- Chapter 18, Overview
- Chapter 18, Text 01
- Gita18.01 explained
- Arjuna’s seventeenth question
- The Gita’s seventeen questions at a glance
- Restraint and renunciation are routes to detachment – bhakti is the fuel
- Chapter 18, Text 02
- Chapter 18, Text 03
- Gita 18.03 explained
- How to appreciate those who disagree with us
- We may have to disagree, but we don’t have to be disagreeable
- Don’t let disagreement degenerate into disrespect
- Chapter 18, Text 04
- Chapter 18, Text 05
- Chapter 18, Text 06
- Chapter 18, Text 07
- Chapter 18, Text 08
- Gita 18.08 explained
- Aversion to commitment is not detachment
- Renunciation centers not on running away from the world but running towards Krishna
- Chapter 18, Text 10
- Chapter 18, Text 11
- Chapter 18, Text 12
- Chapter 18, Text 13
- Chapter 18, Text 14
- "What is my calling?" and "What am I calling?"
- India's T20 World Cup Victory & Chokers' tag: Making sense with Bhagavad-gita
- Don't limit God with your dreams
- Gita 18.14 explained
- How to plan in a mood of devotion?
- Appreciating others’ achievement fosters extrinsic self-worth, appreciating their commitment fosters intrinsic self-worth
- Fate is not a matter of faith, but our faith matters in determining our fate
- Our role in doing things is contributive, not decisive
- Chapter 18, Text 15
- Chapter 18, Text 16
- Gita 18.16 explained
- How Krishna describes the vision of the seers
- Does Krishna consider Arjuna to be a doer or a non-doer?
- The notion of doership is not an illusion – the notion of sole doership is
- Chapter 18, Text 17
- Chapter 18, Text 18
- Chapter 18, Text 19
- Gita 18.19 explained
- Why does Krishna discuss the modes so much?
- Where we are determines what we see
- Chapter 18, Text 20
- How not to approach religious differences?
- Gita 18.20 explained
- Fostering tolerance by focusing on transcendence (Religious tolerance series 6)
- How Krishna’s analysis of knowledge in the three modes matters for Arjuna
- How to be moral without becoming judgmental
- To resolve conflicts, begin with the 1% commonality, not the 99% differences
- Animals have souls – they just don't have the consciousness to know they have souls
- Unity comes not by blinding oneself to differences, but by seeing beyond differences
- See beyond the diversity of forms to the unity of substance and purpose
- Chapter 18, Text 21
- Gita 18.21 explained
- To see differences as fundamental and final is delusional
- Passion polarizes positions and paralyzes discussions
- Chapter 18, Text 22
- The Netflix series Adolescence: a Bhagavad Gita perspective
- "If you say yes I say no" - why we sometimes make irrational decisions
- How meditation differs from obsession and frees us from obsession
- Might we be narrow-minded?
- How to make judgments without being judgmental
- When winning an argument backfires ...
- Why it’s easy to be narrow-minded
- Beyond tolerating to appreciating (Religious tolerance series 4)
- When knowledge increases ignorance … (From ignorance to knowledge series 5)
- How to counter spiritual reductionism (Ethics & devotion series 6)
- How our experience may increase our ignorance (Beyond black and white conceptions series 2)
- When positive thinking affects our life negatively
- How morality and moralizing affect our spiritual growth differently
- Why people think that theism is unscientific
- Just as bigotry can blind emotionally, ideology can blind intellectually
- Science is the study of matter spirituality is the study of what matters
- Technology may change our world for the better but let it not change our worldview for the worse
- Fanatics don’t see how God is present everywhere; they see how God is absent everywhere
- On disagreements and fanaticism
- To become broad-minded know that reality is broader than what the mind shows
- Fanatics don’t hold opinions - their opinions hold them
- Knowledge in the mode of ignorance increases ignorance, not knowledge
- Overcompensation doesn’t restore balance; it aggravates imbalance
- Our mind makes us blind intermittently and colorblind incessantly
- Ignorance makes people use reason unreasonably
- Knowledge in ignorance is tiny, at best vastly tiny
- Tune in to yourself to best tune in to the world
- Are we meant to be characters in a cartoon show?
- Don’t let materialist monomania mess your life
- Chapter 18, Text 23
- Chapter 18, Text 24
- Chapter 18, Text 25
- Gita 18.25 explained
- When nothing is worth fighting for anything can provoke a fight
- To treat our emotions as the only reality is to live in unreality
- Work to live – avoid work that eats you alive
- A respectable addiction is still an addiction
- A moment of indulgence can cause a lifetime of repentance – beware
- Chapter 18, Text 26
- Chapter 18, Text 27
- Chapter 18, Text 28
- Gita 18.28 explained
- The mind is a perpetual procrastinator – it postpones our resolutions to someday, then some decade and then some lifetime
- We are defined by what we stand for, not what we stand against
- Even if we can’t get over things, we can still get on with things
- “One of these days” is none of these days
- To be wistful is to be wasteful
- Fretting is like overcooking a rotten vegetable in our head
- Chapter 18, Text 29
- Chapter 18, Text 30
- Stick to your words, but don't be stuck with your words
- When an action triggers fear...
- Overcoming prohibitive cost
- Fear paralyzes faith energizes
- Taking things positively vs taking things nonchalantly
- Why measurement matters for improvement
- Gita 18.30 explained
- How Krishna’s analysis of intelligence in the three modes matters for Arjuna
- Mindlessly mindful?
- How are fear and education related?
