The message of Bhagavad-Gita

Gita is a spiritual book of Hindus, just like the Bible of Christians. It simply states how a human being should act in this birth and many other morals that when implemented can make life easier and qualitative too. Bhagvad gita did not encourage physical figth/ nonviolence but it is a fight against falsehood, materialism, and nin general the bad.

well i haven't read it myself but i heard that Gita and many other hindu scriptures talks about meditation. But people misunderstand its and thinks that chanting mantra will take away their impurities. Most of the scripture talks about Vipassana meditation. Even in Gita it talks about Vipassana meditation. Since, people forgot the technique of meditation, and reading from scripture doesn't help people started the chanting those scriptures as mantras thinking it would take them out of missery. People forgot that its not something to be read but to be experienced in this physical body. well i think i have to read it myself too... well happy mylotting..!!

hi frederick i used to feel the same way as you .. that "lord krishna" actully encouraged the war .. but once you understand the contend ... the view is different , whereby "lord krishna" actually refferes back everything to "KARMA" After reading it, and understanding "KARMA" i am a different person now, I can accept things as it is .. everything is "MENT" to happen the way it "SHOULD" happen cheers

There are two ways of looking at the Bhagavad Gita. As a part of Mahabharata which is incidental. as an independent Scripture that lays out a Way of Life. When considering the relevance of the message of "encouraging going to War" it is to be seen in context of its placement in the Epic Mahabharata.. Arjuna was running away from his duty as a kShatriya who is supposed to defend the rest of the society from breakers of Law. He was behaving in ways unbecoming of his character, and wanted to adopt the posture of a Brahmin who is supposed to live by modest means and rein in his ego by begging. This posture he had taken, being overwhelmed by grief at having to fight his own brothers to gain their kingdom back. Such dilemmas occur in one's life where one gets to place emotion above duty. Krishna cleared the muck in his mind. Arjuna then got over his despondency and went to War. For people who can discern, this is not an encouragement to go to War, but to perform one's allotted duty. One must remember the [B]context [/B] that even this very rightful war was resorted to after a lot of efforts at Peace. It was the adamancy of Duryodhana, the reigning Prince and his weak and ineffective father who brought upon the War. There is no shying away from War if that is needed to fix Evil. The other way of looking at BG is as a document on the Way of Life. In this case the War is just an allegory- it is the War that goes on between the Good and the Evil in one's own mind. Then the whole thing turns into a symbolism wherein the Five Pandava Princes are to be seen as the Five Senses with Arjuna as the Mind/Brain and the Lord Krishna as the Intellect/Atman. The Kauravas each personify the different stances of Evil, (for instance Bhishma is Pride/Obstinacy) the army on the Kaurava side are the bad thoughts (thoughts that make one deviate from the Dharma) that bombard our mind day in and day out. Evil in SD-thought process is not necessarily bad. We are encouraged in every SD-thought process to act without hatred. Even a War must be waged without hatred. Thus in every Purana the demon obtains his powers from the same God, he fights the same God and is killed in the encounter and is absorbed in the same God. Thus in the SD thought process there is no separation of Good and Evil. The battle is always between Ego and Atman! Seen in the above manner the Gita is a Summary document on the Vedanta Philosophy more directly dealt with in the Brahma Sutras. Hence among the Prasthana Traya,[The Triad of Conclusions] the BG is the starting point and the Br.Su. the Final Document.