Karma Free Therapy – A brief introduction

Karma Free therapy or Bhagavad Gita therapy is founded on Bhagavad Gita,  the teachings of Sri Krishna whom Hindus revere both as almighty and Acharya.  In Vedic culture,  the great teachers who not only preach but also live as per their teachings and inspire others to follow in their footsteps are known as Acharyas. Regardless of the cultural, religious, and philosophical differences, many in India and different parts of the world regard both Lord Sri Krishna and His teachings found in Bhagavad Gita and consider they offer a way of positive influence on the betterment of life.

Vedas are the backbone of the rich Indian culture and tradition. Vedas are considered a science as well philosophy upon which many Indian communities were founded. Bhagavad Gita is considered an essence of Vedic knowledge. It is recognised and expounded by all the great spiritual masters such as Shankaracharya, Sri Ramanujacharya, and Sri Madhavacharya who India has ever witnessed and upon whose philosophies, the Vedic culture is formed.

Many modern philosophers such as A. C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Dayananta Saraswati, and Swami  Nikhilananda of Rama Krishna mission have presented commentary on Bhagavad Gita with an objective to help their readers understand the Gita from the perspective of the practitioners for their reads suggest that they not only advocated the teachings of Bhagavad Gita among their followers but also practiced it. [1]

Please note that I have coined the word Karma Free Therapy from the influence of the Bhagavad Gita and to make the clients get an idea of where it comes from and to relate with this philosophical background. This therapy is not considered as evidence-based therapy by psychologists as of 2023 and does not entitle clients to claim any rebates from public or private funding as of my knowledge. Clients are advised to check their service providers to know if they are eligible to receive therapies that are based on religion and spirituality.

That said, Bhagavad Gita and its teachings hold a very great place in conditioning as well as shaping the personalities of many communities in countries like India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka.

Karma Free therapy approaches the bhagavad gita with a vision that the teachings found in it could be used in treating mental health issues such as stress, anxiety, and different levels of depression. This therapeutic model uses Gita as a tool kit and uses the strategies explained in it to achieve holistic care. Gita is presented as 18 chapters, with every 6 chapters focusing on how the soul can be trained to find total bliss by detaching oneself from the action yet executing it without being affected.  This is widely regarded as yogic science and the person who is an expert in applying the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita is celebrated as a yogi, a person who achieved both inward and outward happiness.

I will be writing a series on Karma Free Therapy and in this series, I will be exploring gita as one of the main sources of science for Karma Free Therapy along with a few other evidence based psychological therapeutic models which are proven to be of great use in holistic care and are in line with karma free therapy. Please note that this series is not presented as a medical journal and might miss citations as the purpose is to educate the idea of Karma Free Therapy practiced in my private practice hence readers as well clients are advised to use their own judgments, reasonings, and research on the topics covered. Having said this, I will try to add enough citations and/or materials for further reading and also take a personal commitment to not presenting any facts which are not accounted for.

The Role of the Bhagavad Gita

In addition to playing an important role in the Hindu faith, the Bhagavad Gita has made a positive impact as well an influence on many great thinkers and musicians such as  Mahatma Gandhi, Aldous Huxley, Henry David Thoreau, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Carl Jung, Bulent Ecevit, Hermann Hesse, Heinrich Himmler, George Harrison among others.

Reflections on the Bhagavad gita by famous people all over the world

Courtesy: Wikipedia  Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influence_of_Bhagavad_Gita

Sri Bhagavad Ramanujar – founder of visishtadwaitham 

“The Bhagavad-Gita was spoken by Lord Krishna to reveal the science of devotion to Almighty which is the essence of all spiritual knowledge. The Supreme Lord Krishna’s primary purpose for descending and incarnating is relieve the world of any demoniac and negative, undesirable influences that are opposed to spiritual development, yet simultaneously it is His incomparable intention to be perpetually within reach of all humanity.”

A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (author of Bhagavad-Gita As It Is and founder of ISKCON)

Our only purpose is to present this Bhagavad-gītā As It Is in order to guide the conditioned student to the same purpose for which Kṛṣṇa descends to this planet once in a day of Brahmā, or every 8,600,000,000 years. This purpose is stated in Bhagavad-gītā, and we have to accept it as it is; otherwise, there is no point in trying to understand the Bhagavad-gītā and its speaker, Lord Kṛṣṇa. Lord Kṛṣṇa first spoke Bhagavad-gītā to the sun god some hundreds of millions of years ago. We have to accept this fact and thus understand the historical significance of Bhagavad-gītā, without misinterpretation, on the authority of Kṛṣṇa. To interpret Bhagavad-gītā without any reference to the will of Kṛṣṇa is the greatest offense. In order to save oneself from this offense, one has to understand the Lord as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, as He was directly understood by Arjuna, Lord Kṛṣṇa’s first disciple. Such understanding of Bhagavad-gītā is really profitable and authorized for the welfare of human society in fulfilling the mission of life.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

The Bhagavad Gita’s emphasis on selfless service was a prime source of inspiration for Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Gandhi told-“When doubts haunt me, when disappointments stare me in the face, and I see not one ray of hope on the horizon, I turn to Bhagavad-Gita and find a verse to comfort me; and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow. Those who meditate on the Gita will derive fresh joy and new meanings from it every day”.

Sri Aurobindo

According to Sri Aurobindo, the “Bhagavad-Gita is a true scripture of the human race a living creation rather than a book, with a new message for every age and a new meaning for every civilization.”

