Bhagavad Gita (the teaching of Krishna)

The Bhagavad Gita records the discourse Krishna delivers to the warrior Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra within the epic Mahabharata. Its central teaching is the imperishability of the true Self: the body is perishable, but the dweller within it is eternal and indestructible, making consciousness rather than circumstance the ground of identity.

The teaching lays out complementary paths to liberation, presented not as rivals but as interwoven routes to one realization: karma yoga, selfless action released from attachment to results; bhakti yoga, loving devotion and surrender; and jnana yoga, the discriminating knowledge that distinguishes the eternal witness from the changing field.

Shaping Indian spirituality for two millennia and traveling widely into Western metaphysical circles, the Gita stands as a primary headwater of the conviction that consciousness is prior to the material body and that non-attached, intention-led action is a spiritual discipline.