 
Bhagavad Gita for Dummies

Vishnuvarthanan Moorthy

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2019 Vishnuvarthanan Moorthy

Bhagavad Gita - For many, it is a highly respected life science, a way of living, simply a book of fiction or a Hindu's guidebook for life. Of course, everyone has their own perspective towards it based on their understanding of this great religious book. Many versions of Bhagavad Gita have been published with ample details and various perspectives of different saints and scholars. Here, in front of you is one more version! As a common man, who lives among 5000 million people, still searching for the identity of his life and himself, I present my comprehension of those complex verses deciphering them according to my understanding.

Why me? - This is the first question that came to my mind when I embarked upon this journey. "It should be me"- that's what my heart said and here I am. I, born in this world, like everyone else, have been introduced to the Bhagavad Gita as a great holy book by my parents and teachers. I believe that there is a reason for everything including my birth, and also feel that this holds true for all you readers here! I, who is working in an IT company, can have access to a richer lifestyle if I so desire, but by birth, I am from a normal middle-class Indian family, and not so religious by nature. However, the circumstances and situations made me realize that there is definitely a superior power somewhere and every living and non-living being in this universe is controlled by it. With this belief, I lead my daily life! My interpretation of the Bhagavad Gita is for a layman to understand the supreme power that is present in every living being including you and me! I feel it is my right to interpret and decode the Bhagavad Gita as per my understanding of it (as I am also a part of that supreme power) and also share with others who are interested in understanding it in depth. The Bhagavad Gita is not for storing in our Pooja rooms or to keep it as an unreadable God's scripture. This is God's journal, for you and me, for us to understand and lead our day-to-day life and do our duty! (Saints can give their versions, as they have nothing left to achieve in this world!)

Let's start our experience!!!

Contents

Chapter 1 - The Yoga of Arjuna's Grief

Chapter 2 - The Yoga of Knowledge

Chapter 3 - The Yoga of Action

Chapter 4 -The Yoga of Renunciation of Action

Chapter 5 - The Yoga of True Renunciation

Chapter 6: The yoga of Self Control

Chapter 7- The Yoga of Wise Understanding

Chapter 8 - The Yoga of Indestructible Brahma

Chapter 9- The Yoga of Royal Secret

Chapter 10- The Yoga of Divine Glories

Chapter 11- The Yoga of Cosmic Form

Chapter 12 - The Yoga of Devotion

Chapter 13 - The yoga of the Field and it's Knower

Chapter 14- The Yoga of the Three Gunas

Chapter 15 - The Yoga of Supreme Being

Chapter 16- The Yoga of Divine and Demonic

Chapter 17 - The Yoga of Three fold Faith

Chapter 18 - The Yoga of Moksha by Renunciation

Conclusion

# Chapter 1 - The Yoga of Arjuna's Grief

Brief Background

Before starting with the first chapter of this Holy Book, the Bhagavad Gita, we must first understand the origin of this great book that the world has accepted as the ultimate guide towards understanding the nuances of life. The Bhagavad Gita is an episode in the Mahabharata - the epic. In this, the supreme God has taken the form of "Krishna" born as a mortal human in this world. In this incarnation, God retains his divine qualities but in a human form. Mahabharata is the story about a king's family, in which the cousins along with their families try to establish a stronghold over the kingdom, few with their rightfulness and others unlawfully with greedy intent. It represents many of the characters, which we witness in our daily life. This conflict results in a battle where the Kauravas (the misguided ones) and the Pandavas (the truthful ones) stand opposite to each other to win the throne of Hastinapur. Krishna is with the Pandavas as they were eager to have Him on their side and Krishna's army is with the Kauravas as they desired.

Get to Know the Characters

Krishna: The Supreme God, we can call Him as the supreme power. He is an uncle to the Pandavas and Kauravas. He has nothing to gain or lose in this battle (why do I say that - we will understand as we move further).

Arjuna: He is the Mighty Archer and one of the Pandavas. Arjuna is very close to Krishna and they both share a special bond, which cannot be categorized. It is a pure form of love and affection.

"Our life: Do we ever try not categorizing our love or anyone's love at any time? No, we always label our bonds in some form, like a friend, sister, mother, uncle, wife, daughter, etc... Unless we compare and categorize, we cannot accept the love and affection in a formless way... Maybe the common man is more rule-oriented and pattern-oriented."

Remember Arjuna is not someone else, "he is you and me", and he represents us in front of Krishna. Every human being who reads this is Arjuna, with whom God has spoken. Let me elaborate it, the Bhagavad Gita is written only for the welfare of humans for fulfilling their mission of life! And for other living beings (animals, birds, plants, etc.) there could be something, which we are not aware of... The Bhagavad Gita appears to have been addressed primarily to the male counterpart as far as grammar is concerned but it applies equally to the woman also.

Sanjaya: He is the learned man who was able to see all the happenings on the battlefield sitting in the palace with his divine vision. He gives a detailed account of the battlefield to Dhritrashtra, the blind king. It is because of Him that today we know what God said to his friend and devotee Arjuna. He is the narrator in the Bhagavad Gita. He can be termed as the "The remote audio-visual aid in today's hi-tech language."

Dhritarashtra: He is the King and the father of Kauravas. He was blind and not present on the battlefield, but could visualize everything happening on the battlefield through Sanjaya.

Opening

Sanjaya is explaining to Dhritarashtra all that is happening on the battlefield. He could see the two armies arrayed on both sides ready for combat. On both sides, the great warriors and relatives are standing with their chariots and weapons to conquer each other.

"Our Life: I used to see a lot of English movies, so I am reminded of The Mummy, Lord of the Rings, Alexander, etc. and try to imagine, what could be the magnitude of such an army, Wow... Excellent!!! But then remember, that army consisted of living humans, each one had a family and every life had a history, you and I could be one among the soldiers who left his wife in the house thinking that we will return in a few days to get back with our life."

Arjuna's chariot was driven by Krishna and it was with a purpose. Why does God have to drive a chariot? The fact is, he was actually anchoring the battlefield that was going to teach the humans - what life is all about!!! ...

Chapter for Dummies

Arjuna wanted to see who all were there on the battlefield to fight along with him and against him, in that battle. This was like, taking stock of the situation and to see what was going on. He asked Krishna to take the chariot in the middle of both the armies to have a better view. On his instructions, Krishna took the chariot to the centre of the battlefield. He told Arjuna that now he could see the soldiers of his army and also of his opponent's.

"Our life: We like to imagine India-Pakistan, US-Russia or ourselves and an unfriendly neighbour or colleague in the workplace. We presume that we are the right ones and others are our adversaries. We don't have the guts to think, that one side are my impure characteristics and the other side are my pure characteristics and God has placed the chariot in between them, and wanting me to see both the sides of me. Let us try to do that and carry out the stocktaking!!

We all have three levels of response system: a) the outer one - the 'survival' system, which responds in a good or bad way, as it has been habituated by the person based on the environment he/she lived, it's more of an immediate action b) the inner one - the 'planning' system, which is based on mind and heart, the good and bad here is born after analysis, they have a lasting impact (we all might be having a tussle between our mind and heart). By the way, "Heart can never talk or think"- but it can have a notion for love, affection, kindness, and truthful thinking of mind c) The Supreme Inner one- the 'Purest Soul', we interact with this one rarely in our day-to-day activities. This is pure and can never be modified (no good and bad at this level, but on continuous practice (ex: yoga/meditation/self-realization) we can interact with it. This tells us at any time if we are on the right path in our life!

Now coming back, imagine - we are looking from the perspective of the purest soul towards the way the other two layers are working with us- the good and bad responses.

Arjuna looked at the warriors on both sides. He could only see his uncles, forefathers, teachers and well-wishers on either side and he was unable to understand, who his real enemies were, as he was confused by the relation and attachment he had with them. He told Krishna, "Even if someone gives me the three worlds, I will not kill them to attain it. I am not so greedy, who will kill his own people to gain something, and I will not be able to take the transgression which arises out of this act."

As a common man, we can say that Arjuna was really good and he was not ready to sacrifice his family for a piece of land. Also, Arjuna was only wishing for peace and what's wrong with that?

"Our Life: For most of us, peace is very important. According to us ' peace' is an ideal disposition wherein there is no fight between the heart and mind as both are in an agreeable situation. However, the fact is, we forego and ignore most of the happenings in our surroundings and within ourselves in the pursuit of this peace. We do not raise our voice against social discrimination or racial discrimination in our family or at any other place to maintain peace. This is not maintaining peace but it is "ignorance" knowingly. We tend to do that because we do not want to take such decisions in our lives that result in losing the love and affection of our loved ones. This is exactly how Arjuna felt while overlooking the two armies."

Arjuna further said to Krishna, "Instead of committing such a sinful act of killing my own people to achieve a victory that will impact my life and all members in the family, I would rather go to the battlefield without any body armour and die at the hands of Kauravas'." Speaking thus, he put aside his bow and sat down in the chariot.

Arjuna had concluded, what was right and what would fetch him sin. His conclusion was based on his understanding and knowledge of the criteria or description of goodness.

"Our Life: The results coming out of an activity are classified by our understanding of good and evil and they are according to the community rule, a situation or point of view, etc. The human eye cannot see the far-off things clearly and can only see things, which are closer. Similarly, his rules are framed on the closer things that he sees, lives and believes. It does not mean that all else is false. Just because we do not see a micro-organism with our naked eyes does not mean that it does not exist. We watch movies and we get emotional knowing fully well that it is unreal! But, that's human and he is driven by emotions, fantasies, and desires! Human thinks, he is the wisest of all and he knows what is right and what is wrong! But, the reality is he doesn't know even his own self and his purpose in life! Like Arjuna, we also have our own understanding of what is good and bad or what is right and wrong, but all this is based solely on our region/religion/society/belief, the same thing for another human from a different region/religion/society/belief could mean differently."

# Chapter 2 - The Yoga of Knowledge

As Arjuna put aside his bow and sat down, Krishna started talking to him. Krishna asked Arjuna as to from where he had brought such notions of a weakling at this challenging situation when he needed to fulfil his duty as a warrior. Krishna further explained to him that by showing such emotions, he would not achieve heaven or attain any fame. He asked Arjuna to get rid of such feelings of cowardice and behave like a true warrior. Arjuna replied to Krishna, that he would not do such a heinous act, which could kill his near and dear ones. Saying this he kept quiet.

"Our Life: Arjuna's weakness came from the attachment and fear of the unknown, it is the same for all of us, and we all have our weakness towards losing our attachment. Be it a car, relationship, home or anything - we do not want to lose and we are not ready for anything unexpected. We all want favorable conditions throughout our life. We pray to God to keep us blessed with favorable conditions. The fact is that we do not know how to manage an unfavorable situation or an untoward event. Our parents or elders in our life do not teach us how to cope up with a death/loss/fear, they only tell us to think positively. In unfavorable circumstances, most of us fail or get anxious/worried/stressed and are not able to come to terms with it. Basically, we have never been instructed on how to manage the loss of something. We need to understand that we came into this world empty-handed and that is how we shall leave the world."

After listening to Arjuna, Krishna smiled and started speaking those significant words, which are the underlying principles for the survival of living and non-living beings in this world and across all worlds. Krishna told Arjuna, that he was grieving for something which he should not. He said, as humans change their dress daily, the soul also changes its body. The soul, which is born in this world with a body, sometime will leave the body through death, and will again take the new body and continue its life cycle.

"Our life: We all know that every day new cells are born and old cells die in our body. The birth and death takes place in our brain, heart, hand and everywhere. However, we are not aware of it or choose to ignore this biological and spiritual fact! Do you know why? It is because knowingly or unknowingly we know that it is taken care of by the supreme power! For many of us, it is pure science! (Now if your friend or wife says, that you are not the same person that you were yesterday, you can accept it with a smile"

Krishna went ahead and told Arjuna, "The wise man will endure pleasure and pain with the same emotion. The body is perishable and cannot be protected, but the soul is immortal and no one can destroy it."