- When is fearlessness a facade for foolishness?
- How to improve our relationships
- “Why don’t you enjoy the things God has provided?”
- Intelligence vs intellect
- Screen your inner screen
- Intelligence is seen not just through aptitude but also through activity
- Intelligence means to know which thoughts to contemplate and which to neglect
- Don’t discriminate against discrimination
- Guard against the impulse of the senses with the vigilance of the intelligence
- Everything attractive comes from Krishna, but everything attractive doesn’t take us to Krishna
- Chapter 18, Text 31
- Chapter 18, Text 32
- Are we connecting the dots or concocting the dots to connect?
- Regrettable but not regretted decisions
- When meditation seems like a fruitless struggle …
- Get out of the intelligence in ignorance
- Gita 18.32 explained
- Are we being 'nonjudgmentally' judgmental?
- Are we using our intelligence intelligently?
- How to protect ourselves from the wrong the wrong-headed and the wrong-hearted
- Why can’t some people see the obvious?
- Why we remain strangers to ourselves ...
- We rarely do things without a reason, but reason is rarely behind the things we do
- Our intelligence is not like a fixed deposit – it is like a stock market share
- To avoid the inner bad feeling, don't weaken conscience - strengthen willpower
- Let technological literacy not lead to intellectual illiteracy
- Don't treat a game like life or life like a game
- Euphemisms of deception are expressways to degradation
- Protect the conscience from being dumbed and numbed and dumped
- Lewdness is not “boldness"
- Chapter 18, Text 33
- Gita 18.33 explained
- What Krishna’s analysis of determination in the three modes means for Arjuna
- To differentiate between resoluteness and stubbornness, consider content consequence and intent
- Determination means to place our intention above our emotion
- Determination means to decouple emotion from action
- Increasing willpower – The only way and the best way
- Chapter 18, Text 33-35
- Fear looks backward faith looks upward
- Catching opportunities or complaining about opportunities
- Gita insights for New Year resolutions
- Chapter 18, Text 34
- Chapter 18, Text 35
- Two ways to deal with our past
- Don't be difficult while going through difficulties
- How to deal with our past constructively
- We may be constrained by our past, but we don't have to be contained in our past
- What is the difference between Lamentation and Grief?
- Why running from our past doesn't work
- How to stop wasting our pain
- Developing Resilience by Changing Our Driving Question
- Inability vs. unwillingness: Facing challenges and understanding ourselves
- Planning: how to be firm yet flexible
- How to avoid becoming discouraged due to our mistakes?
- Three differences between educational warnings about danger and fear-mongering
- How worrying and meditating are similar
- Anxiety — circumstantial vs existential
- Nothing to be worried about worried about everything
- Anxious mind sick mind — be patient
- Anxious that you are anxious
- Digital detox for anxiety management
- Keep away from fear
- Is fear a character defect
- How facing fears decreases them
- Anxiety is mind's reaction not our intention
- Know the core above anxiety
- Anxiety - not too much nor too little
- Planning vs Worrying
- Worrying vs Meditating
- Antidote for anxiety
- Live with fear not for fear
- Don't run away from fear
- Why is anxiety increasing in modern times?
- When is a fear real & when unreal?
- The difference between anxiety and fear
- When fear paralyzes do THIS ...
- How faith deals with fear
- How responsibility counters anxiety
- Anxiety – constructive vs destructive
- When uncertainty causes fear Do this...
- How deep breathing decreases fear
- Be a warrior not a worrier
- How to have courage amid fear
- What is the cause of anxiety?
- What's wrong with worrying about the world's problems?
- Two ways to look at emotions
- Destiny determines our situations, but we determine our decisions in those situations
- When we feel discouraged
- Be managers not damagers
- Three levels of empowerment
- Becoming Bitter or Becoming Better
- Fear looks backward faith looks upward
- Emotions: not commanded but cultivated
- Catching opportunities or complaining about opportunities
- How to stop worrying about problems
- The right to be unhappy
- When we feel powerless ...
- Unmasking the sinister strategy of fear
- Stopping the mind’s horror movie
- How to balance destiny and responsibility
- How to balance destiny and responsibility
- Worrying about imaginary problems can be a real problem
- Suppressing emotions vs repressing emotions
- Gita 18.35 explained
- Failing to learn from our failures?
- Responding to adversity — Resentful? Regretful? Or grateful?
- Thinking tanking thanking — moving from pessimism to optimism
- How to deal with fear of failure
- What forgiving ourselves means — and what it doesn’t mean
- Whose respect are we trying to earn?
- What is mental health? (Mental health series 1)
- Does the world hate me? (Beyond black and white conceptions series 6)
- Will negative imagination lead to self-fulfilling prophecies?
- Two ways to deal with resentment
- How the mind is a robber who pretends to be a well-wisher
- How depressed desire leads to depression
- How to prevent our past from controlling our present?
- Are we making things worse than they need to be?
- Who is at fault = who is responsible?
- Three kinds of negative thinking — and why they all aren’t undesirable
- Winning whining wining — or worshiping?
- The things that hurt us = the things we think hurt us?
