Session 5 The Bhagavad Gita

On Tuesday we looked at another ‘hour-of-death’ scene: the sacred dialogue that takes place on the battlefield between Lord Krishna and the warrior Arjuna.  Arjuna is distressed at the prospect of killing in battle his opponents – his kinsmen and friends.  Krishna tells him, “Thou grievest for those who need no grief. The wise grieve not for the living nor the dead”  Why is this?  Krishna teaches the essential immortality of all things: “Verily, never was I not. Nor thou, nor all of these, nor ever shall we cease to be.”  He reveals the true nature of the Divine, of the Macrocosm and of humankind.  What follows from this is that how one acts is of significance.  One is to act from within, from one’s integrity, without being attached to the fruits of one’s actions. You might like to listen again too this extract from Mark Tully's BBC Radio 4 programme on the Hindu ideas of refraining from action, and of karma: Something Understood (6 mins).

The speaker suggests that the doctrine of karma - that we are bound by our actions within a chain of cause and effect - strengthens rather than weakens us: our very next action always counts.
Next time (2 December) we'll have another hour-of-death dialogue, as Lady Philosophy appears to Boethius in his prison cell.
I hope you find these posts and the comments helpful.  In the spirit of the course, please treat each other's comments with respect:  every viewpoint, if heeded carefully, has the potential to expand the consciousness.