"Our Life: If a farmer thinks, he should not remove a blossoming flower from the plant, he is ignorant, and the flower will perish on its own. However, if the same farmer thinks, the soul of the plant can be destroyed, that is not possible, because the soul takes new birth. Now I have a question, if 10000 years ago, the world had only thousands of humans, then only the same count of souls should be there, but how come today, we have 5000 million people, it means 5000 million souls, from where the new souls have come in ?... oops... no... I got the answer, the soul count includes animals and plants also. We destroyed so many of them, and now they are born among us to teach a lesson to us"

Krishna told Arjuna, whoever thinks that the soul can be killed, is ignorant. The soul is not newly born or created and it is never destroyed but wears another body, based on the attachments it gained. The soul which has carried the goodness/sins/desires/etc. takes the body or form (animal/plant/human/etc.) it deserves, but the soul which never carries anything, and has only the supreme personality of God as the goal, will not take up any other body but will stay with God. The soul can never be burnt/wetted/cut or destroyed. This is the ultimate truth that you are only killing the body and not the soul. For something born here, death is certain. For something dead here, a new birth is certain.

It is like PMBOK/ ISO/ Global standard definition for the term "Project": Every project has Start and End.

"Our Life: Don't we all know that we will die at some point in time. Yes, we all know, but at least for me, it will not be near, maybe for Sam or John or Raghu that could be early!!! And, we are happy to think like this. We always believe that we will live 70 years minimum. Who gave us the guarantee?!! Ok... let it be... Even having this guarantee, what do we do?!!! We want to study engineering or MBA or CA, etc., get a big salary, buy 1 or 2 houses and pay instalments, have 1 or 2 kids, search for schools, run for college seats, pension plans, good four-wheeler, loans (when we pay out a loan, we go for next loan) and son or daughter stays in a distant city/country, deposit money in a senior citizen plan and one day get admitted in a hospital!!! (Some of them think back and feel that they never did what they wanted to do and lived a very poor life) This the life 4000 + million people are living and in the past, most of them had similar life... So who are we? Probably, someone who lived in Mumbai (in Dadar) in some bungalow, 25 years back or someone who lived in a palace in Rajasthan in A.D. 1247 ... We don't know. We don't know the purpose of our life. But, we all want this body to be there for a minimum of 70 years with us, to do what? I don't say that we have to be a historical personality or a popular person... Do we know, how many works of literature and languages are lost, how many great people are unknown, do we know anyone who lived in 12000 B.C., etc., No ... even history and fame fade away with time. It's all about understanding that this body is not owned by us, and don't get attached to it, but only to our soul. That will lead us to a birth-less state, nonetheless, it doesn't mean, not to perform your duty, but not to become attached to worldly affairs and relationships, beyond a limit (self-realized state - where we can be detached as and when we want)."

Krishna told Arjuna, "The duty of a warrior is to fight and not fulfilling his duty is a sinful act. The public will not appreciate the one who turned away from his duty, and people might think him to be coward and that probably he left the field in fear. By killing these bodies of the greedy ones, you will fulfil your duties and may achieve the true disposition." Krishna further added, "The one who treats pleasure and pain, gain or loss, victory and defeat alike will not achieve sin, because he does his duty, he is not gaining anything and he is not bothered about the outcome."

"Our Life: Performing duty, according to us is limited to our family and our business. Most of us do not bother about anything outside our life. Fulfilling the needs of our family and ourselves is a part of duty but that's not all! We do not voice our views on anything! Sorry, we do... We all talk to our friends and family about injustice/scam/social needs/changes to make in the country, etc. and we also believe strongly that someone will do the job for us (Perhaps we have more faith in others than ourselves). We participate in popular social causes, and we take to roads and walk with candlelight, but we forget to step into our neighbour's house and stop the discrimination happening there. We talk about what happens in Sri Lanka and Delhi, but we do not talk or take action on what happens in the nearby community or street. Beyond this, how many of us believe that we need to keep the environment clean outside our house, how many of us question a person who is polluting the society/economy/politics/health/environment, etc... Rarely...But we all are duty conscious... We run for our bus, we run for our work, we run for our sleep and we run for everything...but only for ourselves and only for what we need!!!"

Krishna started telling Arjuna about Yoga. Krishna explained, "The resolute one has a single focus of determination, but the one whose mind wavers in different directions will be inconclusive and confused. The Resolute mind understands that everything here is taken from here and one day he will need to leave all the worldly things behind. He also understands that all beings are mortals and will perish over a period of time."

"Our Life: Most of us actually are living in virtual reality rather than in the present. How much do we talk with our intellect! How much do we talk to others in compliance with our inner self! How we create people and their behaviours in our conscience! We have a preconceived notion about people's response when we think of saying something! We pre-decide what the situation will be when we enter an office/function/etc...... It means we spend a lot of time in anticipation, and many of us try to foresee our future too... We think that we can decide the course of our future, in terms of how much we will earn, etc....This way, we neither live in the present nor in the future. Some people brood over their past and think it would have been nice if it was the other way! The mind lays out branches for us to travel, but it is up to us to cut those branches and live in the present. We should be determined only about the supreme power or its connection to our soul and perform our actions without thinking about the outcome."

Krishna told Arjuna that Veda's (Holy Scriptures) can guide a person to reach the demi-Gods (Sun, moon, and other forms of God) and lead a good life. However, one who has attained the Yogic state is neither pleased with them nor impressed by the power they bestow. The person in a yogic state can control his senses and still lead a normal life. When he meets the supreme power, he loses the worldly interests and reaches God without any hindrances. For that yogic person, Veda's serve no purpose.

"Our Life: We have seen that most of us neither understand Veda's nor their purpose. There are few, who have learned Vedas, but I am not including them here... Most of us perform lots of ceremonies and rituals in our house/temple without knowing their purpose, but with the sole belief that it is God's language and he will be pleased if we follow it. We forget, that merely thinking about Him in our mind while performing our duty, will please him more than anything else! But the truth is, we believe that rituals alone will bring peace and harmony to us and our kith and kin. How untrue this is! We also see, some VIP's/rich people enter into a temple/church/mosque and get priority for God's 'darshan'. They get some recommendation from the priests and they assume that God has blessed them. God is impartial, for Him every human being is equal. One does not need any mediator here (the concept of Guru is different). The first thing to believe is that your God is knowledgeable. Do not think that he can be fooled! Similarly, we see some temples/churches/mosques getting huge donations; I am sure that the maximum money is generated by committing sinful acts, the bigger the sin, the higher the donation. Probably, the notion behind it is that God will reduce our punishment if we give him some share"

Krishna told Arjuna, the equilibrium of mind in success and failure is called Yoga and yogic state. The one who performs the actions, without thinking about their benefit, is actually getting into the Yogic state. The one who is content for what he is, is supposed to be enlightened.

"Our Life: How many of us feel, that till date we have had a very good life, and how many feel, my life is the best! Not many... we still consider someone else's life as the best life, we still look at someone as the best person. We still need something else to make us feel content and happy. If I think of the movie "castaway", that showed a man who nearly attained contentment on an island, but that's more by force of nature and not by his wish. All the materialistic things and people around you will not let you be on your own and would like you to depend on them for your happiness. We must learn to live without them! There are many amongst us, who cannot live without a mobile phone, without TV or without friends, who can't live without something or the other... Attachments make us dependent and do not let us think about who we are? We all remain in our comfort zone by not allowing ourselves to know, who we really are and what we are doing... We need more spiritual strength, to start thinking about ourselves...Sit somewhere quietly and remind yourself of your true self...Think above what Sam or Raghu does in your life and don't think how your wife/son/parents behave with you... it should be only you interacting with yourself! There is nothing more beautiful than you and nothing holier than you in God's creation!"

Krishna continued telling Arjuna, "When we are subjected to the senses and allow them to predominate, the attachments come, from the attachments we get the desires, from unfulfilled desires, comes the frustration, from frustration the delusion comes, from delusions we get confused and lose our reasoning which in turn leads to our destruction."

As we speak about this dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna, I remember holy Buddha's teachings affirming similar words...By the way, all these are more or less the same, because the truth is one.

"Our Life: There are no three or four Gods in the universe, neither so many of them rule this universe. It is one supreme power, which has created this universe and sustains it and other creations, even the micro-organisms. That supreme power is Krishna! If you think, this is what I am going to say, I am sorry! This could be Nabhi or Jesus or anyone, but there is a supreme force. Just because in my region (correlated with religion), we believe in the form of Krishna, I call him as the supreme power, but if I am born in Saudi or in Italy, I will call Him differently. Krishna never went to Rome, nor Nabhi went to New Zealand, nor did Jesus go to Vietnam. The religion and rituals are born from the region and the local conditions, however, it doesn't mean there is no God. There is one supreme power which is beyond imagination, full of knowledge and power, which sustains everything. The sad part of human is that unless he witnesses something, he does not consider it to be true. Before Edison, no one knew about electricity, the older generation would have considered him as a foolish guy...Just because we do not see, hear or feel something, does not mean it does not exist... it's our limitation .... It is beyond Science, it is a belief... and that is the only way to discover God!!!"

# Chapter 3 - The Yoga of Action

Arjuna asked Krishna, "You are saying knowledge of Yoga is superior to Action. If so, why should I execute the act of killing?" He also conveyed to Krishna that his preaching's seem to be contradictory without imparting any clear message. Krishna replied, "There are two ways, one is living in the knowledge of yoga and another one is pursuing the path of action of the yogis. Just by not performing an action, you will never reach a static state, nor by wavering in your actions would you achieve the perfect state. None of the living beings at any instant remains inactive. The innate qualities are always working within us."

Let us clarify something, the word "Yoga" here does not mean the breathing exercise or the physical exercise taught in a "Yoga class". It is a condition of nonchalance towards the action, results and happenings, and living with self-awareness. Anyway, here we are not going to give any definitions of terminology if at all, it is only for clarification purposes.

"Our Life: The moment when someone decides (Yes, many of us decide, that now I will religiously follow God or now I will do additional charity, etc.) to follow the path of spirituality, they buy a holy book like the Bhagavad Gita and start reading it or watch religious programmes on television or attend religious meetings, thereafter some of them conclude, everything in this world is untrue and there is no meaning in continuing with their duty, and they start behaving in such a weird manner, that their family members get irritated and feel, why did this person get into it! Some of us don't keep Gita in our house, we don't keep Krishna and Arjuna's (together in the Battlefield) picture in our house, because we fear that it will disturb our normal life and will bring negative energy into the household. The truth is that Gita tells us how to stay unaffected in our day-to-day life. But our understanding of detachment goes to extremes, where we are not clear what to lose and what to control. Like Arjuna got confused on the battlefield, we also get confused because of the lack of understanding and true knowledge."

Some of us practice meditation and believe that this is what an action less state is. Meditation that we exercise in our regular life, can help us control our vacillating mind, which might reduce our blood pressure and control the physical activities for a few minutes. But once we finish our meditation, we search for our phones, we attend mails, we start arguments, etc. (basically we resume our chaotic life) ... This is where one needs to be nonchalant. It is nothing but, being unattached to the action and its result while keep performing the action consistently. A mind that keeps practicing this, is in real "meditation". Not the one, which utters a few words for 15 to 30 min and returns to normal sense-driven actions thereafter.

Krishna told Arjuna, controlling the sensory organs is not the right form of meditation, but controlling the mind over the objects of our senses is real meditation. The one, who can restrain the senses by controlling the mind, and involves himself in Karma-Yoga, without attachment, excels. The one who performs his actions with a desire for its fruit is superior only to the one who is inactive.

