The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary: Vols 1–3 (The End of Sorrow, Like a Thousand Suns, To Love Is to Know Me) (The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living, 1)

what lasting joy there is in trying to complete one another rather than compete against one another.

This is the great art of nonviolent resistance, where you love and respect everyone, but you will not allow anyone to exploit you, because it is bad for that person just as it is bad for you. Wherever we find a wrong situation – in our personal life, in our country’s life, or in our world’s conflicts – we all have a duty to work to correct it.

We are all granted a reasonable margin in life to make our experimentation with personal pleasure, but one day we must begin to suspect that it is not going to fulfill our deepest need, which is for Self-realization.

Mahatma Gandhi, who studied Sanskrit while in jail, pointed out that the Sanskrit word sat has two meanings: the first is ‘truth,’ and the second is ‘that which is.’ When asked for a definition of God, Gandhi said, “Truth is God. God alone is and nothing else exists.”

We can throw away the ugly ego mask at last if we will turn our face to the Lord, take to meditation, and do everything possible to bring peace and security to our world.

One of the Shiva mantrams is called pancakshara, the ‘five-lettered’ mantram, and for me the five pebbles that David was carrying were a five-lettered mantram with which he was able to defeat his own ego.

The word avyakta implies that our only purpose in life is to reveal the divine personality that is concealed in all of us. The

Preya, the passing pleasure that seems pleasing to the senses but soon fades into its opposite, is what we choose when we indulge in injurious physical habits or retaliate against others. Shreya, the good that leads to lasting welfare for the whole, is what we choose by cultivating healthy habits, by bringing conflicting parties together, and by pu

as long as our knowledge is limited to intellectual analysis, we will not have the capacity to make the world more peaceful;