Bhagavad Gita Talk by Pravrajika Divyanandapranaji

 Pravrajika Divyanandapranaji, a monastic member of Sri Sarada Math in New Delhi, India will be delivering a talk, “Bhagavad Gita - The Essence of Upanishads” at MIT on Monday, April 10th, 2023 from 5:00 PM - 6:45 PM in the MIT Chapel (Building W15).

Talk Abstract: 

The Upanishads are the knowledge portion of the Vedic thought and contain the essence of the Vedas. That is why the philosophy of the Upanishads is called Vedanta. The Bhagavad Gita is found in the Mahabharata but the beauty of this literature is that it is a masterpiece of Vedantic thought. Thus it can be said that the Bhagavad Gita is indeed the essence of the Upanishads. We shall observe a few verses in the Bhagavad Gita to understand this. The Gita also harmonizes the four yogas--Bhakti Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Karma Yoga and Raja Yoga. It is a deep penetration into the existential core of the human personality structure, helping us understand the unfoldment of the highest consciousness, and making way for a most comprehensive and inclusive philosophy of human life.

About Pravrajika Divyanandapranaji:

Pravrajika Divyanandaprana is a monastic member of Sri Sarada Math and currently Editor of the English journal Samvit, published from New Delhi. She has been Principal of Nivedita Vidya Mandir School from 2014-2019. 

She specializes in the areas of Yoga-Vedanta. In addition to studying the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda literature, she has extensively studied the Yoga-Vedanta texts based on these twin philosophies which include the Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, Raja Yoga, Upanishads and the Prakarana Granthas (auxiliary scriptures of Vedanta like Vedantasara, Vivekachudamani etc.) along with their commentaries. Her additional areas of interest include the Brahma Sutras with Sankara's commentary, works of Ramana Maharishi and the Bhagavad Gita. 

A gold medallist and topper, Pravrajika Divyanandaprana has the unique combination of knowledge in the conventional sciences, and traditional Yogic and Vedantic texts. Pravrajika Divyanandaprana has been lecturing all over India since 2010, including IIT-Madras, IIT-Delhi (she has spoken many times at Vivekananda Study Circle of IIT-Delhi), IIT-Kharagpur, IITMumbai, IIT Kanpur, IISC Bangalore, Delhi University, Vivekananda International Centre, Ramakrishna Mission, Engineering and Medical Colleges in Mumbai, Pune and Kolkata and sometimes in schools. She offers courses on Yoga-Vedanta every semester in IIT Delhi. The courses are available on YouTube at IIT’s official channel: NRCVEE IIT Delhi. 

Internationally, she has traveled to hold classes or deliver lectures in South Africa at Cape Town, Durban, Ladysmith and Kwa Zulu Natal University among other places. Subsequently, she traveled to Ireland, Great Britain, UAE and recently to Canada for talks, lectures and scriptural discussions. She has spoken at Imperial College and Logan Hall, London University in 2013. In May 2018, she was in Toronto, Ottawa, Halifax and Nova Scotia where she gave a number of talks on Self-Knowledge, exploring the Subjective Sciences and finding the interface between Subjective-Objective Sciences. She has extensively traveled in the US and addressed Vedanta Societies of Iowa, Washington DC, and so on. Purdue University hosted her talk on Mind Management recently. 

She is also the author of two books (available on Amazon): Science of Happiness and Self Discovery.