Book Opening

Bhagavad-gita:
A Photographic Essay

by Visakha Dasi

Book Opening:
Bhagavad-gita, a conversation between the Supreme Lord Krishna and His devotee and friend Arjuna, takes place in a dramatic setting: a battlefield on which Arjuna and his allies are poised to fight a great war. However, when Arjuna surveys the opposing army and sees his relatives prepared to conquer him or die in the attempt, he is overcome with compassion for them and unable to fight. Yet he must fight. His relatives on the opposing side have acted immorally, illegally, and dictatorially. And they’ve refused all offers of

Krishna speaks Bhagavad-gita to persuade Arjuna to fight, to transform his vision from the mundane to the sublime, from the material to the spiritual. And in speaking to Arjuna, He also speaks to all of us. Just as Arjuna has difficulty in fighting, so everyone has some sort of perplexity or difficulty. By His words, Krishna enables Arjuna to transcend his difficulties and reestablish his real purpose in life.

The Bhagavad-gita entails five basic truths: God (the Supreme Lord), the living entities, material nature, time, and the activities of the living entities (karma).  God is the supreme controller, the greatest of all. The living entities, God’s parts and parcels, have His qualities in minute quantity; they are conscious and have an intimate, eternal relationship with God. Material nature, God’s inferior, separated energy, is not conscious; it’s constituted of three qualities: the modes of goodness, passion and ignorance. Above these modes there is time. And by a combination of these modes of nature and under the control of time, the living entities act and suffer or enjoy the results (karma).

The Supreme Lord, the living entity, material nature, and time are all interrelated and eternal. However, the other item, karma (action and reaction), is not eternal. The living entities are suffering or enjoying the results of their activities from time immemorial, but they can change their karma, and this change depends upon their knowledge.  In his introduction to the Bhagavad-gita As It Is, His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada writes, “. . . Bhagavad-gita should be taken up in a spirit of devotion. One should not think that he is equal to Krishna, nor should he think that Krishna is an ordinary personality or even a very great personality. Lord Sri Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. So according to the statements of Bhagavad-gita or the statements of Arjuna, . . . we should at least theoretically accept Sri Krishna as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and with that submissive spirit we can understand the Bhagavad-gita. Unless one reads the Bhagavad-gita in a submissive spirit, it is very difficult to understand

Bhagavad-gita, because it is a great mystery.”

The knowledge in Bhagavad-gita can lead one to purify one’s activities through the process of bhakti (loving devotional service to God).  Activities in bhakti appear ordinary, but they are not material; they liberate one from the bodily concept of life and lead to a spirit of cooperation with the Supreme Lord. As the Gita ends, Arjuna accepts the path of bhakti.

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