Source: This is how it all began p 121 Gita Today published 5 Oct 2004

Source: The Turning Point p 4 Gita Today 2nd revised edition published 25 Jun 2007

It was 1 November 2001, 10 PM at 2015-25 Mabelle Avenue, Etobicoke ON M9A 4Y1 Canada. I was resting at its northeast corner room while listening to BhagavadGita1 last Adhyaay-18.

It was Shlok-61 that held my imagination:

Eeshwarah Sarv'bhootaanaam Hriddeshe'Arjun Tishthati;

Bhraamayan'Sarv'bhootaani Yantraaroorhaani Maayaya.

In other words -

O Arjun! This body is like a machine.

Mounted on this machine, God with the aid of His Maya makes it move around in accordance with the individual's Karm.

He knows what is in the heart of each creature.

He is resident in the heart of all the creatures.

One morning as I woke up, I found all my desires having been extinguished, desires that had recently brought me back to Canada. It was Saturday November 10, 2001 at 25 Mabelle Avenue. I returned to BhaaratVarsh to start the work.

The work, however, did not go without interruption and diversions. After working on Adhyaay 2 to 9, I had an invitation to visit Europe. After three weeks I returned with a different mission.

On my way back while waiting at Milan airport I started work on another book "Journey of a Soul" (see Note 2), which held my full-time attention for about three months. It was an account of my own journey, which so far I had hesitated to share with anyone else.

Then I resumed work on BhagavadGita and started with Adhyaay-1, which I had earlier ignored thinking it had nothing significant except providing the background. But as I reached the discussions on dharm and adharm, and deeper I went; it brought me a new vision:

BhagavadGita was enacted to raise men of virtue, like Arjun to take a stand against Adharm.

This is when another diversion occurred that brought the beginning of yet another book "How long before the Dawn" (see Note 3), which held my full-time attention for about six months as it involved considerable research into the unfamiliar history encompassing a 2,400 year-period.

By now, my focus has considerably shifted form solely spiritual standpoint to a socio-political scenario of my nation, and it was the cause of considerable inner struggle to bring myself back on the path of spiritual writing once again. But this time, the writing was never same again.

The way it started was rather interesting. After describing the meaning and concept of dharm and adharm in detail, I thought of compiling real life examples of adharm so that readers can have a better feel of the concept and its significance in present day life of common people. So I started compiling historical facts that demonstrate undeniable examples of adharm. I started presenting them as part of this work itself under a section titled as "Real Life Examples of Adharm" with scanty little comments from my side and that too only when necessary. For, I wanted each example in itself to be so explicit that it needed no explanation.

It so happened that the list of examples started growing and I started developing an uneasy feeling that their presence within the pages of BhagavadGita was probably distorting the time honoured image of BhagavadGita as a work of spirituality for, many an examples had a socio-political-ethnic flavour. Besides, as I went deeper into these examples and widened their coverage I found a compelling need to comment on them, which I had initially avoided with care.

Thus, my involvement into the happenings around us in the world today, tracing them from about 2,400 years back, gradually mounted, encompassing Hindu society, Islamic society, Christian society, modern secular society and also an extension thereof which is reflected in hypocrite pseudo-secularist society, and Marxist society of recent evolution. I started working on suppressed historical facts, and ulterior motives of those influential in the ruling regimes, and analyzing what lay hidden behind the curtain.

At this point I felt the need for separating the entire section on Real Life Examples of Adharm out of this work on BhagavadGita, and present it with a totally different attitude, distinctly a socio-political-ethnic flavour, under the title of another book "How long before the dawn?" The size of that book expanded so much that it could not have remained a section of this work and it assumed the shape of a separate book on its own merit.

Realization of this brought about a significant change in my outlook towards and interpretation of BhagavadGita. I did revisit this book on BhagavadGita in between for shorter periods to complete the work on Adhyaay-1, while otherwise continuing my work on "How long before the dawn". After finishing that, as I returned to work on Adhyaay-2 of BhagavadGita, I found myself a different person, more inclined to logic than to emotions. This is how my original work BhagavadGita became "Gita Today" with a new name and new attitude.

Krishna encourages distorted pronunciation which was Paandav Queen Draupadi's name. I prefer to write Krishn without the tailing "a"

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Thursday, 20 November 2008 04:16 AM +0530