- How to live amid danger
- Why things seem to happen to us not for us
- How to change our inner frequency
- How to deal with fear of the future
- Don’t just be remorseful — be resourceful too
- We may be scarred but we don't have to be scared
- Even if we can't flatten the pandemic curve we can flatten the panic curve
- The mind makes us depressed and then makes us depressed that we are depressed
- If we start dwelling on whatever our mind is thinking, our thinking starts stinking
- When a long-awaited good thing happens be grateful that it happened not resentful that it happened so late
- The mind is a persecutor who pretends to be the persecuted
- To deal with fear, focus not on what if, but on what is
- Self-pity makes feel-bad seem feel-good
- Resilience comes when we accept what is unchangeable, but don't accept that everything is unchangeable
- The night after a quake, the stars still shine in the sky - don't let the misery of your life blind you to the beauty of life
- Complaining is no one’s birthright – and it has made no one’s birth right
- Everything in history is not in memory; everything in memory is not in history – intelligence means to know what belongs where, and to keep it there
- See memory not as an exhaustive guide to the past but as a constructive guide from the past to the future
- Accepting our weaknesses takes courage – and so does accepting ourselves with our weaknesses
- Worrying about the world's problems is often an excuse for not working on our own problems
- Even if we have a million reasons to be resentful still resentment remains utterly unhelpful and can be horribly harmful
- We can never start in our life unless we start with our life
- To keep fighting battles that are already lost is to be lost
- To put something behind us, we need to put something ahead of us
- We don’t know the future but neither does our mind - its fears don’t forecast the future
- Don’t pack what is back – the past – in your backpack
- We feel stressed not so much because we are over-worked as because we are over-worried
- Living resentfully is like driving with the brake pressed
- If you get the thought that you can never resist temptation treat that thought as a temptation and resist it
- Don't mess every new day with yesterday
- Maturity means to acknowledge that no one is obliged to fulfill our needs
- Stop whining that life is not fair – start working with life as it is
- Don’t give your mind to people whom you wouldn’t give your time
- The mind is a great storyteller, but what it tells are just stories, not realities
- A season of grieving may be necessary, but a lifetime of grieving isn’t
- Our journey needs to begin where we are, not where we ought to be
- Worrying is a part of life’s job description, but it is not the whole job
- The mind may give us a flashback, but we don’t have to turn back
- Failure is not the enemy of success - it is the entry to success
- Second-guessing ourselves doesn’t reflect caution – it reflects confusion
- Life is too precious to be wasted in doing perpetual post-mortem operations
- We can’t choose our past, but we can choose our memories
- Don’t let hindsight hinder foresight
- Fixing a leaking tank is more important than filling the tank
- To have our needs met by being unhappy is unhealthy
- Life’s misfortunes are like thorns – don’t press on them; pass through them
- Worry is the interest we pay on loans we haven’t yet taken
- In worrying about what all may go wrong, we go wrong
- Live in the light of Krishna, not the shadow of death
- Set your sight and don’t let phantoms deflect your flight
- Our attachments reflect our capacity for determination
- Learning is driven by purposefulness; lamenting, by pointlessness
- Fear is not the problem – fear of what comes after fear is
- Don’t beat yourself down – pick yourself up
- Don’t let imagined problems become real
- Chapter 18, Text 36
- Chapter 18, Text 37
- How to pass life's tests
- Self-improvement: The PIE we can’t have and the PIE we can have
- How to change when we don't feel ready to change?
- When our mind doesn't care for the things that matter to us
- Feeling better or healing better?
- Going beyond spiritual dumbness & numbness
- The most productive work
- The greatest obstacle to happiness
- Things work together for good
- Awesome or Wholesome?
- When our mind doesn’t cooperate what can we do?
- Gita 18.37 explained
- When the light seems too bright …
- How to face overwhelming problems
- Aiming to be trouble-free? Think again
- How to boost our self-esteem
- When devotion doesn’t feel good ...
- Beyond mindfulness to purposefulness
- When morality feels like a burden ...
- The way to a better future
- What does growing up mean? - 2
- When our interests aren’t in your best interests …
- How we end up neglecting life’s important things
- When we feel worthless …
- Why seeking something worthwhile is better than seeking something wonderful
- When the urgent seems important and makes us impotent
- Why imposing equality backfires?
- Is hurt = harm?
- What do we need to be happier?
- How to endure phases of tastelessness in bhakti
- Without spiritual direction religious regulation seems like pointless restriction or even painful repression
- We can’t always go outside but we can always go inside
- If we wait till we feel inspired we will definitely wait indefinitely
- See God’s love in the resources he provides for our spiritual evolution, not the resources he provides for our material gratification
- The mind often recasts antipathy as inability - what it doesn’t want to do, it presents as if it can’t do
- We have to risk going too far to know how far we can go
- To savor what is most sweet, we often need to shed the most sweat
- Learn to wonder and ponder, not wander and pander
- Even if we can’t close the door to temptation permanently we can close it presently
- Stop resenting your struggles start habituating yourselves to them – and they will start hurting less
- Sensual pleasure feels fine but it comes with a fine
- Fear not the loss of sensual pleasure – fear the loss of spiritual pleasure
- Digging for gold requires dealing with dirt
- Even if bhakti is not joyful, it is still fruitful
- Let dreams be a spur for action, not a substitute for them
- Bhakti is the treatment that transforms into a treat
- Don’t go through the motions – go through to the emotions
- Freedom to do what we like is not necessarily freedom – freedom to do what we should is
- We can’t fly in the sky without breaking our shell
- Let intelligence take from the poison phase to the nectar phase
- Expect meditation to be challenging before it becomes comforting
- Mantra meditation is like a workout that becomes a massage
- Are we drinking poison to quench thirst?
