Notable Books 36
- Details
- Published: Tuesday, 26 June 2018 17:38
The Bhagavad Gita: A Guide to Navigating the Battle of Life (A New Translation and Commentary), Ravi Ravindra, Shambhala, Boulder, 2017, Pages xi + 302, $19.95
I have nothing but very high praise for Dr. Ravi Ravindra’s newest book. I have reviewed Ravi’s book in Notable books before and always found them very readable, inspirational, and a worthy addition to anybody’s bookshelf. This new translation and commentary may be his best. I will leave it up to the scholars as to how well his translation is handled. However, I can safely say that this book is one of the best commentaries that I have read.
I have at least ten various copies of The Gita on my book shelf. Two of them are without commentary, but the other eight offer all levels of interpretation and clarifications. I have learned that essentially all authors have a motive and/or an agenda when they are writing their commentary. I sense that Ravi’s motive was to be as clear in his presentation as he could be. Perhaps his agenda was to reach far and wide to make this so. I see Sri Aurobindo, Gurdjieff (via Madame de Salzmann), Krishnamurti, Cloud of Unknowing, Jesus, numerous Biblical references, Albert Einstein plus others to support his narrative. I also felt that Ravi’s background in science gave his commentaries a feeling of gravitas. This material must have been ‘classroom tested’ as it came across so smoothly.
