Bhagavad Gita Chapter 07
- Chapter 07, Text 01
- The propellant of spirituality is not detachment but attachment
- Don’t let desire delude with the Trojan Horse of doubt
- To fix the mind, fix it on Krishna
- Doubts are not the problem – believing them is
- Gita 07.01 explained
- Our entanglement is caused not by our attachment, but by our detachment
- Renunciation is meant to help us look up at Krishna, not look down at the world
- Our mind is influential, but it is also influenceable
- Our attachments are like a rented house that we don't usually leave unless we are evicted
- What intelligence can and can’t do in bhakti
- Chapter 07, Text 02
- Chapter 07, Text 03
- To know Krishna is to relish a thrilling, fulfilling, unifying awareness of reality
- Our spirituality is a specialty, not an abnormality
- Accepting that we are ordinary is extraordinary
- Focus on how close you are, not how far you are
- Do the extraordinary for the extraordinary, not the ordinary
- Gita 07.03 explained
- Don’t underestimate the difficulty of the spiritual journey, but don’t underestimate the opportunity either
- One soul inspired is better than a thousand souls impressed
- Chapter 07, Text 04
- Anahankara = an + aham + car (I am not my car)
- Perceive the mind to better perceive Krishna
- Gita 07.04 explained
- See the differences in the subtle functionally more than structurally
- Spiritualism is the shadow of spirituality
- To have ability is a gift, to realize that we have ability is a greater gift, to realize that our ability is a gift is the greatest gift
- Chapter 07, Text 05
- We are the world’s purpose, but the world is not our purpose
- Gita 07.05 explained
- We are in illusion, but we are not an illusion
- How change happens — and how it doesn’t
- Chapter 07, Text 06
- From the reality of nature to the nature of reality
- Be conscious that what you are conscious of is Krishna
- Gita 07.06 explained
- All things are from Krishna, through Krishna and in Krishna
- God is the ultimate source and the ultimate resource
- Everything is not relative – everything is related
- Chapter 07, Text 07
- Balanced bhakti brings bliss
- Personality is neither a pointer to nor a portion of the Absolute Truth – it is the pinnacle
- Gita 07.07 explained
- Krishna does not stand for the Absolute – he is the Absolute
- God underlies, overlies and outlies the world
- Reason can't reach beyond reason, but it can give us reason to reach beyond reason
- Chapter 07, Text 08
- Rumble, Grumble, Tumble? Or Humble?
- Slave not to get worldly recognition; strive to give Krishna recognition
- Gita 07.08 explained
- Don’t let the mind show you what you are missing – show the mind what it is missing
- Our abilities are our endowments, not our entitlements
- To take sole credit for our abilities is to put too much burden on ourselves
- If we are grateful when ability manifests through us, we can be graceful when it doesn’t
- Faith in yourself vs faith in God
- Does inequality always arise from discrimination?
- Chapter 07, Text 09
- Chapter 07, Text 10
- Chapter 07, Text 11
- Might we be devaluing sex by glamorizing it?
- The culture may give a license to lust, but nature doesn’t
- To divorce the personal from the professional is to be blind to the essential
- Gita 07.11 explained
- Can devotion and ambition go together?
- Chapter 07, Text 12
- The net of material knowledge can’t net God
- Gita 07.12 explained
- The whole is far greater than the sum of its parts
- Chapter 07, Text 13
- Krishna is concealed, but not contained, by the modes
- The freedom offered by ignorance of freedom is the tightest bondage
- The modes make Krishna seem irrelevant and the world seem irresistible
- Gita 07.13 explained
- Chapter 07, Text 14
- We are our own devils
- Our vulnerability points to our opportunity
- To get on the way to Krishna, get out of Krishna’s way
- We help ourselves best by remembering that we are helpless without Krishna
- See in the potency of illusion the glory of its master
- The Merciless Microscope of Maya
- See nature not as the inflictor of misery, but as the instructor of incompatibility
- We become free by choosing what controls us
- The commonality of the source doesn’t imply the similarity of the effect
- Gita 07.14 explained
- Maya is not just illusion – it is also the agency that brings about illusion
- Unawareness in transcendence is different from blindness in ignorance
- Use self-control to commit the self to the control of the supreme self
- Spiritual surrender is not an admission of defeat – it is a vehicle to victory
- Channel the spirit of devotion, not the ghost of illusion
- To think that the illusions tempting us are new is an old illusion
- To claim that everything is an illusion is to be in illusion
- As long as we revolve around sense objects, we can’t evolve towards Krishna
- Those who think they aren't prone to evil are the most prone to evil
- Evil has no independent power, yet it is incredibly powerful
- Chapter 07, Text 15
- The Bhagavad-gita is open-minded, not empty-minded
- By living for animal pleasures, we violate our human rights
- Those who dismiss the invisible as insubstantial dissipate their lives in the insubstantial
- Those who make donkeys the Gita’s role models sentence themselves to donkey-like roles
- Are needles determining our needs?
