Reflecting on the The Bhagavad-gita

[KALKI]

The Gita has long fascinated humanity and has inspired some of the greatest minds of all time. It is a short scripture with infinite significance packed into virtually every verse. The following are some comments of some eminent personalities of medieval and modern history.




Sri Aurobindo - (1872-1950, mystic, visionary, philosopher and revolutionary of India)
"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."



Albert Einstein - (1879-1955, Renowned Scientist)
"When I read the Bhagavad-gita and reflect about how God created this universe everything else seems so superfluous"



Adi Shankara - (8th century AD, renowned Hindu non-dualist philosopher)
"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."



Ralph Waldo Emerson - (1803-1882, father of American Transcendentalist philosophy)
"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"



Madhvacarya - (13th-14th century, influential Hindu philosopher)
"The Mahabharata has all the essential ingredients necessary to evolve and protect humanity and that within it the Bhagavad-gita is the epitome of the Mahabharata just as ghee is the essence of milk and pollen is the essence of flowers."



Henry David Thoreau - (1817-1862, American Transcendentalist philosopher)
"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 seem puny and trivial."



Mahatma Gandhi - (1869-1948, great religious and national figure of India’s freedom struggle era)
"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."



Rudolph Steiner - (1861-1925, century German social reformer and philanthropist)
"In order to approach a creation as sublime as the Bhagavad-gita with full understanding it is necessary to attune our soul to it."



Aldous Huxley - (1894-1963, British biologist, novelist and philosopher)
"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."