Becoming the Gita is a year-long study of the language, forms, and meaning of the Gita. This one of a kind course was conceived of as a collaboration between myself and Camilla Baker, a fellow initiator and lover of Sanskrit.
We began with an idea that we wanted to share our love of Sanskrit, as well as, our desire to refine our own understandings of this beautiful language. As teachers of Vedic Meditation, it was a natural progression to wanting to teach what we had learned, to help our students further their inquiry into Vedic Knowledge. From this, first came the Primer, then the more experimental Becoming the Gita course.
As Vedic Meditators and students Exploring the Veda, we understand the layers of meaning and understanding of all storylines. We can apply this knowledge to distinguish between the surface Karma Kanda layer and the thematic Upasana Kanda and the deepest source layer that we call the Gyana or Jñana Kanda. With these perspectives, we can access and clarify these layers within the Bhagavad Gita, allowing us a deeper self-reflexive understanding.
In our year-long exploration of the Gita, we are beginning by transcribing the IAST transliteration. As a new language form, it creates a natural disorientation, that allows us to see with new eyes. This deliberate strategy takes us out of the intellect and returns us to the sensing body. The mind is learning something new, creating space for new understandings and new relationships. As we surrender to this mechanical process, we begin to learn correlations with the Devanagari, even more foreign to our English language-oriented mind.
At this stage, we will slowly integrate intellect, as we need to learn through associations. We will lean into our strengths to learn. The visual learners may be able to connect to the Devanagari in a multiplicity of visual ways, while the auditory learners can create connections with the sounds of the Sanskrit, and the sensory, feelers might intuit more subtle ways to create relationships with the two new language forms of Sanskrit. Each participant will create their own personal relationship with the text. As a group, we will learn from each other, as well as, create our own hand-written beginning of the Gita with Maharishi’s book as our guide.
As an intermediate beginner in Sanskrit and as an artist, my approach is inspired by devotion and the desire to create a connection to the essence of the message within the Gita. What I have learned in my journey with Vedic Knowledge, is that practice and personal experience are the basis of the true knowledge that is awakened in the process of doing. Understanding comes as a natural progression of personal experience, and profound realizations come with a regular practice of connecting the universal source within. As Maharishi Mahesh Yogi says in the preface of his translation of the Gita, “it is through Yoga alone that knowledge steps into practical life.” And we know, ‘Yoga’ in this context means the unification with the supreme Self within.
In Becoming the Gita, we physically become scribes and through this process, we enliven the seeds within. We will awaken potentiality and see where this takes us.
May we find inspiration in the process and journey!
Love & Jai Guru Deva,
Su