Friends Event: Detachment in the Gita

A talk by Shaunaka Rishi Das of the Oxford Centre For Hindu Studies

We are all attached to our stuff – our gadgets, our cars, our homes, our pets, our parents, our country, and our looks. Yet we know everything wears out eventually, and then we suffer. The Gita speaks about the nature of our attachments, why we want loads of stuff, why the grass on the other side looks greener, and why we are often not satisfied with what we have. In this talk we will discuss what the Gita proposes one to do when being attracted to material things seems so inevitable and being attached to spiritual things seems so distant; and how these proposals challenge our notions of religion, politics, family, and identity.