- Be cruel to be kind
- Conviction and purification take us from the poison to the nectar
- Lack of devotional appetite is natural yet unnatural
- The Secret of Enlightened Enjoyment
- Chapter 18, Text 38
- Why aligning aspiration with determination is vital
- When living in the present is taken to an extreme
- How desire abducts and abandons us
- Tackling impurity from indulgence to transcendence
- Is sense pleasure imaginary?
- Awesome or Wholesome?
- Gita 18.38 explained
- The problem with doing whatever we like
- How free pleasures are not free ...
- Contemplation on temptation changes our disposition from zero tolerance to zero resistance
- When the mind believes something is enjoyable it stops evaluating whether it is actually enjoyable
- The search for pleasure is often the source of the greatest trouble
- Temptation buys us on an installment basis
- Thwart the desires that titillate initially but torment eventually
- Education is meant to inform and transform our imagination
- Worldly enjoyment is the bait to worldly entanglement
- Sense control will make us not deprived, but relieved
- Focus on the present, but don’t fragment it from the future
- The mind can make us give up the wonderful for the dreadful
- To seek shortcuts is to be shortsighted
- Be not alarmed by the presence of impurities; be heartened by the presence of the alarm
- Sense gratification is a fascinating path to frustration
- Poison kills on consumption, but passion kills on contemplation
- Discover The Right Way to Enjoy our Right to Enjoyment
- The human talent for misery
- Material letdown and spiritual breakdown: The Twin Troubles of Transgression
- Chapter 18, Text 39
- Gita 18.39 explained
- Why are mental health problems increasing? (Mental health series 3)
- The pleasure of being miserable
- The easiest way to fail is the worst way to fail
- We have to fall asleep, but we don’t have to fall for sleep
- Forgetfulness of life’s emptiness is not happiness
- Ignorance makes the insufferable seem irresistible
- Chapter 18, Text 40
- Gita 18.40 explained
- Use the modes to analyze, not criticize
- The universality of the malady underscores the urgency of the remedy
- Let others’ human failings not deny us our chance to overcome our human failings
- Go beyond denial and dismissal to determination
- Chapter 18, Text 41
- Chapter 18, Text 42
- Be simple, not naive
- When being nice is not nice...
- Two ways to avoid agitation
- Gita 18.42 explained
- To be responsible means to stop blaming the outer trigger for the inner trouble
- Intelligence is the last defense against indulgence – and also the first defense
- If we can’t ban sin from the heart, we can still banish it
- Those who respect the command of God command the respect of the world
- If we can’t shun senselessness, we can at least shun the senseless mind
- Chapter 18, Text 43
- Choosing to be resourceful
- Does power always corrupt?
- Gita 18.43 explained
- Why Krishna states contrasting brahmana and kshatriya virtues in successive verses
- Is war evil?
- Overlords are meant not to lord it over others, but to lead others over to the Lord
- Our expectation that nothing should come in our way, often comes in our way
- Don't just be forceful – first be resourceful
- The intention to serve makes the reproachable controlling mentality respectable
- Chapter 18, Text 44
- Chapter 18, Text 45
- Gita 18.45 explained
- The world may not value our individuality but we can and should
- Analyze disposition to clarify status not justify status quo
- Focus on doing what you can, not on what you can't
- Don’t judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree
- When our vision changes from competition to contribution, life becomes a celebration
- Don’t change the foot because the shoe doesn’t fit
- Don't let identity politics blind you to your identity
- Varnashrama uses the false ego in the service of the true ego
- The resolution to the confrontation between reason and emotion lies in purification
- Ending the perpetual u-turns in our quest for happiness
- Chapter 18, Text 46
- Gita 18.46 explained
- How can Arjuna do his work as a worship?
- How working with devotion prevents entanglement
- Krishna’s intriguing third-person references to himself
- How to use the material to reach the spiritual?
- Three ways to see our abilities spiritually
- How to assess the value of our work
- Why spirituality isn’t world-rejecting…
- The world is a resource to take us to the source
- The best motivation for ambition is realization, not recognition
- Devotion fosters absorption, not obsession
- Devotion increases our self-worth through purification and our social worth through contribution
- Seek God not just in the privacy of the heart but also the activity of the world
- To offer our best, we need to discover our best
- When we get out of ourselves, we find ourselves
- Those who stay upset about what they don’t have waste what they do have
- The material and the spiritual can be competitive, but they can also be cumulative
- Be a spiritual worker, not a material shirker
- Give the world your attention, but don’t give it monopoly over your attention
- The value of our work is not determined by our work’s market value
- Note consciously what you notice unconsciously
- Complement spirit with spirituality for complete success
- Preoccupation with occupation is not devotion
- Chapter 18, Text 47
- Gita 18.47 explained
- Why Krishna urges Arjuna to stick to his natural duty
- Compare yourself only with the person you were yesterday
- If God had wanted you to be someone else, he would have made someone else
- Chapter 18, Text 48
- To guide effectively focus on others' potentials not their problems
- Gita 18.48 explained
- Should we expose things that don’t work?
- How Krishna prepares Arjuna for his difficult duty
- Do the ends justify the means? (Beyond black and white conceptions series 5)
- Should education be realistic or idealistic?
- Justice or just is?
- Perfectionism is a serial killer in high heels
- Learn to like the things we need to do to do the things we like to do
- Don’t try to be too good for your own good
- Forgive the unavoidable, avoid the unforgivable
- Chapter 18, Text 49
- Chapter 18, Text 50
- Chapter 18, Text 51-53
- Chapter 18, Text 52
- Chapter 18, Text 54
- Are nostalgia or utopia distracting us from meditation?
