Bhagavad-Gita As It Is
A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust
The narrative in the Bhagavad-Gītā concerns a dialogue between Lord Krishna and a mighty warrior named Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. In the narrative, Lord Krishna has descended to earth to aid Arjuna in his battle against an army of demons and their supporters. Lord Krishna assumes the role of Arjuna's chariot driver and aids him in the battle and reveals to Arjuna several divine truths about human existence in the material plane, the true nature of the supreme personality of God, and the method of eternal progression and release from the earthly cycles of death and rebirth through the practice of bhakti yoga. The narrative teaches that achieving Krishna consciousness and attaining the inner realization that all life is a manifestation of the eternal energy of Krishna will release an individual soul from the cycles of reincarnation and death and rebirth. The narrative culminates with Krishna revealing to Arjuna his universal form which encompasses all life and material existence. One notable event in the narrative is when Arjuna gazes at the opposing army of demons and sees his relatives fighting for the demonic army, he is filled with grief and remorse that he must kill his own flesh and blood. In reply, Krishna reveals his true form to Arjuna and tells him that it does not matter if his relatives die in the battle today because they will eventually die anyway, and that Arjuna's duty to the supreme lord and his own self realization transcends his material attachments to his relatives. The central message of the text is that nothing ever truly dies and that all life is in a continual cycle of death and rebirth, and that one has a duty to the process of self realization and progression in order to manifest the supreme personality of God and achieve Krishna Consciousness, thereby escaping the eternal cycles of death and rebirth.