Bhagavagd Gita - Session 38- Track 3805

Comment: Please summarise from the beginning to the 13th chapter.

This chapter and remaining 5 chapters, all the 6 chapters I have said earlier constitute one important block. In the Bhagavad Gita there are three blocks: first 6 chapters, next 6 chapters and the last 6 chapters.

The last 6 chapters are a kind of an appendix which contain of the most important things which are either expounded earlier or expounded by giving a hint, but not yet fully expounded. But whatever is expounded here is expounded in the context of a very important theme. That theme is the psychology of the bondage of the soul and the liberation of the soul from the bondage.

Comment: It is Jnana Yoga?

It is not only Jnana Yoga but it is something that is…you cannot be liberated, according to Bhagavad Gita’s teaching unless you attain to amṛtam Dharma. The very definition that is given in these chapters is different from the kind of definition that you get in many scriptures in many of the books of the world.

This is a very important theme; in fact it’s the central teaching of the Gita. We have to remember; the question of Arjuna in the beginning was: ‘I want to be free’: that was his basic call. Why this ‘ghoraṁ karma’, why this terrible action here? Is it not that by doing this ‘ghoraṁ karma’ I shall be responsible for the destruction of the kuladharma, as a result of which I will go to hell and remain bound? Is it not good for me to go out of this action, take Sannyasa which gives you freedom? So his whole question was: ‘what is freedom?’ And Sri Krishna says: “Do this…”

So this basic question of Arjuna, underlined question of Arjuna was: “Shall I not be bound, even to hell if I come into this action? Shall I not be liberated if I really renounce and take Sannyasa and pursue the path of knowledge and attain to Samadhi and to get liberated?” That was his basic question.

Now, Sri Krishna’s answer is: “Fight!” That was His basic answer: “Fight!” in doing so He wants to tell Arjuna that the freedom that you are seeking will be obtained by fighting, in the fighting, in remaining in the field of action. So: “How to have freedom even while you do the action? Is it possible to do an action and yet to be free?”

In the time this teaching was being given to Arjuna, a trend had arisen which said that action only keeps you in action and bound to action, that if you want freedom then renounce action and enter into the path of knowledge and by attainment of knowledge you get freedom, this was the trend and Arjuna seems to be influenced by that trend when he poses this question in the beginning of the Bhagavad Gita. Sri Krishna wants to combat with this idea. Now, that combating is done in these last 6 chapters…He has already combat it, already He has answered, basic answer has been given already in the 12th chapter where Sri Krishna says that the highest action is the action which proceeds from the supreme Divine. Then by showing in the 11th chapter viśvarūpa darśana, where supreme Divine Himself is engaged in the war, the Lord Himself is in the war, and Lord Himself is fighting, He Himself has intended, He said “I have already killed them all.”

Therefore He says: “Now you only act, you don’t even act, you just become nimittamātram (XI, 33); you just become the instrument. When the Lord has decided to act and is acting through you, you simply become passive through that action. To do the divyam karma, to do the Lord’s work, not only to do the work for the Lord, but to do Lord’s own work, that is the state of complete freedom. That answer is given already.