- Gita 18.54 explained
- To best defend our consciousness from the world, first raise it above the world
- When we realize our deepest identity, we fulfill our highest destiny
- Purity is not just a function of intention – it is also a fruit of devotion
- In spiritual growth, bhakti is the process and the purpose
- In the truth of who we are and what we love lies our deepest fulfillment
- Enlightenment doesn’t terminate devotion, but culminates in it
- Go beyond the blindness caused by shortage of light – and by its surfeit
- The ceiling of impersonalism is the beginning of transcendental personalism
- Spiritualization of emotions raises us from duality through equanimity to ecstasy
- Devotion is a passion that is beyond passion
- Relief and release – the two fruits of purification
- Don’t waste time on the mind’s futile pastime: comparison
- Chapter 18, Text 55
- Gita 18.55 explained
- In bhakti, understanding and practice are not just sequential, but also symbiotic
- To understand Krishna, stand under Krishna
- Claiming that the unknown is unknowable is claiming to know the unknown
- Familiarity is not understanding
- Chapter 18, Text 56
- Gita 18.56 explained
- Our past explains our inclinations, but it doesn’t excuse our actions
- Bhakti-yoga is not exclusive but is comprehensive
- The summit that reaches down to the trenches
- Chapter 18, Text 57
- Gita 18.57 explained
- Intelligence may not be a decisive weapon but it is an incisive weapon
- Go beyond the shelter of the intelligence to the shelter of Krishna with your intelligence
- Seek shelter to wear the armor, use the armor to feel the shelter
- Fighting vices is like fighting weeds: we are always slightly behind
- Chapter 18, Text 58
- How God can use dead ends
- Why exhaust ourselves by believing in our worries when we can energize ourselves by believing in God’s promises?
- What truth will our life story demonstrate?
- Three things we can do when we feel helpless
- Grateful for unanswered prayers
- Be faithful not fearful
- Pray to gain purpose not pleasure
- How to not be discouraged by our imperfections
- What to pray for amid distress
- What to expect from prayer — 2
- What to expect from prayer — 1
- What Krishna’s assurance about bhakti-yoga means for Arjuna
- Where is God amid problems?
- Why helping others doesn't always help others
- The size of our problems is inversely proportional to the size of our purpose
- Seek God's help for doing his will, or you will need his help to get out of the trouble you get into because of not doing his will
- Problems are like burdens whose weight increases with the attention we give them
- Look for the good in all situations, even in situations that don’t look good
- Even if we can’t change what we live with, we can change what we live for
- When you feel like giving up, start looking up – not sentimentally, but spiritually
- Stronger than what faces us is what graces us
- Even if we can’t see adversity as opportunity we can still see opportunity in adversity
- Problems may get stuck inside us but we don't have to get stuck inside them
- Stop blaming your outer world start building your inner world
- Krishna doesn’t promise a stormless sea – he provides an unsinkable ship
- Even when bhakti doesn’t make life easier it makes us tougher
- If we prayed as much as we worried we would worry a lot less
- The less time we have for our problems the less problems we have
- Wrongdoing is not just the wrong we do but also the right we don’t do
- When life hurts don’t let the mind increase the hurt
- Focus not on life’s unfairness; focus on Krishna’s mercifulness
- If we neglect what we are saved for, we gravitate towards what we were saved from
- Even if we can’t be grateful for all situations, we can be grateful in all situations
- Even if our past seems like a prison, Krishna is the key to unlock it
- We are not products of our situations; we are products of our decisions
- See problems as opportunities to expand our conceptions of the scope of Krishna consciousness
- We don’t determine God’s job description – he determines ours
- See God’s love not just in relief from problems, but also in relief amidst problems
- Faith is not just certainty - it is also openness to possibility
- We may be taken aback, but we don’t have to go back
- We can’t delete our memories, but we can choose what we remember
- Being grateful in general is like being married in general
- Be not fretful or fearful – be faithful
- The essence of bhakti is not moving backward or forward, but moving upward
- Service attitude is the torch that lights the next step amidst the darkness of perplexity
- Greater than the world’s power to hurt is God’s power to heal
- Problems that can’t be solved need to be dissolved
- When you shake an apple tree, don’t be blind to the falling of mangoes
- Our willingness is more important than our willpower
- Meditation shrinks our problems by increasing our awareness of Krishna’s greatness
- Don’t believe the phantoms created by the mind – believe Krishna
- To reduce pain to punishment is to underestimate God’s purpose
- Illusion drives us compulsively; Krishna draws us compassionately
- Be not allured by the blame game or the claim game – stay focused on Krishna
- Life may push us into the company of problems, but it cannot force us into their control
- Truth doesn’t depend on history; history demonstrates truth
- Casual ties make us casualties
- Empower your thoughts to break free from their tired and tiring avenues
- Life determines our problems; we determine their size
- Krishna offers us shelter, not a hiding place
- When Krishna doesn’t understand…
- Are we seeking counsel from our fears instead of from Krishna?
- The blows that break the shell of our isolation from Krishna
- Devotion takes us beyond being hunted and haunted
- “Got big problems?” Krishna is bigger
- Those who don’t spare time for meditation squander time in frustration
- Choose to be holy now – don’t wait for a holy cloud to form around your head
- Seek the true tool to your self before you seek to be true to yourself
- With Krishna, we flourish; without Krishna, we perish
- Our fear of insignificance traps us in insignificance
- Stop the hurry, worry, sorry story – seek Hari
- Chapter 18, Text 59
- Chapter 18, Text 60
- Gita 18.60 explained
- We are bound to act according to our nature — what does this mean?
