Svayam Bhagavan

Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges was removed from the origin of The Bhagavad-Gita by thousands of years and miles, yet his works bear remarkable similarities to The Gita’s teachings. Specifically, Borges’ short stories, “The Immortal” and “The Library of Babel,” reflect and parallel the teachings of the sacred Hindu text, The Bhagavad-Gita, namely, its assertion that desire creates suffering and inhibits the pursuit of knowledge, and its perspective that divinity and spirituality can be found through language. One of the core concepts of The Bhagavad-Gita is the belief that desire begets suffering. This is exemplified in The Gita, when Lord Krishna states, “since he knows that discipline / means unbinding the bonds of suffering, he should practice discipline resolutely, / … / He should entirely relinquish / desires aroused by willful intent” (6.23-24). Here, discipline is equated with the ability to “entirely relinquish / desires aroused by willful intent,” as demonstrated by the use of the two phrases in conjunction with each other. Discipline is also equated to “unbinding the bonds of suffering,” a phrase which heavily connotes freedom and liberation. Conversely, if one does not subscribe to discipline, but rather, gives into desire, one will be confined to suffering. This idea of desire as creating suffering is demonstrated in “The Immortal,” when the narrator states, “the impression of great antiquity was joined by others, the impression of endlessness, the sensation…

In many different religious texts, there are many similarities and difference; if you closely examine each of the texts. The same is true of both the Bhagavad Gita and The Raptures of St. Teresa. While examining these two texts, it is obvious that the experiences that were described were both religious and instructional. In the case of Teresa, she goes on and on about the vision that God grants her and how they have helped to shape her life. “These refer to all visions [of life].” The simple and…

The physical world in Dante’s Alighieri coexists with the physical world of the Bhagavad Gita in the matters as actions affect the personal standing of the world to come afterwards. These two literary works are different in terms that those terms of cowardice or betrayal to one’s kingdom by surrendering the throne is punishable in the different levels of Dante’s hell. The levels of Dante’s Alighieri in which one is sent is determined by their internal, external conflicts and actions in the…