The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living, Volume 1: The End of Sorrow
Eknath Easwaran is a foremost translator and interpreter of the much-loved Indian scripture, the Bhagavad Gita. He liked to say that his verse-by-verse commentary grew like a tree issuing directly from his life, which was so rooted in the Gita that he found a deep understanding of its teachings in the most everyday experiences – sharing a treat with young children, walking with friends down a busy street, or watching a mime in San Francisco’s Union Square.
Easwaran translates each verse, relates it to our modern lives through stories and anecdotes, and gives us spiritual exercises that we can use every day. This first volume in a three-volume set covers chapters 1–6 of the Gita, and concentrates on the individual: the nature of our innermost Self, how it can be discovered in the depths of consciousness, and how this discovery transforms daily life. The introduction includes instructions in Easwaran’s universal method of passage meditation.
"The wisdom contained in The End of Sorrow demonstrates why Eknath Easwaran is one of the most eminent spiritual teachers in the world today." --Spirituality and Practice
"Radiates the warmth of a spiritual educator deeply concerned about the welfare of mankind." -- Dennis Lewis, San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle
"These sumptuously produced volumes offer a fascinating presentation of the Gita to the modern world. . . . The text in Sanskrit is followed by a faithful translation accompanied by a detailed commentary which is the most interesting part of the work. . . . His lectures are full of helpful anecdotes from the lives of eminent saints, yogis, thinkers in the West: one does not like to miss a single page. . . .The author is convincing, authentic and faithful in his exposition running into over 1500 pages of enabling reading matter reflecting his spiritual maturity and benevolence of disposition." -- M.P. Pandit, The Hindu
"This reviewer knows of no translation with commentary that so successfully combines breadth of scholarship with such depth of spiritual insight." -- Choice
Eknath Easwaran (1910-1999) is respected around the world as one of the twentieth century's great spiritual teachers and an authentic guide to timeless wisdom. Although he did not travel or seek large audiences, his books on meditation, spiritual living, and the classics of world mysticism have been translated into twenty-six languages. More than 1.5 million copies of Easwaran's books are in print.
His book Meditation, now titled Passage Meditation, has sold over 200,000 copies since it was first published in 1978. His Classics of Indian Spirituality - translations of The Bhagavad Gita, The Dhammapada, and The Upanishads - have been warmly praised by Huston Smith, author of The World's Religions, and all three books are bestsellers in their field. The Nilgiri Press editorial team, under the supervision of Easwaran's wife, Christine Easwaran, continues to publish new books and talks, drawing on the vast archive of Easwaran's unpublished transcripts.
A gifted teacher who lived for many years in the West, Easwaran lived what he taught, giving him enduring appeal as a teacher and author of deep insight and warmth.
Easwaran's mission was to extend to everyone, "with an open hand," the spiritual disciplines that had brought such rich benefits to his own life. For forty years he devoted his life to teaching the practical essentials of the spiritual life as found in every religion. He taught a universal message that although the body is mortal, within every creature there is a spark of divinity that can never die. And he taught and lived a method that any man or woman can use to reach that inborn divinity and draw on it for love and wisdom in everyday life.
Whenever asked what religion he followed, Easwaran would reply that he belonged to all religions. His teachings reached people in every faith. He often quoted the words of Mahatma Gandhi, who influenced him deeply: "I have not the shadow of a doubt that every man or woman can achieve what I have, if he or she would make the same effort and cultivate the same hope and faith."
Eknath Easwaran (1910-1999) was born into an ancient matrilineal family in Kerala state, South India. There he grew up under the close guidance of his mother's mother, Eknath Chippu Kunchi Ammal, whom he honored throughout his life as his spiritual teacher. From her he learned the traditional wisdom of India's ancient scriptures. An unlettered village woman, she taught him through her daily life, which was permeated by her continuous awareness of God, that spiritual practice is something to be lived out each day in the midst of family and community.
Growing up in British India, Easwaran first learned English in his village high school, where the doors were opened to the treasure-house of English literature. At sixteen, he left his village to attend a nearby Catholic college. There his passionate love of English literature intensified and he acquired a deep appreciation of the Christian tradition.
Later, contact with the YMCA and close friendships within the Muslim and Christian communities enriched his sense of the universality of spiritual truths. Easwaran often recalled with pride that he grew up in "Gandhi's India" - the historic years when Mahatma Gandhi was leading the Indian people to freedom from British rule through nonviolence. As a young man, Easwaran met Gandhi and the experience of sitting near him at his evening prayer meetings left a lasting impression. The lesson he learned from Gandhi was the power of the individual: the immense resources that emerge into life when a seemingly ordinary person transforms himself completely.
After graduate work at the University of Nagpur in Central India, where he took first-class degrees in literature and in law, Easwaran entered the teaching profession, eventually returning to Nagpur to become a full professor and head of the department of English. By this time he had acquired a reputation as a writer and speaker, contributing regularly to the Times of India and giving talks on English literature for All-India Radio.
At this juncture, he would recall, "All my success turned to ashes." The death of his grandmother in the same year as Gandhi's assassination prompted him to turn inward.
Following Gandhi's inspiration, he became deeply absorbed in the Bhagavad Gita, India's best-known scripture. Meditation on passages from the Gita and other world scriptures quickly developed into the method of meditation that today is associated with his name.
