Though Arjuna has resolved to not fight, his situation still leaves him anguished (02.01). Wanting to relieve his agony, Krishna urges Arjuna to give up weakness of heart (02.02-03). Countering Krishna, Arjuna asserts that his reluctance arises not from weakness, but from thoughtfulness — will Krishna kill his guru or grandsire for a kingdom? (02.04) Poverty is more honorable than prosperity tainted by the blood of one’s relatives (02.05). 

Despite his vehement counter-arguments, Arjuna realizes that his choices are not so black-and-white; all options end only in misery (02.06). Needing to know the right course of action, he seeks guidance from Krishna (02.07). He declares that no amount of wealth will remove his angst (02.08) — he needs wisdom.

When Arjuna reiterates his resolve to not fight till he is convinced (02.09), Krishna, with a faint smile, begins speaking the Gita in the middle of the two armies (02.10). Reproaching Arjuna for using learned words to justify unlearned emotions (02.11), Krishna draws Arjuna’s attention to everyone’s eternal essence: the soul (02.12). The soul remains unchanging amid various bodily changes, even death (02.13). By focusing on the soul, Arjuna can stoically accept changes in the temporal (02.14) and steadily progress toward the eternal (02.15). The wise see the spiritual as substantial and the material as insubstantial (02.16). Asserting repeatedly the destructibility of the body and the indestructibility of the soul (02.17-21), Krishna compares the body to clothes (02.22). Stressing how the soul isn’t affected by the weapons that afflict the body (02.23-24), Krishna exhorts Arjuna to give up lamentation and fight (02.25-30). During this exhortation, Krishna addresses a skeptical objection: what about those who deny the reality of the spiritual? they will still be confronted and confounded by the perishability of the material (02.26,02.28).  

Having philosophically established that Arjuna’s arrows won’t destroy his relatives’ essence (02.30), Krishna explains why Arjuna needs to fight, given his social role as a kshatriya, a martial guardian of society (02.31). While fighting honorably, even if he dies, he will attain heaven (02.32). If, however, he flees from the fight, he will incur both sin and infamy (02.33). For one honored as a hero, the epithet of a coward will hurt worse than death (02.34-36). Indeed, fighting is a win-win option for Arjuna — victory will give him the earth and martyrdom will take him to heaven (02.37).