Bhagavad Gita Chapter 2: Understanding Duty, Wisdom, and Spiritual Practice

• Shree Krishna explains the connection between the body and the soul, clarifying that the soul is sentient, i.e., it possesses consciousness. The body is made from insentient matter, devoid of consciousness. However, the soul also passes on the quality of consciousness to the body by residing in it. Hence, the soul pervades the body by spreading consciousness everywhere.
• "Fragrance is a quality of the flower. But the garden where the flower grows also becomes fragrant." This means the flower can pass on its fragrant quality to the garden. Likewise, the soul is sentient, and it also makes the dead matter of the body sentient by pervading its consciousness in it. 
• Shree Krishna explains that in one lifetime, we change bodies from childhood to youth to adulthood and then to old age. Actually, what we term death in worldly parlance is merely the soul discarding its old dysfunctional body, and what we call birth is the soul taking on a new body elsewhere. This is the principle of reincarnation.

• Considering oneself to be the soul, the prescribed duty is to love and serve God with devotion. This is called para dharma. 
• However, since a vast majority of humankind does not possess this spiritual perspective, the Vedas also prescribe duties for those who see themselves as the body. These duties are defined according to one's āśhram (station in life) and varṇa (occupation). They are called apara dharma, or mundane duties.
• Arjun is a warrior by occupation, so his occupational duty is to fight to protect righteousness. Shree Krishna calls this swa-dharma, or prescribed duty at the bodily level.
• If a warrior chooses to become non-violent on the battlefield, it will be a dereliction of duty and, hence, classified as a sinful act. Thus, Shree Krishna states that if Arjun abandons his duty, considering it repugnant and troublesome, he will commit a sin.
• The Bhagavad Gita is a call to action, not to inaction.

• We get bound by the reactions of our karmas. 
• If one gives up all selfish motives and works merely for the sake of duty toward the Supreme, such work does not create any karmic reactions.
• If humans use their intellects merely for the animalistic activities of eating, sleeping, mating, and defending in a deluxe way, they are misusing the human form. 
• The great danger we face is that we may not get the human form in the next life and instead go into the lower species of life, such as animals, birds, the nether regions, etc.
• However, once we commence on the spiritual journey, even if we do not complete the path in this life, God sees that our intention to do so exists. Therefore, he grants us human birth again, enabling us to continue from where we had left off. 
• Shree Krishna gives four instructions regarding the science of work:

1. Do your duty, but do not concern yourself with the results. 
2. The fruits of your actions are not for your enjoyment. 
3. Even while working, give up the pride of doership. 
4. Do not be attached to inaction.

वासुदेवपरा वेदा वासुदेवपरा मखा: ।
वासुदेवपरा योगा वासुदेवपरा: क्रिया: ॥ 
वासुदेवपरं ज्ञानं वासुदेवपरं तप: ।
वासुदेवपरो धर्मो वासुदेवपरा गति: ॥ 
vāsudeva-parā vedā vāsudeva-parā makhāḥ
vāsudeva-parā yogā vāsudeva-parāḥ kriyāḥ
vāsudeva-paraṁ jñānaṁ vāsudeva-paraṁ tapaḥ
vāsudeva-paro dharmo vāsudeva-parā gatiḥ

1. The external activity we do
2. Our internal attitude toward it

• Shree Krishna advises Arjun to move higher in his internal motivation toward work. He declares that those who work with the motivation of self-enjoyment are miserly. 
• Those detached from the fruits and dedicate their work to a higher cause are superior. And those who offer the fruits to God are truly in knowledge.
• As individuals evolve to higher levels of consciousness, they naturally shed the desire to enjoy the fruits of work and move toward service.

• An enlightened person does not allow the mind to harbour the material frailties of lust, anger, greed, envy, etc. Only then can the mind steadily contemplate on transcendence and be fixed in the divine. If one permits the mind to brood over miseries, the contemplation on the divine ceases, and the mind is dragged down from the transcendental level. 
• Similarly, if the mind craves external pleasures, it runs to the objects of enjoyment and is again diverted from divine contemplation.
• So, a sage of steady wisdom does not allow the mind to hanker for pleasure or lament for miseries. Further, such a sage does not permit the mind to succumb to the urges of fear and anger. In this way, the mind becomes situated on the transcendental level.
• God bestows his divine grace when the soul purifies the heart (the mind and intellect are sometimes jointly referred to as the heart). From that point onward, the soul becomes free from the bondage of Maya for the rest of eternity.
• When this state of God-realisation is achieved, the soul is said to be jīvan mukt, or liberated, even while residing in the body. Then, at the time of death, the liberated soul finally discards the corporeal body, and it reaches the Supreme Abode of God.