Bhagavad Gita Summary, Chapter 7

नारायणं नमस्कृत्य नरं चैव नरोत्तमम्

 देवीं सरस्वतीं चैव ततो जयम् उदीरयेत्

महाभारत

Mahābhārata

As retold by

Michael Dolan, B.V. Mahāyogi

Bhagavad-gītā 

Chapter Seven

Relative and Absolute

A quick sketch of the Bhagavad-gita may skim over many subtle points; the Bhagavad-gita is worthy of deep study. Here we are only trying our best to give a condensed synthesis of the general ideas. For a more extensive study, I recommend consulting the original text. Bhagavad-gita As It Is by Bhaktivedanta Swami is an excellent version. 

But allow me to continue.

Philosophy is often divided into different categories:  epistemology, or how we know what we know; ontology or the study of being itself; metaphysics, or an analysis of the nonphysical world; and ethics, or how to conduct ourselves in this world on the basis of a moral point of view.

In the first six chapters of the Gita, Krishna has rehearsed various ideas about ethics. According to the Vedic view of ethics, or proper Dharma, there are four pillars to right living:  honesty, compassion, purity, and austerity.  And yet at the beginning of the conversation between Krishna Arjuna, mere ethical principles are demonstrated as belonging to the relativistic world of karma. Krishna begins his discourse by reminding  Arjuna of the temporary nature of the world. 

Death is inevitable for the body; and yet the soul is eternal and transcends  of the corruption of the mortal body.  Krishna asks Arjuna  to go beyond his ordinary concepts about Dharma and ethics and consider the transcendental life of the soul. Society consciousness and God consciousness may work in harmony. But many religious and ethical principles are really meant to serve society conscious. God consciousness and sacrifice take us to a higher plane.

  When sacrifice  is coupled  with transcendental knowledge it leads to divine love.

Arjuna’s concern with ethics  begins the conversation,  but by contemplating the nature of the eternal soul Krishna brings a conversation to a higher level.  He is interested not with mundane ethics,  but with a transcendental ethic that begins with sacrifice and leads to dedication with the benefit of transcendental knowledge.

The discussion on sacrifice and ethics that sustains the third chapter of Bhagavad-Gita leads  Arjuna into epistemological questions: how do we know what we know? If transcendental knowledge is important, how do we come in contact with such knowledge?

Krishna explains the real transcendental knowledge is revealed. The  infinite is not infinite unless it can reveal itself to the finite. Revealed knowledge comes in many forms: sometimes God himself  descends as an avatar to reveal divine truth.           

And sometimes the divine spirit  comes to us through the guru principle. One who is interested in understanding the truth should approach the spiritual master to whom the truth has been revealed.

In this way, questions of ethics and epistemology have been discussed in the first six chapters of the Bhagavad-Gita. The word yoga has to do with a harmony or balance between action and knowledge, as between the eternal  individual soul  and the supreme soul.

Now in the seventh chapter of the Bhagavad-Gita Arjuna directs his inquiries towards ontological questions: what is the nature of being? What is the difference between the individual soul and supreme soul? 

What is the nature of time and space? How does the material nature unfold from the spiritual nature? If consciousness is subjective in the world object, then what is the nature of the subjective evolution of consciousness? 

The seventh chapter of the Bhagavad-Gita takes us into profound metaphysical territory.  Here we explore  some challenging ontological questions.

Krishna describes the nature of the absolute: the material energy or prakriti, to achieve or spirit soul, and the origin of both the perceived world and the super subjective world in absolute consciousness. 

Here Krishna himself reveals himself as divinity: the origin and dissolution of all energy. He describes in further detail the characteristics of the three modes of material nature, sattva, rajas, and tamas,  and explains their influence in the perceptive world.

In light of the above mentioned, he describes the different gradations of truth seekers, classifying as  impious those who have no interest in God.  

And in this way he describes four classes of pious empires men including general truth seekers, religionists of all different stamps, and ultimately those who seek to dedicate themselves in divine love.

 Worldly religionists will find only temporary results  as they pray to God for goods and services. Men who worship the gods for temporary things will find only temporary results. Those who do sacrifice for the absolute will find eternal benefits.

His curiosity  piqued, Arjuna asks about the Supreme  Spirit or Brahman.   Krishna defines  the supreme reality, the self, the material world, and the importance of worldly religion and the different gods who control the Sun the moon the wind the rain and the elements. 

He gives the Vedic version of the material creation.  He rejects the idea that the space-time continuum is an independent reality asserting that everything constituted by the three modes of material nature is not self dependent essence independent of God but springs from him alone. 

While he contains and comprehends all they do not contain and comprehend them. This is the distinction between God and his creatures they are all informed by the divine but their changes do not touch the integrity of the divine. He is not subject to anyone else while all things are subject to Him.

Veiled by His creative power, Divinity is not visible to all. The world of exploitation, bewildered by the illusory potency, called Maya, is unable to recognize the unborn, unchanging nature of Krishna’s divinity.

He explains the situation of the soul at the time of death and the relationship between consciousness and matter, as well as his manifested and manifest energy.

This chapter is called “Relative and Absolute conceptions of the Supreme Truth.” Yamuna Acharya summarizes it as follows:

bhaktabhedaḥ prabuddhasya śraiṣṭyaṃ saptama ucyate svayāthātmyaṃ prakṛtyāsya tirodhiḥ śaraṇāgatiḥ

भक्तभेदः प्रबुद्धस्य श्रैष्ट्यं सप्तम उच्यते स्वयाथात्म्यं प्रकृत्यास्य तिरोधिः शरणागतिः

“The 7^th Lecture discusses the exact knowledge of God, its concealment by prakṛti, the resorting to God, the divisions of devotees and the superiority of the enlighteneed one.

Bhaktivedanta Swami comments, “many subjects have been discussed in this chapter: the man in distress, inquisitive man, the man and want material necessities, knowledge of Brahman, knowledge of Paramatma, liberation from birth to death and disease, and worship of the supreme Lord. 

However he who is actually elevated Krishna consciousness does not care for the different processes. He simply directly engages himself in activities of Krishna consciousness and thereby factually attains his constitutional position as an internal servitor of Lord Krishna.”