|Hari Om ||
In this year’s Adhika Masa, I got the opportunity to chant Purushottama Yoga from Srimad Bhagavad Gita as well as read out and understand the meaning of the Shlokas. The commitment and discipline required of this activity was beneficial to me in many ways.

It got me back to absorbing the content of Bhagavad Gita in detail which has always been my favourite in holy books. Over the years, due to various reasons, I had stopped reading this book regularly. Covering one shloka daily from Chapter 15 was ideal way to find my way back to this book. This led me to make a sankalpa to re-start the habit of reading Gita regularly.

For the reading in Yoga class, I wanted to be prepared to not just read out from the book but also to express my understanding based on detailed purport, which was also encouraged by my yoga teacher. I was also eager to review interpretations from different copies of Bhagavad Gita that was accessible to me at home (some retained since 1970s). I found this exercise interesting and rejuvenating as there are some variations in explanations but all the great persons who have translated and provided explanation/commentary arrive so beautifully at the underlying core context of each shloka. While I referred to multiple Gita books, for final reading and sharing in yoga class, I mainly used Swami Sivananda’s book.

In the process of preparing for class, on many days I got to practice pronunciation and discuss meanings, explanations etc. with family members. It wasn’t a deliberate effort, but happened organically which was an unexpected pleasant outcome.

In normal times, this activity would have been a joint one with participation from all members in class. With the objective of trying to attain some semblance of involvement from others, I asked few members in our batch to read out and share their understanding of shlokas on several days. The readiness with which most members agreed to do so was very heartening. I am grateful to them for being open-minded and participative.

I felt a distinct sense of new keenness, enthusiasm and happiness from the overall experience.
||Hari Om Tat Sat||

– Mridula_BgG