After years of writing and preparation, we are happy to announce the publication of Abbot George’s latest book, The Bhagavad Gita for Awakening: A Practical Commentary for Leading a Successful Spiritual Life. Although it has been available for reading online at OCOY.org, it is now also available as a paperback and ebook at various online outlets (see below).
With penetrating insight, Abbot George Burke illumines the Bhagavad Gita’s practical value for spiritual seekers. With a unique perspective from a lifetime of study and practice of both Eastern and Western spirituality, Abbot George presents the treasures of the Gita in an easily intelligible fashion.
Here is what early reviewers say:
“I found reading Abbot George Burke’s The Bhagavad Gita for Awakening a genuine pleasure. While I was expecting another Gita commentary, I was delighted to discover so much more than just a commentary. Utilizing his wonderful gift of expression, and employing poetry, parable, personal experiences, and a generous dose of his own deep spiritual insight and wisdom, Abbot George has produced a work that is extremely readable and immensely practical.”
–Russ Thomas“I’ve read many, many different translations and commentaries on the Gita; Abbot George’s is hands down one of the most approachable. It is clear, helpful, and has a vast depth that easily brings both the meaning and value of the Bhagavad Gita to life. I would highly recommend The Bhagavad Gita for Awakening to anyone that wants to bring it’s lessons into their daily life.”
–Michael Sabani“I had read through the original text of the Gita a few years ago and as you could imagine, the majority of its lessons were lost on me. The version Abbot Burke has written opened up the lessons the Gita holds in a way that is relatable to a westerner, and far easier to grasp. Being raised in the Catholic faith, I see parallels to the teachings of the Christ and that message is enhanced greatly. I would recommend this version to anyone regardless of religious upbringing, as it’s lessons are relevant to everyone. I truly love reading this book.”
–Caraine Wells“Be swept away by the ancient wisdom of the East in this timeless classic that offers practical solutions to the modern problems of today. Struggling with the constant tug-of-war between good and evil, our hearts and minds will relish the opportunity to reconnect with God’s eternal love for us so eloquently illuminated in this book. A must read for anyone on a spiritual quest for the truth!”
–Sailaja Kuruvadi“The Bhagavad Gita is truly one of the world’s foremost scriptural gems, and this new translation and extensive commentary by Abbot George provides great insight into its richness. Abbot George’s ability to examine difficult and often confusing texts (particularly for those not immersed in Indian religious thought and symbolism) and explain them clearly and in a gentle tone is apparent throughout.”
–Br. Julian-Ozana Arconti, CG
The paperback is 533 pages of spiritual insights. The ebook is available at 75% OFF for only 99¢ for a limited time. You can get the ebook at these online sites: Amazon U.S., Amazon India, Barnes & Noble, Kobo.com, iBooks (Apple Books), 24 Symbols, and Playster, and the paperback at Amazon.com.
Below is a sample chapter of The Bhagavad Gita for Awakening by Abbot George Burke:
Experiencing The Unreal
Krishna has just told Arjuna that birth and death are simple illusions–that the unborn and undying spirit (Atma) is the sole reality of our being. That is not so hard to accept if we have intuition or actual recall of the fact of our having previously dreamed the dream of birth and death many times. But the real trouble is our identification with the experiences that occur between the two poles of birth and death.
It is like a joke I heard a very long time ago. In a small town where metaphysical speculation was completely absent, the postmaster was a Christian Scientist. One day he asked a little boy, “How are you?” And the boy replied: “I have an awful stomach ache!” “Oh, you just imagine that,” chided the postmaster. “You only imagine you even have a stomach!” The next day the boy came in the post office and was asked the same question by the postmaster. He stood for a while, thinking, and then came out with: “I have an imaginary pain in my imaginary stomach that I don’t really have. And it HURTS!”
It is just the same with us. Simply saying: “It is all an illusion,” really does very little. Consider how we attend a play or a motion picture and become completely engrossed in the spectacle, responding with various emotions. All the time we know it is just pretend, but that does not keep us from responding as though it were real. How is this? It is the nature–yes, the purpose–of the mind!
