Srimad Bhagawad Gita literally means The Song of God. This is the conversation or dialogue between the Pandava Prince Arjuna and his charioteer cum friend/cousin Krishna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra where the Pandava army and the Kaurava army are gathered to fight a war.
All the characters in the epic of Mahabharata ( of which, The Bhagawad Gita is a part) are symbols of the human virtues or vices that represent our deepest inner reality. The Gita talks about the war or conflict between the material body engaged in action and the Pandavas represent the godly virtues and Kauravas represent the vices that are present in each human.
Every human being carries within both the godly virtues and vices like wrath, anger, lust, infatuation. Overcoming these inner vices is the real internal war that is talked about in the Gita. The internal war conducted within the sphere of the human heart by the sincere seeker to liberate himself from worldly bondage and eternal peace and spiritual victory.True victory or conquest is to be one with the divine Self.
The Bhagawad Gita comes in the sixth Parva (Bheeshma Parva) of the 18 Parva-long Mahabharata (Chapters 23-50). The Bhagawad Gita comprises 700 verses divided in 18 Chapters. The first six chapters talk about the Self/ Atman/Spirit and is about knowing one self. The chapters 7-12 talks about the Lord/ God , and the last six chapters 13 - 18 talk about the process of Self-actualization.
This is the essence of Gita - “ Tat Tvam Asi” meaning when one totally surrenders oneself to the Lord, one becomes limitless and becomes eternally blissful. Highest purity is abiding in God, oneness with God. When this is realized, it is the same thing whether we say that selfless action leads to self-purification or that selfless action leads to self-realization or freedom.
The important thing to remember is that God/ Self is not outside us. He/ She is in the heart of us all . When we live and move and have our being in Self, we can share the exaltation of the Sufi who said “ I fare as one by whose majestic will , the world revolves, floods rise, rivers flow, stars in their courses move.”
When The Bhagawad Gita asks us to be mere instruments in the Lord’s hand, it is not any outside master that we are asked to obey but the Master who is in each one of us.
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