The Central Intention of the Bhagavadgita - Swami Krishnananda.

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Monday 19, January 2026, 06:30.
The Central Intention of the Bhagavadgita - 
Swami Krishnananda.
(Spoken on November 26, 1972)

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The technique of the meditation in the Bhagavadgita is a little more complicated and comprehensive in its reach than even the Kathopanishad or the Sutras of Patanjali. Most students of the Gita regard it as a kind of ethical gospel, the morality of war, or a scripture on devotion to Bhagavan Sri Krishna. While the Bhagavadgita is all this, it is much more than this. It is difficult, therefore, to pinpoint the Bhagavadgita's method of meditation. It seems to say so many things in many places that one cannot easily know exactly what its final message is. Yet we can see, underlying its discourses, a current of thought which can be taken as its central gospel.

While we may go on speaking for hours and saying many things, there may be some central intention behind our speech that may be regarded as our gospel. Likewise, we may try to discover a central motive or intention behind the Bhagavadgita's gospel. Was the intention merely to make Arjuna fight, or was there any other purpose behind this very intricate gospel? We cannot say that this was the only intention because Arjuna could have been goaded to act even without so many other philosophical, ethical, spiritual and metaphysical aspects of the teaching being said. The Vishwarupa Darshana, the Sankhya Yoga, and the Daiva Asura Sampat Vibhaga Yoga all seem to be remotely connected with war or battle. Arjuna could have been simply ignited to action by some other direct method of approach. This would not have been a difficult thing for a personality like Krishna, but instead he gave a very generous teaching on points touching every vital issue in life.

Inasmuch as we do not take the Bhagavadgita as a gospel intended only for Arjuna but meant for one and all, including ourselves today, how are we to take it as a yoga scripture? It is regarded as a Yoga Shastra, and not merely as a Vidya Shastra. It is a Yoga Shastra and a Brahma-vidya. This is how the Bhagavadgita chapters conclude: brahmavidyāyāṁ yogaśāstre. So there must be something very profound in this gospel, much more than what appears on the surface.

It is not a historical document of a battle that took place many years back, because then that would not be a Brahma-vidya or a Yoga Shastra. We cannot call a historical chronicle as a Yoga Shastra or a Brahma-vidya. While it is a chronicle and an epic, it is also a perennial and eternal teaching. It is a timeless gospel that was given through an event that took place in time, a person speaking a superhuman truth. Such being the case, we, as humble seekers of truth and followers of the path of yoga, would do well to discover what the Gita expects us to do in the world.

What does it call upon us to do? The word 'us' includes every human being in the world, not merely the disciples of Gurudev Sri Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj or inmates of the Sivananda Ashram. What does the Gita expect a human being as such to do in the world? That would be its central teaching and gospel, and that would be the meditation of the person concerned.

I am not covering here the range of the teaching of the Bhagavadgita, which is too detailed and vast to be taken as any single technique of meditation, but will be confining myself only to the undercurrent of thought which, as I pointed out, appears to be the intention of the Bhagavadgita. For the time being we shall restrict ourselves only to the intention behind the vast teaching of the Gita, and not the details of the teaching itself. This intention is hidden behind the teaching; it is not visible on the surface, and it is this hidden secret that we are to take as the method of contemplation. It is a difficult method of training the mind, the will, the emotion and the spirit.

However, the Gita starts with the human character as it is, as a good teacher would do when confronting an uninitiated student or a disciple. Human nature is taken for what it is, and from that standpoint of the foibles of human nature, the spirit is raised gradually to the higher levels of its realisation. Just to think of it is very thrilling and makes one's hair stand on end.

*****

Continues

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