In the seventh chapter, Shri Krishna gave a detailed description of Ishvara, and stressed the importance of recognizing the infinite aspect of Ishvara. The eight chapter took a bit of a detour from that topic. In the beginning of this chapter, Arjuna raised seven questions that Shri Krishna answered in this chapter. The key question was : “how does one attain Ishvara after death” which became the main topic of this chapter.
 
Shri Krishna began this topic by asserting that the thought of the time of death determines our fate. If that thought is of Ishvara, we will attain Ishvara. Since we will not know when our death occurs, he advised us to meditate upon our Ishvara throughout our life so it automatically becomes our final thought. To help us cultivate this thought, Shri Krishna elaborated upon three types of meditation.
 
The first type of meditation was on the cosmic form of Ishvara and the second type was on the name of Ishvara, which is Om. Both these meditation techniques also required us to exercise control of our praana or life forces. Since this is beyond most of our capabilities, Shri Krishna recommended the third type of meditation which was much simpler. He advised us to remember Ishvara in any form, but do so constantly throughout our life.
 
So then, what happens when we die? Shri Krishna said that the universe is like an infinite cycle of creation and dissolution, symbolically depicted as the day and night of Lord Brahma. Both day and night are each 4.32 billion years long. At the end of each day of Lord Brahma, all living and non-living beings become unmanifest. When the night of Lord Brahma ends, all those beings are manifest again. In other words, they are “frozen” at the end of the day and they “thaw” in the beginning of the day. This goes on infinitely.
 
Having known this, our state is pitiable. We are caught in this endless cycle of creation and dissolution. Only those beings who only put forth the effort come out of this endless cycle. They attain Ishvara transcends this cycle. So, urging us to take steps towards achieving liberation is the refrain of this chapter, and of the Gita as a whole.
 
Towards the end of the chapter, Shri Krishna enumerated the two paths that a jeeva or soul takes after death. The first path is the dark path which is attained by those who have performed good actions on this earth. They attain the abode of the moon (heaven). After exhausting the results of their actions, they return to this world and are reborn.
 
The second path is the bright path which is attained by those who have practised devoted meditation on Ishvara in addition to performing good actions. They attain the abode of Lord Brahma and remain there until its dissolution when they are eventually liberation. We are encouraged to take up this path.

In the sixth chapter, Shri Krishna elaborated upon the technique of meditation. But one question was left unanswered. What or whom do we meditate upon? Shri Krishna answers that question in this chapter. He urges us to meditate upon him and begins speaking to us as Ishvara.
 
Before he describes what Ishwara really is, he assures us that we shall know him completely through knowledge combined with wisdom. Just academic knowledge about Ishvara is not sufficient. He adds that those who seek wisdom, which is the vision of Ishvara in his essence, are rare.
 
Shri Krishna says that there are 2 aspects of Ishvara, the lower and the higher. The lower nature comprises the five elements plus the mind, ego and intellect. The higher nature comprises the life-giving force which is also the experiencer, the subject. Ishvara is the ultimate cause of the universe. As the origin and cause of the universe he pervades all things like a string pervades beads in a necklace. To illustrate, he gives examples of his manifestations or vibhootis – he is the fragrance in earth and brightness in fire and so on.
 
So then, what is it that veils Ishvara from us, prevents us from accessing Ishvara? It is his maaya, which is nothing but the three gunaas – sattva, rajas and tamas. Sattva represents harmony, rajas represents action and tamas represents inertia. These three forces or energies create the entire universe. Only by surrendering to Ishvara can we cross over this maaya, and only a certain kind of person is fit to do so.
 
According to Shri Krishna, there are two categories of people – those who perform evil actions and those who perform good actions. The performers of good actions who turn to something that is higher than them are called devotees. Those devotees are further divided into 4 types : the distressed, the inquisitive, the seeker of liberation and the wise. The wise devotee is the dearest to Ishvara because he seeks Ishvara as his own self, seeking nothing else.
 
But unlike the wise devotee, the other three types of devotees seek Ishvara for something finite. Ishvara is not against this because at the very least it strengthens their faith and weakens their ego, so that one day they can aim for the real deal – realization of the infinite Ishvara, not a deity that can only provide finite ends. Till that happens, Ishvara delivers the results through those finite deities.
 
Ishvara’s true nature is beyond maaya, which means he is beyond the three gunaas, beyond our mind and senses, unborn and unchanging. He is beyond space and time. But ever since the beginning of creation, most of us bound by maaya are under the sway of space, time and the three gunaas.
 
The conclusion is clear. Only those who aspire to realize Ishvara in his true infinite nature, and are ready to do so every moment of their life, will attain Ishvara. Karma yoga purifies our mind to prepare us for this task. But we need to learn the means by which we can gradually train ourselves to go beyond the finite notion of Ishvara. That is the topic of the eighth chapter, which first elaborates upon the technical terms introduced at the end of this chapter.

