How Krishna’s teachings reflect both unity and diversity - In the Bhagavad-gita, Krishna deems as childish those who consider sankhya and yoga to be different [...]
Why a message of peace on a battlefield? – The Bhagavad-gita is spoken on the battlefield to a reluctant warrior urging him to fight. Then, [...]
How can Arjuna see everyone equally and still fight? - An often-quoted Bhagavad-gita verse recommends equality of vision (05.18): see everyone equally, because we all [...]
Let's try to understand what is happening till chapter 5 and further: In Arjun’s mind there were two options: action or renunciation, So Sri Krishna [...]
In the Bhagavad-gita’s fifth chapter, Arjuna asks essentially the same question that he asked at the start of the third chapter. “Should he work or [...]
Krishna blends the metaphorical and literal wars - In the last verse of the Bhagavad-gita’s fourth chapter (04.42), Krishna urges Arjuna to fight. That is [...]
Krishna’s first assertion of his relationship with us - In the Bhagavad-gita (04.35), Krishna describes the fruit of acquiring spiritual knowledge. First, he assures that [...]
Krishna’s inclusive explanation of sacrifice - In the Bhagavad-gita, Arjuna is apprehensive that he will be bound by bad karma if he fights in the [...]
In the Bhagavad-gita, Krishna mentions that he descends for two purposes (04.07-08 & 04.09-10). To better understand these purposes, let’s consider two classificatory frameworks: external-internal [...]
Krishna’s first direct self-revelation - In the Bhagavad-gita’s fourth chapter, Krishna responds to Arjuna’s question (04.04) by revealing his divinity directly for the first time [...]
04.04 Arjuna’s fifth question - In the Bhagavad-gita’s fourth chapter, when Krishna states that he gave spiritual knowledge long ago to the solar deity, that [...]
The link between the psychological and the cosmological - The Bhagavad-gita’s third chapter ends by describing how to conquer the inner enemy of lust (03.43). [...]
The difference between repression and regulation - Toward the end of the Bhagavad-gita’s third chapter, Krishna declares that repression is futile (03.33). Yet in the [...]
Krishna’s two-pronged strategy to combat lust - When Arjuna asks, “What makes us act self-destructively?” (Bhagavad-gita 03.36), Krishna doesn’t just identify the inner self-destructive force: [...]
Arjuna’s fourth question - “What makes us do things that we know aren’t good for us?” Most of us have probably asked ourselves this question [...]
Krishna overturns Arjuna’s argument - Through the Bhagavad-gita, Krishna exhorts Arjuna to do his difficult duty of fighting aggressors, even if they happen to be [...]
Krishna’s second indirect self-revelation - In the Gita’s third chapter, Arjuna wonders whether renunciation can free him from accountability for not doing his duty. His [...]
Krishna’s first instance of educating by contrasting - Choices that seem small and inconsequential to an uninformed person are seen as sizable and consequential by [...]
03.01 Arjuna’s third question - At the start of the Gita’s second chapter, Arjuna asks a question, which essentially means: “Should he fight or not?” [...]
Krishna’s stark self-contradiction - In the Bhagavad-gita second chapter, we encounter one of its starkest self-contradictions in two successive verses. First, it urges Arjuna to [...]
Arjuna’s second question - In the Bhagavad-gita’s second chapter, Krishna outlines the process of working with detachment (karma-yoga). He concludes by describing the state of [...]