Swami Vivekananda

Swami Vivekananda evinced much interest in Bhagavad Gita. It is said, Bhagavad Gita was one of his two most favourite books (another one was The Imitation of Christ). In 1888-1893 when Vivekananda was travelling all over India as a wandering monk, he kept only two books with him — Gita and Imitation of Christ.

Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley, the English writer found Gita “the most systematic statement of spiritual evolution of endowing value to mankind.”, He also felt, Gita is “one of the most clear and comprehensive summaries of perennial philosophy ever revealed; hence its enduring value is subject not only to India but to all of humanity.”

Jawaharlal Nehru

Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India found that “The Bhagavad Gita deals essentially with the spiritual foundation of human existence. It is a call of action to meet the obligations and duties of life; yet keeping in view the spiritual nature and grander purpose of the universe.”

J. Robert Oppenheimer

The Trinity test of the Manhattan Project was the first detonation of a nuclear weapon, which lead Oppenheimer to recall verses from the Bhagavad Gita, notably: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”.
J. Robert Oppenheimer, American physicist and director of the Manhattan Project, learned Sanskrit in 1933 and read the Bhagavad Gita in the original form, citing it later as one of the most influential books to shape his philosophy of life. Oppenheimer later recalled that, while witnessing the explosion of the Trinity nuclear test, he thought of verses from the Bhagavad Gita (XI,12):

दिवि सूर्यसहस्रस्य भवेद्युगपदुत्थिता। यदि भाः सदृशी सा स्याद्भासस्तस्य महात्मनः।।११-१२।।[8] If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one…[9][10]

Years later he would explain that another verse had also entered his head at that time:

We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and, to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’ I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau wrote, “In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial.”

Hermann Graf Keyserling

Hermann Graf Keyserling, a German Philosopher regarded Bhagavad-Gita as “Perhaps the most beautiful work of the literature of the world.”

Hermann Hesse

Hermann Hesse felt that “the marvel of the Bhagavad-Gita is its truly beautiful revelation of life’s wisdom which enables philosophy to blossom into religion.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson said this about the Bhagavad Gita: “I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavad-Gita. It was as if an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another age and climate had pondered and thus disposed of the same questions which exercise us.”

Wilhelm von Humboldt

Wilhelm von Humboldt pronounced the Gita as: “The most beautiful, perhaps the only true philosophical song existing in any known tongue … perhaps the deepest and loftiest thing the world has to show.”

Bulent Ecevit

Turkish Ex Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, when asked what had given him the courage to send Turkish troops to Cyprus. His answer was “He was fortified by the Bhagavad Gita which taught that if one were morally right, one need not hesitate to fight injustice”.

Lord Warren Hastings

Lord Warren Hastings, the first governor-general of British India wrote: “I hesitate not to pronounce the Gita a performance of great originality, of the sublimity of conception, reasoning, and diction almost unequaled; and a single exception, amongst all the known religions of mankind.”

1. Please refer to the following pdfs.
   a) Bhagavad gita book by A.C Prabhypada
   b) Introduction to bhagavad gita  by Dayananta sarawati
   c)Bhagavad gita book by Swami Nikhilananda

References

• Journal: Psychotherapy – Insights from Bhagavad Gita By M.S Reddy (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3361835/)
• Journal: The Bhagavad Gita and contemporary psychotherapies by Subhash C. Bhatia, Jayakrishna Madabushi, Venkata Kolli, Shashi K. Bhatia, and Vishal Madaan ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3705702/)
• Journal: Psychotherapy in the Bhagavad Gita, the Hindu Scriptural Text by Ananda K. Pandurangi,, M.D.,  Sudhakar Shenoy, M.B.B.S., and Matcheri S. Keshavan,, M.D.  (https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2013.13081092)
• A-Tjak, J. G. L., Davis, M. L., Morina, N., Powers, M. B., Smits, J. A. J., & Emmelkamp, P. M. G. (2015). A meta-analysis of the efficacy of acceptance and commitment therapy for clinically relevant mental and physical health problems. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 84(1), 30–36.
• Butler, A. C., Chapman, J. E., Forman, E. M., & Beck, A. T. (2006). The empirical status of cognitive-behavioral therapy: A review of meta-analyses. Clinical Psychology Review, 26(1), 17–31.
• Davidson, R. J., & Kaszniak, A. W. (2015). Conceptual and methodological issues in research on mindfulness and meditation. American Psychologist, 70(7), 581–592.
• Hofmann, S. G., Sawyer, A. T., Witt, A. A., & Oh, D. (2010). The effect of mindfulness-based therapy on anxiety and depression: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 78(2), 169–183.
• Hofmann, S. G., Asnaani, A., Vonk, I. J. J., Sawyer, A. T., & Fang, A. (2012). The efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy: A review of meta-analyses. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 36(5), 427–440.
• Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. D., & Wilson, K. G. (2012). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: The process and practice of mindful change (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
• Khoury, B., Lecomte, T., Fortin, G., Masse, M., Therien, P., Bouchard, V., … Hofmann, S. G. (2013). Mindfulness-based therapy: A comprehensive meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 33(6), 763–771.
• Southwick, S. M., Bonanno, G. A., Masten, A. S., Panter-Brick, C., & Yehuda, R. (2014). Resilience definitions, theory, and challenges: Interdisciplinary perspectives. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 5(1), 25338.
• Tang, Y.-Y., Holzel, B. K., & Posner, M. I. (2015). The neuroscience of mindfulness meditation. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 16(4), 213–225.
• Windle, G., Bennett, K. M., & Noyes, J. (2011). A methodological review of resilience measurement scales. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, 9(8), 8.