Blog by Aashi Patle 01Mar2020

This week was my 3rd class at eYogi Gurukul’s Hinduism Intermediate 201 course. We always start off by reciting mantras to spread a positive atmosphere throughout the room. In this class we mostly learned about the Bhagavad Gita and the Mahabharata.

Dhritarastra and Pandu were brothers who were born in the Kuru dynasty. They were the brothers of King Bharata. Dhritarastra, the elder brother was born blind so the throne would be passed down to Pandu, the younger brother. When Pandu died at an early age, his 5 sons came under the care of Dhritarastra. As a consequence Dhritarastra became the king for some time. The Kauravas envied the Panavas because they knew that when the Panavas were older they would inherit the throne but Dhritarastra wanted his own sons to inherit the throne so when the Panavas grew older the Kauravas plotted plans to kill the young sons of Pandu. The Panavas escaped the many attempts against their life with the help of Krishna.The Panavas and Krishna tried to settle this peacefully by only taking a few villages of the kingdom but the Kauravas wouldn’t listen, they wanted the whole kingdom to themselves.This led to a war ( the epic battle of Kurushretra ). This goes into the Bhagavad Gita. The conversation between one of the 5 sons of Pandu, Arjuna ( the passenger of the chariot) and Krishna ( the charioteer). Arjuna is confused and uncertain because there are 4 million lives at risk, he’s about to kill his own clan, family, Guru’s and many more for the land, throne and ego. But Krishna helpfully says that it is his duty to fight for dharma or the way of righteousness. He also says that everyone is an immortal soul, Atman which does not take birth or die.This gives Arjuna more confidence. Our Guruji explained the significance of the Mahabharata image where Krishna is driving the chariot and Arjuna is sitting at the back seat. The chariot is just like the body,The 5 horses are just like the 5 senses, The reins in the mouths of the horses are just like the mind,The charioteer is just like the intellect,And the passenger is just like the soul or Atman,Your goal is to recognize that you are the Atman and you are using your intellect to control your mind to give direction to the 5 senses to where you want to go. This class was very interesting and I understood a lot. I learned a lot in this class in a  fun way. I am really looking forward to the next class and learning more about my ethnicity.