Bhagavad Gita Chapter 03

• Chapter 03
• Chapter 03, Text 01
• Gita 03.01 explained
• Chapter 03, Text 02
• Don’t equate the confusing with the confused
• Gita 03.02 explained
• Chapter 03, Text 03
• Gita 03.03 explained
• Chapter 03, Text 04
• What is violence for the infectant is benevolence for the infected
• Suppression causes aggravation, not rectification
• A lot is happening when nothing seems to be happening
• Bhakti is not inaction – it is action with the deepest sense of purpose
• Gita 03.04 explained
• Chapter 03, Text 05
• Say nothing doing to doing nothing
• Gita 03.05 explained
• Chapter 03, Text 06
• See rituals as opportunities to spend quality time with Krishna
• Spiritual advancement comes not just by change of activity but by change of mentality
• Temptation induces the pretender’s mask to fall and the seeker’s guard to rise
• When we hide ourselves from ourselves, we destroy ourselves
• Don’t equate change of position with change of disposition
• Know the mind by the company it craves
• To stop defeating yourself, stop deceiving yourself
• Compartmentalization is a mental mechanism for self-deception
• When we rationalize, we indulge in rational lies
• The cunning combination of complacency, complicity and carnality consumes our conscience
• Gita 03.06 explained
• The most exhausting burden is a mask
• As long as we hide behind ourselves, we can’t challenge ourselves
• More damaging than the lies we tell others are the lies we tell ourselves
• Honestly dishonest?
• Chapter 03, Text 07
• Is nothing the place where something is hiding?
• Gita 03.07 explained
• Chapter 03, Text 08
• Gita 03.08 explained
• Chapter 03, Text 09
• Inaction is no protection from reaction
• Gita 03.09 explained
• When we do karma-yoga for Krishna, Krishna takes the karma and gives us the yoga
• The capacity to trade the present for the future is the defining human characteristic
• Chapter 03, Text 10
• Gita 03.10 explained
• Chapter 03, Text 11
• Gita 03.11 explained
• Chapter 03, Text 12
• Gita 03.12 explained
• Chapter 03, Text 13
• Gita 03.13 explained
• Chapter 03, Text 14
• Gita 03.14 explained
• Chapter 03, Text 15
• Gita 03.15 explained
• Chapter 03, Text 16
• Take exception to the hope for an exception
• Sensual pleasures are easily visible, rarely relishable
• When comforts become ends, life becomes a dead end
• Those who make pleasure the purpose of their life make their life purposeless
• The vain live in vain
• Free love is far too costly
• Sensuality is the rust that blunts the axe of our consciousness
• Gita 03.16 explained
• Living the way our senses dictate is not living at all
• Liberty from responsibility is not liberty – it is slavery to irresponsibility
• Living for the moment is a prescription for chaos at best and calamity at worst
• Life becomes meaningless not when we tire of life's problems, but when we tire of life's pleasures Gita 03.16
• Chapter 03, Text 17
• Gita 03.17 explained
• To bear the weight of freedom, we need big shoulders
• Chapter 03, Text 18
• Don’t just give up fallible shelters – seek the infallible shelter
• Gita 03.18 explained
• Chapter 03, Text 19
• Gita 03.19 explained
• Chapter 03, Text 20
• Devotion encompasses both reconnection of the world and its renunciation
• Gita 03.20 explained
• Chapter 03, Text 21
• The Gita lives through those who live the Gita
• Why not model the desired example instead of desiring the model example?
• It’s not just about you – it never was
• Our choice has a louder voice than our voice
• Gita 03.21 explained
• Don’t try to be someone better, try to be an example of something better
• If we justify our weaknesses by comparing ourselves with those who are weaker, we weaken our motivation to rectify ourselves
• Don’t use others to feel better about yourself, learn from others how to become better
• Chapter 03, Text 22
• Gita 03.22 explained
• Chapter 03, Text 23
• Gita 03.23 explained
• Chapter 03, Text 24
• Nonviolence that allows exploiters to become rulers is violence
• Gita 03.24 explained
• Chapter 03, Text 25
• The idea to serve Krishna is far more important than the ideas to serve Krishna
• Gita 03.25 explained
• Chapter 03, Text 26
• Do not make a virtue out of alienating people
• Standards are for inspiration not condemnation
• Might we be burning the very bridge that we want others to cross?
