In Praise of the Bhagavad Gita

Temple priest reading the Bhagavad Gita

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For thousands of years, the Bhagavad Gita has inspired millions of readers. Here’s what some of the greats have to say in praise of this venerable scripture.

Albert Einstein

"When I read the Bhagavad-Gita and reflect about how God created this universe everything else seems so superfluous." 

Dr. Albert Schweizer

"The Bhagavad-Gita has a profound influence on the spirit of mankind by its devotion to God which is manifested by actions." 

Aldous Huxley

"The Bhagavad-Gita is the most systematic statement of spiritual evolution of endowing value to mankind. It is one of the most clear and comprehensive summaries of perennial philosophy ever revealed; hence its enduring value is subject not only to India but to all of humanity."

Rishi Aurobindo

"The Bhagavad-Gita is a true scripture of the human race a living creation rather than a book, with a new message for every age and a new meaning for every civilization."

Carl Jung

"The idea that man is like unto an inverted tree seems to have been current in by gone ages. The link with Vedic conceptions is provided by Plato in his Timaeus in which it states..." behold we are not an earthly but a heavenly plant."  

Henry David Thoreau

"In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad-Gita, in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seems puny and trivial."

Herman Hesse

"The marvel of the Bhagavad-Gita is its truly beautiful revelation of life's wisdom which enables philosophy to blossom into religion."

Mahatma Gandhi

"The Bhagavad-Gita calls on humanity to dedicate body, mind, and soul to pure duty and not to become mental voluptuaries at the mercy of random desires and undisciplined impulses."

"When doubts haunt me when disappointments stare me in the face, and I see not one ray of hope on the horizon, I turn to Bhagavad-Gita and find a verse to comfort me; and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow. Those who meditate on the Gita will derive fresh joy and new meanings from it every day."

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru

"The Bhagavad-Gita deals essentially with the spiritual foundation of human existence. It is a call of action to meet the obligations and duties of life, yet keeping in view the spiritual nature and grander purpose of the universe." 

"I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavad-Gita. It was the first of books; it was as if an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another age and climate had pondered and thus disposed of the same questions which exercise us."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The Bhagavad-Gita is an empire of thought and in its philosophical teachings Krishna has all the attributes of the full-fledged monotheistic deity and at the same time the attributes of the Upanisadic absolute." 

Rudolph Steiner

"In order to approach a creation as sublime as the Bhagavad-Gita with full understanding, it is necessary to attune our soul to it."

Adi Sankara

"From a clear knowledge of the Bhagavad-Gita, all the goals of human existence become fulfilled. Bhagavad-Gita is the manifest quintessence of all the teachings of the Vedic scriptures."

Swami Prabhupada

"The Bhagavad-Gita is not separate from the Vaisnava philosophy and the Srimad Bhagavatam fully reveals the true import of this doctrine which is transmigration of the soul. On perusal of the first chapter of Bhagavad-Gita one may think that they are advised to engage in warfare. When the second chapter has been read it can be clearly understood that knowledge and the soul is the ultimate goal to be attained. On studying the third chapter it is apparent that acts of righteousness are also of high priority. If we continue and patiently take the time to complete the Bhagavad-Gita and try to ascertain the truth of its closing chapter we can see that the ultimate conclusion is to relinquish all the conceptualized ideas of religion which we possess and fully surrender directly unto the Supreme Lord."

Swami Vivekananda

"The secret of karma yoga which is to perform actions without any fruitive desires is taught by Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita."

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Das, Subhamoy. "In Praise of the Bhagavad Gita." Learn Religions, Apr. 5, 2023, learnreligions.com/in-praise-of-the-bhagavad-gita-1770660. Das, Subhamoy. (2023, April 5). In Praise of the Bhagavad Gita. Retrieved from https://www.learnreligions.com/in-praise-of-the-bhagavad-gita-1770660 Das, Subhamoy. "In Praise of the Bhagavad Gita." Learn Religions. https://www.learnreligions.com/in-praise-of-the-bhagavad-gita-1770660 (accessed March 29, 2024).