title: The Teaching of the Bhagavad Gita
author:  Dayananda Swami 
description: A classical interpretation for the modern mind. For centuries the Bhagavad Gita has remained the single most influential philosophical text shaping Indian thought and life. It addresses itself foursquare to the universal limitations each human being is confronted with: ignorance, sorrow and death. The teaching of the Bhagavad Gita opens with the audacious statement that all these are illegitimate problems caused by ignorance about the real nature of the self. Drawing upon the essence of all Upanishads, Gita explains how the self, the atman, is limitless, indestructible, unborn. This knowledge, Brahmavidya, frees one from all sense of limitation. This is the principal teaching of the Bhagavad Gita. Swami Dayananda's is a classical vedantic interpretation of the Bhagavad Gita. Without getting lost in a rigid verse-by-verse translation, he plunges with great verve and energy into the central theme of the gita, unerringly picking and choosing key verses to highlight its message. A highly respected and very popular teacher of vedanta, Swami Dayananda succeeds marvelously in conveying the profundity of the Bhagavad Gita, unfolding its teaching with a style and clarity which will appeal to every modern mind.
zlib_text: 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER I
  
  
  
  
  
  Monday Morning
  
  It was Monday morning. Swaminathan was reluctant to open his eyes.
  
  He considered Monday specially unpleasant in the calendar. After the delicious
  freedom of Saturday and Sunday, it was difficult to get into the Monday mood
  of work and discipline. He shuddered at the very thought of school: that
  dismal yellow building; the fire-eyed Vedanayagam, his class-teacher; and the
  Head Master with his thin long cane. ...
  
  By eight he was at his desk in his 'room', which was only a corner in his
  father's dressing-room. He had a table on which all his things, his coat, cap,
  slate, ink-bottle, and books, were thrown in a confused heap. He sat on his
  stool and shut his eyes to recollect what work he had for the day : first of
  course there was Arithmetic—those five puzzles in Profit and Loss; then there
  was English—he had to copy down a page from his Eighth Lesson, and write
  dictionary meanings of difficult words; and then there was Geography.
  
  And