Chapter 1: Observing the armies
The Bhagavad Gita begins with Sanjaya narrating to the blind King Dhrtarastra, the scene of the battlefield of Kuruksetra, wherein assembled are two parties – a party headed by the five Pandava brothers representing dharma [righteousness] and the other party headed by the sons of Dhrtarasta representing adharma [unrighteousness]. Arjuna, the leading Pandava, requests his chariot-driver and friend, Krishna to take his chariot in between the two armies so that he could closely inspect those who have come to combat them.
Induced by Krishna, Arjuna experiences an acute weakness of heart upon seeing his own family members on the combating side. With full self-honesty, Arjuna opens his heart before his dearest friend, Krishna – describing his bodily symptoms of depression [exhibiting self-awareness] and acknowledging his material attachments [exhibiting selfishness] on one hand, while on the other hand, laying down the dangers of sinning and loss of family values on account of killing the senior members of the family [exhibiting thoughtfulness].
Chapter 2: Contents of the Gita summarized
Unable to resolve the dilemma of what is in his best interest – whether to fight or to quit – with a heart filled with humility, Arjuna submits before Krishna, pleading Krishna to accept him as a disciple, and begs for direction. Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, at once takes the role of a teacher and begins to speak the Bhagavad Gita.
Knowing our body to be simply a covering that cannot be preserved forever, we should develop the quality of acceptance. Each of us is constitutionally an eternal individual soul, untouched by the changing covering of matter. [The yoga of analysis] Therefore, we should live from the platform of the soul, with our single-pointed intelligence directed toward a clear goal of life, while maintaining an inner purity of motivations – most practically achieved by engaging all our senses in the service of Krishna [The yoga of intelligence].
Chapter 3: Karma (Action) yoga in practice
There are two possible paths to freeing the soul out of its bondage: (1) the path of analysis (sankhya), where we analytically subtract ourselves from this world (by the process of jnana-yoga or the yoga of knowledge) and (2) the path of synthesis (yoga), where we progressively add ourselves to the divine (by the process of karma-yoga or the yoga of action).
When we utilize our psychophysical nature in prescribed actions and engage the results of actions in Krishna’s service with detachment, we are executing the yoga of action, which Krishna considers to be natural and superior to the yoga of knowledge. That is because the yoga of knowledge can lead to premature renunciation resulting in frustration.
Under the spell of our false ego, we falsely consider ourselves to be achievers and proprietors of results while the actions are actually enacted under the influence of the modes of material nature. This results in undue attachment to the fruits of action thus binding us to this material world. The specific force within the modes of nature that perpetuates our bondage is lust and our senses, mind, and intelligence act as agencies of lust. This lust can be conquered only when we change our absorption from enjoying the sense objects to pleasing Krishna thus capturing all the agencies of lust.
Chapter 4: Transcendental knowledge
The antidote for lust is knowledge. Knowledge is perfect when it originates from the Supreme Source of our existence, Krishna, and is preserved by a chain of qualified representatives of a bona fide disciplic succession. We become eligible to get liberated from our bondage and return back to Krishna’s spiritual abode if we truly understand the transcendental nature of Krishna’s birth and activities.
There are two facets of transcendental knowledge: understanding Krishna’s transcendental position and understanding that actions executed for Krishna’s pleasure are transcendental. Only when knowledge and work transcendentally combine, work becomes a sacrifice (yajña). The sacrifice reaches its pinnacle point when we are ready to sacrifice our false ego. When we submit our false ego before a bona fide spiritual master, we receive the transcendental knowledge unadulterated. This transcendental knowledge in turn transforms our life completely and fills us up with transcendental bliss.
Chapter 5: Karma (Action) yoga in perfection
Lord Krishna stresses the importance of remaining connected with the divine while executing practical actions (yoga-yukta) for achieving quick success. Renunciation of action produces a lot of distress while engagement in yoga unavoidably leads to self-realization. We don’t need to necessarily change our actions but make our motivations divine by dedicating them for the pleasure of God. It is possible by acting with purified intelligence, conquered mind, and conquered senses. This leads to the manifestation of full spiritual empathy and freedom from entanglement.
Peace from all material pangs is sustainably attained only when we recognize Krishna to be the supreme enjoyer, the supreme controller, and the true well-wishing friend. This is the pivoting factor and the foundation for real happiness and success of a niskama-karma yogi, or a non-attached action yogi.
Chapter 6: Dhyana (Meditation) yoga
One cannot be a yogi or a renunciant without renouncing the desires for sense gratification. As an alternative to the process of non-attached action yoga, Krishna delineates another way to achieve the same goal — by the process of meditation (dhyāna) yoga or aṣṭāṅga-yoga. Real renunciation refers to the spirit of renunciation whereby one is not merely renouncing things or actions but renouncing the false material conceptions that one is a proprietor of things, a doer of actions (or a cause of results), and an enjoyer of results.