Eknath Easwaran was Professor of English Literature at the University of Nagpur when he came to the United States on the Fulbright exchange program in 1959. Soon he was giving talks on India's spiritual tradition throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. At one such talk he met his future wife, Christine, with whom he established the organization that became the vehicle for his life's work. The mission of the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation, founded in 1961, is the same today as when it was founded: to teach the eight-point program of passage meditation aimed at helping ordinary people conquer physical and emotional problems, release creativity, and pursue life's highest goal, Self-realization.
After a return to India, Easwaran came back to California in 1965. He lived in the San Francisco Bay Area the rest of his life, dedicating himself to the responsive American audiences that began flowing into his classes in the turbulent Berkeley of the late 1960s, when meditation was suddenly "in the air." His quiet yet impassioned voice reached many hundreds of students in those turbulent years.
Always a writer, Easwaran started a small press in Berkeley to serve as the publishing branch of the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation. Nilgiri Press was named after the Nilgiris or "Blue Mountains" in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where Easwaran had maintained a home for some years. The press moved to Tomales, California, when the Center bought property there for a permanent headquarters in 1970. Nilgiri Press did the preproduction work for his first book, Gandhi the Man, and began full book manufacturing with his Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living in 1975.
In thousands of talks and his many books Easwaran taught passage meditation and his eight-point program to an audience that now extends around the world. Rather than travel and attract large crowds, he chose to remain in one place and teach in small groups - a preference that was his hallmark as a teacher even in India. "I am still an educator," he liked to say. "But formerly it was education for degrees; now it is education for living." His work is being carried forward by Christine Easwaran, who has worked by his side for forty years, by the students he trained for thirty years, and by the organization he founded to ensure the continuity of his teachings, the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation.
If you would like to find out more about Easwaran's teachings and the Center that he founded please visit us at www.easwaran.org, and read our blog www.easwaran.org/blog
23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 starsThe most user friendly and accessible Gita, January 4, 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: The End of Sorrow: The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living, Volume I [India's timeless and practical scripture presented as a manual for everyday use] (Paperback)
I began reading the Gita in 1968 while in college. The book has been the one steady beacon in a live long quest for personal enlightenment. There are two outstanding Gita commentaries that I have come across. One is that of Swami Sivanda I found in a used bookstore in the early '70's (still available at sivanadadlshq.org). The other is this one. I discovered Eknath Eswaran's wonderful translation and commentaries in the mid-80's and though I have read several others, it is the one I keep on my nightstand, I take on trips, and give to friends. Eswaran's commentaries are by far the most helpful to the contemporary American. He is fully fluent in English, lives in the Bay area, and is from India where the Gita guided his life and the lives of his family and ancestors. He is not promoting a specific yogic school as most commentaries do, but is interesting in making the Gita ans useful and universal as possible. He does a great job. Reading Eknath Eswaran's translation is like gazing at the original Gita's spirit through clear, unruffled water. He also has a single volume version, without extensive commentary, that I also recommend highly (along with his volume of Upanishad translations and his translation of Buddha's Dhammapada).
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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 starsExcellent translation and commentary of this scripture, December 27, 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: The End of Sorrow: The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living, Volume I [India's timeless and practical scripture presented as a manual for everyday use] (Paperback)
I've read many translations of the Bhagavad-Gita; they range from mediocre to horrendous. Eknath Easwaran, however, has made this scripture not only accessible, but warm and inviting. The language is lucid, though always challenging. Even more helpful is Easwaran's extensive commentary on each verse of the Gita. He modernizes this scripture, and shows how very pertinent it is in today's turbulent world. Sri Easwaran is quite likeable--very funny, gentle, and unpretentious. The Bhagavad-Gita, simply put, is a book of two choices, and their consequences. It does not have a lot of do's and dont's, nor does it lead the reader to feel inferior or degraded. This book, in short, has tremendously shaped my life, and I believe it has the power to also do so for anyone who is lonely, confused, or simply wants some kind of guidance to lead them through life. Buy all three books; it will, I promise, be one of the best investments you'll ever make.
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This review is from: The End of Sorrow: The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living, Volume I [India's timeless and practical scripture presented as a manual for everyday use] (Paperback)
This book is one of the texts for my Eastern Spirituality class and it has made what could have been very difficult for Christians to understand (the Bhagavad Gita) into something simple and yet life-challenging at the same time. The Gita is indeed central to Hindu thought, and yet Christians can find much of value in it. Easwaran's modern translation and commentary can help any Christian who wants to go deeper into the spiritual life and follow the principles of Christ. Over and over again, meditation/prayer and service to others are emphasized, and if you have the discipline to read and apply these things to your own life it will be renewed and transformed.
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First Sentence:
"The Gita," says Mahatma Gandhi, "is not a historical discourse. Read the first pageKey Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
discriminating restraint, repeat the mantram, illumined man, walk repeating, selfless goal, meditation deepens, unitive state, selfish attachments, sense cravings, fierce thirst, abiding joy, selfless action, selfish satisfaction, deeper resources, inspirational passage, karma yoga, indivisible unity, supreme goal
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Sri Krishna, Lord of Love, Sri Ramana Maharshi, Sri Ramakrishna, Mahatma Gandhi, Compassionate Buddha, Lord Krishna, Bhagavad Gita, Blue Mountain, Jesus the Christ, Meister Eckhart, San Francisco, Holy Name, Francis of Assisi, Santa Rosa, Lake Merritt, South India, Telegraph Avenue, Eight Point Program, Meher Baba
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