Kyle Van Vliet is a spiritual seeker, and these days she thinks she’s found something that rings true for her.

A Lawrence woman and Kansas University graduate, Van Vliet has been going to meetings of the Bhagavad-gita Study Group, which gathers Thursday evenings at Ecumenical Christian Ministries, 1204 Oread.

Those who come regularly to the group  a dozen people, sometimes more  get together to find inspiration in the Bhagavad-gita, one of the most popular and well-known works of ancient India’s sacred scriptures.

Van Vliet is finding the Bhagavad-gita, which means “Song of God” in the Sanskrit language, to be a source of wisdom and guidance.

“It breaks things down in a way that makes sense to me. One of the principles of this philosophy is discipline  disciplining your mind, the way you interact with others and perceive situations so you don’t get blown out by the whole process of life,” she said.

“It also sets you free to find out who you are, screening out a lot of the interference of daily life. For me, it led to wanting to simplify my life to experience more inner peace and a connection with the divine.”

But what’s new to Van Vliet is in fact quite old. Hundreds of millions of people through the ages have traveled down the spiritual path laid out by the Bhagavad-gita thousands of years ago. The book’s 700 concise verses describe the nature of consciousness, the universe, the self and the Supreme Being.

People like Van Vliet find it fascinating.

“The more I became exposed to this philosophy, it sort of made sense to me. It’s something you could study all your life and not feel like you had accomplished much, because the ideas are so vast,” she said.

The Bhagavad-gita Study Group was organized last spring by Steve Ritz, a Lawrence architect, and other people in the area who are devotees of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.

The translation of the ancient Sanskrit scripture that the study group uses is titled “Bhagavad-gita As It Is,” by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.

The author, who died in 1977, was the first of an unbroken chain of gurus, or spiritual masters, going back thousands of years to have translated the Bhagavad-gita into English and popularized its teachings in the Western world.

Prabhupada’s translation is thought to be the biggest-selling, most widely used edition of the Bhagavad-gita in the West.

Those who adhere to the philosophy of the Krishna Consciousness Movement are known popularly  though incorrectly  as “Hare Krishnas,” a name derived from the familiar maha-mantra that followers chant.

The Krishna Consciousness Movement is a worldwide community of devotees practicing bhakti-yoga, which means loving, devotional service to God. Prabhupada founded the movement in July 1966 in New York City.

Ganapati Das Swami Maharaja  a monk and a direct disciple of Prabhupada  has visited Lawrence and KU once or twice a semester for the past 20 years, teaching people about the Bhagavad-gita and its philosophy.

“Gandhi used to vehemently protest when people called the Bhagavad-gita a religious text. He saw it as a manual for living. I like to say that the Gita is not about religious conversion  it’s about enlightenment,” he said in an interview during a recent meeting of the study group.

“It’s a book of spiritual principles. Once we understand those principles, we will see how they are common to all the religions of the world.”