Bhagavagd Gita - Session 35- Track 3510

Now, comes the last sentence: ’tīva me priyāḥ, these are all my beloveds, but there are some who are ’tīva me priyāḥ, they are even much more dear to Me. Who are they? śraddhānā, as I told you, śraddhānā are those who have got a perception, who are constantly striving to arrive at realisation, mat-paramā, for whom ‘I am the supreme goal and nothing else’.

Comment:  A complete surrender to Me?

             Yes, mat-paramā, all the time engaged in Me.

             But what is most important is:

             …dharmāmṛtam idaṁ yathoktaṁ paryupāsate |, it is a new concept now which is manifested here; dharmāmṛtam, those who are pursuing amṛta dharma, immortal Dharma, they are even dearer to Me. All these are wonderful, they are all dear to Me, but those who follow Me with the amṛta dharma, there is an immortal Dharma: what is this immortal Dharma? It is the subject matter of the next 6 chapters.

              All the last 6 chapters are given to explain this dharmāmṛtam. What is this immortal Dharma, it is a new concept which has come; now, you can see now the novelty of this concept. You can see also the author of the Gita is so wonderful how he links one idea with the other, expands the idea, puts them all into order, into harmony and suggests, gives the hint of what is to come latter. In other words, this amṛta dharma, is even higher then what is achieved by pursuing Karma, Bhakti, Jnana. There is a movement of pursuit and there is a stage of accomplishment. Whatever you achieve by pursuing, in the course of pursuing consists of various experiences; but when it becomes accomplished, the highest consequence is achievement of ‘amṛta dharma’. You arrive at immortal Dharma. What is that immortal Dharma? We shall see next time.

Question: is the dharmakṣetra described till now or will it begin now?

             No. the dharmakṣetra is the field already in which Dharma is being explained. The arrival of all of them on the Kurukshetra was to be seen in the light of all this, as dharmakṣetra.

Question:  What is to be expounded further is…

             It is not only dharmakṣetra but the meaning of Dharma itself. What is Dharma? Because that Dharma is being actually practised, is to be practised through this particular battle, therefore that kṣetra becomes dharmakṣetra.

             But what is this Dharma? And not only ‘what is Dharma’, but amṛta dharma; there is a distinction between Dharma and amṛta dharma, immortal Dharma. Every word is important. And not only: we are not going to expound here merely ‘Dharma’. Dharma will be described, but the idea is to arrive at this ‘immortal Dharma’, supreme Dharma, that will be explained and that is the substance of all these 6 chapters.

             Very often many people when they read these last 6 chapters, they simply get tired because it describes Sattwa, Rajas, Tamas in ‘this’ form, in ‘that’ form and they say: what is all this? The real purpose is to explain Dharmas of various kinds and then to point out what is immortal Dharma. And those who are accomplished in ‘immortal Dharma’ are dearest to the supreme Lord and this is the highest condition in which Sri Krishna says: ‘You should constantly live in that Dharma which is immortal’. That is the real goal of the Gita.