- Gita 07.15 explained
- Great gifts don’t guarantee greatness
- Chapter 07, Text 16
- Devotional spirituality offers breaks that are much more than brakes
- Dig the grave of materialism, functional and fanatical
- Raise the curiosity radar from the how questions to the why questions
- Be spiritually curious – and become spiritually serious
- We can’t become pure devotees without becoming devotees
- Gita 07.16 explained
- Direct your curiosity radar towards Krishna
- God’s presence is his greatest present
- Culture is meant to channel our curiosity constructively, not destructively
- The God we grasp is different from the God who grasps us
- Why counting our blessings is so transformational
- Chapter 07, Text 17
- Let intelligence be a tool for spiritual resurrection, not spiritual insurrection
- Gita 07.17 explained
- Turn to God not to get something, but to be with Someone
- Devotion is sustained not by tribulation or emotion but by conviction
- Chapter 07, Text 18
- Cultivate devotion not for its survival value but for the value it brings to survival
- Don’t just bring Krishna into your life; let Krishna bring you into his life
- Gita 07.18 explained
- Chapter 07, Text 19
- Krishna is everything, but everything is not Krishna
- Cultivate the love that goes as far as the head goes – and also goes beyond it
- Bhakti is characterized by simple-heartedness, not simple-mindedness
- Have the intelligence to doubt the supremacy of the intelligence
- Krishna is not a dispensable filler; he is an indispensable shelter
- It takes great intelligence to recognize that intelligence is not great enough
- Life’s supreme success is not to conquer everyone but to be conquered by the lover of everyone
- Krishna is not just a solace from the world – he is the substance of the world
- See beyond the provision to the provider
- Don’t use a gold slab as a shade against sunburn
- Gita 07.19 explained
- To sweeten your devotion, heighten your conception and motivation
- Don’t raise your eyes alone – raise your heart too
- Between the extremes of pantheism and deism lies the holism of panentheism
- To see Krishna’s love through the filter of our desires is to blind ourselves to his love
- See Krishna not just as a shock-absorber, but also as a goal-transformer
- Knowledge about Krishna protects and propels
- To be dissatisfied with the material is ordinary, to be so dissatisfied as to look beyond the material is extraordinary
- Devotion commences when God becomes our guide and culminates when he becomes our goal
- If Krishna takes away the things that can take us away from him, don't go away from him
- When we say no to God, it's mostly because we don't know God
- Is God our problem-solver?
- Chapter 07, Text 20
- Chapter 07, Text 21
- The demigods are not in competition with Krishna but are in a progression to him
- Gita 07.21 explained
- Don’t reduce scripture to your conceptions of what scripture should be teaching, expand your conceptions to understand what scripture is actually teaching
- Chapter 07, Text 22
- Chapter 07, Text 23
- Chapter 07, Text 24
- Those who desire to be fused are confused
- Excess makes a good thing worse than bad
- Gita 07.24 explained
- Chapter 07, Text 25
- Chapter 07, Text 26
- The trans-logical logic of love resolves seeming scriptural contradictions
- Might we be blocking the progress of a work in progress?
- Gita 07.26 explained
- We can’t know what the future holds, but we can know who holds the future
- We see the present and plan the future - Krishna sees the future and plans the present
- Monism puts the head and heart at war with each other; devotion harmonizes them
- Chapter 07, Text 27
- Chapter 07, Text 28
- Determination is a function of not just intention but also purification
- Healing requires not just the expelling of germs, but primarily the boosting of immunity
- Determination is the fruit of purification – and its root too
- Gita 07.28 explained
- Bhakti requires a radical re-assessment of our deepest desires
- Chapter 07, Text 29
- Don’t reduce the spiritual to the practical; let the spiritual expand the practical
- Gita 07.29 explained
- Chapter 07, Text 30
