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The Gita's Influence on Subhash Chandra Bose and Swami Vivekananda || Acharya Prashant
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2 years ago
Bhagavad Gita
Revolution
Spirituality
Liberation
Slavery
Subhas Chandra Bose
Upanishads
Consciousness
Description

Acharya Prashant explains that there is no revolution possible without the Gita. He clarifies that when he says "Gita," he does not mean a particular book but a particular class of wisdom literature, which includes the Upanishads and the teachings of sages like Ramana Maharshi and Jiddu Krishnamurti. The purpose of this wisdom literature is to uplift one's consciousness from its natural slavery to liberation. He argues that the default human condition is one of slavery, not freedom. Birth itself is bondage, as a newborn is dependent on its body and cannot control its impulses. Therefore, a great revolution is needed to attain liberation, and this can only come from the Gita. He asserts that if the Gita is absent from one's education, one is condemned to lifelong slavery. This is why great revolutionaries, including Subhas Chandra Bose, were deeply spiritual. Their quest for external, political independence was a manifestation of an inner, spiritual quest for liberation from the default condition of slavery. He notes that even armed revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh, often portrayed as atheists, were voracious readers of spiritual scriptures, and this spiritual dimension is often deliberately hidden by propaganda. Their external actions were fueled by an internal fire for liberation. Spirituality, he explains, is not about rituals or superstitions but is an awakening of consciousness and an education of the self. It is the ego's fundamental urge for liberation, which is a form of love for its own liberated state. The hunger within is for the infinite, as the finite world can never be satisfying. Bigness, or greatness, only has meaning when it is infinite and limitless, which the Upanishads call Atma. To be a great person in any field, one must be spiritual, meaning one must have an awakened consciousness and a deep love for liberation.