Chapter 12 | Bhagavad Gita Class

BHAGAVAD GITA CHAPTER 12

Bhakti Yog (The Yoga Of Devotion)

The chapter 12 study classes will cover:

•The four foundations of bhakti (devotion). The first is that the God who is omnipresent is also here. The second is that the God who is beyond time is here now. The third is that the God that is in everybody is also in me. The fourth is that the God that is everybody's is also mine.

•How the word bhakti (devotion) comes from the stem bhaja and the many meanings of the stem bhaja.

•A study of the Shree Suktam (invocation to Goddess Lakshmi for wealth and prosperity).

•The three types of shradhā (faith): andha shradhā (blind faith), ashradhā (no faith) and shradhā (faith).

•Why the path of the sagun sākār (God with form and qualities) has less difficulties than the path of nirgun nirākār (God without qualities and without a form).

•The definition of bhakti (devotion) as fixing your mind and your intellect in the Supreme Soul.

•A look at the history of the world. When the state of society is primitive then the more that the person will live with feelings. And the more that culture and civilisation advances then the more that the person goes beyond feelings and lives by the intellect.

•A study of the five states of chit (thoughts) and the peak state of having a mind that is ekāgra (one pointed).

•The first qualities of an ideal devotee: He who has no ill will to any being, who is friendly and compassionate, free from egoism and self-sense, even-minded in pain and pleasure and forgiving. How the root of all of these qualities is love.

•The difference between pity and compassion. Pity is an act of the ego whereas compassion manifests only when egotism goes away completely in its totality.

•The second set of qualities of an ideal devotee: ever content, self-controlled, unshakable in determination, with mind and intellect given up to God, He from whom the world does not shrink and who does not shrink from the world and who is free from joy and envy, fear and agitation.

•The third set of qualities of an ideal devotee: having no expectation, being pure, skilful in action, unconcerned, and untroubled, giving up all initiative (in action), neither rejoicing nor hating, neither grieving nor desiring, and renouncing both good and evil.

•The fourth set of qualities of an ideal devotee: He who (behaves) alike to foe and friend, also to good and evil repute and who is alike in cold and heat, pleasure and pain, who is free from attachment, he who holds equal blame and praise, who is silent (restrained in speech), content with anything (that comes), who has no fixed abode and is firm in mind, and he who with faith, holding God as their supreme aim, follows this immortal wisdom.

You can watch all of the chapter 12 videos by clicking on the below links next to the verse numbers.

Chapter 12 introduction: http://youtu.be/0ZHcVlSW_IQ

Chapter 12 verse 1: http://youtu.be/51eWw1glBCM

Chapter 12 verse 2: http://youtu.be/jS2qjbjyQYY

Chapter 12 verses 3 and 4: http://youtu.be/J859XmKH1WQ

Chapter 12 verse 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw7lIjkKOdk

Chapter 12 verse 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_s2XNu7v3Q

Chapter 12 verse 7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONc1vKNLIYQ

Chapter 12 verse 8: http://youtu.be/Tlce_ynaWbE

Chapter 12 verse 9: http://youtu.be/GiXBE7taudI

Chapter 12 verse 10: http://youtu.be/yO3hzpxKH0c

Chapter 12 verse 11: http://youtu.be/TfOxLhe0Y_s