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
• 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
• 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
• 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
• 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
• 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
• 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
• 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
• 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
• Rise from “willpower is power” to “willpower is his power”
• Chapter 07, Text 10
• Trust not just Krishna’s omnipotence – trust also his omniscience
• 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
• Can devotion and ambition go together?
• Chapter 07, Text 12
• The net of material knowledge can’t net God
• 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
• 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
• 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?
• 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
• 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
• Chapter 07, Text 17
• Let intelligence be a tool for spiritual resurrection, not spiritual insurrection
• 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
• 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
• 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
• The heart unguided by revelation revels in imagination
• Chapter 07, Text 21
• The demigods are not in competition with Krishna but are in a progression to him
• 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
• Krishna is not a jealous God; he is a zealous God
• Chapter 07, Text 23
• Be not fanatical – be fanatically focused
• Chapter 07, Text 24
• Those who desire to be fused are confused
• Excess makes a good thing worse than bad
• Chapter 07, Text 25
• Respecting Krishna’s rights is the right way to receive his revelation
• 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?
• 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
• Envy and devotion are both levelers – envy levels downwards; devotion, upwards
• 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
• 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