Preface & INTRO

Preface
By Sri Dm
Spiritual successor to Paramahansa Y. and president of
Self-Realization Fellowship/Yogoda Satsanga Society of India
from 1955 until her passing in 2010
“

No siddha leaves this world without having given some truth
to mankind. Every free soul has to shed on others his light of
God-realization.” How generously Paramahansa Yogananda
fulfilled this obligation!—scriptural words voiced by him early in
his world mission. Even if he had left to posterity nothing more
than his lectures and writings, he would rightly be ranked as a
munificent giver of divine light. And of the literary works that
flowed so prolifically from his communion with God, the
Bhagavad Gita translation and commentary may well be
considered the Guru’s most comprehensive offering—not merely
in sheer volume but in its all-embracing thoughts.

My own first introduction to India’s renowned scripture
was as a youth of fifteen, when a copy of Sir Edwin Arnold’s
translation of the Gita was given to me. Its beautifully poetic
lines filled my heart with a deep longing to know God. But
where was someone who could show me the way to Him?

It was two years later, in 1931, that I met Paramahansa
Yogananda. That he knew God was immediately, overwhelmingly
apparent, in his countenance and in the joy and divine love
that literally radiated from him. I soon entered his monastic
ashram; and throughout the more than twenty years that
followed I was blessed to live and seek God in his presence,
with his guidance—as a disciple, and as his secretary in both
ashram and organizational matters. The passing years only
deepened my first awed recognition of his spiritual stature. I
saw that in him the world had been given a true exemplar of
the essence of the Gita—in his active life of service for the
upliftment of humankind, and in his constant intimacy with
God, a beloved God of unconditional love.

Paramahansaji manifested utter mastery of the yoga science
of meditation cited by Lord Krishna in the Gita. I often
observed how effortlessly he would enter the transcendent state
of samadhi; each of us present would be bathed in the
ineffable peace and bliss that emanated from his
God-communion. By a touch, a word, or even a glance, he
could awaken others to a greater awareness of God’s presence,
or bestow the experience of superconscious ecstasy on disciples
who were in tune.

A passage in the Upanishads tells us: “That sage who has
solely engaged himself in drinking the nectar which is no other
than Brahman, the nectar which is the outcome of incessant
meditation, that sage becomes the greatest of ascetics,
paramahansa, and a philosopher free of worldly taint, avadhuta
. By the sight of him the whole world becomes consecrated.
Even an ignorant man who is devoted to his service becomes
liberated.”

Paramahansa Yogananda fit the description of a true guru,
a God-realized master; he was a living scripture in wisdom,
action, and love for God. As the Gita advocates, his spirit of
renunciation and service was one of complete nonattachment to
material things and to the acclaim heaped on him by
thousands of followers. His indomitable inner strength and
spiritual power resided in the sweetest natural humility, in which
a self-centered ego found no place to dwell. Even when he
made reference to himself and his work, it was without any
sense of personal accomplishment. Having attained the ultimate
realization of God as the true soul-essence of one’s being, he
knew no other identity apart from Him.

In the Gita, the zenith of Krishna’s revelations to Arjuna
comes in Chapter XI, the “vision of visions.” The Lord reveals
His cosmic form: universes upon universes, inconceivably vast,
created and sustained by the infinite omnipotence of Spirit
which is simultaneously aware of the tiniest particle of
subatomic matter and the cosmic movement of the galactic
immensities—of every thought, feeling, and action of every being
on the material and heavenly planes of existence.
We witnessed the omnipresence of a guru’s consciousness,
and therefore his sphere of spiritual influence, when
Paramahansa Yogananda was blessed with a similar universal
vision. In June 1948, from late evening throughout the night
until about ten o’clock the next morning, a few of us disciples
were privileged to glimpse something of this unique experience
through his ecstatic description of the cosmic revelation as it
unfolded.

That awe-inspiring event foretold that his time on earth
was drawing to a close. Soon after this, Paramahansaji began
to remain more and more in seclusion in a small ashram in
the Mojave Desert, devoting as much as possible of the time
that was left to him to completing his writings. Those periods
of concentration on the literary message he wished to leave to
the world were a privileged time for those of us who could be
in his presence. He was completely absorbed, completely at one
with the truths he was perceiving within and expressing
outwardly. “He came into the yard for a few minutes,” recalled
one of the monks working on the grounds around
Paramahansaji’s retreat. “There was a look of incalculable
remoteness in his eyes, and he said to me: ‘The three worlds
are floating in me like bubbles.’ The sheer power radiating
from him actually moved me back several steps away from
him.”

Another monk, entering the room where Guruji was
working, remembers: “The vibration in that room was
unbelievable; it was like walking into God.”

“I dictate scriptural interpretations and letters all day,”
Paramahansaji wrote to a student during this period, “with eyes
closed to the world, but open always in heaven.”

Paramahansaji’s work on his Gita commentary had begun
years earlier (a preliminary serialization had started in
Self-Realization Fellowship’s magazine in 1932) and was
completed during this period in the desert, which included a
review of the material that had been written over a period of
so many years, clarification and amplification of many points,
abbreviation of passages that contained duplication that had
been necessary only in serialization for new readers, addition of
new inspirations—including many details of yoga’s deeper
philosophical concepts that he had not attempted to convey in
earlier years to a general audience not yet introduced to the
unfolding discoveries in science that have since made the Gita’s
cosmology and view of man’s physical, mental, and spiritual
makeup much more understandable to the Western mind—all
to be literarily prepared for publication in book form.

