THE MESSAGE OF THE GITA What then is the message of the Gita and what its working value, its spiritual utility to the human mind of the present day after the long ages that have elapsed since it was written and the great subsequent transformations of thought and experience? The human mind moves always forward, alters its viewpoint and enlarges its thought substance, and the effect of these changes is to render past systems of thinking obsolete or, when they are preserved, to extend, to modify and subtly or visibly to alter their value. The vitality of an ancient doctrine consists in the extent to which it naturally lends itself to such a treatment; for that means that wh

THE DIVINE TEACHER A Unique Feature The peculiarity of the Gita among the great religious books of the world is that it does not stand apart as a work by itself, the fruit of the spiritual life of a creative personality like Christ, Mahomed or Buddha or of an epoch of pure spiritual searching like the Veda and Upanishads, but is given as an episode in an epic history of nations and their wars and men and their deeds and arises out of a critical moment in the soul of one of its leading personages face to face with the crowning action of his life, a work terrible, violent and sanguinary, at the point when he must either recoil from it altogether or carry it through to its

OUR DEMAND AND NEED FROM THE GITA The world abounds with Scriptures sacred and profane, with revelations and half-revelations, with religions and philosophies, sects and schools and systems. To these the many minds of a half-ripe knowledge or no knowledge at all attach themselves with exclusiveness and passion and will have it that this or the other book is alone the eternal Word of God and all others are either impostures or at best imperfectly inspired, that this or that philosophy is the last word of the reasoning intellect and other systems are either errors or saved only by such partial truth in them as links them to the one true philosophical cult.

Introduction This book has been compiled entirely from Sri Aurobindo's Essays on the Gita. The compilation has been done by a sadhak who is a disciple of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. In 1972, he had mentioned to the Mother his aspiration to bring out a small book on the Gita, of about 100 pages, specially suited to the young. The Mother had approved and blessed the project. However, due to various reasons, the compiler could take up the work only in 1987. Now that it is completed he gratefully offers it at the feet of the Master and the Mother. The Gita has a message for all. In this compilation the stress has been on those passages which could inspire the Youth and guide an

THE GITA FOR THE YOUTH A Compilation from the Writings of Sri Aurobindo SRI AUROBINDO SOCIETY PONDICHERRY First edition 1989 Second impression 1995 ISBN 81-7060-039-1 © Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust 1989 Compiled by Guru Pershad Published by Sri Aurobindo Society, Pondicherry Printed at Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry PRINTED IN INDIA

THE YOGA OF DIVINE LOVE Four Types of Bhaktas It is Bhakti with knowledge which the Gita demands from the disciple and it regards all other forms of devotion as good in themselves but still inferior; they may do well by the way, but they are not the thing at which it aims in the soul's culmination. Among those who have put away the sin of the rajasic egoism and are moving towards the Divine, the Gita distinguishes between four kinds of Bhaktas. There are those who turn to him as a refuge from sorrow and suffering in the world, ārta. There are those who seek him as the giver of good in the world, arthārthī. There are those who come to him in the desire for knowledge

THE CREED OF THE ARYAN FIGHTER The Divine Compassion "Whence has come to thee this dejection, this stain and darkness of the soul in the hour of difficulty and peril?" asks Krishna of Arjuna. The question points to the real nature of Arjuna's deviation from his heroic qualities. There is a divine compassion which descends to us from on high and for the man whose nature does not possess it, is not cast in its mould, to pretend to be the superior man, the master-man or the superman is a folly and an insolence, for he alone is the superman who most manifests the highest nature of the Godhead in humanity. This compassion observes with an eye of love and wisdom an

  THE GITA   For the Youth   CONTENTS Pre-Contents   Introduction   Our Demand and Need from the Gita   The Divine Teacher   The Human Disciple   The Core of the Teaching   Kurukshetra   Man and the Battle of Life   The Creed of the Aryan Fighter   The Gist of the Karma yoga   The Divine Worker   Avatar hood   The Vision of the World-Spirit   The Yoga of Divine Love   The Message of

THE GIST OF THE KARMAYOGA Beyond Fear through Yoga I have declared to you the poise of a self-liberating intelligence in Sankhya, says the divine Teacher to Arjuna. I will now declare to you another poise in Yoga. You are shrinking from the results of your works, you desire other results and turn from your right path in life because it does not lead you to them. But this idea of works and their result, desire of result as the motive, the work as a means for the satisfaction of desire, is the bondage of the ignorant who know not what works are, nor their true source, nor their real operation, nor their high utility. My Yoga will free you from all bondage of the sou

  THE GITA   For the Youth   CONTENTS Pre-Contents   Introduction   Our Demand and Need from the Gita   The Divine Teacher   The Human Disciple   The Core of the Teaching   Kurukshetra   Man and the Battle of Life   The Creed of the Aryan Fighter   The Gist of the Karma yoga   The Divine Worker   Avatar hood   The Vision of the World-Spirit   The Yoga of Divine Love   The Message of