The essence of Bhagavadgita

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THe essence of of Bhagavadgita in a nut shell

The Bhagavadgita ( " Divine Song " or " Song of the Lord " ) forms a part

of Mahabharata and deserves separate consideration by virtue of its

great importance in the religious life and thought of the Hindus.

Not itself a sruti, it has, however, been accorded the status of an

authoritative text and is regarded as one of the sources of the

Vedanta philosophy. At a theoretical level, it brings together

Samkhya metaphysics, Upanisadic monism, and a devotional theism of

the Krishna-Vasudeva cult. In its practical teaching, it steers a

middle course between the " path of action " of the Vedic ritualism

and the " path of renunciation " of the Upanisadic mysticism, and it

accommodates all the three major " paths " to moksa: the paths of

action (karma), devotion (bhakti), and knowledge (jñana). This

synthetic character of the work accounts for its great hold on the

Hindu mind. The Hindu tradition treats it as one homogenous work,

with the status of an Upanisad.

 

Neither performance of the duties prescribed in the scriptures nor

renunciation of all action is conducive to the attainment of moksa.

If the goal is freedom, then the best path to the goal is to perform

one's duties with a spirit of nonattachment without caring for the

fruits of one's actions and without the thought of pleasure or pain,

profit or loss, or victory or failure, with a sense of equanimity

and equality. The Kantian ethic of " duty for duty's sake " seems to

be the nearest Western parallel to Krishna's (Krsna's) teaching at

this stage. But Krishna soon went beyond it, by pointing out that

performance of action with complete nonattachment requires knowledge

( jñana) of the true nature of the self, its distinction from

prakrti, or Matter (the primeval stuff, not the world of matter

perceived by the senses), with its three component elements (sattva—

i.e., tension or harmony; rajas—i.e., activity; and tamas—i.e.,

inertia), and of the highest self (purusottama), whose higher and

lower aspects are Matter and finite individuals, respectively. This

knowledge of the highest self or the supreme lord, however, would

only require a devotional attitude of complete self-surrender and

performance of one's duties in the spirit of offering to him. Thus,

karma-yoga (yoga of works) is made to depend on jñana-yoga (yoga of

knowledge), and the latter is shown to lead to bhakti-yoga (yoga of

devotion). Instead of looking upon Krishna's teaching as laying down

alternative ways for different persons in accordance with their

aptitudes, it would seem more logical to suppose that he taught the

essential unity and interdependence of these ways. How one should

begin is left to one's aptitude and spiritual makeup.

Regards,

Jabalimuni