One should elevate oneself by the mind. When the mind is under control, it acts as the friend of the self. Otherwise, the mind will pose as the enemy of the self. It is indeed very difficult to control the mind. However, it is not impossible. Krishna reveals the secret for controlling the mind – it is possible by suitable practice (abhyāsena) and detachment (vairāgyeṇa). Success is assured for a rigid practitioner. Among all the yogis, a bhakti yogī (one who connects with Krishna in love and devotion) is considered the highest.
Chapter 7: Knowledge of the Absolute
Understanding the Absolute Truth entails knowing Krishna and His energies and knowing Krishna as the governing factor of all His energies. Understanding that devotional yoga (or bhakti-yoga) is the highest form of yoga, Krishna invites us to practice the process of devotional yoga by bringing our total absorption into thinking of Him and engaging in His loving service. The foremost method within bhakti-yoga is to simply hear from Krishna or about Krishna.
Everything rests upon Krishna (or, is maintained by Krishna), as pearls are strung on an invisible thread. Nothing and no one is beyond Krishna as the Supreme Person. The realization of our inviolable connection with the source of our existence (Krishna) is the essence of perfection. The divine illusory material energy (māyā) of Krishna consisting of the three modes is practically insurmountable. However, it is possible to go beyond this illusion simply by surrendering our life to Krishna alone.
Chapter 8: Attaining the Supreme
At the end of life, one who quits one’s body remembering Krishna alone undoubtedly attains Krishna’s nature. The general principle is that whatever state of being one remembers at the time of death, one surely attains to that state in the next life. How can we make it possible to remember Krishna alone at the time of death?
Lord Krishna’s advice is to organize our life in such a way that we can always think of Krishna while carrying out our responsibilities in this world. If our mind and intelligence are dedicated to Krishna, we will undoubtedly attain Krishna. It is possible by regular practice of engagement with Krishna and not allowing our mind to go anywhere else. Krishna is easy to obtain for the bhakti yogis because they are exclusively, constantly, and regularly engaged in remembering Krishna.
Chapter 9: The most confidential knowledge
The ninth chapter is a chapter of transcendental mysteries. Krishna’s inconceivable relationship with His energetic manifestations unfolds two mysteries. The living entities are simultaneously fully dependent on Krishna and at the same time maintain their independent volition power. The second mystery is that Krishna is simultaneously the cause of all causes within the material world through His energies, and yet He Himself is completely aloof and unaffected by those actions.
Finally, Krishna presents a sure-shot method to reach Him. We should engage our mind always in thinking of Krishna, become Krishna’s devotee, worship Krishna, and offer our obeisances to Krishna. Being completely absorbed in Krishna, surely we will come to Krishna. This is the ultimate mystery of Krishna’s transcendental reciprocation.
Chapter 10: The opulence of the Absolute
The transcendental mystery continues into the tenth chapter. It is impossible to understand one’s source without being favored by the source. Krishna is the source of everything and everyone – the various states of our existence, the demigods, the sages, the progenitors, as well as their descendants. When one hears in a sacred tradition with faith, one receives the favor of the Lord and therefore can know Krishna by revelation.
Attaining success in spiritual life (as captured in the four verses starting at the eighth) entails an understanding of our eternal loving relationship with Krishna, practically acting within that loving relationship, and receiving love and enlightenment back from Krishna. Hearing this essential message serves to increase Arjuna’s eagerness to hear more. Upon Arjuna’s request, Krishna gives an indication of His personal divine opulence focusing on only the prominent ones, as there is no end to Krishna’s opulence. Whatever power, beauty, or glory that is found in existence, it springs from a spark of Krishna’s splendor.
Chapter 11: The universal form
After hearing about the opulence of the Absolute, Arjuna pleads to experientially behold how Krishna pervades and sustains this entire universe with a single fragment of Himself. In response, Krishna awards Arjuna divine eyes and draws him into witnessing His mystic opulence in the form of His universal form – the entire continuum of time and space compressed in one form. Krishna reveals Himself as the eternal time factor – an agent of destruction. Krishna also proclaims that the outcome of the battle is already set, and so Arjuna should not waver and simply become an instrument to destroy his enemy.
Witnessing such an extraordinary form, Arjuna becomes overwhelmed with wonder and fear. Beseeched by Arjuna, Krishna withdraws His universal form and reveals Himself again in His beautiful two-handed form. The universal form is a ghastly temporary manifestation of time, while Krishna’s two-handed form is the eternal and most sublime form, unbounded by time and untouched by matter.
Chapter 12: Devotional service
After getting an experiential realization of Krishna’s all-pervading impersonal universal form and Krishna’s two-handed personal form in front of him, Arjuna now naturally wants to find out which form of worship is most suitable. Krishna’s response is clear and emphatic. Those who worship Krishna’s personal form with devotion (bhakti yoga) are considered by Krishna to be the most perfect.
