Bhagavad Gita Chapter 08
- Chapter 08, Text 04
- Chapter 08, Text 05
- What we think of at our death is more important than what others think about us after our death
- We are like birds on a branch — our wings need to grow before the branch breaks
- Chapter 08, Text 06
- Life is a test of taste
- Our disposition at death determines our destination after death
- Our belief system doesn’t just shape our perception of reality - it becomes our reality
- Chapter 08, Text 07
- Bhakti integrates our emotional and rational faculties
- Balance the here and the hereafter through bhakti-yoga
- Be not scared of the sacred
- Let devotion be your steering wheel, not your spare wheel
- Go beyond naughty desires and knotty doubts
- Devotion enables us to strike a deal between the extraordinary and the ordinary
- Let our potentials, not our problems, define us
- Are we changing the world or is the world changing us?
- “Now and then” or “from now on”?
- Feed the heart a healthy diet, not a deadly diet
- Life’s speed-breakers are meant to be faith-builders, not faith-breakers
- Krishna is not life’s sole goal – he is life’s whole goal
- The key to offering ourselves to Krishna is offering our mind and intelligence to him
- At death, we don’t have to leave home; we can go home
- Express affection through recollection and attention
- Count your blessings – and your toes too
- Appreciating Krishna’s immanence integrates recollection and participation
- Combination of inner recollection and outer contribution nourishes devotion
- When we love the Lord more than the world, he takes us out of the world
- Don't just keep waiting – keep pushing too
- Devotion is expressed through intention and attention, not just emotion and action
- We can’t avoid being pushed by time, but we can choose where we are pushed by time
- Our deepest desires should direct us from within, not disappear within
- Meditation is not the antithesis of action, it is the basis of action
- If saving lives means something more than delaying death, then we all have the opportunity to save lives
- How can we develop both materially and spiritually?
- What are we focusing on: connection or contribution?
- Chapter 08, Text 08
- Leave no space to space out
- To end our forgetfulness, let’s first commit to end our forgetfulness of our forgetfulness
- Chapter 08, Text 09
- Remembrance of Krishna’s immanence brings resilience during our march to transcendence
- Just as wet clothes can’t dry us, an impure mind can't purify us
- For God, no problem is too big – or too small
- Chapter 08, Text 10
- Chapter 08, Text 14
- Seek not moments of devotion; seek momentum in devotion
- Krishna is not just a point for meditation - he is the person for supplication
- The world’s being a miserable place doesn’t mean we have to be miserable
- We live in a broken world, but we don’t have to live broken lives
- Fixing the mind on Krishna is the lever for fixing the mind
- Spiritual evolution is best energized by devotional elevation
- We may have a great vehicle, but we won’t get anywhere unless we get into it
- Chapter 08, Text 15
- Might we be shooting the messenger instead of pondering the message?
- We can’t create paradise, nor were we created in paradise – but we can go to paradise
- Beyond the love that hides to the love that guides
- We can’t change the nature of nature, but we can change the nature of desire
- The world is a hospital; be hospitable to the doctor
- To see life’s positive side, understand what life is and what its positive side is
- See misery as confirmation of scripture – and as impetus to further confirm scripture
- Death for the devoted is not destruction, but discharge
- Trying to get rid of misery is like trying to get rid of one’s shadow
- The Gita is optimistic about what matters most
- Suffering doesn’t have to be isolating – it can be integrating
- Our focus reveals our purpose
- Misery is a fact of life, but it is not the purpose of life
- Reality is not as rosy as our dreams, but neither is it as scary as our nightmares
- The world is a place for treatment, not enjoyment
- See pain as a protector and a pointer
- Life may be filled with problems, but life is not a problem
- Just because pain is circumstantially beneficial doesn’t mean it is intrinsically desirable
- When life is uncomfortable, thank God that it is not unbearable
- To forget that the world is a hurtful place is to place ourselves on a path full of hurts
- Use circumstantial suffering as an impetus to address existential plight
- Tap the power of negative thinking
- Is the Gita’s declaration about the world’s distressful nature pessimistic?
- Chapter 08, Text 16
- Gain double empowerment for destination eternity
- Our life takes off when we understand how soon life takes us off
- Even if we fare well in life, we still have to say farewell to life
- Chapter 08, Text 17
- Chapter 08, Text 19
- Chapter 08, Text 20
- Waking up from the nightmare of death
- The spiritual world exists not just at a different location but at a different level of reality
- Chapter 08, Text 21
- Chapter 08, Text 22
- Let the pat on the back for our intellectual conquests not become a nail in the coffin of our devotional prospects
- Everything is in Krishna and Krishna is in everything
- Think not how far the spiritual world is; think how close the Lord of the spiritual world is
- Chapter 08. Text 27