- Chapter 04
- Chapter 04, Text 01
- Gita 04.01 – Explanation
- Gita 04.01 explained
- Those who see in history only their own reflection can’t see the trans-historical
- Don’t just punish lust-dominated individuals; purify lust-tormented individuals
- What is beyond being dated is beyond becoming outdated
- Enrich yourself with the supreme legacy of immortal love
- Chapter 04, Text 02
- Gita 04.02 – Explanation
- Gita 04.02 explained
- Power needs to be kept out of the hands of those who worship power
- We may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in us
- Time makes the imperishable inaccessible
- The divorce of the raja from the rishi perverts the ruler into an exploiter
- Cherish the power of love, not the love of power
- The harmony of the sword and the word
- Living the Gita is not about turning back the clock, but about turning on the compass
- To comprehend the Gita, focus on its original originality
- Chapter 04, Text 03
- Gita 04.03 – Explanation
- Gita 04.03 explained
- The link between the psychological and the cosmological (Exploring the Gita chapter 4 series - 1)
- The revelation of the revelation comes from the living tradition
- The best translation of the Gita is its translation into life
- Chapter 04, Text 04
- Gita 04.04 – Explanation
- Gita 04.04 explained
- 04.04 Arjuna’s fifth question (Exploring the Gita chapter 4 series - 2)
- How could past people believe in things we find irrational?
- When we give Krishna the benefit of doubt, he gives us the benefit of freedom from doubt
- Be curious, not superstitious; be cautious, not suspicious
- The call to faith is for focusing,not forsaking, of intelligence
- Chapter 04, Text 05
- Gita 04.05 – Explanation
- Bless me to trust your infinite plan beyond my finite vision (4.05)
- Gita 04.05 explained
- The reincarnation of avatar in English is a revealing distortion
- Chapter 04, Text 06
- Gita 04.06 – Explanation
- Bless me to marvel at your miraculous presence in this world (4.06)
- Gita 04.06 explained
- Krishna’s avatara is not actually an incarnation
- Our incarnation is an incarceration — Krishna’s isn’t
- Krishna is not a dictator, but a benefactor
- Chapter 04, Text 07
- Gita 04.07 – Explanation
- Bless me to stand on your side in restoring dharma (4.07)
- Gita 04.07 explained
- Krishna descends to delineate, demonstrate and disseminate dharma
- My message of love, Will you ban?
- Chapter 04, Text 08
- Gita 04.08 – Explanation
- Please restore divine order inside me and outside me (4.08)
- Kalki movie - Making sense with Bhagavad-gita
- Gita 04.08 explained
- The two main meanings of dharma in the Gita — and how they synergize
- Is God partial?
- Why fear of God is healthy — and when it becomes unhealthy
- How we can learn from history to shape our history
- Spirituality is meant not just for transcending the world but also for transforming the world
- The purpose of establishing dharma in the world is to establish us in dharma
- Krishna is a trans-cosmic enjoyer; don’t reduce him to a cosmic constable
- Chapter 04, Text 09
- Gita 04.09 – Explanation
- You come not just to restore order, but also to recover souls (4.09)
- Gita 04.09 explained
- How Krishna’s pastimes reveal him to be the ultimate hero
- Two purposes of Krishna’s descent (Exploring the Gita chapter 4 series - 4)
- How Superman’s history helps us understand Krishna’s intimate divinity
- How Krishna descends to civilize and spiritualize humanity
- Devotion is not just about bringing God into our life; it is also about letting God bring us into his life
- Krishna retains his divine position even while he reclines in a supine position
- See Krishna not just as an object of entertainment but as the objective of enlightenment
- The theatrical Krishna takes us to the transcendental Krishna
- Krishna is not an optional source of entertainment – he is the indispensable source of shelter
- To understand God, begin with definition, not depiction
- The more we comprehend Krishna’s transcendence, the more we cherish his munificence
- Evaluating action without understanding position causes delusion
- The unborn takes birth to save us from rebirth
- The divine descent is meant to inspire the human ascent
- The spiritual lies beyond both the logical and the psychological
- Krishna is the ultimate knight in shining armor
- Love God, not the concept of God
- Study pastimes not to swoop down on their meaning, but to be swept up by their emotion
- Krishna descends to offer not just protection but also participation
- Krishna’s pastimes are the trailer and the trail
- The goal of spiritual life is to make spiritual life our goal
- Devotion raises our knowledge of Krishna from superficial familiarity to substantial understanding
- Unravel the mystery of the Infinite’s descent into the finite through love
- Give yourself permission to love Krishna by suspending disbelief
- Those who let reason usurp Krishna in their heart end up worshiping a false god
- Krishna’s pastimes are not just amusing – they are amazing
- Chapter 04, Text 10
- How remembering Krishna is different from remembering anything else
- Gita 04.10 – Explanation
- Free me from the three obstacles to devotion (4.10)
- How the worldview of devotion is holistic and wholesome
- What's wrong with the worldview of dread?
