Hallo, This is Dr. Bin Song at Washington College for the course of “Comparative Religion: Eastern.”

As a Ru scholar, when I pursue inter-religious studies, I tend to favor worldviews which focus on humans’ individual and social life here and now, no matter how sublime or even mystical that worldview’s metaphysical framework could look like. Unfortunately, it is not the case that all religions help to concentrate people’s attention here and now; quite often, the contrast between this world vs the other world, in whatever way this other world may be envisioned, constitutes a perennial theme for many religions which also happen to have varying solutions to the tension of human life fomented by the contrast.

Interestingly enough, we find the grapple with such a tension is persistent within the tradition of Hinduism itself. For instance, the Vedas in general is very this-worldly oriented, since these earliest holy texts of Hinduism prescribe duties and roles for each class of the society, and hence, care about social order and welfare more than anything else. However, in comparison, the Upanishads, as analyzed in previously units, views that all those elaborated ritual prescriptions in the Vedas do not have ultimate value in helping individuals to be liberated from the endlessly suffering life cycle of samsara. Instead, the Upanishads urges individuals to leave the society, enter forests and undergo harsh ascetic practices in order to find their genuine Self, Ataman, to eventually get united with Brahman and achieve individual spiritual liberation. Seen from this prospective, the Upanishads is other-worldly oriented in both its philosophy and its practice.

What the Bhagavad Gita achieves is to redirect our spiritual attention from the sublime other-worldliness of the Upanishads back to the all too real world perceived by the Vedas, but while doing so, the Bhagavad Gita also synthesizes key insights from both the Vedic and Upanishadic traditions so as to present a worldview which is simultaneously metaphysically sublime and socially grounded. In a certain sense, this is very similar to what the Ruist canon, called Zhong Yong (which we will discuss later), tries to achieve: to stay centered (Zhong) in the everyday world (yong).

The ethical dilemma that the protagonist of the epic, Arjuna, faces is all too familiar to everyday human life: on the one hand, as a warrior, Arjuna has to fulfill his duty to fight a just war because his uncle, the infamous Duryodhana, was a wicked and relentless ruler who employed all plots to invade and occupy the land originally belonging to Arjuna’s father. On the other hand, if Arjuna fought the war, he would have to kill his own family relatives, teachers, and friends who were politically affiliated to the tribe of Duryodhana. So, in a word, if we were Arjuna, the situation would be like this: the most evil and dangerous person in the world happens to be our close family member, and as a public officer, we have to punish and kill him in order to recover the order for the whole world.

None of the two wisdom traditions, the Vedas and the Upanishads, can provide answers to Arjuna’s dilemma. If according to the Vedas, the fulfillment of Arjuna’s warrior duties would lead to dire consequences; however, if according to the Upanishads, fleeing the battlefield and then meditating in forests seem a rather shameful, and even pointless non-starter for a warrior like Arjuna who is needed by the people living on the endangered land. So, what should Arjuna do?

The persuasion given by Arjuna’s charioteer, who is also an avatar of the Hindu God Krishna, is threefold, which is also three different kinds of “Yoga,” viz., disciplines: the jnanayoga, the discipline of knowledge; karmayoga, the discipline of action; and bhaktiyoga, the discipline of devotion.

In the jnanayoga, the Lord Krishna tried to convince Arjuna through revealing a knowledge, a truth about human “self”: the genuine human self is Atman, and Atman is indestructible. It endures in multiple life cycles, and therefore, people killed on the battleground are not really dead. In this way, Bhagavad Gita employs the philosophy of Upanishads for a spiritual persuasion which directs Arjuna’s attention to human life here and now.

In the karmayoga, the Lord Krishna stated that in order to achieve ultimate spiritual liberation, Arjuna still needs to fulfill his duty, just as the Vedas once prescribes to a warrior. However, Arjuna needs to perform his duty without regard to its consequences, and hence, is expected to achieve a perfect inner equanimity, peace and serenity without being distracted by any outside realities during the middle of Arjuna’s pursuit of the dutiful deeds. In this way, Bhagavad Gita affirms the duty and ritual system elaborated by the Vedas, but re-presents it using the spiritual practice of the Upanishads, and ultimately, urges for a sublime spiritual liberation within situations of human life here and now.

Finally, in the bhaktiyoga, the Lord Krishna realizes that ordinary human beings may be very difficult to achieve the sublime this-worldliness described above, and therefore, Krishna urges Arjuna to unswervingly devote his attention and energies to the worship of Himself, so that Arjuna can find a spiritual anchor conveniently and practically in his everyday mundane life. In comparison to the Vedas and the Upanishads, this devotional dimension of Bhagavad Gita is a unique contribution, and makes the spiritual resources of the Hindu religion not limited in elite circles of priests and hermit renunciates, but widely accessible to ordinary human beings. In the later medieval Hinduism, this bhaktiyoga of the Bhagavad Gita was developed into a full devotional movement, and ever since, Hindu people in varying times and places can choose their favorite god or goddess to worship in order to reach their spiritual liberation in their everyday life.

Sincerely, I am always delightful to read the Bhagavad Gita because of the comprehensiveness that it presents about Hindu spirituality. The genre of its writing, an epic dialogue, is also accessible to readers with its philosophical rigor and literary taste. What I talked about so far is just the surface of this incredibly rich Hindu text, and I decide not to talk any more lest it deprives you of the pleasure of reading it yourself.