"Our Life: Many of us have different habits which we personally don't like, for example, daily we want to get up early, but when we try to get up, we feel - why not enjoy another 15 minutes of sleep... then we slip into a deep slumber. Likewise, someone wants to give up smoking, but cannot.... Because, we initiate controls on our senses, and not on our mind. The senses are powerful, but our mind is much more powerful. The mind thinks of consequences, which senses cannot. So it's practically easier to control the mind, which in turn will control the senses. In our mind when we set up a time to get up, we don't need an alarm, we get up at the exact time that we had set up in our mind. I am sure many of us are going through this. When we do not set it in our mind, even if the alarm rings, we snooze it"

Krishna told Arjuna that actions have consequences, which need to be sacrificed (the effect); that's one way of performing actions. The other way is for the one, who is content within the self, for him, there is no action required, as his disposition is not dependent on anything external. He is not attached even to the actions (not alone to the result). Yet he also performs his duty (without attachment to actions). He told Arjuna, for the supreme God (Krishna himself) there is nothing to achieve in this world or in heaven or hell, but yet he is performing the duty without attachment.

"Our Life: I always have this question, even you might have the same. Why God should let me be born in this world and make me suffer, and what is he trying to prove by doing so? If I was not born here I would have been happy...Hmm... I never received any appropriate answer to it from anyone and I don't believe any logical answer (the kind of logic, that you and I can understand) can be given here! God performs his duty of creation, sustenance, and destruction of living organisms in a materialistic environment, without any attachment and without paying any heed to the consequence in his intellect, he carries on doing it. However the living being born here, is not able to live without any attachment and they find pleasure in this attachment and one day when the same attachments result in pain, they question God on the futility of their birth? (When we are very happy, we don't question Him!) We question the Almighty about the significance of our birth here but, He has already told us that this is his duty and he is not expecting any fruitful results for His action. But human logic is why should He perform an action without the expectation of a consequence? First of all, we want God to be attached to the fruit of His action and then be attached to his action as we want him to finish the action! The only problem here is we don't do our duty in the way he wants us to do and now we want him to be attached to everything! God has also told a way to come out of the cycle of this birth and death and that is by being yogic and continue on the path determined by the supreme power! We humans are not ready for that, but we would like to advise God even"

Krishna told Arjuna, that the wise man, who realizes that actions have to be performed without attachments, keeps performing it. However, they should not upset the one, who is ignorant, by giving incomplete knowledge and confusing them further. This will only create disorder! Every living being performs the actions based on the characteristics they have! Their senses guide them to behave! The wise man knows how to handle it! Also, one should not undertake and perform another one's duty. This must be avoided as it is unacceptable. He told Arjuna, as the flame is surrounded by smoke, the wisdom is surrounded by desire, and hence the wise should be aware and remove the desire by having control on mind and by concentrating on supreme power.

"Our Life: In life, we have to give something to others, only to the extent that they can take and not beyond their limit. If everyone is capable of everything, the universe would be static. There will be no demand and supply. If everyone is a medical practitioner or a construction engineer, the world will not move in a normal manner. The universe has its own cycle and everyone here performs the part which they have chosen. However, the one, who understands the importance of his role and how to be unattached with the role, can guide the other, based on the amount the other one can get hold of. But going beyond a limit and overfeeding someone (who can't take anymore), will only create confusion! A construction worker, who is plastering the wall on the 25th floor, hanging on a rope between sky and earth, is being preached all this and is asked to do his duty without attachment, can he acquire it ?!! May be or maybe not!!! (Don't think he can't) The work he is doing doesn't qualify his characteristics and thinking, there could be few who can, few who cannot ...It depends on the individual. But when they can't, then all that you said to that person will only create disorder in his lifetime! Likewise, no one can take a decision for others! You cannot take decisions on behalf of your wife/son/husband/parents/friend, etc. (rightfully)! No one can lead others! We have not been given the right, nor are we capable of it! Most of the time, people who like to decide for others are worried to take a decision for themselves (may be they like to piggy back on others)! We can only guide and give relevant support, but decision & action must be owned by the relevant individual and interfering in that is a sin. However, when it comes to a country/group/team the decisions are taken by a few selected individuals, yet it's a role which they play and it's their duty. Their credit on life purely depends on the decisions taken and duties performed in that role!

Be the leader, when no one is ready to go! Be the decision-maker, when no one is ready to decide! You can exclude this, only when it is a duty assigned to you!"

# Chapter 4 -The Yoga of Renunciation of Action

Krishna told Arjuna, I have taught this Yoga to the Sun God, millennium's ago and he taught it to others, many of them carried it forward, as part of a tradition, but over a period of time the chain was broken. So here I am, once again passing that knowledge onto you.

Arjuna asked Krishna, "You were born among us. How did you teach this to the Sun God because you appear to be much younger to him? Krishna replied, "Arjuna, you were born many times earlier and I have also taken many births. Whenever in this world the righteousness reduces and unrighteous activities start overpowering, I take birth (as incarnation) with my Maya to destroy the evil and protect the good to re-establish Dharma (truth/ fairness and kindness).

"Our Life: There are 10 avatars of Vishnu, as mentioned in the Hindu mythology and one of them is Krishna. The last one yet to come is "Kalki", in which God will come on a "white horse with a sword." The interesting part is that in the initial few incarnations, which were millions of years apart, the incarnations were in the form of fish, pig, turtle, etc. Why is he not in a human form? Did the human race exist during that period? Maybe not....until I watched the movie Jurassic Park, I was not aware of dinosaurs. And now they are not in this world since many thousand years...It means that the world undergoes a change over a period of time... Today we get petrol in the gulf, underneath the desert. The existence of petrol means that there were rich organic elements in that place thousands of years ago...Today only dessert exists. The world has undergone enormous changes, about which we are still studying... Thus it means that some revamping takes place at certain intervals and human form may not have existed at that time. Apart from this, I don't know whether God as 'Kalki' will come on a horse or will he come with a new cyclone /series of earthquake/volcano eruptions/virus/bomb and if that is termed as 'Horse'. Who knows!!! When our laptop hangs, what do we do, we "Restart", similarly when a machine is not working, we try to "Restart" it. Maybe we have learned this principle from Him only."

Krishna told Arjuna, "The one who knows this, is free from anger, fear, and from any attachment, is absorbed by me and becomes one with me. The wise perform the action without any attachment."

"Our life: How do I know, if I am without any attachment? Consider three elements that you like the most in your life (relationship/material/or any other). Ok... Now if we remove these three things from your life with immediate effect, will you still have interest in life or will you just endure it? For many of us, it is a big "No". If you are ready to leave something that you like the most because it is good for you to do so or with the understanding of following God's path, means you are already detached from it. Please do understand that this includes fame/desires/etc. also. Leaving the one which you like the most (including self), if you can do, then you have nothing more to achieve in this world. Now, I am writing all this, whether I am a saint, no...Can I leave everything and live my life normally? I don't know... but I am sure that understanding that they are perishable will help me live a better life and handle things in a better way! "

Krishna told Arjuna, "The one who can catch the action in inaction and inaction in action, is the wise one. He is not attached to actions. The one who has removed the desire from actions and its resolutions has great wisdom and no sin can affect him. He lives with the minimum that is needed for his life."

"Our Life: I see many a time, people get down to perform every activity in their professional life keeping their personal gains in mind, in fact, that is their only major target to achieve. Everyone has some personal expectations, and the organization has its expectations too; so together we plan and agree on the targets to be achieved in a year. But, when it comes to achieving their personal goals, I see people starting the year with an aim to achieve 'promotion', 'double-digit increment', etc... So much so, that they even go and ask their supervisor as to what measures they must take to achieve their targets...They don't consider asking themselves, 'what should I learn this year to improve my performance'. They don't ask the supervisor, 'how to use their potential more effectively for the benefit of the organization?'.

The current generation of employees work only for the sake of moving ahead of their competition. Instead of concentrating on improving their competency levels, today people work with the sole aim of getting promotions and a hefty salary package! All their actions are dependent only on that. It could be because they don't believe that their action will yield any results or it could be their fear that they will not be able to achieve results. The whole of this misconception is because they are only bothered about the short term goals, the immediate outcome! A confident, reliant person will not care about the outcome, but will only focus on his actions... When you perform the activities in a competent manner and wholeheartedly, with evenness in your mind, the salary and promotions are bound to come your way... if not in the current organization, then in the other, but don't lose yourself in this grind, because you are precious and it will be difficult to obtain yourself again once lost!

Anyone who possesses assets more than what is needed for the existence of normal day to day life and for any uncalled-for emergency is once again considered attached to the materialistic nature. The undue affinity with the materialistic things will never satisfy him. For such people, nothing is enough. Believe me, even if he has more than 300 million dollars, he would say, it is inadequate for an emergency. That is because by that time his assets will make him enslave him, enchain him (Enchained with all kinds of bondages like an investment, loan, status, etc.) and make his disposition vulnerable. In windows operating system, when you try to clean up the programs, it will indicate how frequently you use that program and it will advise you to remove programs based on your usage. Likewise, when you don't use the possessions you have hoarded, assets become a curse"

Krishna further told Arjuna, "Through sacrifices, people try to reach the almighty. In order to please God and attain the 'Nirvana' some people sacrifice materialistic things, some sacrifice their speech, some sacrifices all their senses, some practice controlled breathing, some follow austerity, some regulate their eating habits. They practice all this to wash off their sins. However, superior to above all, is knowledge about the supreme and actions without attachments. You will learn this from the Gurus who have attained such knowledge. The knowledge will act as fire to demolish all the materialistic desires. There is nothing purer than the soul of a knowledgeable person who understands the self and is content within. The one who is doubtful about the existence of the supreme power will neither be happy in this world nor in any other world.

"Our Life: Guru (teacher) teaches us various practices and imparts knowledge to us on varied subjects. The guidance of teachers and its requirement differs from person to person. Not everyone needs to listen to religious discourses or attend any other classes. This need can only be determined by the self and not by others. Many of us in India follow gurus, who help us to focus on the purpose of life and move forward in life. Different people follow different paths as per their individual requirement. However, you must understand that there is nothing purer than your own soul and your only aim should be to connect with it. Now-a-days, we see the so-called gurus' have become businessmen and they have innumerable things to maintain like publicity, assets, brand names, hospital chains/restaurants/colleges, etc. in addition to abundant donations inflow, organizational strength, and sale of merchandise. They want to sit on a gold pedestal while some singer sings praises about them. They happily listen to that singer and simultaneously talk about yours and my life. I am not trying to be offensive towards anyone. I am sure that they must be having their reasons to do what they are doing. Moreover, as long as they are not attached to their actions and they don't have any expectations of results, we are no one to judge!

A guru guides you on a path, but you have to walk on it all by yourself. If you are dependent on a guru throughout your lifetime, it means you have not moved forward in your life, you are just standing there stuck in the darkness!

When you decide on something and on some person, do not allow any doubt to come into your mind. This mistake of yours can lead you to your doom. Before you decide on anything analyse it thoroughly, but once you are engaged with it, you must never doubt, even if your senses say so because doubt will destroy everything that you have!"

# Chapter 5 - The Yoga of True Renunciation

Arjuna was confused after learning that there is renunciation (declining) of actions and yoga of action as he could not understand which one of the two paths of life he should pursue. Krishna explained to Arjuna, that Yoga through action is superior to relinquishing of the action. The person who maintains evenness in his mind towards hatred and is free from desires, who performs his actions with no expectation of a result, is a liberated soul. However, renunciation is difficult to attain and only the person with a spirit of a sage can achieve it. His mind is pure who is equipped with Yoga (evenness of mind and unattached to the outcome). The one who has conquered his desires and has subdued his senses, will not be tainted by his actions. He realizes that he doesn't perform anything, seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, sleeping, letting go, clutching hands, closing eyes and opening and everything without surrendering himself to God. He is like the lotus leaf in water, which remains unaffected even when it is in contact with water. In body, mind and senses, the yogis (one who follows Yoga) perform actions without attachment and live in self-purification.