Meditation, as described in this chapter, is an essential practice in any spiritual journey. Listening and reading scriptures comprises “shravanam”, resolving doubts is “mananam”, and establishing oneself in the knowledge of the eternal essence is “nidhidhyaasana” or internalization. Meditation is the means to internalizing knowledge of the eternal essence.
 
Shri Krishna gives an exhaustive coverage of meditation in this chapter. The key point for us is to understand the vision of a meditator. The meditator views all objects, people and situations with equanimity. He does not see them as different than himself. In other words, he “sees his self in all beings, and all beings in his self”. He can see his self as brahman, the formless aspect of the eternal essence, or as Ishvara, the form-oriented aspect.
 
In preparing for meditation, Shri Krishna urges us to first renounce selfish desires through karma yoga. Unless the mind is purified of selfish desires for the most past, it will not be able to meditate properly. It is only through the intellect, our higher self, that can control the mind, our lower self. Furthermore, we should lead a moderate lifestyle, in other word not go overboard in eating, sleeping and indulging in sense objects. The end result of all this preparation is a gradual withdrawal or “uparati” from the outside world, leading to the mind settling in the eternal essence, conveyed by the message “the self settling into the self”.
 
Next, Shri Krishna covers the technique of meditation. He advises us to select a place that is quiet, clean and pure. He also suggests using a seat that is well insulated, on which we are advised to sit with our eyes focused on one spot, and with our spine held erect. Shri Krishna further instructs us to focus our attention on one thought, and try not to let the mind waver, just like an unwavering candle flame. The object of meditation should be something that we hold as supreme and dear. It could be am image of a deity or of the guru. The untrained mind will always try to wander in different directions, but we should use the power of our intellect, our higher self, to bring the mind back to one thought.
 
Finally, Shri Krishna praises the meditator by elevating his status higher than any other kind of seeker. He says that the meditator attains supreme joy, peace and bliss. He is always protected against the heaviest of sorrows because he resides in Ishvara. Even if the ultimate goal of meditation is not realized in this birth, the effort put forth will be carried over into the next birth. But the most supreme meditator is one who is Ishvara’s devotee. Who is Ishvara in reality? That is covered in the next six chapters.

The fifth chapter titled “Karma Sanyaasa Yoga” began with Arjuna’s question to Shri Krishna. The question was : what was better, renouncing all actions and becoming a monk, or performing actions as a karma yogi? Shri Krishna addressed this question by reiterating a nuance that Arjuna had missed.
 
Renouncing of actions did not mean giving up the physical performance of actions, it meant renouncing the sense of doership, the sense that “I am doing something”. In order to get to this stage, one has to have purified one’s mind completely of desires. In that regards, performing actions in the spirit of karmayoga was the correct course of action for Arjuna, since he still harboured desires. As one continues to dedicate the result of actions to Ishvara, one’s sense of enjoyership and doership automatically diminishes.
 
Next, Shri Krishna expounded upon the vision of realized seeker. He provided a detailed illustration of body, mind and intellect functioning on their own, including the acts of perception, cognition and intellect’s response to stimuli. All these acts in reality happen without the involvement of “I”. The illustration that the “I” resides in a city of nine gates was given to further drive home the point.
 
Another aspect of the realized seeker’s vision is his “sama drishti” or the sameness of vision. The realized seeker sees the same eternal essence in a human, elephant, dog, dog eater. Not only that, he also sees the same eternal essence in positive and negative experiences. He holds the convictions that these “defects” or modifications are part of prakriti. He does not view these defects as part of the eternal essence since the eternal essence is ever perfect.
 
Then Shri Krishna explained that just like the eternal essence in the body does not cause action, so too does the eternal essence at the cosmic level not cause action. Neither does the eternal essence connect results to actions, nor does it dole out sin and merit. All these transaction happen inside prakriti or nature. The example of the Pac Man video game was given in order to illustrate that prakriti is an automated system that works just like a video game. It rewards and punishes actions based on well-defined rules, without the need for external intervention.
 
In the closing shlokas of the fifth chapter, Shri Krishna slowly begins pointing us toward meditation. Meditation is the only way for the seeker to get fully established in the eternal essence. The primary goal has to be the realization of eternal essence and nothing else, this thirst is needed. Next, Shri Krishna informs us that it is the sense contacts that are obstacles to meditation. Our mind rushes our due to the urges generated desire and anger. Only by controlling this urge can we progress towards meditation.
 
Lastly, Shri Krishna elaborates on the state of a liberated seeker. Such a seeker has discovered the infinite joy within himself. He finds no need to rush outside into the world for joy and bliss.

The journey from the first chapter to the fourth chapter is one of higher and higher levels of integrating or tuning our personality. In the first chapter, we are at the level of selfish action, where we see gain and loss in everything we do. As we move into the second and third chapters, we are introduced to the notion of “nishkaam karma” or desire-less action. Here, we slowly give up attachment to the result of our action by dedicating it to a higher ideal.
 