- Do we choose our interests or do our interests choose us?
- Self-acceptance should open the door for self-improvement, not shut the door
- Imprecision in identifying our enemies increases our enemies
- Go beyond excusing yourself and accusing yourself to realizing your self
- We have to live our lives ourselves and live with ourselves
- Chapter 18, Text 61
- How to see our pain positively
- Three ways to deepen our immersion in Krishna
- What kind of traveling companion is God?
- Transform our wandering into a pilgrimage
- How remembering Krishna makes the mind peaceful
- Gita 18.61 - Explanation from Bhakti Shastri Class
- Are we asking God the wrong question?
- Let go — the present is silently rich
- God takes our potential seriously do we?
- God loves us as we are, but he loves us too much to let us stay as we are
- With God, everyone is accepted, but everything isn’t acceptable
- Those who are not humble are humbled
- We are bound by our nature but we are not bound to our nature
- Even if we lose hope with ourselves Krishna doesn't
- Krishna has faith in our potential – let’s have faith in his potency
- Our mistakes are not Krishna's plan but Krishna's plan accommodates our mistakes
- Our vision is functional and valuable, but not necessarily factual
- Krishna is our director – and our redirector
- Fanaticism is caused not by excessive devotion, but by inadequate devotion
- Krishna is not just our destination – he is also our companion
- Krishna doesn’t cause our worldly wandering – he frees us from the cause of that wandering
- Every trial is a teacher
- Cellular reception depends on position; transcendental reception, on disposition
- Learning from life is not just a matter of individual creativity; it is a feature of universal reality
- Krishna is not doing things to us; he is doing things for us
- The first purpose of life is to discover the purpose of life
- Chapter 18, Text 62
- The difference between consciousness and conscience
- Gita 18.62 - Explanation from Bhakti Shastri Class
- What made us the way we are?
- When we are praying, know that God is hearing us better than we are speaking
- Even our best race to the end will require the Best’s grace in the end
- When time becomes unfavorable don’t become unfavorable to the Lord beyond time
- We need to forgive ourselves to give ourselves to Krishna
- Surrender makes us not just peaceful but also purposeful
- See your past not as a curse but as a course
- Focus not on life's specific problems - focus on life's universal purpose
- We are always directed, but we can choose our director
- Inner calm activates the intercom to God
- Surrender may frustrate our surface desires, but it fulfills our deepest longings
- Chapter 18, Text 63
- How to help others use their freedom wisely
- Does surrender necessitate checking the brain at the door of the house of God?
- Can we help everyone?
- Gita 18.63 explained
- Why imposing our spirituality on others is wrong
- Is our need to nurture aiding or impeding those whom we nurture?
- What tolerance implies and what it doesn’t (Religious tolerance series 3)
- Krishna demonstrates how there’s no force in love
- What the three endings of Krishna’s message tell us about Krishna
- How to make difficult decisions
- What does it mean to “follow our heart”?
- Understanding the relationship between love and freedom
- When the tendency to doubt helps
- What is the difference between philosophy and ideology?
- When what we do doesn’t seem to matter …
- Are soldiers heroes or victims?
- Concern for others or concern for power over others?
- Does devotion suppress our individuality and intelligence?
- How to share knowledge effectively
- Philosophical education teaches us how to think, ideological indoctrination tells us what to think
- The Gita equips the thoughtful to become more faithful and the faithful to become more thoughtful
- Contemplation is the foundation of action; without contemplation, what we do is not action but reaction
- The denial of free will converts God into devil
- We can’t deprive others of their right to be wrong but we can empower them to use that right rightly
- Freedom is not just an opportunity – it is also a responsibility
- No loss is as disempowering as the loss of faith in our free will
- We can help the unable, but not the unwilling
- Spiritual wisdom is to be mulled over, not skimmed over
- We can’t survive for long on secondhand faith
- Don’t superimpose the negativity of proselytizing on sharing
- See people as subjects with volition, not objects for indoctrination
- Others can’t push if we stop pushing ourselves
- Doubting is a self-deluding form of believing
- The use of force to convert doesn’t expand faith – it reduces faith
- We don’t have any choice except to believe in our power of choice
- Those who base their faith on miracles confuse the supernatural with the Supreme
- Scripture doesn’t take away our freedom of choice, but gives us choice of another freedom
- Our destiny is not sealed – as long as we don’t seal ourselves with it
- Scripture doesn’t deprive us of freedom; it protects us from depriving ourselves in the name of freedom
- Life is not a fixed match, but Krishna can help us fix it
- Don’t give up the intelligence; go beyond the intelligence
- Krishna walks with us, but not for us
- Chapter 18, Text 64
- Beyond stereotypes of a wrathful God
- Gita 18.64 explained
- Are we included in Krishna’s circle of love?
- Krishna’s most emphatic declaration of love in the Gita
- Does the Gita’s conclusion contain a self-contradiction? (Balancing independence and guidance series 5)
- When we feel devotionally weak ...
- How can we reach others with our words?
