea of self-realization is that there are multiple paths in which to get there not just one. This applies to everyday life so well for me. There is not one way to pass this class, there are many. There is not one way to live my life, there are many. There is not one path I must take to attain happiness, there are many. Before The Gita I thought there was only one way to do things and the outcome would change depending on which path one took. Now I realize that there is no one way to attain a goal. I am still changing my path everyday as I am trying to find self-realization.
World Religions
September 16, 2014
The Bhagavad Gita in Everyday Life My journey with The Bhagavad Gita (The Gita) has been an evolving one. It started out as a fun story that I was reading for class but it has evolved into a story that has left impressions on me. I never thought I would really take another religion seriously because I feel like I am so grounded in my own, but I have learned to really appreciate The Gita for its teachings and what it has done for other cultures. I never even realized it before this class, but I was already practicing some of the teachings of The Gita on my own. In my yoga classes over this summer, I dedicated myself to my practice using some of the qualities found in Bhakti Yoga. This is ironic because The Gita says that Bhakti yoga is, “the path taken by most of the mystics of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam” and I happen to practice Christianity. I realize I was uniting my mind and body to a devoted practice in my yoga classes. A teaching of The Gita that I had not had in my life before but am now aware of is self-realization. The Gita talks of itself being, “a handbook for Self-realization and a guide to action”. The idea of self-realization is so appealing to me; one would be crazy to not want to realize who they are. The most important thing I have taken from this idea of self-realization is that there are multiple paths in which to get there not just one. This applies to everyday life so well for me. There is not one way to pass this class, there are many. There is not one way to live my life, there are many. There is not one path I must take to attain happiness, there are many. Before The Gita I thought there was only one way to do things and the outcome would change depending on which path one took. Now I realize that there is no one way to attain a goal. I am still changing my path everyday as I am trying to find self-realization.