What Does Understanding the Bhagavad Gita in Context Mean?

“What Does Understanding the Bhagavad Gita in Context Mean?” I was asked this question during a podcast in London. The host was a tall, bespectacled Indian IT professional settled in the UK. While discussing the Bhagavad Gita, he asked, “Is there any way to ensure that we are understanding the Bhagavad Gita in context?” “Yes,” I replied. “I think we can use a three-T approach. Whenever we encounter a particular statement in scripture, we can ask three questions: What did it mean then? What does it mean timelessly? And what does it mean today?” “Then, timelessly, today,” he repeated. “Can you explain that?” “Certainly. Any sacred text, including the Bhagavad Gita, is spoken at a particular time, in a particular place, to particular people. So it has a historical, contextual meaning that we need to understand. “Take, for example, Krishna’s instruction to Arjuna to fight. The Gita was spoken just before the Kurukshetra war, when Arjuna was being called upon to fulfill his duty as a warrior. That was the immediate meaning of Krishna’s instruction. “Some people feel uncomfortable with the idea of a sacred text calling for fighting. They therefore interpret the entire battlefield setting as a metaphor. But nothing in the Gita indicates that its first chapter’s list of warriors or its battlefield setting is meant to be merely symbolic. “And when we consider the broader historical context, Krishna’s instruction becomes more understandable. The Pandavas had suffered repeated atrocities at the hands of the Kauravas. They had tried repeatedly to avoid conflict, and Krishna Himself had undertaken a peace mission. Yet Duryodhana remained utterly unrepentant and unwilling to make even a reasonable compromise. “In that situation, Arjuna’s duty as a warrior and protector required him to confront rulers who had become dangerously oppressive.” The host seemed to have a reservation. “Still, the Bhagavad Gita isn’t really about picking up weapons and fighting, is it?” he asked. “I would feel uncomfortable if a sacred book were essentially calling for violence.” “I understand your concern. But the word really can refer to different things. If by really you mean what the Gita historically called upon Arjuna to do, then yes, it called upon him to fight a war. But if you mean its universal or timeless teaching, then certainly the Gita is not calling upon everyone to pick up weapons and fight. “That becomes clear from both the Gita’s overall content and how its prominent teachers and commentators have understood it throughout history. “Although the Gita is spoken on a battlefield, after its first chapter, its discussion rises far beyond the battlefield. Arjuna asks a universal question: What is dharma? What is the right thing to do? And Krishna answers by explaining the nature of reality and our place within it.” “But doesn’t the Gita teach yoga?” he asked. “It’s called a yoga-shastra, isn’t it?” “Yes, and that is precisely how it answers the question of dharma. The Gita is a dharma-shastra because it teaches us what is right to do. And it is a yoga-shastra because yoga, or connection, provides the basis for doing what is right. “To act rightly, we need to understand reality and live in harmony with it. That includes understanding five broad truths: 1. Our deepest identity as atma, the soul. 2. The nature of our activities, karma. 3. The nature of the world in which we act, prakriti. 4. The influence of time, kala. 5. The supreme divine reality, Ishvara. “The Gita explains various processes of yoga, including karma-yoga, dhyana-yoga, and bhakti-yoga, through which we can increasingly harmonize our lives with these realities. Its discussion culminates, both concludingly and conclusively, in Krishna’s call for devotional surrender in 18.66.” “Concludingly and conclusively—what do you mean by that?” he asked. “Concludingly because that instruction comes toward the conclusion of the Gita, and conclusively because it represents the culmination of the deliberation that has unfolded throughout the Gita. “The timeless teaching is that we humans are meant to harmonize our will with the divine will, willingly and lovingly. “And notice something significant about Arjuna’s response at the end of the Gita. In 18.73, he says, kariṣye vacanaṁ tava—‘I will do Your will.’ “He doesn’t simply say, ‘I will fight.’” “But doing Krishna’s will meant fighting, didn’t it?” the host asked. “Yes. The difference is between the timely and the timeless. Arjuna sees his immediate duty in the light of a timeless reality: acting in harmony with the divine will. “His timeless question was, ‘What is dharma?’ And the timeless answer he received was to act in harmony with the divine. In his particular historical situation, that meant fighting a war. “But that doesn’t mean we all need to take up weapons against aggressors. It means we need to learn to live and act in harmony with the divine will.” “And what would that mean today?” he asked. “That brings us to the third T. In our present age, Kali-yuga, one especially recommended way to harmonize our hearts with the divine is to glorify God, particularly by chanting His holy names. “But glorifying God doesn’t mean only chanting. It also means performing our responsibilities in a spirit of service to Him. Whether we are doing our jobs, caring for our families, or contributing to society, we can transform our work into worship. “Instead of acting merely for gratification or recognition, for our own pleasure or ego, we can act with a desire to serve and make a positive difference according to our capacity. “In this way, we spiritualize our consciousness and help spiritualize our corner of the world. “That is how the Gita’s timeless teaching can guide us today.” Climbing Up and Coming Down “Does that mean we have to use this three-T approach for everything we read in scripture?” the host asked, with some doubt in his voice. “Yes and no,” I replied. “Yes, because without considering context, we might try to replicate literally something that was prescribed for a very different time and place. For example, scripture describes elaborate fire sacrifices which require resources that may be difficult or even impossible to obtain today. “But no, because some scriptural statements already express truths at a universal level. When the Gita’s sixteenth chapter describes virtues characteristic of the godly nature and vices characteristic of the ungodly nature, it is describing tendencies that can be found in human beings across time. Those statements don’t necessarily require the same kind of historical reinterpretation. “This is also why the Gita is best understood through a living tradition. We need guidance from its teachers and commentators, especially those belonging to a tradition that seeks to live its teachings. “But your original question was specifically about understanding the Gita in context. And for that, the three Ts are especially helpful. “The movement across these three Ts can be understood through the concept of the ladder of abstraction.” “What is that?” he asked. “At the bottom of the ladder are specific, concrete details that we can easily picture and emotionally connect with. At the top are broader principles that apply across situations. “For example, suppose I say, ‘Human beings are capable of extraordinary kindness and extraordinary cruelty.’ That’s a statement near the top of the ladder. “At the bottom might be a specific instance of someone generously feeding a starving person, or a powerful person deliberately striking someone helpless without any justification. Those particular incidents illustrate the broader principle. “Similarly, news reports often give us concrete incidents. But to understand their larger significance, we look for the principles and patterns behind them. A report about an individual crime tells us what happened. But if we ask whether changes in police funding have affected crime rates, we’re moving toward a broader question about causes and consequences.” “So how would you apply this ladder of abstraction to the Gita?” he asked. “When we ask, ‘What did it mean then?’ we begin with the particular historical situation, near the bottom of the ladder. When we ask, ‘What does it mean timelessly?’ we climb upward to identify the enduring principle. And when we ask, ‘What does it mean today?’ we come down the ladder again, applying that principle to the specifics of contemporary life. “Let me give you another example, this time from Bhagavad Gita 15.6. “Krishna describes His supreme abode as a place that is not illuminated by the sun, moon, or fire. These are the familiar sources of illumination mentioned in the verse. Interestingly, a similar list appears in 15.12, where Krishna describes the sources of illumination in this world. “Now, what is the timeless principle behind 15.6? It is that the spiritual world is self-luminous. It doesn’t depend on external sources of light. “Srila Prabhupada, who authored the most widely read English commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, titled Bhagavad-gita As It Is, adds another item when rendering this verse: electricity. “Electricity isn’t explicitly mentioned in the Sanskrit verse. But it is a prominent source of illumination in the modern world. By including it, Prabhupada makes the same timeless principle immediately understandable to contemporary readers. “The spiritual world doesn’t need the sun, moon, fire—or electricity—to illuminate it. “That’s a beautiful example of moving up and down the ladder of abstraction. We begin with the specific sources of light mentioned in the original verse, rise to the timeless principle of the spiritual world’s self-luminous nature, and then return to our present context by including a source of illumination familiar to us today. “So understanding scripture in context means understanding both its context then and our context today, with its timeless meaning connecting the two.” “That’s a striking example,” the host said. “Thank you for explaining it.” “The ladder of abstraction also helps us avoid two extremes in interpreting scripture: absolutizing and relativizing. And the three-T approach helps us find the balanced middle path of contextualizing scripture.” “Can you explain that?” he asked. “Yes. Let’s first look at absolutizing scripture. That means treating every scriptural statement as an absolute instruction to be followed literally at all times and places, without considering its context. “This can make scriptural application impractical, irrelevant, or even fanatical. “For example, if a country today has to defend itself against a brutal aggressor, following the Gita doesn’t mean its soldiers must fight with bows and arrows because Arjuna fought that way. “There’s another example that has