How I Started to Study the Bhagavad Gita
Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I'd find a guru and study the Bhagavad Gita with him. This is the final part of the story of how it happened.
If you haven't read part 1 and part 2 of this personal essay, I invite you to begin there so that you're able to follow the thread of the story to its conclusion here in part 3.
Four days after G sent me the website link to the ashram, she followed up with me.
“Did you find time to visit the website?”
I’d had the time; I just hadn’t wanted to look it up.
A week later, I was scrolling through my phone messages when I chanced upon my text exchanges with G.
I stared at the web address of the ashram. Arsha Bodha Center, meaning The wisdom of the sages of ancient India.
Something in me moved my finger which landed on the URL. The link opened up a webpage. I saw a picture of Swami Tadatmananda. A white swami?!
I glanced at the tabs. Several classes were on offer. Meditation, Vedanta, language lessons in Sanskrit…
And that’s when my eyes landed on it. Bhagavad Gita classes.
I clicked the link and found nearly 140 videos of Swamiji teaching the entire 18 chapters of the Bhagavad Gita.
Give it a try, my cells whispered. Obediently I clicked the link to the first video in the series, Class 1. When I exited YouTube an hour later, I was so lit up I couldn’t wait to watch Class 2.
That was September 6, 2023.
I’ve been studying the Bhagavad Gita for 6 months and it has taught me and expanded me in all ways.
The first words I penned in my Bhagavad Gita journal are these: Gita = song; Bhagavad = of Bhagawan (or God). But we don’t translate this to mean The Song of God because the Gita is a collection of spiritual teachings. So, it is better known as Teachings from Bhagawan (or God), namely Lord Krishna.
The Bhagavad Gita is 700 verses and 18 chapters long. It is a sliver, albeit a profound sliver, excerpted from the great Indian epic, the Mahabharata (which contains 2000 chapters).
The Gita is a dialogue, between Lord Krishna and the mighty warrior Arjuna, which took place on the battlefield of Kurukshetra in Northeastern India.
What I Sought in A Guru And What I Found
Swami T, as he’s affectionately known, has an interesting background. He’s a white American who was raised in a religious Roman Catholic family. In his own words, “Those teachings didn’t work for me.” As a disillusioned young man, he lost his way for a few years before he found himself attending a Vedanta lecture by Swami Dayananda, the man who would eventually become his guru, .
(Side Note: A framed photo of Swami Dayananda hung on a wall in my grandparents’ home in Southern India!)