It is proposed to place before all seekers, the main principles that underlie the gospel of the Bhagavadgita in its aspect of practice or the Yoga of Meditation. It is well-known to everyone that this celestial gospel, the Divine Song of the Lord, is a message that is communicated to mankind as a whole; and it is much more than merely a historical occurrence in the context of the Mahabharata, as most people would regard it to be.

The Bhagavadgita has a multi-faceted significance. It is a social message, a political gospel; it is a historical narrative, an epic of the greatest conceivable magnificence and also the enunciation of a spiritual principle and the most valuable instruction on the way of life in general that can be applied equally without exception to every human being. It is as difficult to understand the true meaning of the Gita as it is problematic to comprehend the many-sided personality of Bhagavan Sri Krishna Himself. It has often been said that the best commentary on the Gita is the life of Sri Krishna, and not any printed book that is available to us today. The idea behind this view about the Bhagavadgita gospel is that it touches every type of being that is in the universe and puts its finger on every kind of problem that is conceivable; and it is a solution to all troubles, whether they are caused by external factors or engendered by internal causes. The difficulty of comprehending the meaning of this gospel is, therefore, very simple. It is a message of the Almighty to humanity. It is not an individual speaking to another individual. It is not Krishna, as a person, speaking to Arjuna, as an individual, at a time remote in historical time. It is principally a message to the aspiring spirit, the soul of man, the 'Jiva' that struggles to regain its lost dignity. It is a description of the path that leads from the earth to the Supreme Absolute. It is a detailed account of the various vicissitudes and transformations that one has to pass through and undergo in one's attempt to rise from the relative to the Eternal Being. It is a beautiful, artistic presentation of the many-sided attempts that the soul of man endeavours to forge in its struggle to grasp the goal of life at every step of its ascent.

The point that has to be underlined in this context of the gospel of the Bhagavadgita is that it is a message for every stage of life, for every step that we take, even the least and the most initial of steps in our attempt to rise higher, so that it cannot be said that it is a religious message, or a Hindu gospel, that it is a Yogic scripture of India, that it is applicable only to a certain section of mankind, a type of people or orders of life etc. It is a message to you, to me, to everyone, under every condition, in every circumstance, at every stage of life, right from the lowest to the highest conceivable, the goal of human aspiration.

With this little introduction in connection with the meaning of the message of the Gita, may I propose to dilate upon what would be the central teaching of this great message of the Supreme Master, Bhagavan Sri Krishna, to the seeking soul. It is, to put it precisely in one sentence, 'the message of the practice of the presence of God in the life of an individual'. It is a message of practice, how we have to conduct ourselves in our daily life with relevance to our relationship to the Ultimate Reality. This is perhaps the gist and the quintessential essence of the Gita's message. While it is a gospel of Yoga, the practice of spiritual life in general, it is a comprehensive artistic touch that is given by the many-sided personality of Bhagavan Sri Krishna to this unique way of approach, which may be called the science of life. The religious individual, the 'Sadhaka', the renunciate, the spiritual seeker, is likely to misconstrue the significance of the presence of God in practical life by an over-enthusiastic approach to the idealistic concept of God's existence, which, due to this fundamental error, is likely to bifurcate God from the practical life of the ordinary individual in the world.

The life of Bhagavan Sri Krishna, as I mentioned, is the best commentary on the Bhagavadgita, an explanation of its true meaning. If you would like to know what the message of the Gita is, you have to know what the way of life was which Sri Krishna followed in his day-to-day conduct and programme. Can you call him a Sannyasin? Can you regard him as a Yogin? Can you say he was a warrior? Can you call him a householder? What can you imagine about his personality? Was he a worldly-wise man, or an absorbed, totally withdrawn spirit, contemplating the transcendental Absolute, unconcerned with the turmoil of practical life? What would be your view about this peculiar enigmatic character of the life of Bhagavan Sri Krishna? That, then, is the message of the Bhagavadgita. Sri Krishna lived what he taught, and taught what he lived. There was no gulf between his teaching and his life. The intention for us is that we are supposed to approximate our life to that life which he lived ideally as an example before us. It may be that, to us, this ideal would appear as a remote one, but it is, again, the teaching of the Gita that this so-called remote ideal of perfection which was demonstrated in the life of Bhagavan Sri Krishna is to be brought down to the level of the lowest conceivable individualistic practical life, and reconciled with it in a blend and harmony.