I will never forget the first time I saw Hamlet. The next day I could not attend any of my classes at the university. I felt that I had seen an inexpressibly great person die right before my eyes. The words “Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest” had utterly overwhelmed me with chagrin. For a few days I went around in an aura of shock. I knew that I had only witnessed light and shadow patterns on a blank screen, that the people I had watched were actors playing a part–a part that my reading on the subject revealed was not even historically accurate. It made no difference. I was stunned by what I had seen.
This is just the nature of the delusive mind. Unless that nature is transcended, we will experience that “the play’s the thing” rather than an illusion. With this in mind, Swami Vivekananda subtitled his book Raja Yoga: “Conquering the Internal Nature.” And part of its subjugation is the realization that the “inner” nature is also outside us.
Externals meet externals
Wherefore Sri Krishna next tells Arjuna:
Truly, material sensations produce cold, heat, pleasure and pain. Impermanent, they come and go; you must endeavor to endure them (2:14).
Matrasparshas, “material sensations,” literally means “sensations of matter” or “the touching of matter.” Cold, heat, pleasure, and pain are brought about through contact with materiality, whether we think of it as contact of the sense organs with matter, or of contact of the mind with the internal senses that translate the contact of those sense organs into mental perceptions that we label as cold, heat, pleasure, and pain. Even the person who knows he is not the body, senses, or mind, yet does experience these things. He, however, understands what they really are and can, as Krishna urges, learn to endure them.
Both the senses and the objects are vibrating energy, merely differing waves in the vast ocean of power known as Prakriti or Pradhana. Prakriti is spoken of as illusion because it is constantly shifting like the sea with its ever-rising and ever-subsiding waves. Although Prakriti exists as Primordial Energy, the forms it takes are momentary modifications only with no lasting reality.
In the philosophical writings of India we often encounter the snake-in-the-rope simile. Even though the “snake” we see in a dim light is a projection of our mind, and when we perceive that it is only a rope the “snake” will disappear, the rope will remain. In the same way, Prakriti is the actually-existent substratum of which all things are its temporary mutations. They are mere appearances, yet their substance is real. It is this understanding that gave rise to the Buddhist concept of Emptiness–that there are no things in their own right, but only temporary appearances. When we see truly, things are seen to be no things at all. The truth is, Prakriti and the Great Void (Mahashunyata) are the same thing. It is only those who misunderstand them that think they are different.
In essence, we must come to realize that all our experiences, inner and outer, are really external to us and are simply shifting waves of differing vibrations. “Impermanent, they come and go,” Krishna points out to Arjuna–and to us.
In the ancient world, including that of original Christianity, only that which remained perpetually constant was considered to be real. That which could change or cease to be was considered unreal. For this reason we find an exposition of the unreality of both the world and evil in the writings of Saint Athanasius the Great of Alexandria, even though that is in complete variance with contemporary Christian theology.
The thing is, we exist forever and unchanging. It is only our mistaken identity with our experiences–our identification of the screen with the temporary movie–that causes us to forget this truth and become immersed in the untruth of Unreality/Prakriti. It is no easy matter to genuinely see the truth of things in relation to our sense experiences. Consequently Krishna said: “This divine illusion of mine… is difficult to go beyond” (7:14). What shall we do about these illusions until we have broken through them? Krishna tells us: “You must endeavor to endure them.” That does not mean that we must like them or want them. But we must accept them as inevitable until we truly do pass from the unreal to the Real. Later in this very chapter Krishna will describe how an illumined person functions in relation to sensory experience. For now we need only understand that the man of wisdom, the jnani, experiences them but accepts them and is unmoved by them.
Truly, the man whom these sensations do not afflict, the same in pain and pleasure, that wise one is fit for immortality (2:15).
What he does by nature we must do by will and reasoning until we, too, are enlightened.
Again, for a limited time, the ebook is available at 75% OFF for only 99¢.