Holy Gita
By M.P.Bhattathiry
Retd. Chief Technical Examiner To The Govt. Of Kerala, Kerala, India

Bhagavad Gita, is the most important and cream of all scriptural texts for Sanadhana Dharma.

According to the Gita true religion is that which is inherent in the soul. It can not be changed, and it is universally the same for all living entities. The external faiths are material reflections of the inherent spiritual quality of the soul. We must rise above the material bodily designations and realize our true identity as a spirit soul, part and parcel of God.

Bhagavad Gita is more important for understanding the philosophy of Hinduism. Please take up a serious study of the Bhagavad Gita. I am sure you will find the answers you are looking for there. 

Srimad Bhagavat Gita is the beautiful Song of the Supreme personality of Godhead SriKrishna to rejuvenate Arjuna, his dearest disciple, from his depression, dejection and gloom to do his duty forgetting the attachments to preserve Dharma (Justice). Lord Krishna explaining to His friend Arjuna who he and He Himself really is. That knowledge would give Arjuna the strength and the resolve to know and to defeat his enemies. 

The crisis of Arjuna is that of identity: who am I, what am I to do, how am I to see things, what is my nature, what is the right attitude? How to attain peace and the victory? The majority population of the world are in the same position irrespective of achieving the highest materialism.

Bhagavad Gīta is a supreme knowledge of philosophy actually, with which it is difficult to identify oneself. Second of all were most Gīta 's available cut into an enormous heap of philosophical fragments in studies of detail, from which the original course of reasoning became completely obscure. It was not difficult to understand what the preaching was all about, but what did the book say itself? How could one listen to the original speaker and pick it up from the heart as one usually does, following the reasoning in a book? Thus can all the culture of belief and interpretation be experienced as a hindrance, or a problem of the purity of the medium between oneself and the Lord of Wisdom.: Lord Krishna, is speaking to us actually through the medium Arjuna.

Thus this presentation of the Gīta is an effort to reconstruct what actually was said by Lord Krishna written by Sri. Vedavyasa, the original author, used, can be appreciated as from him. On the battlefield of Kuruksetra just before the great war of the Mahabharata Krishna spoke these to Arjuna at the end of an era of vedic culture that left us with the nature of what we now know as modern time and by Hindus is called Kali-Yuga, the Iron age of Quarrel what we learn from modern science, philosophy and the spiritual teachings and last but not least we can have our own modern/postmodern experience reflected too without falling into the selfhood of ego. From the tradition itself it can be understood that its approach of proper reference does not really differ from the method of modern natural science also founded on proper reference. Sanjaya could be a pure medium for the words of Krishna, because he was a loyal pupil of Vedavyasa. We also could be a pure medium if we would follow the same method. Thus this Gīta does not stand on itself but is directly born from a previous version, a line of disciplic succession, the tradition; nay it also originated from all the versions and the whole discussion entertained at the present time. There are so many Gīta's and thus so many traditions of learning to respect.

It is taken from the epic the Mahabharata that is about the great war that ended the so-called Dvapara Yuga or era of vedic culture. The Kurudynasty in conflict meets on the battlefield. The preachings of Sri Krishna to Arjuna, who are nephews in a long line of vedic succession in dynasties of nobility that ruled Bharatavarsa, India, with the knowledge of Bhagavan, the Supreme Lord who takes different forms in different incarnations (called avatara's) throughout history to protect the good people.

Krishna's father Vasudeva was the brother of Queen Kunti also called aunt Prthā often mentioned in this Gītā. Arjuna, with his four brothers called the Pāndava's, was born from King Pāndu and Queen Kuntī in the Kurudynasty. Pāndu had a blind brother called Dhritarāstra who himself had a hundred sons called de Kaurava's.

Pāndu died young and the sons of Pāndu were raised by their uncle together with their nephews the Kaurava's. This family bond ran into a terrible fugue over a game of dice with which the Kaurava's denied the Pāndava's the right to their piece of the common heritage. Especially seeing how well they did before the fugue gave rise to all kinds of bad character. Because of the -prepared- game of dice they were banned for the wilderness for a thirteen years. 

When after that period they were told that they hadn't perfectly performed according the rules and thus had their exile extended, the limit was reached: never would Yudhisthir, Arjuna, Bhīma, Nakula and Sahadeva, the Pāndava's, get their kingdom back this way. Because of this injustice they then met at Kuruksetra, a holy place of pilgrimage, for battle. 

Arjuna, seeing all his nephews, uncles and other family members on the battlefield, collapses: he doesn't want to fight anymore and calls for his friend and nephew Krishna, who assists him as his charioteer, for help. Then Krishna manifests His true nature before Arjuna. He tells him that it is according to his nature as a ruler that he must fight and then explains to him how to attain to the transcendental position of self-realization that is needed to be in control above the modes of material nature and all the character of man belonging to it and thus be assured of the victory. 

Krishna identifies Himself as Vishnu, the Maintainer, the one of goodness and explains to Arjuna that he should see Him as the Sun and the Moon; the order of nature, as the taste of water, the divinities and the Time itself. He also tells him that this type of knowledge is personal and confidential. This cannot be told to people adverse to the science of yoga of Him which Krishna explains in the underlying eighteen chapters of the Gīta.

The yoga of Krishna is divided in three main portions in this book: karma, bhakti, and jnanayoga. 

First of all, there is the karmic point of view: through proper action and analysis one realizes one's connectedness, realigning oneself (through religion, realigning, called dharma or proper action) with the original person that is the Lord and the true self as well as with the objective of the Absolute of the Truth of the manifest complete of the material universe. This unwinding of the illusioned state achieved by abandoning profit motivated labor or karma is attained by detachment and meditation. 

Next, in the second section on Bhakti-yoga, Krishna explains what it means to attain to the transcendental position: without developing fortitude in devotional service or bhakti-yoga one can be enlightened - for a while, but one is not liberated, one does not attain to the stability of wisdom in good habits of respect that one is seeking. Krishna then explains Arjuna about His personal nature and how he should recognize Himself in His different identities. Arjuna's gates of perception are then, on his own request, broken open by Krishna who shows him His Universal Form, the complete of His personal nature. From then on does Arjuna no longer doubt the divinity of his friend and does he excuse himself for having treated Him as a normal mortal being in the past. 

In the last six chapters on the Yoga of Spiritual knowledge or jnana yoga explains Krishna how, with the difference between the knower and the known, the divisions of nature in three modes lead to different kinds of sacrificing and personal duty. Explaining the difference between the divine and the godless nature He then tells Arjuna finally how through renunciation, its threefold nature and its service with the divisions of society, one attains to the ultimate of liberation under the condition of respecting Him as the ultimate order and nature of the Absolute Truth of the soul.

To know more about the antecedents of the culture of devotion and spiritual knowledge, Krishna's life and the reality of our modern lives, is explained in the Srīmad Bhāgavatam, which can said to be a post graduate course.

Let us pay our obeisance to Lord Krishna to protect all the people in the entire world to live in harmony.

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