In this chapter titled “Jnyaana Karma Sanyaasa Yoga”, we move one level higher from desire-less action to agency-less action. What does agency-less action mean? As the key shloka in this chapter indicates, it is the ability to see inaction in action and action in inaction. When we are operating at the level of a karmayogi, we express our desires through performing actions, but we diminish our sense of “mine-ness” or enjoyership by dedicating all the results to Ishvara.
 
But as we progress on this path, we begin to realize that all actions happen through Maaya, also known as prakriti or nature. Even actions like the surgeon conducting surgery happen through Maaya, upon closer inspection. We realize that the I, the eternal essence, is just the witness. The I does not do anything. This is agency-less action. Our sense of doership or “I-ness” begins to diminish as well.
 
Ultimately everything is yajnya in brahman. This is a very deep and subtle means of looking at the world. To help us practice developing this vision, Shri Krishna gives us simpler yajnyas such as restraining our senses, worship of a deity and so on. But the end goal is jnaana yagnya or the sacrifice of knowledge. The next chapter goes into more detail about the characteristics that we have to develop in order to be able to realize this very subtle and deep vision.
 
This chapter also gives us a glimpse of Ishvara, the cosmic power and intelligence that controls this universe. Although beyond birth and imperishable, that power manifests itself whenever there is an extreme disharmony in the universe, restores harmony and becomes unmanifest again.
 

In chapter 2, Shri Krishna explained that the ultimate spiritual goal is the elimination of our vaasanaas. In chapter 3, he provides the technique of karmayoga which is the first step that all of us have to take in order to begin the process of elimination of vaasanaas.
 
First, he stressed the need to convince ourselves that we have to act. We simply cannot think that we can eliminate vaasanaas by not acting. Once we have convinced that we have to act, we have to adopt the attitude of karmayoga so that further actions do not cause bondage. The attitude of karmayoga comprises five aspects of knowledge or buddhi that we need to maintain while performing any action:
 
1. Samatva Buddhi : We need remain calm but alert in all situations. As the earlier chapter explained, situations are transient, they come and go. Having understood that they are transient, we should not get overly excited or agitated with each new situation.
 
2. Svadharma Buddhi : We should conduct self-analysis to understand where our strongest desires lie, and then deploy those desires in the service of a higher ideal. 
 
3. Samarpana Buddhi : We should always dedicate all our actions to something that is higher than us. We should remember that the entire universe is operating in a spirit of yajma. Whatever we own is material that is in the service of the yajna, it is not ours.
 
4. Asanga Buddhi : We should constantly assess whether we are attached to any material object, person, emotion, position or action. In other words, we should analyze our relationship with those things to understand whether we give so much importance to a thing that we cannot do without it. We should also remember that everything is the gunaas acting on the gunaas. Therefore, we should work with no expectation of the future, and no burden of the past.
 
5. Prasaada Buddhi : While we perform actions, we should not keep an eye on the result. We should accept every result as a “prasaada”. If we get attached to one type of result, whether it be positive or negative, the opposite or the complement of that result will torture us and bind us.
 

Since the second chapter is said to contain the essence of the entire Gita, let’s try to recap the main points before we move to the third chapter:
 
1. Shri Krishna points out the error in Arjuna’s thinking, in that Arjuna’s personality was shaken by grief and delusion towards his kinsmen
2. He advises Arjuna to correct the error by learning the knowledge of the eternal essence
3. He describes the means to attain the eternal essence
4. He also describes the characteristics of the individual who has realized the eternal essence.
 
We can summarize the technique to attain the eternal essence into 3 stages:
1. Attain steadfastness in selfless action by pursuing one’s svadharma
2. Attain steadfastness in devotion to a higher ideal
3. Attain steadfastness in the knowledge of the eternal essence or tattva-jnyana
 

Footnotes
1. Most commentators agree that the chapters of the Gita map to the Upanishadic statement “Tat tvam asi” or “You are that”. The first 6 chapters cover the “tvam” or the “you” aspect, the next 6 cover the “tat” or the “That” aspect”, and the final 6 chapters cover the “asi” or the “are” aspect.

We are about to begin our journey into the second chapter of the Gita. Let us take this opportunity to orient ourselves, so that we can get the most out of our journey.
 
The second chapter is an extremely important chapter, perhaps the most important chapter of the Gita. It is long and contains most of the oft-quotes verses of the Gita. It also introduces most of the key themes of the Gita at a high level. The rest of the Gita picks up these themes and elaborates on them. Therefore there is a variety of topics that we shall get to see in the second chapter.
 
Looking back at the first chapter, we can see that it covered topics that any person could easily identify with. The second chapter will be different in this respect. It will tackle a mix of the practical as well as the spiritual, because the Gita treats both aspects as integral to living life correctly.
 
The second chapter will also introduce abstract concepts that may initially seem unfamiliar and hard to understand. The attitude here should be like the person who is visiting a prominent art gallery for the first time. You will see landscapes as well as modern art. The first time you come across modern art you may not understand it, but slowly through exposure and repetition, you begin to appreciate its nuances.
 
We will begin chapter 2 where chapter 1 left us, in the battlefield, where Arjuna had discarded his weapons.