Why this site

For a long time I read the Bhagavad Gita the way most engineers do: as a curiosity, occasionally inspiring, mostly opaque. Then a teacher pointed out that it is structurally a problem statement followed by a sequence of attempted solutions, each more refined than the last. The Gita opens with Arjuna paralyzed before a decision he has the data, the authority, and the agency to make. Krishna spends the next seventeen chapters answering that paralysis. Once I saw it as that kind of dialogue I could not stop reading.

What I missed in every published edition was a commentary that respected both the original text and the kind of reader who wants the argument made plainly. So I wrote my own notes, originally as WhatsApp messages to a small reading group in late 2024, and over time those notes turned into the pages on this site.

The same is true for Japji Sahib and the Hanuman Chalisa. They are not decorative. They are claims about how attention, action, and devotion work, and they reward careful reading.

What you’ll find here

• The texts. Bhagavad Gita (eighteen chapters), Japji Sahib (thirty-eight stanzas), Hanuman Chalisa (forty verses). Original script, transliteration, and translation, with verse-level permalinks.
• Commentary in two voices. Hindi for the close-reading and lineage-respectful exposition; English for the framing and cross-references. Where the texts speak to a modern problem (decision-making, equanimity, identity) I say so.
• Reading guides. Curated paths through the material. Thirty minutes if that is what you have. Ninety minutes if you want a working framework. Two hours if you want depth.
• Downloads. PDFs for offline reading and the source notes in plain markdown.

A note on lineage

Hari Om. Shalom. Namaskaram. Pranams. Salutations. 

I grew up in a family of  refugees from Sindh (Pakistan) who came to India after Partition in 1947. My family has been hardworking, resourceful, perhaps spiritual, but not particularly religious. Yet from a very young age, something within me was leaning towards the spiritual. As a child around 5-7 years of age, I could direct the flow of blood to my forehead at will; by the age of 14, interest in silent meditation arose on its own, without any instruction. Later, I would notice cold electric shivers running up the spine at places of worship. I am fortunate enough to remember these experiences, though I had no one to explain them to me at that time.

Over the years, pursuing both worldly and spiritual education in earnest. I have earned a few degrees. Alongside, I sought the inner life with equal dedication (Chinmaya Mission under the guidance of Pujya Swami Shantananda ji, Vipassana retreats, time at Siddha Yoga, deep study with Isha Yoga, Sri Sri Ravishankar, Arsha Vidya Gurukulam, Integral Yoga, Kriya Yoga from Sri M and from Paramahamsa Hariharananda and his successor Paramahamsa Prajnanananda, and Yogananda Paramhansa’s Self Realization Fellowship). By dedication, I mean initiation, taking every advanced course and including them in my daily Sadhna, steadily and without modification.

Personal stories from each lineage have stayed with me deeply.  I am based in Dallas Texas now. My sadhana has been steady for over 20 years. I have not lacked sincerity, discipline, or willingness, and yet carry an honest question: whether further progress on the path now depends less on doing more, and more on the kind of guidance that comes through a living relationship with a teacher who can see where one truly stands.

Many of the traditions affirm that at a certain stage, the guru-disciple relationship becomes not just helpful but essential. I do not wish to “window shop” among teachers, and continue to seek orientation with total surrender. I am also a current student in the Himalayan Institute tradition (Vishoka meditation and the broader Sri Vidya stream), and I read across several other Eastern and Western living and historical teachers.

The commentary on this site is not initiated transmission from any of those traditions and should not be read as such. It is one engineer-seeker’s reading, offered openly, with an invitation to disagree.