stayed with me. More than a decade ago, while walking through an airport, I noticed a newspaper headline claiming that India’s biggest mistake after independence was not applying the Bhagavad Gita. “I was intrigued by that headline. When I searched online, I found the article. It was written by a right-wing political author who had a particular idea of how independent India should have applied the Bhagavad Gita. He argued that immediately after Partition, India should have attacked and conquered Pakistan. That way, he claimed, we would not have had the continuing problem of cross-border terrorism. “Whatever our understanding of the politics surrounding India’s tragic and horrific Partition, the claim that India should have attacked Pakistan is certainly not a direct teaching of the Bhagavad Gita. “This kind of reading illustrates the danger of absolutizing scripture.” “And what was the other extreme you mentioned?” the host asked. “Relativizing scripture. This happens when we make scripture mean whatever we want it to mean, adjusting or rejecting its statements according to our own preferences and purposes. “For example, a prominent Indian spiritual and political leader who strongly advocated nonviolence interpreted the Gita as teaching that nonviolence was its essential message. He regarded the battlefield setting as metaphorical and even considered it an unfortunate metaphor. “Now, nonviolence is certainly an important ethical principle, and the Gita itself mentions ahimsa on several occasions. But the Gita’s central teaching is neither violence nor nonviolence; it is transcendence. The Gita teaches us to rise beyond our self-centered considerations and act in harmony with the divine. “That may require nonviolence in most situations. But in certain situations, when violence is the only way to prevent far greater violence, it may require the use of force. Nonviolence cannot be the governing principle for a country’s defense forces when confronting brutal aggressors. “When someone insists that the Gita’s essential teaching is nonviolence, they are reshaping its message to fit their own preexisting ethical or political commitments. “These two political interpretations illustrate opposite dangers. One absolutizes the Gita’s contextual call for violence and tries to make the Gita directly endorse a modern war. The other relativizes the Gita’s teaching so that it categorically rejects war. Both seek to use the Gita to serve their own preexisting political positions, rather than trying to understand and serve its message.” “So how do we find the balance between these two extremes?” he asked. “Between absolutizing and relativizing lies contextualizing,” I replied. “That’s where the three-T approach we discussed earlier comes in. “When we absolutize scripture, we equate what it meant then with what it means today, without considering what it means timelessly. When we relativize scripture, we equate whatever it means to us today with its timeless meaning, while neglecting or rejecting what it meant then. “When we go through all three Ts, we can remain faithful to the Gita’s message while seeing how it is relevant to our lives today.” “That’s a very helpful way of understanding the Bhagavad Gita,” the host said. “Thank you.” Humility and Curiosity Later, as I reflected on that exchange, something struck me. The very fact that I had been discussing the Bhagavad Gita in a podcast was itself an example of the three-T principle in action. Toward the end of the Gita, in 18.68–69, Krishna glorifies those who share His message, declaring them especially dear to Him. Throughout history, saints and spiritual teachers have drawn inspiration from those words and made sharing spiritual purpose and divine love their life’s calling. Today, when podcasts and other online media have become popular ways of sharing ideas, I was trying to serve that same timeless purpose through a contemporary medium. The reflection also turned inward. It’s easy to recognize when someone else is absolutizing or relativizing scripture, but not so easy to recognize when I might be doing it myself. I might take a particular teaching of the Gita that inspires me and absolutize it. Or I might take a teaching I learned before encountering the Gita, or somewhere outside it, and read that teaching into a Gita verse, thereby relativizing it. To truly understand the Gita in context, I need more than the intellectual ability to use the three-T approach and the agility to move up and down the ladder of abstraction. I need, first and foremost, humility and curiosity: humility to honestly examine my own preconceptions and predilections; curiosity to explore how the Gita’s teachings are deeper than my present conception of those teachings. With this aspiration, I offered a prayer: My dear Lord, please help me understand and share Your message in ways that are faithful to Your purpose and helpful to people today. Grant me the vigilance to avoid both absolutizing and relativizing Your words. May I learn to communicate Your message not just with intellectual ability and agility, but also with devotional humility and curiosity. *** 18.68 For one who explains this supreme secret to the devotees, pure devotional service is guaranteed, and at the end he will come back to Me. The post What Does Understanding the Bhagavad Gita in Context Mean? first appeared on Chaitanya Charan Das, Bhagavad Gita ISKCON .