"Our Life: In our Life, we breathe and fill our lungs, we pump blood, we digest the food, we command the neural systems to work and unless we give a command nothing will work...Oh Sorry! We do none of these activities, these are taken care of by some power which is beyond thinking of us mortal beings, but we believe that our body is taken care of by us feeding it!! ... The fact is, we have a very complex system, which we call "Our Body", and which is not in our control! (Do we ask the white cells to locate and kill bacteria?) But, the body acts with very high intellect and we are not even aware of it! However, whatever actions, we do, we claim it is done by us...Is this really so? For example, one morning when we wake up, our arms are not moving; can we command our arms to move? Not really possible...

Krishna told Arjuna, "The liberated one (yogi) treats a saint, a bird, a dog, a dog eater and every living being in the same manner. He understands and surrenders all the thinking and actions to me. He understands that all the living beings go through the cycle of birth and death, and he realizes that the bonds, relationships, attachments can bring him only grief. Thus he leaves everything to me and runs his life nonchalantly."

"Our Life: Many times we disconnect ourselves from God and we believe that we are the doers. We place a statue or a picture of God in one corner of the house/in a room/in a cabin and we also keep the idol of God in a temple/church/mosque, and, thereafter we tend to believe that God is present there only. We think that we shouldn't do anything inauspicious in these places. First, we separated God from us, by design and confining his idol to a corner. Then, we think, we are the doer and God is only an invitee. Thirdly, we believe God can only be there for good auspicious things and not for anything bad or negative. Whereas God says, we need to leave everything to him, and He also says that as a supreme power he is everywhere and in every living being, he is omnipresent. But, we don't listen to him. Sometimes it is like, God owns a call centre, and we can call whenever we want and raise a service request, and after some days we will lodge a complaint that he has not addressed our problem. Not only that, but many of us also feel that we pay a fee (donations) for his services (monthly/yearly/etc.)..."

# Chapter 6: The yoga of Self Control

Krishna told Arjuna that a yogi is the one, who performs actions without thinking about the result, and not the one, who does not perform any action. The only person who can win over his mind can reach the yogic state. For a person who has conquered the self, his self acts as a friend for him. For the ones who have not been able to conquer their 'self', see an enemy within themselves. The yogi, who has conquered the self, has the same value of land, silver or gold. The yogi realizes that there is nothing superior or inferior to him. He concentrates only on the supreme power.

"Our Life: In our professional and personal life, we watch people behave differently with different people, based on their position, achievement, and status. When we talk to the CEO of an organization, we consider it as our biggest achievement. On the other hand, when we talk to an office boy, we end up advising him on something or the other or treating him as a poor person as he does not possess material wealth. Neither of them is great or poor; they both are performing the duty allocated to them in this world. An entrepreneur who employs 1000 people is not great, nor is the person who is cleaning his office inadequate. It is a role given to the individual by the supreme power. A person defeated continuously in his attempts must not be considered a loser in life. Possibly he handles his life much better than you without much attachment to his actions and has a resilience to handle failures better than you. All the renowned people had the ability to handle failures, that's why they became great. When you come face-to-face with a top official in your workplace, do you need to be afraid or anxious? No. Whatever your experience and, whatever you perform is required by the organization/industry/society to run more efficiently. That is the sole reason for your presence there and you need to acknowledge the importance of your role and actions there. As an individual, you might be much closer to the supreme power and you may have a better understanding of life and work. Therefore you don't need to be nervous or aggressive, just be a balanced and composed person."

Krishna explained to Arjuna how to perform physical yoga and concentrate. Krishna says, "One who sleeps and eats in excess or less cannot practice yoga nor can he focus. A person, who sees the self, by self and is satisfied with it, will not suffer sorrows. The person practicing yoga can concentrate on self and he can gradually overpower his senses and attachments. He realizes that anything, which causes instability should be kept away. The person starts seeing me everywhere and in everything. For him, I never vanish. He who competes only with himself, and sees me everywhere is the greatest yogi. Of all the yogis, the one who sees me in his inner self and becomes one with me is the most devout".

"Our Life: There are three types of people in the world. First, the ones who are always thinking of survival. For them, life is all about living in that short period, and they will do anything to manage it. Number two is Comparative persons. Their life is always driven by their surroundings, social happenings/society. Their parameter of success is in relation to the achievements of others. They just try to compete with others and achieve results. Then, they start having another comparison and their life goes on like this in a vicious circle. Number three is the persons who always lead by action. There is no comparison or competition for them in life. They want to contribute/initiate something and they do it only because they feel that they need to do it. They believe that this duty is given to them by the supreme power.

Most of us here belong to the second category of 'comparative persons'. We do not want to retrospect or pause to ponder over our life... Fear... Yes, we fear! To know that, whether it is really a good life by the standards of the society, or whatever we are doing is good enough or not, and so on... because we fear that in the time, we spend thinking about it, others will move ahead of us. So, we keep pushing ourselves to compete with others... The 'leading person' mentioned in the third category, does not mean any business magnate or some top official. They are the people who tread their path without any comparison in their mind and heart. They are not worried about anything new or any change, because they have a strong belief in, themselves or the supreme power. Either of these (Self-belief or belief in Supreme power), according to God, is important for the oneness with him.

# Chapter 7- The Yoga of Wise Understanding

Krishna told Arjuna that he created the earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intellect and egoism and above all, he created the life itself. All this is studded on him, like a cluster of gems in a string. He went ahead and said that the taste of water, the light of the moon, the syllable "Om" in the Vedas, the fragrance of the earth, the intelligence of the intellectuals and radiance of the radiant, everything is from Him. The characteristics - Pure, active and inert are coming from the supreme power, but he is not in them. All these are divine illusions and it is very difficult to overcome them. Only the one, who seeks the supreme power will remain detached with these illusions. Whether they are distressed people, knowledge seekers, wealth seekers or wise men; all worship him, but out of these, the wise men who seek only Him are dearest to him. Krishna says, "I am formless but I am also in many forms as God. People pray to my different forms to be bestowed with different things. The one who believes in my supreme form reaches me and he is free from the cycle of birth and death, he is neither born nor does he die." Krishna knows the past, present and the future but no one knows him. The wise men at the time of departure (death) pray to Him and reach Him. Not only the wise, even the sinner who prays to Him at the end, realizing his supreme power reaches Him.

"Our Life: The Universe is one amazing place and it has so many wonderful creations! Yet, if you look at them closely, there is a pattern that we can see. The smallest components like cells in a body, atoms in metal and the biggest element, the universe. All of them have a nucleus (centre), free particles that move around, and well-arranged particles like planets, electrons, etc. circling the nucleus in a set arrangement. This shows that the base of all material elements and living organisms have certain similarities. So, when we read, God is omnipresent and resides in every particle of the universe, there is not much to be surprised about. Also, as per Newton's law (yes... the school theory, which fetched easy marks!), the energy in this world cannot be created or destroyed, but can only be converted into different forms. When it is a scientific theory, we don't ask questions, it is the same when it comes from a holy book, we question its authenticity. God is unborn and imperishable and the same is for the soul, which is unborn and imperishable, but they can take different forms with different bodies... Science is nothing but a language used to study his creations, but science is neither God nor it can lead us to Him. Only faith can take us to the supreme power."

# Chapter 8 - The Yoga of Indestructible Brahma

Krishna explained to Arjuna, "At the time of leaving the body, if a person remembers the supreme personality of God as his destination, then he achieves Him. Similarly, he who meditates on Krishna and continuously engages himself in remembering the supreme personality of God reaches him, just like the one who reads Vedas and follows all the rules set by them reaches him (if that's their goal). The same is true for the one who has dedicated his life to devotional service and wholeheartedly followed that as a medium to reach him. Beyond all these, the one who understands supreme personality, as old, as controller, as small, as large, beyond conception, sees him as the sun, moon, etc. and lives as a yogi also reaches him."

Krishna has also explained the practice of Yoga. He has elaborated that chanting the holy syllable 'OM' with eyes closed and concentrating on the centre point of the forehead between the brows can help achieve perfection. Similarly, he explained the calculation of days and nights for Brahma and for human, to reach the state of salvation. However, the one who firmly believes in supreme God and at the time of death focusses only on him, will reach Krishna - the supreme personality of God.

"Our Life: The very famous question, if tonight the world is going to be destroyed by a comet (think, NASA missed this ) and there is no chance for USA, Russia or China to send their missiles to destroy it in mid-air, and it's official now, that you have only 2 hours to live..... What will you do next...? Many of us would like to have our final wish fulfilled, some in bars, some with family, some on roads, some in crying, some on the phone, some in love, some with their holy book & in church/temple/mosque, etc. praying that the world should not end today (basically asking God to do some magic to save them, and to grant them some more years to enjoy their life)... Not most of them are expected to be in a state of prayer, which leads only to Him, instead many will still be searching for the ultimate happiness or pleasure or handling fear through pleasure or engage in some action, which makes them forget themselves. Interestingly, not many of us are sure, whether instead of fulfilling materialistic or human desires, we should be realizing God!

The one who is reading the holy books or praying in some holy place is still searching for God outside himself in a paper (text) or in a place. There is nothing wrong with it. However, the moment you start searching for God outside, the path becomes very long, and it has no end. Many of them want to see God in a form or an action or nature, or in a place... We think that God has to come in front of us... Why should he come? .... God is inside you, if he is the super soul and has made all these souls, and all these souls are part of him, then your soul is the place where God resides... Don't search for him outside... You may never find him! Let the moment be anything, he is there with you and he never leaves you... You may be having tea, eating non-vegetarian, helping someone, wounded, or working; whatever you do, at every moment and at any time, he is there with you! We think that he lives or he resides only in a particular place. That's nothing other than lack of awareness. He never leaves you alone, let it be a success, failure, or anything, he is there with you absorbing all your pains and pleasures. Be sure, you are a part of Him and there is nothing to worry about, but remember you are not the God!!! Anyway, it is true that everyone cannot have the same understanding, so he has given different paths, religions, and practices to follow, and based on your personal understanding one can follow him ( by doing a devotional activity, meditate, pray, help, etc.)."

# Chapter 9- The Yoga of Royal Secret

Krishna tells Arjuna that since he is the dearest and true disciple of the supreme God, he will tell the greatest secret to him. Krishna continues, "All the beings are part of me, but I am not wholly in any one part. All beings here have a lifetime and at the end of it, they move out and come back to this world in a different form. Some call this a cycle of nature, in which birth and death take place continuously till I decide otherwise. Not that I am not bound by any actions, but I perform my actions without any attachment. Under my supervision, the world revolves around the cycle of karmas. I am the food, medicine, mantra, butter, fire, father of the world, the mother, and supporter, I am the knowable, the purifier and syllable "Om" and all Vedas. I am the goal, sustainer, Lord, witness, abode, shelter, friend, origin, dissolution, foundation, treasure and in many other forms, but I am also the 'imperishable'. I give heat, cold, rain. I am the immortal and I am the death and birth, existence and non-existence."