To help him with the editorial work, Gurudeva relied on
Tara Mata (Laurie V. Pratt), a highly advanced disciple who
had met him in 1924 and worked with him on his books and
other writings at various times for a period of more than
twenty-five years. I know without doubt that Paramahansaji
would not have allowed this book to be published without due
ledgment and commendation of the role played by this faithful
disciple. “She was a great yogi,” he told me, “who lived many
lives hidden away from the world in India. She has come in
this life to serve this work.” On many public occasions he
expressed his considered evaluation of her literary acumen and
philosophical wisdom: “She is the best editor in the country;
maybe anywhere. Excepting my great guru, Sri Yukteswar,
there is no one with whom I have more enjoyed talking of
Indian philosophy than Laurie.”

In the latter years of his life, Paramahansaji also began to
train another monastic disciple whom he had chosen to edit his
writings: Mrinalini Mata. Gurudeva made clear to all of us the
role for which he was preparing her, giving her personal
instruction in every aspect of his teachings and in his wishes
for the preparation and presentation of his writings and talks.

One day toward the end of his life on earth, he confided:
“I am very worried about Laurie. Her health will not permit
her to finish the work on my writings.”

Knowing the Guru’s great reliance on Tara Mata, Mrinalini
Mata expressed concern: “But Master, who then can do that
work?”

Gurudeva replied with quiet finality: “You will do it.”

In the years after Paramahansaji’s mahasamadhi in 1952,
Tara Mata was able to continue uninterruptedly the serialization
in the magazine of his commentaries on each Bhagavad Gita
verse (despite her many time-consuming duties as a member
and officer of the Board of Directors and editor-in-chief of all
Self-Realization Fellowship publications). However, as
Paramahansaji had predicted, she passed away before she
could complete the preparation of the Gita manuscript as he
had intended. This task then fell on the shoulders of Mrinalini
Mata. She is, as Guruji foresaw, the only person after Tara
Mata’s passing who could have accomplished it properly,
because of her years of training from the Guru and her
attunement with the Guru’s thoughts.

The publication of Paramahansa Yogananda’s Bhagavad
Gita translation and commentary is the joyous fulfillment of
many years of anticipation. Indeed, it is a milestone in the
history of Self-Realization Fellowship, which celebrates this year
its seventy-fifth anniversary.1

Paramahansa Yogananda had a dual role on this earth.
His name and activities are uniquely identified with the
worldwide organization he founded: Self-Realization
Fellowship/Yogoda Satsanga Society of India; and for those
thousands who embrace his SRF/YSS Kriya Yoga teachings, he
is their personal guru. But he is also what in Sanskrit is called
a jagadguru, a world teacher, whose life and universal message
are a source of inspiration and upliftment for many followers of
different paths and religions—his spiritual legacy a blessing
offered to the entire world.

I recall his last day on earth, March 7, 1952. Gurudeva
was very quiet, his consciousness inwardly withdrawn to an
even greater extent than usual. Often that day we disciples
observed that his eyes were not focused on this finite world,
but rather were gazing into the transcendent realm of God’s
presence. When he spoke at all, it was in terms of great
affection, appreciation, and kindness. But what stands out most
vividly in my memory was the influence, noticed by everyone
who entered his room, of the vibrations of profound peace and
intense divine love that emanated from him. The Divine Mother
Herself—that aspect of the Infinite Spirit personified as the
tender caring and compassion, the unconditional love, that is
the salvation of the world—had taken complete possession of
him, it seemed, and through him was sending out waves of
love to embrace all of Her creation.

That evening, during a large reception in honor of the
Ambassador of India, at which Paramahansaji was the principal
speaker, the great Guru left his body for Omnipresence.

As with all those rare souls who have come on earth as
saviors of humankind, Paramahansaji’s influence lives on after
him. His followers regard him as a Premavatar, incarnation of
God’s divine love. He came with God’s love to awaken hearts
sleeping in forgetfulness of their Creator, and to offer a path of
enlightenment to those already seeking. In reviewing the Gita
manuscript, I felt anew in Paramahansaji’s commentaries the
magnetism of divine love that ever calls to us to seek God, the
Supreme Goal of every human soul, and that promises its
sheltering presence all along the way.

I hear again and again, echoing in my own soul,
Paramahansa Yogananda’s consummate Universal Prayer—the
one that perhaps most characterizes the force behind his world
mission and his inspiration in giving to us this enlightening
revelation of the holy Bhagavad Gita:

Heavenly Father, Mother, Friend, Beloved God,
May Thy love shine forever on the sanctuary of my devotion,
and may I be able to awaken Thy love in all hearts.
Los Angeles
September 19, 1995

Introduction

The Bhagavad Gita is the most beloved scripture of India, a
scripture of scriptures. It is the Hindu’s Holy Testament, or
Bible, the one book that all masters depend upon as a
supreme source of scriptural authority. Bhagavad Gita means
“Song of the Spirit,” the divine communion of truth-realization
between man and his Creator, the teachings of Spirit through
the soul, that should be sung unceasingly.

The pantheistic doctrine of the Gita is that God is
everything. Its verses celebrate the discovery of the Absolute,
Spirit beyond creation, as being also the hidden Essence of all
manifestation. Nature, with her infinite variety and inexorable
laws, is an evolute of the Singular Reality through a cosmic
delusion: maya, the “Magical Measurer” that makes the One
appear as many embracing their own individuality—forms and
intelligences existing in apparent separation from their Creator.
Just as a dreamer differentiates his one consciousness into
many dream beings in a dream world, so God, the Cosmic
Dreamer, has separated His consciousness into all the cosmic
manifestations, with souls individualized from His own One
Being endowed with the egoity to dream their personalized
existences within the Nature-ordained drama of the Universal
Dream.reface

BH GITA 001

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