Ome, Vasudeva, Suttam Devam, Kamshachanurramadhanu Ramadanam,

Devaki, Paramanandam, Krishna, Vande, Jagad Guru.

Welcome everybody to the fall session of the Bhagavad Gita class.

I trust all of your keeping well and thank you for joining us.

We were able to complete the third chapter of the Bhagavad Gita before we closed for summer.

And we will start the fourth chapter today.

So just to take a very quick look back,

in the first chapter, Arjuna's sorrow,

we are introduced to Arjuna's troubles,

basically that represents sorrow and suffering in human life, the human condition.

And in the second chapter, Krishna gives a solution, an answer, a very deep, profound answer

to the question of suffering, how to overcome suffering.

And the answer we know what Krishna gave in the

second chapter was knowledge of the self this dramatic very profound revelation that we

are not this limited person that we are not this limited body or this limited mind

we are this infinite existence consciousness place which, which is the real nature of the soul. It's called the Atman, the self. And we do not know this. We have no inkling of it. And therefore we think that we are this limited person, this individuality which we have got right now,

this limited mortal being subject to birth and aging and disease and death, want and suffering.

And that's all we know about ourselves.

So what Krishna said is that if we know our real nature, if we could discover this reality which is already there,

and we realize that we are this Atman or Brahman, then all our suffering would be at an end.

We would realize that Chidhananda Rupaha, Shiboham, Shiboham, I am of the nature of consciousness and bliss. This would become a living reality, not just something read about in theory,

not just something that we believe in, but actually experienced.

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