• Don’t be so concerned about others’ future destination as to be cut off from their present emotion
• Spiritual success depends on stamina, not speed
• Break people’s misconceptions - don’t break people
• Our words should open people’s hearts, not close them
• The inconsiderate can be as injurious as the incorrect
• Outreach requires that we speak in the conceptual language that our audience understands
• If people don’t walk in, don’t slam the door on their face
• Gita 03.26 explained
• Make judgments, but don’t be judgmental
• Wrong philosophy may not obstruct people spiritually as much as our calling their philosophy wrong
• Know when to give others space and when to give them pace
• If an ideal inspires more regret than reform, an intermediate ideal is required
• Showing others how they are wrong is not compassion, seeing how they can help themselves become more right is
• Conflict resolution - Right or Rightly Directed?
• What we believe vs how we behave
• Chapter 03, Text 27
• We are not to be the doers, but we are to do
• Gita 03.27 explained
• Chapter 03, Text 28
• Gita 03.28 explained
• Chapter 03, Text 29
• Gita 03.29 explained
• Chapter 03, Text 30
• Expecting the default to change by default is a dangerous fault
• Better to be exhausted than rusted
• Fight for all that you have with all that you have
• Be a warrior, not a worrier
• Study scripture as an existential seeker, not as a historical investigator
• Devotion is more often depleted by indifference than destroyed by hate
• Terrorism arises from ignorance, materialism and ego
• Violence is too small a weapon against evil
• What needs to be done needs to be done well
• Gita 03.30 explained
• The Gita is not inciteful, it is insightful
• Chapter 03, Text 31
• Gita 03.31 explained
• Chapter 03, Text 32
• Krishna is attained not by playing with the intellect but by striving with the will
• Spiritual advancement comes not by defining, but by refining
• Confusion in attribution obscures illumination – end confusion with devotion
• Gita 03.32 explained
• What we know doesn’t define us as much as what we want to know
• Chapter 03, Text 33
• The past won’t last if to Krishna we hold fast
• Context is critical for comprehending content
• Purification centers on channeling our nature, not suppressing it
• Don't just eradicate the past – engage its product
• Gita 03.33 explained
• Chapter 03, Text 34
• We Are Products But Not Prisoners Of Our Past
• Take emotions into account but don’t let them be the only thing in the account
• Stepping-stones can become sucking swamps if we don’t step over in time
• Our impressions go with us, but they don’t have to grow with us
• Aversion is as much a temptation as is attachment
• Gita 03.34 explained
• Our conditionings need cautioning and cushioning
• We are not masters in our own house, but we don’t have to be slaves
• Chapter 03, Text 35
• The shoe that fits one person bites another
• The best is not as important as the best for you
• Don’t abandon the very differences that make you essential
• Commitment is the complement of talent, not its replacement
• Let satisfaction be the basis of success, not success the basis of satisfaction
• We are all playing on different surfaces – don’t compare
• Gita 03.35 explained
•  Sculptors can change the shape of the stone, not its structure
• Seeking to understand our nature won’t box us in, it will reveal the box we are already in
• Chapter 03, Text 36
• Devotion protects our values from being held hostage by our impulses
• Spiritual culture is the bridge from hypocrisy and perversity to purity
• The greatest threat to individual freedom is the individual
• Addiction makes us crave for the things we don’t even like
• We need liberation from the compulsion for self-destruction
• Gita 03.36 explained
• If the truth makes us flee, it can’t make us free
• See the addicted not as demented or degraded but as tormented
• Chapter 03, Text 37
• Lust is a black hole – beware of its gravity pull
• Show temptation the red light – not the red carpet
• Lust is worse than our worst enemy
• One who rides a tiger into its lair becomes its dinner
• Lust is not just vicious but also voracious
• Lust de-spiritualizes the subject and dehumanizes the object 
• Listen to your Lord, not to your lust
• Even when a big enemy is out there, the bigger enemy is in here
• Defamation of character is not as damaging as deformation of character
• No enemy is as dangerous as the one we are blind to
• The biggest battle is not around us; it is inside us
• Gita 03.37 explained
• Addictive desires feed themselves through us and then they starve us
• To succumb to temptation is not just immoral - it is also irresponsible
• The enemy that is not recognized can’t be resisted
• The most damaging consequence of indulgence is nonchalance towards indulgence
• Those who fight their inner devils are the ultimate daredevils
• Never lose faith in your potential to improve, or you will court cowardice and malice
• The love that leads us to evil is evil masquerading as love
• Impurity needs to be feared before it can be found, found before it can be fought and fought before it can be finished
• More dangerous than the enemies that threaten are the enemies that tempt
• Raised fists or linked arms don't transform as effectively as folded hands
• Chapter 03, Text 38
• Recover the soul; don't re-cover it
• Gita 03.38 explained
• Chapter 03, Text 39
• Slick about sin or sick about sin?
