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Gita on the Green: The Mystical Tradition Behind Bagger Vance

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A Review of Gita on the Green: The Mystical Tradition Behind Bagger Vance By Steven J. Rosen Continuum International, 370 Lexington Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10017 (N.Y.-London 2000) pp.176. Index. Select bibliography

Reviewed by Madan Mohan

It is not often that a book is released that answers so many questions or does so many things at once. First, you have elaborate analyses of Bhagavad-gita, the ancient spiritual classic, and the Legend of Bagger Vance (both the novel and the movie). But more, you have a learned study of the interrelationship of the Gita and Bagger Vance, which is quite an achievement. The greater achievement, also accomplished in this book, is that the reader, without ever having read either the Gita or Bagger Vance, can walk away from this book with a clear understanding of both!

Bagger Vance takes the Gita, a spiritual dialog that occurs on a battlefield just before the onset of a massive war, and transposes it onto a golf course. Rosen, in Gita on the Green, takes the golf course and shows how the teachings of the Gita are indeed perennial, to be understood as much on the links as in a monastery. The charm of this book is that it conveys the Gita's teaching almost incidentally, while explaining a contemporary novel (Bagger Vance) and the Robert Redford movie that sprang from this novel.

But Rosen's book does so much more. It is also a autobiographical, with a Teachings of Don Juan sort of vibe. The author tells his personal story about meeting a saintly person in India and how he studied under this saintly person, much as Carlos Castaneda studied under Don Juan. This sets the groundwork for just who this author is, and how seriously he takes the subject. This also allows him to express his own initial reservations about the Gita, such as his repugnance for the violence of the battlefield (since, as stated, the Gita takes place in the midst of a great war). Pressfield, who authored the original novel of Bagger Vance, was impressed with Rosen's personal journey-- and his knowledge of the Gita-- and he consequently wrote a foreword for Rosen's book that all but makes one ask, "Hey, are these two in cahoots?"

After these initial introductory chapters, Gita on the Green launches into its analysis of the Gita, always mindful of the Bagger Vance parallels and golf as a metaphor for life.

Rosen is meticulous in his investigation of the Gita, offering details of its origin, its inclusion in the larger epic (the Mahabharata), and how it was originally meant to be understood (in the guru-disciple relationship). Moreover, he goes through each of the Gita's eighteen chapters and explains them in a user-friendly sort of way. He cites many Gita studies, books on golf, and contemporary works on psychology, such as those of M. Scott Peck, in order to highlight the Gita's central teachings and make them relevant for people of today. This is perhaps the book's strongest aspect: It takes an otherwise difficult Indic scripture and allows it to shine through with the simplicity of a modern-day novel. It offers readers the essence of the Bhagavad-gita in an accessible and approachable way. This, it might be added, is no small task!

I have read and loved many of Steve Rosen's books. GITA ON THE GREEN is a welcome and worthy addition to my collection of his books. I had previously read the Bhagavad Gita, but had little knowledge about golf, and hadn't yet read The Legend of Bagger Vance.

The reader will benefit most by reading Bhagavad Gita As It Is, The Legend of Bagger Vance, and Gita on the Green together, or in quick succession. With both simplicity and thoroughness, Rosen ties together and explains this ancient and eternal tradition expressed in the Bhagavad-Gita and how it is explained in the new context of golf for the modern reader in Bagger Vance.

Now, for it all to come full circle, I await the Sanskrit translation of Gita on the Green!

This book gives a relaxed and informative treatment of the essential doctrine of the Bhagavad Gita. If you're too lazy to read the Penguin Classic translation of the Bhagavad Gita, get this. Knowledge is the first step to enlightenment!

If you want to know what the Bhagavad Gita is about and are too lazy to actually read it, this is the next best thing. Great review of jnana, karma and bhakti (knowledge, action and devotion) concepts.

The Legend of Bagger Vance is one of my favorite books and I have spent a fair amount of time studying the Gita including reading portions of it in Sanskrit. I picked up Gita on the Green with high expectations but was quickly disappointed when I realized that it was written from the Krishna Consciousness perspective (A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada's Bhagavad Gita As It Is).
I would recommend the Stoler-Miller translation of the Gita.