Bhagavad Gita

Questions for Further Study

• 1.: In the West, yoga is practiced by many people as a form of physical exercise and relaxation. Based on your reading of the Bhagavad Gita, how do you think a Hindu would define the word yoga?
• 2.: Similarly, the word karma is often used in the West, often casually to meaning something like “good vibes” or “bad vibes.” Again, based on your reading of the Bhagavad Gita, how do you think a Hindu would define the word karma?
• 3.: Hindus accept a passage from the Rig Veda that says, “The truth is One, but different sages [wise people] call it by different names.” To what extent do you think this philosophy is embodied in the Bhagavad Gita?
• 4.: The Bhagavad Gita repeatedly refers to Brahman as God, or the impersonal absolute. Yet Hinduism is a polytheistic religion. How would you explain what appears on the surface to be an inconsistency?
• 5.: What is dualism, and what does the Bhagavad Gita say or imply about the dualist view of the universe?