- What's wrong with the worldview of despair?
- Rising from the worldviews of desire despair and dread to the worldview of devotion
- From material emotion to spiritual emotion
- Gita 04.10 explained
- The bhakti cure works for sure, for it connects us with the all-pure
- In scriptural dissemination, the problem is not in transmission but in reception
- To let the nourishing water of truth irrigate the heart, break the dam of misconception
- The Gita offers not just another worldview, but also another world to view
- Krishna ends the misdirection and frustration of our love
- Chapter 04, Text 11
- Gita 04.11 – Explanation
- Whatever I am seeking, I am actually seeking you (4.11)
- Protecting our spirit to help
- Gita 04.11 explained
- How conceptions of the Divine affect religious tolerance (Religious tolerance series 5)
- Will all paths lead to the same goal when the goal is all-pervading?
- How is everyone on Krishna’s path?
- Does Krishna teach Arjuna that all paths lead to the same goal? - part 2
- Does Krishna teach Arjuna that all paths lead to the same goal? - part 1
- How appreciating other spiritual paths can distract us — and inspire us
- How God is rational and reciprocal — and is more
- Why the Gita is misunderstood — and how it can be understood
- Without going deeply into one tradition we can’t deeply appreciate any tradition
- Everyone is equal in God's eyes but God is not equal in everyone’s eyes
- Respecting religious pluralism doesn’t require disrespecting religion
- Even for those who think God is the last thing they need, God remains the first thing they need
- Why bother whether the glass is half-empty or half-full when you can drink from either?
- Harmonize conceptions of the divine with revelation by the divine through surrender to the divine
- For the cynic, the truth lies in the heart
- No one owns the truth table except God – and he has many invitees
- From our place, at our pace, Krishna offers his embrace
- Might we be protecting our heart from Krishna instead of for Krishna?
- When strengths make us weak and weaknesses make us strong
- To get devotion in our life, let’s put life in our devotion
- Chapter 04, Text 12
- Gita 04.12 – Explanation
- Let your selflessness inspire selflessness within me (4.12)
- Gita 04.12 explained
- Seek not success in karma – seek success beyond karma
- Chapter 04, Text 13
- Why thinking people are often uninfluential
- Gita 04.13 – Explanation
- You provide the social order that facilitates spiritual order (4.13)
- Understanding ourselves: The utility of categorization the necessity of self-observation
- Two ways to know that our actions are aligned with our God-given nature
- Gita 04.13 explained
- Why all equalities are not equal
- Equality that is imposed doesn’t raise everyone up, it brings everyone down
- What brings us to the world is not as defining as what we bring to the world
- Genealogy shapes mentality, but doesn’t determine it
- Learning according to leaning nurtures growing
- Caste by birth is the perversion of class by worth
- Chapter 04, Text 14
- Gita 04.14 – Explanation
- Greater than the world’s unfairness is your mercifulness (4.14)
- Gita 04.14 explained
- Seek to know Krishna not theoretically but transformationally
- Chapter 04, Text 15
- Gita 04.15 – Explanation
- Gita 04.15 explained
- Krishna’s first direct self-revelation (Exploring the Gita chapter 4 series - 3)
- How following tradition literally may defeat the essential purpose of following tradition
- Ask not why bad things happen to good people, ask what good people do when bad things happen to them
- Chapter 04, Text 16
- Gita 04.16 – Explanation
- God is waiting for us
- Karma: resignation or responsibility?