• Illusion makes us oblivious to the obvious
• When the heat hits, move away from the heat source, not towards it
• Sex is extraordinarily ordinary
• Those who mistake torture to be pleasure sentence themselves to perpetual torture
• When a wildfire appears to be the cure for a burn, a wildfire is burning our head
• Lust doesn’t just bind us – it also makes us fight to hold on to its bonds
• The soul is wise, but lust makes it otherwise
• Respond to the fire of desire not with fright but with fight
• We can’t eliminate fire, but we can become firefighters
• Satisfying our longing for the infinite with finite pleasures ends in addiction
• To be a spiritual freedom fighter, be a sensual fire fighter
• To mistake a ceasefire to be a treaty is suicidal
• Lust locks the soul in an unholy embrace
• Be not tired of fighting against temptation – be tired of forgetting Krishna
• Gita 03.39 explained
• In a war, to be casual is to be suicidal
• Fighting self-destructive desire by ourselves is like fighting a forest fire with bare hands
• As long as the mind is impure, no place is secure
• Love becomes blind when lust becomes the blindfold
• Sensual pleasure touts itself as free and then takes toll forever
• Addiction is an abductor who extorts ever-increasing ransom but never releases
• Recognizing our most dangerous enemy and our essential protector
• Chapter 03, Text 40
• Opportunity doesn’t create immorality; mentality does
• The cure for lust comes not by condemning the object but by cleansing the subject
• Rationalization is temptation’s spin-doctor
• The threat in here is much bigger than the threat out there
• Lust allures men with pleasure and women with power
• Let intelligence be the inspector of impulse, not its incubator
• Lust doesn’t need a hideout – it has a hide-in
• Focus not on where the inner voice is coming from, but on where it is taking
• Gita 03.40 explained
• Our inner vulnerability increases our outer vulnerability
• Corruption of the intelligence needs correction by the intelligence
• Temptation talks and stalks, relentlessly
• Taking advice from vice traps us in the vise of vice
• We are inflammable, not incorrigible – we need caution, not condemnation
• Covering our tracks thoroughly is not intelligence, choosing our tracks thoughtfully is
• Regret for wrongdoing reforms, regret for only the consequence of wrongdoing deforms
• Are emotions subjective or objective?
• Chapter 03, Text 41
• Let temptation trigger an alarm bell, not a welcome tune
• Watch what you watch
• It is never too late - and it is already too late
• Let sleeping tigers sleep – don’t pinch them
• Where is the glory in a backdoor victory over attachments?
• The mental avatar of AIDS
• Pause is not inaction but action
• Our intelligence can be overcome by illusion, yet it is also the key to overcome illusion
• To resist sense indulgence, resist the hype around sense indulgence
• Regulation is a protection measure, not a trust issue
• Remission is not elimination
• Regulation is the foundation for purification
• Stay aware of your triggers – and stay away from them
• Culture is meant to instill values, not instigate cravings
• For changing internals, changing externals is almost always necessary and almost never sufficient
• Gita 03.41 explained
• Be vigilant to know when the mind becomes incoherent
• Sensuality erodes both our tendency and our capacity for spirituality
• No barrier is foolproof, that is not proof no barrier is useful
• Protecting ourselves by defining and defending boundaries
• Chapter 03, Text 42
• Conquer vice not just by fighting harder, but by rising higher
• The mind is not your boss – don’t let it boss you
• The mind may be a drinker, but the intelligence doesn’t have to be a bartender
• Think with our sense, not our senses
• Gita 03.42 explained
• Chapter 03, Text 43
• Dwell, Desire, Decide, Degrade – No! Discriminate
• Conviction is the fuel for our resolutions to fly from take-off to landing
• The mind traps us materially and trips us spiritually
• Activating our skeptical antenna
• Let intelligence guard the path from impulse to intent
• Deepen detachment by discernment
• Let temptation activate the warrior within, not the philanderer within
• Reformation requires reformulation
• What someone is not telling can be telling
• Prohibition can be a support for purification, not a substitute
• Let introspection be for fact-finding, not fault-finding
• Use intelligence to see beyond appearance
• Counter temptation not just at the level of activity but at the level of identity
• Gita 03.43 explained
• Use your intelligence to identify and rectify your conditioning, not to justify it
• Impulse may run over intelligence, but don’t let it take over intelligence
• To decrease unhealthy reactions, increase healthy reminders
• To see our own stupidity, unvarnished and unjustified, is infuriating and invigorating
• Use cleverness to counter corruptness, not cover corruptness
• If we are robbed repeatedly by the same suspect, it is our intelligence that is suspect
• The mind is like ice to truth and fire to lies
• Text 02