It is the beauty of the gospel of the Gita that it can come down to the level of the lowest from the pedestal of the highest perfection without losing the vitality of that perfected state. This coming down of the supreme perfected being to the level or the status of the lower does not involve a diminution in the divinity of that perfection that one has attained. This is the beauty and this is the difficulty, too, in understanding this beauty. Generally, when an elevated personality steps down to a lower level, it is usually regarded to be a demotion, a coming-down of the very value of the person, but here the peculiarity and the beauty is that the significance, the value, the worth or the comprehensiveness, the power of this perfection does not get diminished even a whit, though it appears to have descended to the lowest of levels.

One can well imagine how breath-taking it is to conceive this meaning that seems to be hidden behind the teaching of the Gita. Perhaps, many may imagine, 'this is not meant for us'; 'not for me'; 'my mind is not trained to think like this'; 'I have not been educated in this fashion'; 'my learning is inadequate to the purpose'; 'what I have studied appears to be out of point altogether if this is going to b your interpretation of the Bhagavadgita and your reading of the meaning behind the life of Sri Krishna'. But this is the grandeur and this also is the practicability of the message. While this message is the most transcendent and the most difficult to conceive, it is at once the easiest and the most practicable of all things. While it is the breath-taking grandeur of the Supreme Perfection of the Absolute that is behind the gospel of the Gita, it is also the most motherly, tender and homely teaching which can be understood and appreciated and applied to even a child in its own level. There is something in the Gita which is beneficial to everyone. The Gita has something to give to every being; the high and the low, the rich and the poor, the old and the young, man and woman, learned and the illiterate. Whatever be the condition of a person, that person has something to receive from Sri Krishna; that person has something to get from the Gita, and there is some aspect of solace which one can hope to have from this all-comprehensive ocean, which is the real 'Ratnakara', God has bestowed upon us.

But there is another interesting aspect in this message which I would like to point out here; an aspect which is beautifully stated in an advice given by Sanjaya to Dhritarashtra in the context of the Udyoga-Parva of the Mahabharata, wherein we are told that on the eve of the coming of Sri Krishna to the court of the Kauravas for the purpose of the peace mission, Dhritarashtra calls Sanjaya and says I am told that Krishna is coming tomorrow. I do not know why he is coming and what we can do for him, and what he expects from us. What kind of person is he and what best can we do to satisfy him? Will you kindly give me an idea of what he is, why he is coming? Can I see him? Sanjaya, having given a practically long sermon to Dhritarashtra on the necessity of establishing peace with the Pandavas, and avoiding the imminence of a war, states briefly, You want to see Krishna. I am surprised that you make this statement before me."

Nakritatma kritatrnanam jatu vidyat Janardanam. O king, the 'Kritatman', that is Bhagavan Sri Krishna, cannot be beheld by any 'Akitatman'. This is all that I can tell you. No one can see a 'Kritatman' unless he himself is a 'Kritatman'! What does he mean by 'Kritatman'? In the second half of this verse, we are told what 'Kritatmata' means.

Atmanas tu kriyopayo nonyatrendriyanigrahat. Self-control is the hallmark of 'Kritatmata'. An uncontrolled being cannot behold this controlled being that is Krishna. King! This is all that I can tell you as an answer to the query you have put before me. Here is a principle that speaks loudly the perfection indicated by 'Atmavinigraha' or self-control. Sri Krishna is the visible embodiment of self-control. You see in him, with your physical eyes, in colour and shape and contour, what self-control is. That is Sri Krishna. He is an incarnation, veritably, before us, of 'Atmavinigraha', self-control, and no one who has not controlled his self can see him.

Such a being is behind this gospel and in a sense we may say that the teaching of the Gita is a teaching on 'Atmavinigraha', 'Atmasamyama', or the restraint of the self in its various ascending degrees and stages. It is a gospel of the control of the self for the purpose of the realisation of the Self It would look strange indeed that in order to experience the Self, we have to control the self first. Does it not look like a contradiction, an enigma? While our aim is the realisation of the Self and experience of the Self; and the purpose is the entering into the very being of the self, becoming one with It, the way to it is supposed to be the restraint of the self! What is one to mean by this contradiction in the teaching? Am I to control the very thing that I want to realise? Is it expected of me that I have to restrain with the reins of my mind and put a check upon that very thing into which I want to enter and which is supposed to be the goal of my existence and aspiration? What is the meaning? How can one try to control that which one is aspiring after? 'Atmasakshatkara', Self-realisation, is the goal, and 'Atmavinigraha', self-restraint, is the means. This is what the Bhagavadgita would tell us, a point which it elucidates beautifully in the sixth chapter particularly, and in certain other places, too.