- Regulate emotion with reason animate reason with emotion
- Following scripture centers not on legalistic conformity, but on loving reciprocity
- Exposition enters easiest through an envelope of emotion
- Outreach is not just about expression of the truth, but also about impression with the truth
- Transformational teaching conveys not just intellectual meaning but also emotional meaning
- When we discuss a subject close to our hearts, our hearts come close
- The world of love manifests through the words of love
- The heart of knowledge is the knowledge of the heart
- Loving unconditionally doesn’t mean being unconditionally liberal; it means being unconditionally available
- Love for Krishna is a love that doesn’t appoint to DIS-appoint
- The blend of encouragement and enlightenment brings empowerment
- Chapter 18, Text 65
- Gita 18.65 explained
- How Krishna’s love is seen in his repetition — and in the variation in his repetition
- Do Krishna’s third-person references in the Gita point to some higher Divinity other than Krishna?
- How Krishna’s relationship with us differs from our relationship with him
- How can we differentiate between lust and love?
- Devotion needs to be expressed to be experienced and enriched
- God is present in our heart, but our consciousness is usually not present there
- Repetition emphasizes – and so does the emphasis in the repetition
- The best way to fix the mind on Krishna is to take up responsibilities in his service
- Free love is a self-contradiction
- Realization comes by riveting to the relationship, not the ritual
- Chapter 18, Text 66
- How to keep our promises
- When we feel unseen by God...
- Are we good enough for God?
- Hopeless not to be helpless
- Gita 18.66 explained
- How devotional surrender is different from what we think it is
- Is the Gita’s conclusion meant only for Arjuna?
- How surrender to Krishna protects Arjuna from wrong actions
- Does Krishna contradict himself in the Gita’s conclusion?
- How Krishna concludes by enthroning the path of divine love
- Why does Krishna follow his call for ‘surrender’ with ‘go’ not ‘come’?
- How Krishna is both universal and specific
- The cyclicity of the Bhagavad-gita (Appreciating the Gita’s flow 3)
- Does devotion transcend ethics? (Ethics & devotion series 7)
- When does devotion exempt us from karmic consequences? (Ethics & devotion series 4)
- Does bhakti make one transcendental to ethics? (Ethics & devotion series 1)
- How is the concept of dharma universal?
- Let your practices make you a spiritual fruit, not a religious nut
- The essence of education is enlightenment engagement and encouragement
- Love is the limiter of freedom – and its fulfiller too
- Unconditional love doesn't mean that whatever we do is loved; it means that whatever we do, we are loved
- Seek not just spiritual expression – seek a spiritual expressway
- Focus not on letting go of things – focus on taking hold of your thoughts
- Bhakti is not a rejection of human values, but a progression above them
- The Gita doesn’t reject dharma, but raises dharma to its summit
- Focus not on freedom — focus on love
- The Gita is a dharmic book that asks us to give up dharma – or does it?
- To endure karma, embrace dharma
- Surrender is not giving up but letting go
- The perfection of dharma is not to fall in line with cosmic law, but to fall in love with the trans-cosmic lover
- We may be unqualified, but we are never disqualified
- The generosity of bhakti is in countering, not condoning, sin
- Krishna focuses on where we want to go, not where we have been
- Whatever karma may get us to, Krishna will get us through
- Love values, but value love more
- Religion is meant for God; God is not meant for religion
- The bond that sets us free
- The Gita is Categorical and Rhetorical
- Surrender is not about giving up, but about going up
- The Gita centers on neither rituals nor doctrines but on a love affair
- The Bhagavad-gita enthrones the path of love
- Chapter 18, Text 67
- Gita 18.67 explained
- Why does Krishna restrict the sharing of his message of love?
- Why is Gita wisdom told to be both distributed and hidden?
- Before Krishna can entrance our consciousness he needs an entrance to our consciousness
- Beating our head against a wall is not humility – it is stupidity
- Chapter 18, Text 68
- How to share wisdom effectively
- Gita 18.68 explained
- Going beyond counting our blessings
- Compassionate action = compassionate disposition?
- Helping one person may not change the world but it can change that person's world
- The summit of spiritual realization is best attained by sharing spiritual realization
- When we distribute what we have, we appreciate what we have
- We can’t give what we don’t have, but in giving we can have
- In bhakti, to talk is also to walk the talk
- Devotion is deepened, not depleted, by distribution
- The purpose of preaching is not just propaganda but also propagation
- Chapter 18, Text 69
- Gita 18.69 explained
- Focus not on the reach of your outreach; focus on how much you reach Krishna through your outreach
- Chapter 18, Text 70
- Let me seek alignment of hearts, not just agreement of heads
- Gita 18.70 - Explanation from Bhakti Shastri Class
- Seven levels at which Gita verses can be understood
- Two views of the role of intelligence in bhakti
- Don’t obstruct bhakti with an intellectual filter – or with an anti-intellectual filter either
- The Gita is not just didactic but also therapeutic
- Four stages in Gita study: Veneration, Comprehension, Application, Transformation
- Chapter 18, Text 71
- Gita 18.71 explained
- How Krishna’s concluding words reveal his loving eagerness that everyone connect with the Gita
- From your place, at your pace, access the grace
- The words will change us – provided we don’t change the words
- Chapter 18, Text 72
- Hear to be here and be here to hear
- Gita 18.72 explained
- How Krishna’s last verse reveals his loving concern for Arjuna
- Taking responsibility to help others choose wisely (Balancing independence and guidance series 7)
- How to give guidance while respecting people’s independence (Balancing independence and guidance series 3)
- Before a prescription can inspire action, the diagnosis must inspire conviction
- Ekagrata is not just a state of attentiveness; it is also a level of consciousness
- The Gita empowers Arjuna to win his inner war and enrich himself with wisdom
- Using our ears better helps us better use the thing between our ears
- Being correct is not enough; we need to be correctly understood
- Learn to see Krishna’s love with the eyes of knowledge
- Ignorance is bad, but illusion is worse
- Surrender is not rejection of the intelligence, but its perfection
- Chapter 18, Text 73
- Fix the need to fix others
- Focus on our availability for God, not God's availability for us
- How faith and surrender can empower us to face challenges
- How devotional surrender brings enrichment not resentment
- Whether a message is short is not as important as whether it is sufficient
- Bhagavad-gita as the LED light for our life
- Does surrender mean that God manages our life for us?
