Bhagavad Gita

Bhagavad Gita

The Bhagavad Gita begins with the preparation for battle between two opposing armies. On side are the Dhritarashtras and on the other are the soldiers of Pandava who are fighting over the right to govern the land of Kurukshetra. When Arjuna, the third son of king Pandu (dynasty name: Pandavas) is about to begin a war he looks at his cousins, uncles, and friends standing on the other side of the battlefield and wonders whether he is morally prepared and justified in killing his blood relations. Just before the two armies clash together he stops his charioteer, Lord Krishna (one of the ten reincarnations of the god Vishnu), and asks for advice. Krishna begins to council him by telling Arjuna that the best thing that he could do is to do his duty and not to question God’s will. Krishna says, “Never have I ever existed, nor you, nor these kings: and never in the future shall we cease to exist” (The Bhagavad Gita, pg. 31). Because life has already been then man cannot kill man or be killed when there is no end to the self. “If you fail to wage this war of sacred duty, you will abandon your own duty and fame only to gain evil.” Here Krishna reinforces the idea of dharma into Arjuna, reminding him that of the consequences faced when someone does not fulfill the duty set for him. It was Arjuna’s duty to fight.

Krishna also warns Arjuna about the three gates of hell: desire, anger, and greed. Another concept Krishna presents Arjuna with is the detachment from his desires. “Be intent on action, not the fruits of action avoid attractions to the fruits and the attachment to inaction” (The Bhagavad Gita, pg. 36). Once Arjuna loses his desire then a new kind of discipline can be found and obtained. Krishna warns Arjuna that this understanding can be lost once man begins to lust for pleasurable objects which create desire, desire creates anger, anger creates confusion, confusion becomes memory loss, and from this the loss of understanding, which in return ruins man. Krishna encourages Arjuna to seek a detachment from his worldly ties, do his duty and then he will be released from human suffering (reach the Brahman bliss). This state is called nirvana which is a state of absolute peace and free from pain, characterized by the release from the cycle of reincarnation. Through his discourse with the god Krishna,