Gita Today

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Dr. Krishna Bhatta is from Ara which is a town in the state of Bihar in India. He did his M.B.B.S.and M.S. in Surgery from Patna Medical College and then went to U.K. where he got his FRCS from London and Edinburgh. He then went to USA in 1988 and spent four years at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University in Boston. He currently practices. Urology in Skowhegan, Maine. His wife Nayantara (Lekha) is an Obstetrician and Gynecologist and he has two children Nivedita and Amit, both of whom are physicians.

Dr. Bhatta is quite active in the community he lives in. He has been President of Maine Medical Association, serves on the Board of Sebasticook Valley Hospital in Pittsfield and has joined the board of Life Flight Inc. which provides efficient transportation to seriously ill patients for care at tertiary medical centers. His interest in quality of Medicine has earned him to be the chair of Quality Committee at the Maine Medical Association.

Dr. Bhatta has been interested in Bhagavadgita and meditation for a long time. His father Late Dr. Parmahansa Ray, Ph.D remembered Gita by heart and loved to follow it. It is possible that he developed his interests in Gita from that. He has a love for our scriptures including Upanishads. He admired Osho and took sanyas from then Bhagwan Rajneesh in Mt. Abu in 1971. Dr. Bhatta has been writing columns in newspapers, has been airing his views on radio stations and is involved in producing a television serial on Gita to be aired in near future, Dr. Bhatta continues to do his yoga and meditation and will continue to share his views on Bhagavadgita with his readers.

Gita is life affirmative; it teaches you to live life as it is, and face all the imperfections it has inherent in it. Realization of the ultimate is possible without leaving life. Krishna would like you to be at ease in all situations of life, be it in a boat on an ocean or a tank in a battle.

The Bhagvat-Gita is a priceless gem, which gives peace to every one that dwells long enough on its teachings. Since it deals with almost all aspects of human existence, earthly and ethereal, on rational and logical basis, it lifts the reader to loftier heights. At such heights the view of the spectrum of life becomes clearer, one gets a broader perspective and it is easy to understand the interconnectedness of every individual within the entire human society.

Because man has been bestowed with the great faculties of intellect, will and emotions, it is only after proper synthesis of these endowments, that he can realize the highest knowledge, become a source of purest love and be an instrument of luminous action.

The author, Dr. Krishna Bhatta, an eminent physician, who has always been passionate about the teachings of Gita, looks at it from the angle of Arjuna, who was naturally reluctant to fight his own family members. It is only when Lord Krishna removed the veil of ignorance, did Arjuna employ his body and mind in discharging his true duties that fell to his lot in his life.

Ayurveda has developed a system of preparing medicines of hyper potency. The Vaidya would prepare a condensation. It is followed by preparing another condensation out of the condensed material. The process is repeated, over hundred or more times, as required by the prescription, in order to obtain a final product of hyper potency.

If all the philosophical thoughts that are propounded by the Sanathana Dharma are gathered and condensed over and over again, even a thousand times or more, what results would only be a pale resemblance to the concentrated wisdom that is contained in about seven hundred small verses interposed into the Maha Bharata, disguised as a dialogue between Arjuna and Lord Krishna. The world identifies this portion as the Bhagawad Gita, The Song Celestial.

Though Bhagvad-Gita has been bequeathed to humanity by the Sage Veda Vyasa through the mythological epic, because it is considered to be of such supreme importance, it is part of the Prasthana Thrayee, along with the Upanishads and Brahma Sutras. The great Sri Sankara, Ramanuja, Vallabha and Madhava are reverentially referred to as Acharyas because they had offered their commentaries on the Prasthana Thrayee.

The Bhagavad-Gita therefore has molded Indian thought and way of life since the times of the epic itself.

Gita came into existence some 5000 years ago. It is a unique shastra (scripture), unique because it happened in the middle of a war (the Mahabharata war). Pandavas and Kauravas were ready for the war, and suddenly Arjun sees the futility of the whole war. He was concerned and affected most by the fact that the people he was going to fight with were all closely related to him. Some were his teachers while the others grew up with him.

Many readers are perturbed by the whole incidence. The arguments that Arjun presents to Krishna are all valid arguments. Intellectuals will definitely agree with the points made by Arjun against the war. Krishna on the other hand tells the whole Gita and at the end Arjun is ready to fight. It appears that Krishna is pushing Arjun to the war. Is Krishna preaching Himsa (violence) is the question? Gandhi was so perturbed with the story that he, in his interpretation of Bhagwad-Gita, denies the existence of the Mahabharata war.

I like many others believe that Mahabharata did happen. The question that always arises in many minds is, "What was going on when Krishna was saying the verses of Gita to Arjun?" There are some 700 shlokas in Gita. It must have taken some time. Were all the warriors just looking at the pair and wondering what was going on, or did the communication between Krishna and Arjun happen at a different level.