Who am I to even contemplate composing a commentary on the Bhagavad Gita (BG) after only seven or eight years of study, some formal with a teacher and some more casual alone?

Well, what I am is nowhere near qualified, nowhere near ready. Actually I don’t feel qualified in any way for such a thing. So much less so was I when I first sat down with my newly gifted BG in a tiny cafe called The Office in Rishikesh, literally hanging over the river Ganges.

With the best fruit salad in the Universe, and fine chai to match, it was the ideal place for contemplation – that is when it wasn’t bursting at the seams and crazy.

But, as I sat there with my new BG I was one of only a couple of customers, so it was a conducive atmosphere for the aforementioned contemplation. Instead I think what happened as I thought about how to proceed to a proper study, was I allowed the sugar from the just ingested fruit salad go to my head.

You see, I decided, as I sipped a post-fruit salad chai, that the perfect study method would be to write a commentary on the whole thing starting with Chapter one, Verse one.

I no longer possess the diary in which this masterpiece was begun. Nor do I recall much, actually nothing, of what I wrote. It’s enough to say however that nothing I wrote could possibly have had any significance or depth or proper perspective.

So, as you might guess, I rambled and waffled for a couple of verses before I snapped out of my ego-driven state of arrogance and hubris. I realised I had absolutely no business taking on such a task. My lack of knowledge, wisdom, experience, all disqualified me from even thinking I had a right to try.

Now, even with the small amount of knowledge I have managed to acquire after all the study, I’m stunned at that arrogance and hubris – even if it was sugar induced. I mean, I’d never even read more than a few verses of the BG before. So, how could I even form a ‘first impression’ or ‘casual opinion’, much less a full blown commentary?

A couple of days ago I read a couple of verses that really resonated with me, as they have before. So, just like that fool sitting in The Office all those years ago, I confidently asserted that I was more than up to the job of making a commentary on those verses for this blog.

But, and here’s the really weird thing: I only just now realised, as I’ve been writing these notes, that the two verses which I will quote for you shortly, address precisely my behaviour on that post fruit salad, sugar shock induced ego trip.

I realised that it’s as if I have indeed written a commentary on those verses. And I have used a personal experience to illustrate the text. Absolutely unintentionally as it happens.

Regardless of what excuse I come up with the error in judgement in thinking I could write a full blown BG commentary all those years ago, the reality is that I failed to act with discrimination, or what I would call discernment.

Somehow I ignored (or totally forgot) the facts: I knew nothing! I’d lost the ability to discern what I could do and what I couldn’t do, what was a sensible action and what was a ridiculous one.

Stop! Memo to Self: Please stop picking on me!

Anyway, moving right along, here are the verses – free from commentary!

‘Thinking about sense objects brings an attachment towards them. Attachment leads to desire and desire leads to frustration, which in turn leads to delusion.
When you are deluded you lose your memory [the knowledge and experiences you could draw on to make proper decisions; sometime even to the extent of compromising your own values] and with the loss of memory the power of discrimination is destroyed; with the destruction of discrimination your self itself is lost’ .

Bhagavad Gita Chapter 2 Verses 62-63 (my version of the BG sometimes combines verses as it has here)