"Our Life: It is very difficult for us to accept all the happenings in life as part of God (not as an act of God, but it is a part of God). This is primarily because the self is made of actions, desires, and ego. A human being feels the biggest loss and becomes weak when they lose their loved one! Or the love! Why do we break down that time? It is because we know, that we can never get it back... But why do we want it back? Because we don't know what else to do, memories keep reminding us of the loss. We do not want to have any replacement for that loss. Our ego categorises us as worthless that we are not ready to let go, because we as a human being find it wrong to forget. Hmm... So many people lose their life, commit suicide to escape the pain of the loss... But Why? ... When God is everything and he lives as your loved one and he is the one – who is dead or told you to forget the loss and move ahead... then why, do we carry on with this sadness, for what we are waiting to come back!! When he (God) is gone from the form you loved, he will come back in a different form, for you! So, there is nothing that you have actually missed! Whatever was there in some form that you loved, will be back in some other form, but you have to be receptive for that! Remember that you will also die someday; you will also leave someone alone, someday! But, have faith that God will be there with them also! So accept the changes, as every change is also 'He'... He is there for you and he will never leave you alone. Your loved ones will be there with him constantly, as Part of him... The only thing, which you can pray is, that they also should reach the supreme God. There is no turning back for them also... So get up and walk, and never let the smoke envelope you and make you feel lost."

Krishna tells Arjuna about heaven and birth, "The men who follow the Vedas, people who have consumed 'somras' (holy drink), pure ones, the people who surrender themselves to the supreme power and the worshippers; they all go to heaven and enjoy the divine pleasures of being with Gods and Demi-Gods. After their merits to be there are exhausted they again take birth in this world as mortal beings. It is a cycle in which birth, death and, re-birth continues happening to the mortals, even if they follow all the Vedas. The humans who worship Me alone, for them I secure a place with me. Even the ones, who worship other Gods in other forms, they also worship me only because I am the supreme power but the ignorant forget this. I am the enjoyer of all and the lord of sacrifice too, but when they do not know me, they fail. The one who worships me comes to me. With devotion and pure thoughts, even if someone offers me a leaf, a flower, a fruit or water, I accept that. Hence whatever you do or practice, do it as an offering to me. Thus, you shall be liberated from the fruits of action; good or bad. By doing this, you shall come to me. I have none dear and none hateful, however, the one who worships me with devotion, they are in me and I am in them. Even the sinful will reach me; if they have understood me and are devoted to me. So focus your mind on me, be devoted to me, and make sacrifices for me. By following this, you shall reach me.

"Our Life: We might worship God in many forms, but ultimately everything is one supreme power, this has been told to us by God in Gita. So why do we, humans fight based on religion? What are we trying to accomplish? Is God expecting us to come to any conclusion and bring justice to his land/principle/rules, etc.? ... Ignorance, fear, politicizing, identity crisis, and egoism are all creating illusions in the human mind. With this illusion, people fight to 'safeguard' their Gods... Yes... That's what we believe that we are the one, who safeguard our God and religion by fighting with evil (all other forms, which we can't accept is evil for us... Krishna with any other name is also evil for us). If this is the belief we have, then we must read the 'Bhagavad Gita' once again or many more times to comprehend that 'He' is the supreme power and is safeguarding everything. If someone wants to perform their duty towards their religion, then they should read and practice it... And not be a fool to keep it just as a holy book in a room and fight with Krishna and dishonour Him... Yes, by showing your hatred and anger towards other religion, region or anything, you showed your hatred towards Krishna and not any other God... (there is no other God, it's one supreme power, let it be Krishna, Allah, Jesus, Buddha or anyone else).

Can anyone say that they safeguarded Bhagavad Gita? No-one can say that..., it is surviving on its own; it is just the wish of God. People can argue that unless they fought with other religions, it wouldn't have survived... check Karnatic/Hindustani music, Bharat-Natyam or any dance form, none of them have well-scripted manuals, but they survived for years, the same is true for certain languages and traditions... It is just that they are followed by people and became part of their life... When it comes to Bhagavad Gita or God, we will just fight, more than following it so why don't we understand it and avoid problems based on religion? Maybe, the supreme power wants to maintain a balance between the wise and the ignorant...

As a secret, God has told to, offer everything to me and be detached from the results of your actions. As a human being, it is easier for us to dedicate the result to God when we achieve poor results but when our actions generate success, not many will surrender it to God. The same goes for success and fame. They both take you away from your roots. You will no longer be affected, when you surrender it to God. We see that many people, after success (like a famous writer, media person, movie star, socialist, etc.) want to give their personal comments on everything. They share their opinion on everything... Very rarely, we see people who defy to comment and accept that they are not the right ones to comment. We see newspapers filled with extra pages to show these so-called celebrities where they went for parties or what they did in their personal life and that is also graded on a popularity quotient. Does everyone really feel happy with this? Is that what a person is all about? May not be! But success and fame, take you there, from where coming back is extremely difficult. The best way is to offer success, failure and everything to God and keep yourself unaffected by it."

# Chapter 10- The Yoga of Divine Glories

Krishna continued and explained to Arjuna, that none of the sages and different forms of God know his origin! He is the source of all the Vedas, Gods and sages. The one, who understands Krishna as unborn, that he is the creator of the world, and leads his life based on this enlightenment attains the state of a liberated soul free from the cycle of birth, and death. All the characteristics and happenings, intelligence, wisdom, truth, lie, pain, fear, death, birth, violence, non-violence, equanimity, fame, shame, and everything arises from me. The great saints, demi-Gods and others, are created by me. The one, who recognizes this magnitude of mine, will be able to attain the yogic state. The wise are aware of this and keep their thoughts surrendered to me. They are dedicated to me and enlighten others of my omnipresence. They always speak about me and are devout towards me. Thereby, with yoga, they come to me. I reside in them, eliminate their ignorance, give them wisdom, and take them with me.

"Our life: The supreme force is not an equation or a formula to understand and to apply logic. Before Einstein derived the formula E=MC2, the world was not aware of that, and people might have laughed! Today, if I show you a Computer motherboard circuit and ask you to explain, or I show you the design of a Dam and ask you to elucidate, you may not be able to do so! Why, because you need to study and understand it before can interpret it! If we need to study for 4 to 5 years to understand a small chip or a design, then can the creator of the universe and all living and non-living beings, be understood in days, months or years?!!! ... Then why to disbelieve in something, which we are not aware of!! On the flip side, does that mean, you need years and years to reach him? No, you need months, or a week, or a day, or even a minute, or less than a second to reach him... Because he never leaves you, he is there within you. You just need to find him within yourself... The solution for all complex things comes from within your mind... Ask and search your mind to find those answers... Your mind has all the secrets, inventions and answers inbuilt ... just search for it and take it out... I don't think Google or any search engine can help, but determination and belief is the clue to that search!"

Arjuna requests Krishna to tell more about the supreme God's glories as he was eager to listen. Then Krishna spoke, "Of the rishis - I am Narada, I am the beginning - middle - end, I am the life of all beings, and I am the sun, the moon, and the Vishnu. Of Vedas - I am Sama, of senses - I am mind, of Rudras - I am Sankara, of mountain - I am Meru, of generals - I am Skanda, of offerings - I am prayer, of men- I am the king, of weapon- I am thunderbolt (Vajra), of serpents - I am Vasuki, I am Varuna (God of rain), I am Yama (God of death), I am the wind, the shark, the Ganges. I am the knowledge of self, I am the first letter "A", I am the death, I am the fortune, I am memory, I am month, I am flower, I am cheat, I am gambler, I am effort, I am goodness, I am the evil, I am the punishment, I am silence, I am the knowledge, I am the seed, I am the moving and I am the non-moving and there is no end to my divine glories, I am infinite. I just gave you a few examples, but all the existence and non-existence comes only from me. This world and universe are one part of me, but I am not a complete part in anything. Again, I am unattached to anything and I am performing my duties without attachment.

"Our Life: In our day to day life, we never realize, what we are? Where our life is going? Who controls us? And so on... We never ask any questions, about us and why we are part of this world... We feel uncomfortable to ask such questions.... Because we know those answers will bring some level of detachment to things, with which we are currently attached and also the fear of losing the race with others. There are many of us, who think, why should I ask such questions? I am happy with my life and I have children, I have assets, etc., then why I need to bother what's what?!! Also, we believe that spending time over these questions is meaningless. I agree with you if your aim is not to understand and reach the supreme God. If your idea of life is to execute some good deeds and spend life as it is, live like ant/tiger/monkey/wolf/plant/bird or like any other living being, then you are absolutely correct. You will also lead a life, which is prefixed with experiencing happiness, sadness, success, failure, etc., just as the one who abides by the Krishna conscious. The difference will be, the one who understands the glory of supreme power will not lose his equilibrium and will not be stressed by the adverse situations at any time, but you will! Anyway, not everyone is born to follow the path spoken by the supreme God. If so, then there will be no balance in the life systems here, because everyone might reach God - no birth state! We all learned that the earth is revolving at high speed, but we never feel that movement, similarly we think that sun "rises" and "sets" That's what we are! It requires determination and belief to realize Go. Without that, we will lead a life, in which everything is done by 'us' only! And we can proudly say "Ignorance is Bliss".

However, for the one, who understands that the supreme personality of God is everything, his expectation in life, with people, with activities, with relationships, and with everything is absolute, but he performs his duty unaffected by the result and he realizes the God within him!

It is easy for some and some need constant practice to reach such a mind-set. The mind is practice-oriented for most of its sections! If you keep seeing crime movies or read crime stories for a year, you will be able to simulate any place as a crime scene! If you see religion-based channels you keep talking about them; same is for fashion, training, agriculture, health, food, travel, etc.... The mind can easily be cheated and manipulated and it easily accepts the wrong intent! Hence for some people, practice or constant engagement is required to be in a yogic condition, but it is not the same for all!"

# Chapter 11- The Yoga of Cosmic Form

Brief Expectation Setting

Before we read this chapter, it is important for us to be imaginative. So, we will now imagine 'Sun' in our minds... take a few seconds... ok... How big was the sun we imagined?! A paper size, a building size or a mountain size ... our imagination was nothing except, how we see the sun in our day-to-day life. It is something far away and looks something like the size of a car wheel ... But the fact is that the Sun is more than a million times bigger than what we imagined... now try to magnify the size by 100 times. Then to 1000 times... Then two million times... oops..., the brain is unable to process the image... now you might feel like restarting your brain just as you do with your computers! See, this is the power of imagination and truth...but we prefer to live with our own illusions... coming back, this imagination to some extent is required to go through this chapter...

Chapter for Dummies

Arjuna tells Krishna, that his illusions are now clear, and he realizes that Krishna is everything. Having known that, he is now keen to see Him in all those forms that God has mentioned. He asks Krishna if it is possible for him to see Him in his divine form. Krishna informs him that the divine form has many million things in it, variegated colours and shapes, many more Gods, living beings and various other things in it and that no one has ever seen it before. Krishna says, whatever Arjuna wants to see, everything, irrespective of time, geography, secrets, and forms, he can see. Krishna further explains to Arjuna that for him to see such a form, a divine eye is required and blesses Arjuna with that. Then God shows His universal and timeless form to Arjuna.

"Our Life: I had this doubt and I would like to ask it here, why a special vision is required, to see that form of God and why can't we see it with our normal human sight... Well, when I go to watch a 3d movie, unless I wear special glasses, I don't see anything properly because the picture is blurred, but the moment I wear the glasses, I can see and experience the 3d effect... When I see picture-in-picture Television, I am not able to comprehend all the happenings in the nine screens at the same time, though the television is showing all channels. Likewise, my eyes can cover nearly 180-degree vision, but unless I concentrate, all the happenings in that zone are not recognized by my mind... My eyes cannot see anything in the darkness, but when I wear night-vision goggles, I can see even in the dark... so many things, my eyes cannot see, even though this is the most intelligent automatic lens in the world. Now I realize why Arjuna needed a divine vision to see His divine form..."

