This is the PowerPoint which I used on Saturday, 22nd April 2023 for my intervention at the 4th IACLSC Biennial International Conference-Exhibition, organised by the Department of Social Sciences and Humanities, School of Law, KIIT, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India, on 21-22 April 2023. The PowerPoint does not contain extended analyses. I am going to write a text on some aspects of the Bhagavad Gita in which I will expose my interpretation. The PowerPoint contains some quotations from and observations on the Katha Upanishad too. A text of mine which investigates the passages of the Katha Upanishad quoted in the PowerPont will be published in some weeks. I am launching this discussion to see whether the participants have observations on the Bhagavad Gita or on the Katha Upanishad. I am deeply interested in the observations since I am still at the beginning of the study of the Bhagavad Gita and of the Katha Upanishad. In the texts which I will publish, I will expose my positions both on the Bhagavad Gita and on the Katha Upanishad. In the present context, my observations are rather limited.

In my inquiry on the Bhagavad Gita, I shall analyse some aspects of the transformation of the individual through and thanks to his process of knowing the structure of reality. Becoming aware of his nature and of his position in the reality is for the individual the first step towards his moral development: for the individual needs and ought to walk the road of becoming aware of his nature in order to be able to know the aspects of his person which he ought to improve and to know the aspects of his persons which he ought to correct. The intervention in the reality of Lord Krishna shows that individuals are morally not always morally self-sufficient; men are limited entities; in them, evil can prevail. The road of knowledge, of meditation and of education is a process of fighting against the evil tendencies of the individual.

I shall begin my inquiry with the description of the three Gunas in chapter XIV: the notions of Sattva, of Tamas and of Rajas, their properties and their influences on the individual will be the first passage of my exposition. Through the investigation on the three Gunas we shall be able to observe that any individual turns out to be a composed entity which, depending on his education, engagement and meditation, can tend to the prevalence of Tamas, or of Rajas or of Sattva: the direction of the individual’s development is, as such, not given; it depends on the characters which the individual decides to cultivate in himself. The responsibility of the development, therefore, is due to the individual. As we shall be able to see thanks to the Discourses, the road to intellectual and moral development is not easy: it is, on the contrary, long, complex and difficult.

The individual cannot avoid being a composed entity which, since the factors of which it consists are not in a condition of reciprocal harmony, is exposed to a conflict in itself: therefore, the individual must reckon with mutually incompatible influences in himself; nonetheless, the individual is responsible for the prevalence of one or the other of the factors. Knowledge is indispensable in order that Sattva, the positive factor in the individual, can be improved in the individual: beholding the Supreme proves to be the way of liberation from the yearning of the objects of the senses. Lust will emerge as the enemy of the correct knowledge: knowledge is the remedy against the influence of lust.

For my analysis, I shall concentrate in particular on Discourses II, III, IV, V, VI, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII.

Bibliography

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Theodor, I., Exploring the Bhagavad Gītā. Philosophy, Structure and Meaning. Farnham, England / Burlington, USA, 2010.