Suppose a drunken person drives a car and is caught for driving drunk. Intoxication can make some drunkards so irresponsible that they may not even accept responsibility for their irresponsibility in driving drunk.

Intoxication doesn’t come only through alcohol or similar substances. It can come from misleading conceptions that infatuate people, making them do things that they would normally never do. People under the grip of sexual passion can do abominable things. Gita wisdom explains that a much more fundamental intoxication comes from the bodily conception of life, wherein we forgetting that we are souls mistake ourselves to be the body and act only for bodily pleasures, even when they run against our spiritual purposes. Despite being inebriated, we drive through the roadways of life, often unaware that we may be violating the karmic laws that govern all traffic in the universe

At the start of the Bhagavad-gita, Arjuna found himself caught in an ethical dilemma that stemmed from the intoxication of the bodily conception of life. In the Gita’s first chapter, he gave several strands of reasoning to rationalize abandoning his duty. But no matter what self-justifying alley his frenzied mind drove along, he found himself at the same dead-end of confusion and dejection, as he acknowledges in the Gita (02.06).

Fortunately, he recognized the foundational error that underlay and undercut all his argumentation. With disarming candor, he confessed (02.07) his cognitive dissonance to his friend and mentor Krishna, and asked for clear guidance. The subsequent guidance empowered Arjuna to act responsibly even amidst the most demanding circumstances and against overwhelmingly unfavorable odds.

If we too like Arjuna can begin by accepting responsibility for our irresponsibility in living under the ignorance of the bodily conception, and seek spiritual guidance, Gita wisdom stands ready to empower us. 

Bhagavad Gita Chapter 02 Text 06

"Nor do we know which is better – conquering them or being conquered by them. If we killed the sons of Dhrtarastra, we should not care to live. Yet they are now standing before us on the battlefield."