The universal form has contained many mouths and eyes, divine ornaments, holy weapons held in thousands of hands, wearing divine garlands and colourful auras everywhere and it's like thousands of suns have come together in one spot, there are faces all around. Arjuna was seeing more and more and started speaking to the Supreme God, "I can see all the Gods in you, all the saints in you, I see thousands of faces, and so many arms, stomachs, legs but I don't see the beginning or the end of this form, there are no dimension or angle that I can specify, it's spread everywhere. I see the sun, moon and other planets within this supreme stature of yours. I can see faces of fire, water, air, heaven, and earth residing in you. The form is marvellous and at the same time terrifying and overwhelming. I see the saints praying, and I see the demons killing. I see the soldiers, animals, workers, birds, serpents, good deeds, and bad deeds - all coming from many of your mouths. I see my relatives crushed in your mouth, I see the good and bad people undergoing different treatments, and I see the souls separate and go into one mouth and new birth taking place in another. I see the past of the entire universe, I see the future of this entire universe, I see fiery faces of yours which destroy the living beings, and by seeing all this I am petrified."

"Our Life: That Arjuna was none other than you and me. He sees the universal form of God and is unable to bear it. The important question is if that is sharper than Full HD quality or maybe better than that? Definitely, it has to be better than that because it is not a telecast to decode, the eyes were taking that vision as it is ... (unless we have negative power in our eyes, if so, then use any disposable HD lens What is that universal form for me now, it's more than watching a Disney movie or Avatar movie, the lights are so colourful spanning beyond the skies, the God is having thousands of faces each with different colour, skin tone, action, shape, etc., we can see everything from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean in a mouth of one face, the Himalayas to the Alps, and all mountains, Arctic snow in in another, Sahara to Kalahari deserts in one face, the nuclear ammunitions in one face, the volcano's in one face, and so on and so forth. We can see the lives of all 5000 million people's life in one instance, and all the animals and plants including their past and their future. We can see all the planets in this universe, we can see beyond Milky Way! We can see Jesus, Nabhi, Vishnu, Buddha, Greek Gods, and the holy faces and we can see the verses of all the holy books in one moment! Not only that, we can see the Swiss bank accounts and secret numbers of all the billionaires, We can see the past and future of this world for millions of years in a second, we see the colours we can never imagine, we see the millions of cows, we see millions of Bacteria, we see all the scams and all the violence in one moment, we see all the poor people searching for food, and the rich making money to store it in their graveyards. We see the share markets sliding, and we see the pollution coming from the motor vehicle. We see our parents taking birth and dying, we see our children being born and dying and we see our own self - born and die....if you imagined all this well, you must be exhausted by now! Hydrate yourself please!"

Arjuna said to Krishna, "Having seen so many faces of God, fire, killings, destruction, and recreations, I am really getting restless and feel disturbed within. All the great warriors and my forefathers are getting destroyed and they get into you and some undergo real bad treatment in this process. As all the rivers enter the sea- I see all the famous, heroic people also go into your mouth for their destruction, and I see a fiery race everywhere. I have seen these fiery forms in you. Who you are with these forms?" Krishna, the supreme God replied, "I am the destruction and time, I engage in destroying the world and it's living and non- living beings every moment." He also said, "Arjuna, even without you fighting this battle, the Kaurava's and their supporters will be destroyed, you are only an instrument to perform this action." Arjuna is not the one who actually kills, it is Krishna who has already killed them and it's going to take place in an instant. Arjuna bowed in front of God and said, "Now I understand why everyone worships you and the saints pray to you, you are the 'imperishable', all the planets and everything comes from you, I bow in front of you with my devotion as an oblation. In my life, I addressed you differently at different times, treating you as a mortal being, and in the process, I would have insulted you at times, so please forgive me. You are the father of the universe, you are the greatest guru in this world, and I have understood that you are Supreme. I am delighted as I have seen your true form, which no one has ever witnessed. Now I want to see you in your divine peaceful form with four arms, to regain peace of my mind. Please bless me to see that form of yours. Krishna said, "You have witnessed the universal and supreme form of mine, this is my original form, and no one has ever witnessed it before. No one can see this form by performing any rituals, or austerities. Now do not be afraid or get confused, I will revert to the form that you have requested." Then, God showed Arjuna, his four-armed universal form.

"Our Life: When we see a man, who is seven feet tall with broad shoulders passing by us, we feel some nervous! When we sit by the sea, we feel nice as it is a nice experience, but at the same time, if we see some high waves coming towards us, we get scared and become anxious! When we are travelling on the road and suddenly hear a loud bang, and realize that two vehicles had met with an accident, and we see wounded people with blood, we again experience tension! If that's how we are, and then suddenly we see God immeasurable in height ... (oh! We, humans, need some measurement to imagine, else it's difficult... so take for example more than 2000 meters/6000 feet ++++) and that too with so many hands and heads, how do we feel? Think of the closest person in your life, and imagine that the same person's job has now changed and that person needs to kill minimum 2 people every day, and then he meets you... How would you feel about that person now, with this kind of activity?! So when God, who according to us, is always pleasant and does only favorable things to us, suddenly shows the destructive form of His, do we feel normal... No way, we might need lemon juice, some ice pack and someone to say "All is Well"... In this entire process, what we understood is that we also imagined the universal form to the extent we could! This power of imagination is nothing but his graciousness only, without him the power of imagination will not be there! Arjuna depicts none other than you and me to whom the God has shown his universal form in our minds. Having witnessed such a form of His, now it's time for you to see his pleasant four- armed universal form... hope we can still imagine!.. Don't worry in most of our life, we live with imagination only, without imagination-solutions, resolutions, creation, destruction and nothing will hold! In fact imagination is a blessing given to us by god! (What will happen, if I wake up one fine morning only to realise that the entire life, which I lived till now was just a dream!)"

# Chapter 12 - The Yoga of Devotion

Recognizing the supreme God, Arjuna wanted to know what was the ideal path to reach Him and what kind of people are dearer to Him. Krishna told Arjuna, "The one who always worships me and keeps faith in me is the most perfect, and the others who control the senses and are concerned about the welfare of others also reach me". Krishna also told Arjuna that there are many different ways of reaching Him. The individual who fixes his mind on Krishna, and engages all his intelligence on Him lives within Him, however if that is not possible, then involve in meditational practices to achieve the supreme power, if that's not possible, then one should involve in devotional service, if that's not possible, then give all your results of action to me and work without worrying about its fruit, if that is also not possible, work on expanding your knowledge about me.

"Our Life: At least In India we see people worshiping God in numerous forms, from stone to animal to humans to giant humans, etc. This leads us to believe that God is in every form and few of the practices are followed to direct people towards devotional activities, like a month- long festival, a month-long prayer, etc. Basically, they intend to shift the nature of people by this consistent practice. Also, the forms of God are mostly family based like son, mother, etc. They help people understand how they need to live in their life and Gods are more like supermodels in family life. As we go to an ashram or 'Matth', we understand that people learn Veda's and perform rituals, etc. ...In places like the Himalayas we can see yogis, who have no desires, who are mostly engaged in mediation, and undertake no action to survive... People like us love to hear about God, what is it, why is it and try to argue about a few things, it's nothing but our pursuit to gain knowledge in that field (some go to religious meetings and prayers to enlighten themselves). Some people believe that helping others and performing good deeds is the true service to God... All of them follow different paths to reach the supreme power, however, if, at any point in time, you feel that by doing so you will certainly reach god; you have already lost your path towards realizing the supreme God!!!

We see advertisements on donated products, we see the names of people inscribed in charity trusts, we see temples built in every street/community - it appears as if God should serve their street/community. We see that rituals overtake the underlying principles narrated in the Bhagavad Gita, we see people going to religious meetings to build contacts and feel proud of having organized such meetings at their place, etc.... By doing all this, we have already gone astray on our path to reach Him!"

Krishna told Arjuna, "The one who is not envious but friendly to all living beings, free from a false ego, who is always satisfied, who is tolerant, who is self-controlled, whose judgment and intelligence is focused on me, such a person is very dear to me. One who neither rejoices nor grieves, who waivers off the auspicious and inauspicious things, who is equipoise in honour and dishonour, fame and infamy, who is fixed in knowledge and who is engaged in devotional service, such a person is very dear to me. Those who follow the path of devotional service, completely engage themselves with faith and make me as their supreme goal are very dear to me.

"Our Life: Do we not envy if something good happens with our friends and relatives like promotion, marriage, assets, etc.? Sure we do, but... firstly we have to recognize and respect ourselves and our life, the second thing we have to realize there is nothing more than the supreme personality of God, and all others have no value... So then why did I say, first you need to respect yourself... it's because the supreme personality of God lives within you, that's why you need to respect yourself first.

Ego is a very important emotion in a human being, but beyond a point, it can hit you like a beast. Ego basically comes from our comparative nature, either to prove to someone or to the society or a group of people that we are not inferior to them or to prove that we are superior to them...People want to go in a VIP lane, but if they are not permitted to do so, then their ego gets triggered, people do not want to follow certain rules, but when they are forced to do so, their ego is triggered, people want to have the last word in any discussion, if not, then their ego is triggered and so on.... Basically, a person who is not self-aware, who can be taken for a ride by others, or cannot handle any untoward situation will undergo this trauma many times... False Ego can create emotional turbulence, which means meaningless speech followed by an irresponsible activity, which takes you into troubled waters. Finally, in order to resolve this, you have to either tell lies or imagine that others have done very wrong with you (maybe more than what was the reality)... To overcome the False Ego, it is very important to realize yourself, see God in others, believe in the actions of God and not have any undue attachments. Because when you are attached to something, the false ego can easily be activated. We are sure that in most of the violent and failed relationships, false ego is the primary reason. By overcoming these characteristics, you can have a better life (as your relatives/friends or anyone whom you interact with will also be comfortable with you). Having said that, it doesn't mean being a fool or allowing others to take you for a ride... Be firm when you are right and it is your duty, but never be egoistic!! "

# Chapter 13 - The yoga of the Field and it's Knower

Arjuna asked Krishna to explain what is field, who is the person known as field, what knowledge is, what nature is and what a living being in it is. Krishna explained to Arjuna, "The body of the self is called Field, the person who understands his body and its senses, is called the person who knows the field. The understanding of them is knowledge. The body has five elements - ego, intellect, ten senses, and mind, desire, hatred, joy, pain, intelligence, reverence, etc. and when they combine with the mind they derive all the actions. The humility, modesty, forgiveness, service to the teacher, purity, steadiness, self-control, absence of attachment to material objects, absence of egoism, clarity in perception of birth-death-old age-sickness and pain, unattached to the affection of family, home and maintaining equality with desirable and undesirable, consistently working towards self-realization, all of them are called knowledge. The things which are opposite to this is called ignorance. The one who has understood his body and detached himself with the help of his knowledge is the one, who reaches me.

"Our Life: Have you noticed; wherever we see a mirror, irrespective of how many times we have seen ourselves in a day, many of us wish to see ourselves once again in the mirror!! Check when you are in office washroom, restaurant, hospital, shopping market, anywhere... If we take stock of how much time we spend in gratifying our bodily senses, we might get some very interesting information... We spend a lot of time in external care of the body, the look, the colour, skincare, hair growth and so on (good for the cosmetic seller). We also spend precious time in satisfying our taste buds, search for food, restaurants, snacks, and then physical and mental satisfaction through various activities. Most of us live for the sake of satisfying the body and its senses and nothing more... Do we ever try to distinguish the body and our self separately?!! Very rarely...so when your body is inflicted with pain, it heavily impacts your mind and senses, because you have always given your body the priority... When your senses are not satisfied, you get wild, your mind goes out of control (example: if you don't have tasty food for a few days, do you not get wild with the family member or service provider?)... Some people have low confidence because their physical appearance is not great. Whose fault is this!! It's only theirs...They do not understand that knowledge is superior, and our mind should constantly work towards achieving it, then our body and its senses will take less priority, and we will be able to control our senses."

