The Bhagavad-gita (09.01) declares that the knowledge it shares is most confidential. Why confidential? Is Krishna too frugal, even stingy, in sharing his merciful message?

No, not at all.

That Krishna wants this knowledge to be shared liberally is evident from both the setting and the content of the Gita: Krishna spoke it in public place in a battlefield (02.10), and encouraged its hearers to share the message (18.6818.69).

Then how and why is the message confidential?

Its confidentiality lies in its experiential essence – the greatness and sweetness of pure spiritual love for Krishna.

Envy makes us see Krishna not as our benefactor, but as our competitor.

Such love can be relished only by a heart that is pure, being purged especially of the mentality of envy, as the same verse (09.01: anasuyave) underscores. As long as envy contaminates our heart, we have little, if any, desire to love him or to even know him in a way that portrays him as lovable. We see him not as our benefactor, but as our competitor. So even if we learn about his glories, that knowledge only makes us insecure, irritated, incensed. As such negative emotions towards Krishna are deleterious for our spiritual health, he kindly protects us from being overwhelmed by those emotions.

How?

By no longer revealing his glories to us, even if we study the message that expounds those glories. We get caught with peripheral points in the Gita, mistaking them to be its essential message. Though we may imagine that we are grasping it better, actually our misunderstanding is becoming greater.

If instead we humbly study the Gita, as it has been traditionally received (04.02) – in a spiritual lineage of devotee-seers – then such mentors gradually reveal its devotional import. And thus the confidential becomes discernible, intelligible and relishable – eternally relishable.

Bhagavad Gita Chapter 09 Text 01

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