Krishna furthermore lays down the progressive stages of devotion and then lists the qualities necessary to become dear to Him. The topmost stage of practice is to engage the mind and intelligence in Krishna. A devotee of Krishna, who sincerely follows Krishna’s instructions making Krishna the supreme goal, is equipoised and satisfied in all circumstances of life, and is non-envious toward all living entities is extremely dear to Krishna
Chapter 13: Nature, the enjoyer and consciousness
Everything in existence comes into being when the field [body] and the knower [soul] of the field come together. Along with the individual soul, the indestructible Supersoul – the Super-knower and the Supreme Lord – is also situated in the destructible body and He is equally present everywhere.
The beginning-less eternal individual soul acting as an enjoyer associates with the temporary modes of nature and embraces its transformations. Thus, the soul becomes the cause of the mixed experience of sufferings and enjoyments and gets born into good and evil species of life characteristic of the particular modes of nature. The real Enjoyer, the Supersoul, as the neutral Master, oversees and permits the experiences of the individual soul who is acting as an enjoyer.
Seeing the role of the individual soul, the Supersoul, and the modes of material nature within the field of actions inspires an equal vision toward everyone – one of the foremost qualities highlighted by Krishna to become dear to Krishna.
Chapter 14: The three modes of material nature
Goodness, passion, and darkness are the modes (guṇāḥ) born of material nature. They bind the eternal embodied spirit soul that is dwelling in the body. The mode of goodness (sattvaṁ) is illuminating and engenders clarity. However, it also binds the soul with attachment to happiness and knowledge. The mode of passion (rajas) is born from the thirst for material association and binds the embodied soul with attachment to material fruitive actions. The mode of darkness (tamas), born of ignorance, binds the soul with madness, lethargy, and sleep.
The modes of material nature seem insurmountable but there is a way out. One who serves Krishna with unadulterated bhakti yoga can transcend the three modes of material nature completely and come to the stage of spiritual perfection. This stage of transcendence is characterized by one’s equal disposition toward the dualities offered by this material world.
Chapter 15: The yoga of the Supreme Person
Krishna explained how a living entity is captured within its field of activities through the all-encompassing modes of material nature. Using the example of a reflected banyan tree, Krishna depicts the entire span of the field. After describing the field of actions and the helpless plight of the living entities, Krishna establishes His unique position as the external and the internal maintainer of everything.
Whoever understands Krishna as the Supreme Personality of Godhead without any doubt knows everything and whole-heartedly engages in His devotional service. This is the most confidential scriptural injunction knowing which one becomes intelligent and accomplished.
Chapter 16: The divine and demoniac natures
Krishna described the field of actions as an inverted banyan tree, whose branches are developed and nourished by the modes of material nature. Krishna now brings our attention to the higher and the lower branches of the tree.
Krishna gives an overview of the divine qualities born of the mode of goodness (representing the higher branches) and subsequently an elaborate sketch of the demoniac qualities (representing the lower branches), which are born of the modes of passion and ignorance. Those who follow the scriptures are divine and those who don’t follow are demoniac. One who discards the scriptural injunctions and acts whimsically attains neither perfection nor happiness.
Chapter 17: Divisions of faith
What if one’s faith is not reposed in the scriptures? In that case, one worships according to the faith dictated by one’s acquired modes of material nature. The influence of the modes can be seen in one’s food habits as well as in one’s inner disposition in sacrifices, austerity, and charity.
The modal contaminations in sacrifice, charity and austerity can be counteracted by dedication to the Supreme through the chanting of oṁ tat sat. However, without faith in the Supreme, anything carrying a semblance of sacrifice, charity, and austerity is fruitless.
Chapter 18: Conclusion – the perfection of renunciation
In the eighteenth chapter, Krishna summarizes what He has spoken before in the previous chapters. There are five factors behind any action – the field of action, the initiator of action (or the soul), the senses, various endeavors, and the Supersoul as the ultimate sanctioning agent. The modes of material nature pervade all aspects of existence – knowledge, action, performer, understanding, determination, and happiness.
One should stick to one’s prescribed duties based on one’s psychophysical nature. Every endeavor is covered with fault but can be purified by dedicating them to the Supreme Lord. Giving us the freedom of choice, Krishna repeats His supreme instruction – the sure-shot method to reach Him that he had already stated in chapter 9 – we should always think of Krishna, become His devotee, worship Him and offer our obeisances to Him. We should abandon all other subsidiary engagements and simply take shelter of Krishna. Krishna will, in turn, deliver us from all sinful reactions.
Hearing the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna acknowledges that his illusion is now dispelled and he is prepared to act according to Krishna’s instructions.
