Month: February 2023

What is devotion?

Therefore Bhagavad-gītā should be taken up in a spirit of devotion.

Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda

Bhagavad-gītā takes the form of a dialogue between Arjuna, a noble prince in spiritual need, and Kṛṣṇa. It is the story of Arjuna’s self-discovery as a soul, and therefore our self-discovery as souls as well. In other words, it is an auto-biography of the soul. It’s the story of a soul realising that it is a soul. 

To understand that one is a soul is necessarily a self-discovery. No one can express it to us, no book can explain it to us. Paradoxically, insight into the soul can only be received through the soul. It can only heard through the ‘language’ of the soul, can only be experienced through the ‘senses’ of the soul.

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Doer and viewer

What is consciousness? 

Consciousness means ‘self-awareness’, being aware both that we exist and being aware of what is going on around us, both internally and externally. 

Consciousness is a both a very modern word and a very Western idea. Consciousness is what asks the question ‘who am I?’… and then arrogantly answers it. The answer is usually something like ‘I am someone who knows‘, ‘I am someone wants‘, or ‘I am someone who does‘. 

Our modern, Western consciousness is based on an equally modern, Western idea: the ego.  Consciousness is the ego saying: I perceive, I know, I want, I act, I do. It says: The things I make are the product my own creativity; the experiences I have of the world are the result of my own ability to understand it.  

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Perfect love

Verses 10.22-10-30

The closing sequence of Bhagavad-gītā Chapter 10 can seem tedious. 

After Kṛṣṇa declares his affection for Arjuna in the first lines, his disciple again asks for more detailed knowledge about him. God answers him over the final 19 verses of the chapter in the form of no fewer than 58 comparisons of himself to the greatest phenomena of the universe: ‘Of the rich, I am richest’ (10.23), ‘of the mountains, I am tallest’ (10.25), ‘of the rivers, I am longest’ (10.31), and so on. 

But the model used by Kṛṣṇa in these lines never involves just a simple comparison. It is never a simple matter of ‘this’ or ‘that’. Kṛṣṇa’s presentation of himself always takes the form of a progression. It always builds on a quality that can be increased, intensified, or deepened.

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