- Gita 04.16 explained
- Understand scripture through devotional dedication, not linguistic specialization
- Chapter 04, Text 17
- Gita 04.17 – Explanation
- Let me focus on present dharma, not on past karma (4.17)
- A pragmatic approach to facing life's reversals
- Understanding destiny: Makers but not masters
- The essence of karma philosophy is not punishment but encouragement
- Gita 04.17 explained
- What is karma meant for
- The law of attraction and Gita wisdom
- When philosophy answers our questions — and when it doesn’t
- The importance of complexifying things
- How to persevere amid uncertainty?
- Focusing only on suffering's immediate cause makes us short-sighted focusing only on suffering's remote cause makes us hard-hearted
- To get the consequences of our wrongdoings may feel like misfortune, but it can save us from misfortune
- Karma is not like a mysterious contagious disease - it is logical not diabolical
- We need Krishna’s experience more than Krishna’s explanation
- Should we be happy when we are happy?
- Ask not “Why this?” but “How now?”
- Chapter 04, Text 18
- Gita 04.18 – Explanation
- Let me choose the transcendent, not the convenient (4.18)
- Gita 04.18 explained
- Three distinct meanings of karma in the Gita (Gita concepts series: Karma 2)
- Chapter 04, Text 19
- Chapter 04, Text 20
- Chapter 04, Text 21
- Chapter 04, Text 22
- Chapter 04, Text 23
- Gita 04.23 – Explanation
- Gita 04.23 explained
- Bhakti is pragmatic, not dogmatic
- Devotion brings knowledge into action and action into knowledge
- What raises motion to action is motivation
- Chapter 04, Text 24
- Gita 04.24 – Explanation
- Help me remember that you are never far away (4.24)
- Gita 04.24 explained
- Krishna’s inclusive explanation of sacrifice (Exploring the Gita chapter 4 series - 5)
- The spiritual in application leads to the spiritual in constitution
- Devotion centers not on renouncing the material, but on reclaiming the spiritual
- The material is not spiritual, but it is spiritualizable
- Chapter 04, Text 25
- Chapter 04, Text 27
- Chapter 04, Text 28
- Chapter 04, Text 29
- Chapter 04, Text 30
- Gita 04.30 – Explanation
- Gita 04.30 explained
- Fire-sacrifice is literal, metaphorical and transformational
- Chapter 04, Text 31
- Chapter 04, Text 32
- Chapter 04, Text 33
- Chapter 04, Text 34
- Gita 04.34 – Explanation
- Make me a truth-seeker, not a blind follower (4.34)
- Receptive + Submissive = Pathway to wisdom
- Gita 04.34 explained
- How faith and doubt can both be used spiritually
- Seek a guru to show the way, not to sanction your way
- Don’t be like soldiers fighting a past war
- Our connection with Krishna is reinforced, not restricted, by the guru
- The point of scriptural study is not to prove our point, but to improve our viewpoint
- Devotion blossoms in a personal culture, not a personality cult
- Be not just inquisitive but also submissive
- Tap HIS grace by Humbleness, Inquisitiveness and Service-mindedness
- Chapter 04, Text 35
- Gita 04.35 – Explanation
- Let wisdom deepen, not weaken, my connection with others (4.35)
- Gita 04.35 explained
- Krishna’s first assertion of his relationship with us (Exploring the Gita chaper 4 series - 6)
- A missed apostrophe can be a catastrophe – we are God’s not Gods
- Our belonging is more important than our belongings
- Enlightenment means to replace oneself with Krishna as the center
- Go beyond sectarianism and non-sectarianism to trans-sectarianism
- Are we outsourcing our thinking?
