GĪTĀ SUMMARY & CONCLUSION
(by A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda)
To summarise the conclusions of Bhagavad-gītā it may be said that:
1) God is one and everything is in Him and He is in everything.
2) To render transcendental service unto God is to serve everything that be, just like to water the root of the tree is to water the different branches and numerous leaves of the tree or to supply food to the stomach is to vitalize all the senses and the sense organs of the body.
3) The parts are automatically served when the Whole is served but when the parts are served the whole may not be served or not served at all.
4) The parts and the Whole being eternally related, it is the eternal duty of the parts to render service unto the Whole.
5) A recipient of the services of the parts, God’s sat-cit-ānanda vigraha i.e. the all-attractive Cognizant and all-blissful Personality eternal. He can reveal Himself by His own potency without any help of the external potency called māyā in order to be cognizable by the limited potency of the parts and as such He is not only the greatest of all but he is the smallest of all. That is His prerogative.
6) He is better realized when He by His causeless mercy agrees to descend in this mortal world but he He is never realized by the partial speculations of the empiric philosophers however systematic and long-termed it may be.
7) Śrī Krishna is the Personality of Godhead and is the Summum Bonum Cause of all Causes proved by fact and figures in the statement of Bhagavad-gītā, but He reserves the right of not being exposed to the sensual speculations of the empiric philosophers.
8) One should therefore surrender unto Him if one wants to know Him as He is and that is the real process to approach the Infinite by the infinitesimals.
9) Śrī Krishna is easily available by the religion of love i.e. by love and service as conceived by the damsels of Vraja who had practically no education whatsoever and much less any claim for high class birth right.
10) The highest service that can be rendered to the mankind is, therefore, to preach the philosophy and religion of Bhagavad-gītā for all the times, all the places and all the people.
I hope you may agree with me and thus make a combined effort in this direction for the benefit of the mankind. Yours sincerely,
COMMENT
The Bhagavad-gītā is a sacred conversation between Lord Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and Arjuna, His devotee. This conversation took place on the battlefield of Kurukṣetra, just before the great war of the Kauravas and Pāṇḍavas. Arjuna is in confusion and sorrow, and does not know what is his duty (dharma). That's why he turns to Kṛṣṇa as his spiritual teacher.
In the introduction Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that the Bhagavad-gītā is neither a symbolic or philosophical invention, but must be understood literally, as Kṛṣṇa Himself has spoken. Kṛṣṇa is not an ordinary human being but God Himself, and His words are absolutely true.
The core message of the Bhagavad-gītā is that the soul (ātma) is eternal, while the body is temporary. The goal of life is not material success but the recovery of our lost relationship with Kṛṣṇa through bhakti-yoga (loving devotional service to the lord).
Śrīla Prabhupāda emphasizes that true peace, knowledge and happiness can only be achieved through surrendering to Kṛṣṇa, especially in this Kali-yuga, by chanting the holy names of the Lord, the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra.
The narrative in the Bhagavad-gītā concerns a dialogue between Lord Kṛṣṇa and a mighty warrior named Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukṣetra. In the narrative, Kṛṣṇa has descended to earth to aid Arjuna in his battle against Kauravas and their army. Kṛṣṇa assumes the role of Arjuna's chariot driver and aids him in the battle and reveals to Arjuna several divine truths about human existence in the material plane, the true nature of the supreme personality of God, and the method of eternal progression and release from the earthly cycles of death and rebirth through the practice of bhakti yoga. The narrative teaches that achieving Kṛṣṇa consciousness and attaining the inner realization that all life is a manifestation of the eternal energy of Kṛṣṇa will release an individual soul from the cycles of reincarnation (death and rebirth). The narrative culminates with Kṛṣṇa revealing to Arjuna his universal form which encompasses all life and material existence.
One notable event in the narrative is when Arjuna gazes at the opposing army and sees his relatives fighting for the opposing army, he is filled with grief and remorse that he must kill his own flesh and blood. In reply, Kṛṣṇa reveals his true form to Arjuna and tells him that it does not matter if his relatives die in the battle today because they will eventually die anyway, and that Arjuna's duty to the supreme lord and his own self-realization transcends his material attachments to his relatives. The central message of the text is that nothing ever truly dies and that all life is in a continual cycle of death and rebirth, and that one has a duty to the process of self-realization and progression in order to manifest the supreme personality of God and achieve Kṛṣṇa Consciousness, thereby escaping the eternal cycles of death and rebirth.
The Gītā advocates the path of bhakti toward Kṛṣṇa, who is seen as the Supreme Lord himself. It establishes that Kṛṣṇa is not an incarnation, but the cause of all causes and source of all incarnations. He is even the cause of Viṣṇu. It teaches bhakti yoga, the loving service of the transcendental personality of the Lord.
The subject of the Bhagavad-gītā entails the comprehension of five basic truths. First of all, the science of God is explained and then the constitutional position of the living entities, jīvas. There is īśvara, which means controller, and there are jīvas, the living entities which are controlled. If a living entity says that he is not controlled but that he is free, then he is insane. The living being is controlled in every respect, at least in his conditioned life. So in the Bhagavad-gītā the subject matter deals with the īśvara, the supreme controller, and the jīvas, the controlled living entities. Prakṛti (material nature) and time (the duration of existence of the whole universe or the manifestation of material nature) and karma (activity) are also discussed. The cosmic manifestation is full of different activities. All living entities are engaged in different activities. From Bhagavad-gītā we must learn what God is, what the living entities are, what prakṛti is, what the cosmic manifestation is and how it is controlled by time, and what the activities of the living entities are.