Books about renouncement/paradise/liberation

Hi,

ITT you can share your lit and thoughts about renouncing life/liberation/paradise etc.

All spiritual thoughts/debates are welcome, too.

Some monk gave me a copy of that and I hollowed it out and used it as a secret compartment to keep psychedelics in.

ok

Same here but the monk then screamed "FIVE DOLLAH" and I said I have no money, then he took the book back forcefully and spit at my shoes.

Books like the OP about renouncement and liberation/higher spiritual/non materialistic goals would be welcome.

...

>As it is edition

enjoy being initiated into a cult OP

I don't have that edition. It's just the first pic I found on google image.

I have stephen mitchell translation's.

What's the best complete Bagdad Gita?
all i see are abridged, and the Clay Sanskrit library never finished their edition

I also have this copy from a monk.

It's not a very good translation. Each page has like one line of the poem and the rest is commentary. Which would be cool if it wasn't so specifically Hare Krishna in its interpretation. Like, I get it, Krishna is blue Jesus. Do you have anything else to say?

I read a couple of editions and my favorite one is the one I have now.

Stephen mitchell's translation.

It's a poetic translation without commentary.

For context, you might want to read the mahabharata first and maybe read a version of the bhagavad gita with a commentary or at least an explanation of hindu terms.

whoops i confused the 2 the mahabharata is the one they never finished and i can only find abridged

Yes. I think there's actually a whole english translation but I only read abriged translations too.

The original text is something like 80k verses.
It's the greatest poem ever written.

Almost no one reads the full text. It's more of a historic document.

You can already get a lot from a good abriged version.

that's fair, i'm just weird about abridged versions (I feel the same way when looking at The Golden Bough) which one should I get? The amazon Topseller is apparently almost exclusively the battles or something, but i dunno what to look for.

I don't remmember the name of the editions I read but they were in french anyway so that probably wouldn't help you out too much.

I reccommend looking for a reckognized abriged and translated version, and possibly reading a few to get a wider perspective. It's a very rich story and some versions will focus on one aspect and others on another. If you read a couple you have better chances of getting the different "good" parts (speaking about the ones which I found "good").

Just start somewhere, it's a good story. Even a comparably poor edition will still be interesting, and leaves room for re reads of different editions.

That's fair, Thanks a lot!

you're welcome.

ISKCON monks are scum. Never had a good experience with any of them.

Just wanted to say that the monk who I bought this edition of the book from kept saying flattering things and then said I looked like an elf from Lord of the Rings. Felt like I had to give him $5 for him compliments, but is was a shit edition, though.

Yeah see he was asking me for donations and I just told him I already gave money to another one so he gave me that book and two others for free. They're all really awful, just people asking the head monk questions and him answering them with really uninteresting things. "Perfect questions perfect answers" fuck off I just like the pictures.

The main thing that I learned from both the Bhagavad Gita and The Dhammapada is to never think about yourself (in a vain way that is).
So whenever I catch myself having imaginary interviews with Jimmy Kimmel I just say fuck off and think about literature or something
It has helped immensely