- Loving the unlovable is the characteristic of God – and the character of the godly
- Bhakti is not just about believing in God – it is about belonging to God
- Chapter 04, Text 36
- Gita 04.36 – Explanation
- More than my wrongs is your capacity to free me from them (4.36)
- We have snakes inside us, but we are not one of them
- God keeps the door to him unlocked from his side till every soul, however degraded, comes to him
- Tap the power of devotion that supersedes nature, nurture and culture
- Don’t blame gravity for the sinking of the boat
- Chapter 04, Text 37
- Gita 04.37 – Explanation
- Let wisdom burn away my impurities, not my intentions (4.37)
- Spiritual knowledge elevates us above misery – and eliminates misery too
- Chapter 04, Text 38
- Gita 04.38 – Explanation
- Grant me the wisdom, O Lord, that reveals your endless love
- Momentum manifests by movement from moment to moment
- Don’t depress yourself – depress your expectation from yourself
- Seek pleasure in the pursuit of meaning, not meaning in the pursuit of pleasure
- Patience is humility, not apathy
- Chapter 04, Text 39
- Gita 04.39 – Explanation
- Let my faith in you manifest as curiosity about your plan
- Why the peace from faith does not lead to passivity
- From the eyes of doubt to the eyes of faith
- Lack of faith
- Feeling God or trusting God?
- Is faith irrational?
- Don’t be so afraid of the irrational as to deny the possibility of the transrational
- Seeking requires believing: believing that something worth seeking exists and that we have the capacity to find it
- Between naiveté and cynicism is the courage to trust
- What the moonlight of reason shows dimly the sunlight of revelation shows clearly
- Faith is the bridge between our finite reason and Krishna’s infinite reason
- Faith is the reason for reason
- Be faithful, but be watchful too
- Knowing begins with believing
- Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs
- Choose not faith in the eyes; choose the eyes of faith
- Faith bridges the gap between personal realization and scriptural revelation
- Delight in the devotional chain reaction of faith and knowledge
- Chapter 04, Text 40
- Gita 04.40– Explanation
- Let me look for reasons to believe, not reasons to doubt
- The difference between doubts and questions
- Are we treating our beliefs and our doubts equally?
- 04.40 The liberating power of doubting our doubts (Dealing with doubts 2)
- How pride can corrupt both faith and doubt …
- Doubt is a disease that makes the patient believe the doctor is sick
- Learning by doubting is like driving by braking
- To lose one’s reason is bad, but to lose everything except one’s reason is far worse
- Get out of the drought of doubt
- Rejection of all faith as blind faith is blind faith
- Choosing doubt as the means for knowing is like choosing immobility as the means for traveling
- If let cynicism rob our power to trust Krishna, we rob ourselves of our greatest power
- Don’t think things to death; think of the thing called death
- No prison imprisons as badly as the prison of doubt
- See skepticism with skepticism
- Chapter 04, Text 42
- Gita 04.42 – Explanation
- Let me focus on the inner war, not on the outer battles
- Krishna blends the metaphorical and literal wars (Exploring the Gita chapter 4 series - 7)
- A weapon in the tent is of no use to a warrior in the fight
- The inner war may feature coronation or insurrection, but let it not feature execution
- Fight for your faith within more than without
- To remember to remember, refine your reminder
- The inner war is the bigger war
- Are we putting too much faith in doubt?
- Don’t let the sword sleep in the hand
- Text 41
Bhagavad Gita Chapter 04Chaitanya Charan2025-10-16T16:25:59+05:30