The Song: A Treatise on the Bhagavad Gita

By Adam Dave

The Bhagavad Gita is a dialogue between Prince Arjuna and his charioteer, Lord Krishna. The setting is India in 3067 BCE, at the start of a war between two opposing factions vying for the throne. Arjuna, who has loved ones on both sides of the battlefield, is filled with despair about the violence and death that the war will inevitably cause. The warrior prince sees no point in what he takes to be a lose-lose situation. Even if his side emerges victorious - as it eventually would - how can he rejoice in triumph if it comes at the cost of so many lives? And yet Arjuna is a warrior; how can he refuse to fight! So he asks his friend for advice. Krishna's answer is given in eighteen discourses. The charioteer tells Arjuna that as a warrior he must fulfill his duty, even if that means to kill and maim. And that he shouldn't be disturbed by the bloodshed. It is only the body that dies, Krishna tells him. The spirit is deathless. "Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these men; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be." Therefore, Arjuna must fulfill his role without attachment to the outcome. That is, he is to do his best and leave the results - the fruits of his actions, whether sweet or bitter - to God.

Krishna's wise words enable Arjuna to see the necessity of his participation. And Krishna is no ordinary charioteer. Over the course of the dialogue he reveals himself to be none other than God in human form, an avatar of the Lord, the Christ of his age!

The message of the Gita is this: See God first within yourself, and then see God everywhere. As when you know gold, you know it in all its various forms, whether as necklace, bracelet, ring, or wristwatch. All is the Self. All is golden! The Upanishads, Indian scriptures that precede the Gita by as many as 1000 years, and whose philosophy is incorporated in the Gita, declare that the aim of all action, of all religious pursuit, of all discipline, should be "to know the Self within as the individual soul, and the Self without as the Oversoul, and to realize they are one and the same." For: "The Self is Brahman, and Brahman is all."

And Thou Art That!

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0BJ4ZTKHC
• ISBN13: 9798357931931
• Release Date: October 2022
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 76 Pages
• Weight: 0.18 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 5.1" x 7.8"