The Bhagavad Gita by Eknath Easwaran

The Bhagavad Gita ╯
times is that it clears up misunderstandings about the spiritual
life and shows it for what it is: active, joyful, intentional,
a middle path between extremes that transfigures everyday
living.
FAITH AND SP IRITUAL EV OLU TION
One last untranslatable concept and I will let
the Gita speak for itself. That concept is shraddha, and its
nearest English equivalent is faith. I have translated it as such,
but shraddha means much more. It is literally “that which is
placed in the heart”: all the beliefs we hold so deeply that we
never think to question them. It is the set of values, axioms,
prejudices, and prepossessions that colors our perceptions,
governs our thinking, dictates our responses, and shapes our
lives, generally without our even being aware of its presence
and power.
This may sound philosophical, but shraddha is not an
intellectual abstraction. It is our very substance. The Gita
says, “A person is what his shraddha is” (17:3). The Bible uses
almost the same words: “As a man thinketh in his heart, so
is he.” Shraddha reflects everything that we have made ourselves
and points to what we have become. But there is nothing
passive about shraddha. It is full of potency, for it prompts
action, conditions behavior, and determines how we see and
therefore respond to the world around us.
When Norman Cousins talks about a “belief system” anal-
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