Krishna told Arjuna, "The supreme power is present in every being, it is smaller and larger, it is undivided but yet divided, it is unmoving but yet moving, it is the light and also the darkness, and the understanding of this universal truth is knowledge. Nature has all the materialistic things spanned across and that's the cause, the living beings with their characteristics like desire, ego, attachment, senses utilize the nature and its products resulting in good or bad, pleasure or pain, etc. I am the Lord as a witness, a permitter, an enjoyer and a non-enjoyer, I keep doing my duties without any attachments. The one who understands this, and performs the action in compliance with this, will never take birth again. The one who can see the Supreme Lord in all beings and never destroys the self reaches God because of this virtue. A man who realizes that all desires and actions are based on this nature and senses, he will attain supreme divinity. The one, who has a true understanding of the body, knowledge of the body, nature and the characteristics of a living being, will be able to cross over and reach the supreme deity.

"Our Life: We develop our knowledge based on the question "Why", and we understand the logic in the answer and enhance our knowledge. From childhood, we have adopted this technique to acquire knowledge. Hence most of the time, we need some logic, which we can understand, to qualify a piece of information as knowledge, store in our psyche and apply it accordingly. However, we do not always need logic to satisfy ourselves and act accordingly, especially when there is high negative or positive benefit involved. In this case, we accept everything without logic. If while walking in a street, someone says, that in the next street there is a pump which is pouring lava (volcano eruption) onto the street and many people are injured, we will not even go there... fully knowing, that there is no possibility of that... Even when someone said, the Gods' idol is drinking milk, we all carried milk..., similar miracles related to God, are considered as God's blessing...This nature of ours runs in our minds and controls our senses. When someone says, don't think about a monkey, we think about it... why, because we want to know why we should not think about it? If they say to you, the moment you think about a monkey, you will die...again you will think. It's because of fear. ... Fear of change is a major reason to think adversely...Why do we fear? Because we like the position that we are in and don't want any changes made to our comfort zone. More than that we are very much attached to the current elements, body, relationship, etc. Since we don't want change, fear creeps in, and when there is fear - we don't the understand logic, our knowledge becomes useless... in that situation, we can act as ill, superstitious, cry and lower our stability. So we have to keep asking the question "why", but when we don't use it, it means there is something that we need to take care of... At the same time, we extract little information about a logic (which we can understand) and we store it as knowledge. (Fire will burn! We don't test it, we just take this information as knowledge) ... So the knowledge has to be complete even about our body, attachments, senses and everything... If we don't have it, then senses (like fear, happiness, etc.) will start controlling us, which will only lead to misery.

God's creations and He himself is an Oxymoron or a conflicting thing.... Unless we understand Him, this would be our viewpoint. The smallest atom, when split can destroy a country! The air which is so light can uproot any structure! The smallest of a cell can create a human, and so on! How the sky is vast, open and visible at a distance, but when you reach there, there is no end to it. God is also like that! He has no beginning and no end. He is the smallest, yet the most magnanimous, He has kept the secrets and knowledge of all secrets in our mind and also in the universe! Like water, He fits into the shape you desire! It's up to us to think the way we want! If you think of Him as a flower; He will come to you as a flower! If you think of him as a knife; He will come to you as a knife! So it's up to us (incidentally, when I tell us, it includes Him also, because, without Him, there is no you, me and us!)"

# Chapter 14- The Yoga of the Three Gunas

Krishna told Arjuna that he is the father of all living beings and the material body of the physical structure of all living organisms. As living beings are born, by the very nature, they get three 'Gunas' or Characteristics. They are Goodness (Sattva), Passion (Rajas) and Ignorance/Darkness (Tamas). Every living being consists of these three 'Gunas'. The Goodness consists of knowledge, wisdom, and illumination, the Passion consists of desire, joy, pain, attachment, etc. and the Ignorance consists of darkness, madness, cruelty. The Goodness in a person can overrule Passion and Ignorance, similarly, Passion can overrule Goodness and Ignorance, and Ignorance can overrule Goodness and Passion. This occurrence takes place consistently in a living being over a period of time. At the time of death if one mainly consists of Goodness (over a period of time), he reaches heaven and takes rebirth again in between good rational people, if one consists of Passion then he takes re-birth amidst greedy, action-oriented people and the one who consists of Ignorance goes to hell and is born again among similar people or as an animal. The one who understands all these three characteristics actually drives the living being, and when he realizes it's only the supreme God who is creating the illusion, he will stay away from them, by not attaching himself with the action and its result, he will not hate happiness or sadness as both will be the same for him, and this person achieves the supreme God.

"Our Life: Let us pose a few questions before ourselves, is there any time we helped someone who deserved? Did we at any time feel truly happy and thought, why doesn't the time stop at this instant? Is there any time when we really felt cheated or betrayed or we tried to give unwanted feedback on someone? Frankly, the answer will be yes for most of us. It is nothing but, we travel across the characteristics of goodness, passion, and ignorance intermittently. When we serve someone and we interpret that the person's condition has improved with our help, it is Goodness, however, if we feel happy about it, maybe we are entering into Passion, and if we feel that only we can do that, then we are ignorant. In a simple action, these three characteristics can dominate a person. Passion is the dominant character for most of us, because that drives us to do actions and makes us feel happy, and gives a sense of achievement, etc... At the same time we become emotional, sensitive, etc., which brings misery to us... In an Indian common man's life, he spends most of his time talking on politics, cricket, movies, actors, share market, and land and now the new addition is spirituality, and meditation (or health). For some people, it is extended fashion, food, and travel. All of these are passions for us, we talk, we witness, we read about all these, and satisfy our senses, which is purely driven by our passion. More than spending time on self-realization, (leave it... We can't sit quietly for an hour, without television, mobile, radio, or people...) we always need someone or something to satisfy ourselves or interact with; this is where Passion drives us mainly. If someone praises us or our actions or our achievements, aren't we happy? Yes, most of us like it... If someone comes and gifts you a wrapped box, aren't we curious to open and see...Some of us also calculate the worth of the gift, based on what we gifted to that person and we expect similar or higher return... Sometimes we are happy, when the one who never paid heed to our advice gets punished or faces problems, then we want to point out to him, see I told you... sometimes we go and aggressively or diligently pray to God, that the other person must get good punishment for the act he has committed... some of us, also challenge the other person, that we will teach him a lesson... Who are we? What do we think we are doing? Good or bad comes to a person as they act. If someone deserves something they will get it... but we cannot pollute our minds with ignorance and darkness, just by showing vengeance... Yes... it is difficult to practice... However, the more we keep ourselves away from teaching lessons to others or asking God to go and take some actions on our behalf, the better it is for our mind... Believe me, no one can go from this world without getting what they deserve for their actions. We might imagine that some are enjoying their life, though they don't deserve it... believe me, their life is nothing but full of misery and they live in ignorance...

So what do we need more? And what life could be better than this?!!!!! ..."

# Chapter 15 - The Yoga of Supreme Being

Krishna told Arjuna that the Vedas talk about a banyan tree, which is upside down, where the roots have grown upwards and the branches are facing downwards; the upper part of the roots are Vedas and the branches are the three characteristics (Gunas), which are growing downward reaching the human society. No human is aware of its beginning or end, but one has to understand that they have to cut the branches of these trees with the weapon called detachment to reach the supreme God. Krishna continued, "All the living entities in this world are my part. Based on the life they lead due to the senses, the characteristics and their conception, they carry the aroma (with the soul) and enter into a new body. With the new body, the individual attains a new variety of ears, eye, tongue, nose, senses, etc. Based on the new senses and mind the body again performs actions. The ignorant will not understand his current life, his body and the characteristics he has, nor can he understand how his soul can reach a new body. Only the one who attains self-realization can understand this clearly. The splendour of sun, moon, and fire falls from me, I enter into each planet, I keep them in orbit, I am the fire of digestion, I am the air of life, I nourish the plants and I am seated in everyone's heart and from me comes remembrance, forgetfulness, and everything. I am known by all Vedas, I am the Vedas and I am also the knower of Vedas. The perishable materialistic world and the imperishable spiritual world, everything emanates from me, and I am the Supreme Being called the Supreme Soul. The one who knows this and lives within me will have no birth."

"Our Life: When I read this, I noticed that the new body with fresh ears, eye, tongue, and ethics takes rebirth based on the previous life, but the wonderful thing here is that there is no similarity between both the lives. The fingerprints of 500+ crore people are different, and of the previous generation of 400 crore people were different and it is the same for all the generations previously born. In fact, this is the true unique ID every human being is holding! Same is for the eye pupil. Why can't they be the same, at least randomly, but they are never the same! How is it possible to create such a unique design, though with the naked eye they all look similar ... Some people say that 7 people in this world are look-alikes. However, we have never seen anyone like that till now, even the twins are born with certain differences. Who is the creator or designer for this?! Don't mention about cloning, that's still done by using the same cells of a person...it's a Xerox technique...

Similarly, we have all read Darwin's theory about evolution, and I personally like it. What I like about it is the relationship it has brought about with other species. However, it doesn't say that the evolution happened without any supreme power...it can't also...because during every era in this universe, God has taken birth in different forms. We know our history for the last 2000 years at least, but we have not seen any evolution, we never heard that a new species of animal has been found. This is even true for the last 5000 years. If it's just because of evolution, we would have expected modified human being, but I guess we are still the same... (Don't take into consideration the results of fast food on human beings)...However, we do see the evolution of a lot of new germs ... maybe the demons are no longer with multiple arms; they have become bacteria, virus, and nuclear weapons...

What does this mean to us? It means that there is a supreme personality, which creates and maintains the entire system and the living beings. It has complete control over all the living beings in this universe including the cycle of their life and death. It creates and destroys or resets the entire universe with a new set of species! However for us living our life is important, comparison with other's is important, and making fun of others is important, without an inkling that we ourselves are being controlled by the supreme power and not only us but also the entire universe. We do this because we always think that supreme power is somewhere outside us, and we need to continue living our life! Yes... We need to do our duties but without attachments, and then only we can realize the supreme personality within us."

# Chapter 16- The Yoga of Divine and Demonic

Krishna told Arjuna, "There are two kinds of natures, one is divine and the other is demonic. The divine nature is purity, fearlessness, steadiness, self-knowing, austerity, truth, non-violence, modesty, forgiveness, energy, etc...The demonic nature is anger, ignorance, indulgent, living for the moment and ready to sacrifice anything for their personal happiness, pride, arrogance, cruel desires, delusion, wrath, grieving, unjust means, wealth accumulation for sensual enjoyment, belief that today is controlled by them. They believe that these materialistic things change life, that they can manage people, harm anyone, feeling that they are the only successful ones and even believing that they are strong and their health is managed by them. The demonic nature brings ego, greed, pride, false sacrifices, delusion and addiction towards habits, sense gratification, self-honouring, stubbornness, power misuse, etc. The people who have this nature, even hate God and can see Him neither in their own bodies nor in others. Because of their demonic acts, these demonic-natured people never reach me. Greed, anger and strong sexual desire are three things that should be avoided, to come out of demonic nature. A person, who comes out of these three gates of darkness, can do good to themselves and to others, and he will reach me. The person, who neglects these, will not be able to overcome the darkness and can never attain perfection, happiness nor the supreme goal.

