There are hundreds of commentaries from different authors on the Bhagavad Gita. Each one goes on spinning yarns imagining as he likes what the meaning may be.
Bhagavad Gita has been interpreted in a thousand ways, according to the author’s capacity to understand the test of all these is the reason. Only a few understood Bhagavad Gita.
Bhagavad Gita is a hodgepodge containing everything; hence it suits the populace because there is something in it for every type of mindset. It is difficult to find any tradition whose voice is not found in the Gita. It is difficult to find anyone who does not take solace from the Bhagavad Gita. But for such people, the Advaitic path will prove very difficult.
Once you are Soulcentric you will know what the Bhagavad Gita and other scriptures really mean, you will see that there is only one possible interpretation, irrespective of your opinion or imagination.
The Bhagavad Gita does not contain the higher wisdom. Bhagavad Gita is intended for those who are incapable of thinking rationally.
People love the Bhagavad Gita because it is very easy to extract one's own meaning from it. Reading the Bhagavad Gita a religious believer extracts something of which he can make a belief, because
Bhagavad Gita speaks of bhakti, devotion. The karma yogi extracts his belief because Krishna has spoken on karma yoga, the Yoga of action. The believer in knowledge finds what he wants because Bhagavad Gita has spoken on knowledge as well. Somewhere Krishna calls bhakti the ultimate, somewhere else he calls knowledge the ultimate, again elsewhere he calls karma yoga the ultimate.
Lord Krishna taught the Karma and Bhakti yogis their own paths only to lead them up to the Gnana yoga path, which is the highest and the real object of his teaching.
Lord Krishna confesses that the oldest wisdom of India (our true Advaita philosophy) has been lost: people misinterpret and falsify it today as they did then. It is not yoga but the philosophic truth. But nobody knows it. The teachers of philosophy and leaders of mysticism or religion do not want to inquire into truth and have no time for it. (Gita ~ Chap ~IV~ v.2)
Why is the word Yoga used in so many different senses in the Gita? Because there are grades and the highest demands concentrated brains, and not sitting mindless and imagining you are seeing God.
In Gita Chap.IV where Lord Krishna says: ~ “This yoga has been lost for ages" The word yoga refers to Gnana yoga, not other yogas: the force of the word this is to point this out.
Lord Krishna describes some of the other yogas but devotes this chapter separately to Gnana Yoga. So one sees even in those ancient days people did not care for Advaita; they wanted religion; hence Gnana got lost. That is why Krishna calls it "the supreme secret." Krishna points out that the yoga must-see is "Brahman in action."
Gita Chap.IV:~ “He who achieves perfection in Yoga finds the Self in time." This means that after his yoga is finished, he begins the inquiry into ultimate truth, and in due course, this inquiry produces the realization of the universal spirit as a result.
Understanding what is God is not so easy. Religious people can only imagine God based on their beliefs.
That is why Lord Krishna says Ch ~V: ~ “Those who know me in truth.". The last two words (tattvataha) are usually ignored by pundits, but they make all the difference between the ordinary concept of God and the truth about God.
No dualities, no differentiation. Only Atman exists.
The Bhagavad Gita: ~ Brahman (God in truth) is considered the all-pervading consciousness which is the basis of all the animate and inanimate entities and material. (brahmano hi pratisthaham, ( 14.27)
It proves that the all-pervading Atman, which is present in the form of consciousness, is God. Thus worshipping the form-based Gods is meant for the ignorant populace who are incapable of realizing the truth, which is beyond form, time, and space.
Bhagavad Gita: 4: 22: ~ ".....who has gone beyond the conflicting dualities like good (happiness) and bad (sorrow)....."
Bhagavad Gita: 4: 42:~ ".....cut all such conflicting dualities (doubts) by the sword (weapon) of knowledge. ....."
Bhagavad Gita: 5: 18:~ “The learned men (who have come out of delusions (Māyā), got rid of Avidya) see no differentiation have an equal vision for a revered Brahmin, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a cāndāla (outcaste, rogue, mleccha, demonic person, etc)"
Bhagavad Gita: 5: 19:~ "Those who have achieved the true knowledge i.e. the 'Self-Knowledge' or the 'knowledge of Atman' and see no difference, are free from conflicting dualities have merged in Brahman"
Bhagavad Gita: 5: 20:~ "One who does not get excited out of happiness on getting good and does not get depressed on getting bad is situated in Brahman i.e. is merged in Brahman"
Bhagavad Gita: 6: 9:~ "The one who has an equal vision for a Selfless do-gooder, a friend, a foe, an unbiased, a well-wisher, a depressed and jealous man, relatives, a righteous and a sinner is the best (as he sees no duality and differentiation but sees everything as Ātman)"
Bhagavad Gita: 6: 32:~ “.....as one seeks and treats oneself with equal vision, the same way one who has an equal vision for good and evil, for everybody is the best of all"
Bhagavad Gita: 6: 8: ~ "For whom soil, a pebble, and gold are alike, he is merged in Brahman"
Bhagavad-Gita Gita: 7: 27:~ ".....people are getting entangled in the primordial ignorance (Avidya) of the conflicting dualities like good and evil, happiness and sorrow caused due to attachments, desires, and hatred....."
Bhagavad Gita: 6: 28:~ “.....who have cut-off conflicting dualities (like good and evil) is determinedly in my service. ...."
Bhagavad Gita: 7: 19:~ "Such a man who has attained true knowledge, the knowledge of Self, the knowledge of Atman, in the last birth in the series of many births worships Me as~ Atman alone exists~ everything is Atman, there exists nothing except Atman. Such a man is extremely rare"
The earliest part of Bhagavad Gita deals with religion because it is for mentally immature persons, but in the latter part, you get philosophy as that is intended for the intellectually evolved. You can’t make all men into geniuses, and therefore religion is provided for them.
Lord Krishna himself says that he can do nothing to make a man intelligent straight away. The adepts give Prasad, blessings, initiations, mantrams, etc. only to confer temporary peace of mind, to help one to get rid of worries, but not to confer Gnana. The capacity to receive it must first be inborn in man by evolutionary degree.
In the statement in the Bhagavad Gita which says that the path of the Unmanifest is harder than others, this path means Gnana Yoga.
The Upanishads and Gita do not give detailed explanations because the knowledge of those days was not as advanced as it is nowadays. However, there are odd words here and there which give hints.
Bhagavad Gita gives dualistic worship of "God” only for the lower minds; it also indicates the Advaitic wisdom for the more evolved.
Likewise, thinkers and poets of the Age of Devotion (Bhakti) of the 16th century believed in a God with attributes that became very tangible when incarnated as Avatar and were attainable simply through love and devotion rather than scholastic and intellectual meditation.
For the religious people, the Bhagavad Gita became the main vehicle of inspiration with its qualified and deistic Monism, rather than the scholastic and esoteric path shown by Sage Sankara's Advaitic path. :~Santthosh Kumaar
