Have You Read The Gita?

The other day we were chatting with a friend and this really interesting point came up that I immediately recognized. When you’re really immersed in a religion, sometimes you feel as though you’ve read things that you actually haven’t. Do you know what I mean?

Like if you’re a Hindu in India, you’ve seen Gita quotes on bumper stickers and heard your grandmother say things from it and it’s just around you so much that you might not ever have actually sat down and read it cover to cover, but you feel like  you have!

The same thing happens with Christians and the Bible, I suspect, and Muslims with the Quran. I know I recognize that in myself too.

There are certain sections of the Bhagavad Gita that I’m super familiar with. Sections that I studied as a teenager and really delved into. But I’m not sure that I’ve ever read the whole thing! In some ways I think that I have, but if I search my memory, I think I’m wrong.

This is one of the reasons why I’m doing a Gita discussion over at the Premium Blog. Because I want to read and examine every single sentence of it. I want to really know all that’s in there.

Have you ever experienced this? Do you feel like you’ve read the Bible or the Gita and when you stop and really think about it realize that you’ve just heard snippits of it for so many years that you forgot you hadn’t?