The Essence of The Gita

Swami Vivekananda once described the Bhagavad Gita as the great Poem which is “the crown jewel of all Indian literature. It is a kind of commentary on the Vedas.” Today not many have the patience, time or opportunity to read the entire Vedas. The Gita is more accessible. It is easy to understand the Gita if it is learnt from someone who has realized the truth of its teaching s through spiritual discipline and struggle.

Swami Saradananda, an eminent disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, was such a person . Six of his Bengali talks on the Gita, Published in the book Gita-tattva, present a brilliant summary of the Gita’s will be more fruitful.

The Gita-tattva, published by the Udbodhan office in Calcutta, has in all fifteen Bengali talks given by Swami Saradananda: the first six of these deal exclusively with the Gita and the rest deal with other Vedantic themes. The six talks on the gita which comprise this book were translated in the Vedanta Kesari from January 1985 through Febraury 1986 by Swami Tyagananda. He was the editor (1987-1997) of Vedanta Kesari, a monthly journal of the Ramakrishna Math, Chennai. At Present, he is the Assistance Minister of the Ramakrishna Vedanta Society, Boston, USA. He has thoroughly revised the translation for this book edition, which we are releasing for wider circulation. May the Gita continued to inspire seekers of truth everywhere.