Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.97 AVERAGE
3.97 AVERAGE
informative
reflective
slow-paced
interesting but not for me
This is a beautiful translation of this ancient spiritual work making it easy for the average person to understand. Each chapter begins with an explanation of the contents by the translator and there is a glossary of terms.
How does one rate or review a book that has been lauded for thousands of years as a keystone religious text and piece of beautiful poetry? 5 stars seemed the only option. The introduction to this particular edition is great, very accessible and insightful (coming form someone with no background in Hinduism).
This does seem to be a book that would speak differently to different people depending on what they are looking for, especially for the novice. As a young parent, I found pieces of this philosophy particularly confounding.
The idea of finding the supreme Self through meditation, a self that is beyond the veneer of daily life and that is unchanging through all things, what some people could call god, is an alluring concept. And it is one that I don't disbelieve. The connections between us all seem incredibly real at times. I like this idea of finding, as this book puts it, "the eternal beneath the ephemeral." It's also refreshing to read a faith text that assumes an original goodness rather than original sin.
But moving to the next step of this philosophy, resting your mind on that supreme Self in order to shrug off the dichotomies associated with the rest of life on earth - meaning loving friends and foes the same because they share the same core self and being affected by great joy and great sorrow the same because they are both external to the self - just didn't speak to me. While detachment may seem very ideal/pure/calm, whatever, it has some serious flaws. For one thing, love, pain, joy, grief... that's life, that's being human. A life without those things would be boring, and devoid of all of the wonderful things about this world. Beyond boring, it would be stepping outside of human experience... which for these sages is probably the point, so whatever.
More concerning to me at this particular point in my life (mother of a 2 year old and 7 months pregnant), is that this sort of detachment as the ideal form of existence seems to speak to non-parents exclusively. What two-year-old would survive a day if its parents were detached to the point where their love for their child were no more intense then, say, their love of watching CSPAN.
If anything, I got a great new favorite quote out of it... "Our lives are an eloquent expression of our belief: what we deem worth having, doing, attaining, being. What we strive for shows what we value..."
This does seem to be a book that would speak differently to different people depending on what they are looking for, especially for the novice. As a young parent, I found pieces of this philosophy particularly confounding.
The idea of finding the supreme Self through meditation, a self that is beyond the veneer of daily life and that is unchanging through all things, what some people could call god, is an alluring concept. And it is one that I don't disbelieve. The connections between us all seem incredibly real at times. I like this idea of finding, as this book puts it, "the eternal beneath the ephemeral." It's also refreshing to read a faith text that assumes an original goodness rather than original sin.
But moving to the next step of this philosophy, resting your mind on that supreme Self in order to shrug off the dichotomies associated with the rest of life on earth - meaning loving friends and foes the same because they share the same core self and being affected by great joy and great sorrow the same because they are both external to the self - just didn't speak to me. While detachment may seem very ideal/pure/calm, whatever, it has some serious flaws. For one thing, love, pain, joy, grief... that's life, that's being human. A life without those things would be boring, and devoid of all of the wonderful things about this world. Beyond boring, it would be stepping outside of human experience... which for these sages is probably the point, so whatever.
More concerning to me at this particular point in my life (mother of a 2 year old and 7 months pregnant), is that this sort of detachment as the ideal form of existence seems to speak to non-parents exclusively. What two-year-old would survive a day if its parents were detached to the point where their love for their child were no more intense then, say, their love of watching CSPAN.
If anything, I got a great new favorite quote out of it... "Our lives are an eloquent expression of our belief: what we deem worth having, doing, attaining, being. What we strive for shows what we value..."
Wow this book is dense on the first attempt. I can normally read a hundred pages in a day, but found myself reading three or four and feeling like I'd read a lot. The prose are beautiful and it's often most easily appreciated when read out loud. Reading a version with a commentary is nice, but I wanted to read one without a commentary my first time.
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
Well written translation. I enjoyed this a lot in the beginning and it became very repetitive. Was good for educational purposes but not particularly entertaining or enlightening in my opinion. I could have read the first few chapters then the last and got the gist.
This is a complex work of great spiritual depth. Passionate and often times painful to read. I will reread this work many times to come. Safe to say this book has changed my outlook on life.
Actually I also read one that was translated by E. Arnold. The Gita is equivalent to the Torah for the Jews and the Gospels to Christianity.
After years of talking about it I’m finally getting into my exploration of the worlds major religious texts!
An epic poem that teaches the simplest lessons about life and spirituality for every person.