- Surrender is not passive but active
- Who is writing our life's story
- How God’s pleasure relates with what is best for us
- How to do God’s will when we don’t know what it is
- Does doing God’s will mean giving up our independence?
- Does doing God’s will mean doing something unnatural?
- How God’s will relates with our moral reasoning
- How Krishna expands Arjuna’s understanding of his choices
- How Arjuna’s words reveal the Gita’s sadhana and sadhya
- What do Arjuna’s last three words in the Gita tell us about the Gita
- Handling the gun of doubt (Dealing with doubts 4)
- Four stages in managing desires — Desire Management series 9
- Why are we studying spirituality?
- Do emotions reside in the mind?
- How purpose makes pain bearable
- When God doesn’t seem to help us ...
- Are we boosting our thought-energy regularly?
- Why our energy goes down — and how to restore it
- When pride masks itself as humility
- When dealing with the distressed focus not on their karma; focus on your dharma
- The world doesn't need people with answers as much as it needs people who are the answers
- Resenting reversals locks us in ignorance, accepting reversals opens the door to transcendence
- Spiritual knowledge is meant to make us devotionally fit not intellectually fat
- We can't eliminate suffering, but we can cultivate a purpose that makes suffering bearable and meaningful
- Even if we can’t understand Krishna we can still stand under Krishna
- Look up and things will look up
- Conscience without intelligence is blunt intelligence without conscience is numb
- Krishna transforms our brokenness into wholeness when we surrender
- Humility paves the way from perplexity to clarity
- Distress is not due to the nature of nature but due to our disharmony with nature
- Comparing various paths up a mountain can’t take us up the mountain
- The Gita enlightens and lightens our life-journey
- Grace is not life’s sugar coating; it is life’s substantial reorienting
- Union of wills requires not the breaking of will but the building of will
- Devotion is a dexterous dance between dependence and determination
- The power to compel is not the power to convince
- Don’t rate spiritual wisdom using the laughter test
- Assimilation and application are essential for transformation
- The word will change the world by changing the will
- Intellectual gluttony causes spiritual lethargy
- Human will is founded and fulfilled in the divine will
- Don’t just read the Gita – heed the Gita
- Don’t get back at God – get God back
- Surrender means to do what we can, with what we have – now
- Send resentment to retirement
- The sacrifice of life, the life of sacrifice
- Don’t let information overload make relevance irrelevant
- Treasure Krishna’s message more than his miracles
- The Gita is an intellectual adventure with an emotional climax
- Questioning our questions
- Ask not “Is God with me?” Ask “Am I with God?”
- Chapter 18, Text 74
- Even if we have to live with our mind we don't have to live for our mind
- Gita 18.74 explained
- Whose words we hear matters but whose words we hold dear matters even more
- Chapter 18, Text 75
- Chapter 18, Text 76
- Might life be better if we pursued something other than happiness?
- Gita 18.76 explained
- Jollity that is a mile wide and a millimeter deep is not spirituality
- Emotional restraint paves the way to emotional enrichment
- Love of words in the words of love
- Are our thoughts impoverishing or enriching us?
- The two wonders of Gita wisdom
- What are our thoughts giving us:frustration or jubilation?
- Chapter 18, Text 77
- Gita 18.77 explained
- How the Gita demonstrates its teaching
- Enlightenment culminates not just in comprehension but also in wonder
- Sharing spiritual knowledge is about not just delivery but also discovery
- Make the mind wonder spiritually, not wander materially
- Meditation is not a dulling duty – it is a thrilling opportunity
- Chapter 18, Text 78
- The dynamics of the human-divine partnership
- Two things that we should never underestimate
- When God says no
- How is morality present wherever the Gita is followed?
- How the Gita’s last verse reveals the power of divine love
- How the Gita’s conclusion integrates its contextual and universal dimensions (Appreciating the Gita’s flow 7)
- From worthless anxiety to worthwhile anxiety
- God is always ready to work with us, are we ready to work with him?
- Don’t ask God to fix your problems, ask God to fix you so that you can fix your problems
- Possessing wealth is not the problem; being possessed by wealth is
- The Gita’s purpose is not to proclaim God’s position but to transform man's disposition
- Spirituality unleashes our purity and our potency
- God doesn’t need us to harmonize with him – we need to harmonize with him
- The Gita’s concluding prophecy answers its starting enquiry
- Surrender to God is not the suppression of human will, but its perfection
- The two endings of the Gita point to the same end
- Surrender is expressed through not just helplessness but also readiness
- Beware of the mind’s divide and rule strategy
- The determination to serve Krishna doesn’t just herald victory – it is victory
- Surrender to Krishna is not a pronouncement of defeat, but a precursor to victory
- Seek a happy ending that has no ending
- The Gita guarantees ultimate success
Bhagavad Gita Chapter 18Chaitanya Charan2021-07-07T13:51:52+05:30