"Our Life: Let's think for a moment and find out three activities for which we are proud of ourselves... we can count 1 to 60 if we want... now, even if there is one activity for which we are proud of in our life, then yes, we need to understand Gita. There is nothing for us to be proud of ourselves, it is all coming from one supreme soul, nor we have to feel that we are bad...The Divine and Demonic nature, these may not be exclusively available in a human being, but it can be a mix of the two. How often we have seen that position, money, power/authority bring in greed, misuse, and pride to people and they lose themselves in these materialistic achievements. You and I would have unknowingly used our authority as a tool to satisfy our mind and senses! We have to consciously separate them from us, from the self! What is its purpose? A temple/mosque/church is a place for peaceful worship, but unfortunately these places have become revenue centres and people forget the peace and fight with each other to perform their rituals/duty (for us, going to holy places have become a duty, rather than experiencing the supreme power Are these activities Divine or Demonic?! Well, we know the answer... In our life, if everyone tries to examine what we are doing, we will all recognize that we also have a demonic nature... Constantly and consciously we need to separate it... According to us, with whom do we spend maximum time in our life??? .. Wife/ mother/friend/children???!!!! The answer is none of the above, it is SELF. If we have such demonic characteristics, it means that we are the first enemy to ourselves; we destroy our own life then why should we blame others... By changing ourselves and looking at the supreme goal, we should spend the maximum time in divine nature...

This is not only at a personal level, but also think about countries and the rulers; the power gives them a demonic nature also. The countries and borders are nothing but the logical division of land to uphold certain rules, traditions and for better management. The borders which exist today were not there 200 years ago, the borders which were there 600 years ago do not exist today, the borders in the future may be entirely different. People practice patriotism to ensure that the traditions are kept safe and can be better managed, but over a period of time, the humanity is dead, now the borders have become a cause of concern for humanity... People think the person beyond this line or fence is my enemy... Humanity is lost in the world because of grudge, vengeance, terrorism, racism, etc... Every country spends a huge amount of money to safeguard their borders and let their soldiers die for nothing but a logical partitioning of land... because every country believes that others will demolish the identity of their country, every country thinks that others are dishonest, crooked, etc... So by design, this is how we start seeing a foreign country and a foreigner. Besides, the rich and powerful countries are greedy to accumulate more wealth, destabilize others and want to control (demonic nature plays) other developing countries. The Maldives will be the first country to be submerged under the sea, so those people are migrating to other countries... So what does a country here mean for them? It's a piece of land, where they live... If in America, huge cyclone play havoc every week or severe earthquakes rock the country daily, even those people will move out of the so-called Great America... So what does a country imply...nothing but a logical division of land for certain cultural/traditional and management purposes...So why should we have a demonic nature, just for land, which is anyway controlled by the supreme power....."

# Chapter 17 - The Yoga of Three fold Faith

Arjuna asked Krishna, "How the faith is placed in people who have the characteristics of Goodness (Sattva), Passion (Rajas) and Ignorance (Tamas)?" Krishna told Arjuna, "The threefold faith depends on the role which they play. The human becomes the same as his faith. The men who punish their body in the name of austerity and do not eat but make their body suffer, are fools as they do not care and understand that I am within them. The men who eat juicy and leafy foods possess the characteristics of Goodness, the one who eats sour, spicy, and salty food carries the characteristics of Passion and the one who eat stale, tasteless, and impure food carry the characteristics of Ignorance. The one who carries goodness worships and makes offerings without expecting anything in return. The one possessing the Passion characteristics, provides offerings having certain expectations, and the one who is imbibed with Ignorance, provides an offering without any belief, but only" to achieve immoral gains. The austerity of the body is achieved by worshiping God, purity, straightforwardness and taking care of health. The austerity of speech is achieved by speaking pleasantly, positively, and truthfully. The austerity of mind is attained by self-control, silence, and purity in thinking. Beyond this, any austerity that is done with the aim of being rewarded, and honoured will come under the characteristic of Passion, which is unstable. The austerity which is followed foolishly is bound to be ignored. When a charity is performed, it has to be without any desire to achieve something and for worthy people, then it is Goodness. If the same charity is performed to gain something then it is Passion and if the same is performed in honour of unworthy persons then it is Ignorance. The one who performs charity, and austerity having faith in the supreme power and without the intention to achieve some hidden agenda achieves all the three faiths.

"Our Life: In our day to day life, we watch television, read the newspaper, come across so many advertisements, hoardings and shops, but we don't notice or read all of them. The moment, we decide to buy a two-wheeler or a four-wheeler, a house, or something else... we see several advertisements related to the same topic in the newspaper, television channels and shopping places... Are they published as per our requirement...? No... They always existed, the only thing is, we did not notice them... The moment we start searching, we are able to observe them ... So when we start a search for something with a belief, we will see what we need... For God, why do we need to explore...? He is there with you, but faith is required...belief is required... You need to trust that He is there within you... There is only one language and one short way to reach the supreme power, and that is nothing else but having faith in Him.... We inhale and exhale oxygen, do we stop this process?! No, if we stop this, we will die... What is oxygen? Is this not a part of supreme power, how about our body, is it not a part of supreme power?! Everything is from Him. Then why do we believe that He is only in the Pooja room or in a photo or in a particular place... Are we presuming that He is a genie from Aladdin lamp and that whenever I rub it, God will come out?!! .. Similarly we have many rituals, and I strongly believe some of them have scientific reasons and cleanliness is associated with it, beyond that there is nothing. When we have a death in the house, a woman undergoing her menstrual cycle, and so on, we treat these as inauspicious...If God is there in the graveyard (ex: Shiva), God is there in a woman's body, and God created this wonderful birth, then it is foolish to differentiate God for all this. Is He a visitor to your house to come, eat food/Prasad and go?!! He is the supreme power, without him, nothing exists in this world even for a second... He is the blood, the air, the water, the life, he is the material and everything... Consider cleanliness, but never think God is not there in everything... Whatever we perform, we must surrender to God. Above all this, if we try to treat him as an angry young man, angry bird or killer or money lender or a leader or in any other form, He will come to us in that form only....Not everyone can follow the systems by understanding their values, so the rituals were created based on people's capability of understanding and over a period of time these become traditions. However, if you believe He is light, He will be the light for you. If you imagine, he is a gun, he will be a gun for you...Because he has no attachment and he considers everyone equal...It's our faith which leads to what we ultimately deserve..."

# Chapter 18 - The Yoga of Moksha by Renunciation

Arjuna asked Krishna, "What is sacrifice and what is sanyasa (living as a saint) in terms of action. Krishna replied, declining all the actions to satisfy material nature leads to sanyasa, surrendering the fruitive results of actions leads to sacrifice. At any stage, worshipping, sacrifice, and charity should not be given up, this even helps the purest souls to achieve a higher state. However, if they are performed with attachment, then they are futile. When the prescribed duties are performed without expectation of result then it is Goodness, the prescribed duties are selectively performed and also with expectations then it is Passion, the duties are turned down because of illusion then it's about Ignorance. It is impossible for someone to be without any duties; so surrendering the result to me is the best. The body, performer, senses, undertakings and super soul are all combined to perform the action, so if anyone thinks that he has carried out the action, it means he is ignorant. In goodness, the knowledge sees the supreme soul in everyone, the action is performed without attachment, love, and hatred, the performer has no ego but lots of enthusiasm, no thoughts of success or failure. In passion the knowledge sees different people in different bodies, actions are performed with great effort to satisfy the desires, and the performer is always worried about the results. In ignorance, knowledge sees darkness in everything, the action is performed with illusion and neglect, the performer is cheating, lazy, and materialistic.

In goodness, the agreement helps to determine the right actions, the determination is unbreakable and the task is performed with true faith, the happiness, which starts as tough one and ends as pure one. In passion, the understanding is not able to differentiate between the right and wrong actions, the determination is based on results/economics/sense gratification, and happiness is based on the senses, they start as pure and end as Passion. In Ignorance, the wrong actions will be perceived as good ones, the determination is based on illusion, imagination and senselessness, the happiness from beginning to end is a delusion. These three characters impact everyone. Being purified by intelligence, self-control, performer of his duties removes false pride, ego, who lives in peace can understand me, as I am, the supreme God. They in full consciousness serve me and accept me. Though engaged in all kinds of activities, my devotee achieves me. The one who is conscious of me, who always thinks of me, I am there to help him and he is never lost. As supreme God, I am there in everyone, they just need to surrender to me, and then I take care of them. The most confidential knowledge is, always think about me, worship me, surrender all results to me, by this, you will come to me, without fail, I promise this. The one who understands this and conveys it to others and the one who hears and follows it with full faith also reaches me. After hearing this Arjuna tells the supreme God, that he has understood his duties and is ready to follow them immediately.

Sanjaya narrated all this to Dhritarashtra and told him that these words have enlightened him and he will always remember them. Then Arjuna went to the battle and the Pandavas came out victorious in this great battle.

"Our Life: I always wonder, why should a human perform an action without consequence? It may be easy to talk but difficult in real life! Thinking of rising in life, making money, and making the family happy is the ultimate purpose of living; how can I leave all these and still lead a good life? Gita is not for a common man... these are the thinking I had and maybe you also had in the beginning; now to some level, we both have our answers...Performing action is the key for us to live, we as common people cannot stop performing an action, but we can reduce our expectations because the results contribute to the expectation and expectation drives our desires and desires, in turn, lead to miseries and illusion. Some of us await the results after performing an action. We can wait because God will give us the results... This also is another expectation, but now it's about God... Perform your duties and offer all the results to God, this is simpler for us. When our growth is important for others and we don't take pride or attach ourselves with that growth, then the growth is not harmful, it's again part of our duty. However, the moment we think, it's we who have done it or doing it, leading it, we are lost. Similarly as a common man, we all do activities to satisfy the sensual needs, however, we should be able to distance them as and when required, and for that, it's important to deliver all this to God. We can't be attached to anything but only to the supreme power. With all other things we can sustain, but with the clarity that they exist today and may not be present tomorrow. We can be there with children, wife, parents, brothers, and friends and all other useful assets, but be clear, one day they will go and we will also go out of this life... But we will never be left alone without God! The ultimate supreme power is always within you, so what else you need... Even if you go away, even if your soul moves away, every moment He is there with you and eventually you reach Him...so what's there to worry! Surrender yourself to Him, He will take care! (Don't get confused to which God I should surrender because one God may get angry if you surrender yourself to another God) The one supreme force of this universe is inside you, and you are within Him!!! With this thought, live your life, perform your duties, leave the worries and detach yourself from pride, egoism, and expectations."

# Conclusion

You and I have had our own interpretations when we read this. You and I had our own imagination about Krishna and Arjuna; some you have accepted, some you may have opposed. Yet we both are united in one voice, that we both are from same supreme power and we both are part of it, here age never matters, money never matters, a position never matters. By reading this or by writing this or by arguing this, we may not completely change from today to tomorrow, we might still be doing our activities in the same way. Even so, I do recognize that everything comes from Him, including me, and this will help me to manage elements in life. In the introduction, I said that I am searching for an identity, now my search is over, and I know who I am. Now, I do not feel lonely, even during the loneliest of times. Even in the future, I know I will never be lonely. You may have completely different thoughts on what I wrote, and it is absolutely fine. Because what I wrote is also contributed by Him, what you think is also created by Him. He is not someone who can be put in words. The words written here are triggers for us, but if every human being enjoys Him within themselves, then you can describe him better than what is written here! You can cherish him more than what is mentioned here! This is no conclusion, it is an on-going experience. As a villager, without seeing the world, and with my limited abilities, I tried to understand Gita in my own way to the best of my ability and shared it. There could be pundits who travelled across the globe, have read line by line, word by word and done lots of research on Bhagavad Gita, they can find many errors in my compilation. However, for a villager, who enjoys the humming of the birds, who sees wonderful butterflies, and prefers to have healthy food, it does not matter what FM radio brings, what an operating system performs, what is the on-time performance of a flight operator... does he really need to bother?!! It finally turns out to be, how you perceive and live and what He has blessed you with!!!"

