And what is mankind's conflict? One person set against another person. This is the first phase of the problem. Then, each one is at loggerheads with one's own self. This is another phase of the conflict. You do not know what you will think tomorrow. You do not agree today with what you thought yesterday. Your understanding cannot go hand in hand with your feeling. Your feelings cannot go hand in hand with your will. Your emotions will not agree with your logical argument. Your logic goes against the facts of human society outside. All this is a description of internal conflict. "I can neither fully agree with you nor fully reject you." This is also a personal conflict. If I can fully agree with you, there can be no conflict. If I can fully reject you, then also there is no conflict. But, unfortunately, I cannot fully reject you for certain reasons, and cannot also wholly accept you for certain other reasons. This is individual conflict. And there are also non-alignment of the layers of the personality itself. I am proceeding from the posterior to the prior, from the gross to the subtle, from the visible to the invisible, from the outer to the inner, for the purpose of explanation. The outer conflict of society is an outcome of the internal conflict of human nature. Why has this conflict come? Is there any solution for this? Arjuna fell at the feet of Krishna, saying, "I am confused, and I do not know what I am supposed to do. Bewildered is the condition of my mind. It is true that I have come here for battle, as a general of the army, but now something is happening within my own mind. I do not know, Krishna, what is happening! I am sunk in grief. I am swallowed by sorrow. I cannot lift my finger. I cannot raise my hand. My nerves are getting paralysed. I cannot even stand up. I am falling down." This is what happens when internal conflict reaches its climax. And here the real Bhagavadgita starts, which is God speaking. Up to this time man was speaking. "I shall wage a war. I shall end these people, crush them and pound them to powder." That was the boast of man before the war was entered upon. Then comes the sinking down of the personality: "This is impossible. I shall withdraw because I do not think that I am fit to adjust myself to this complex that has arisen now in the form of a social conflict which I hold, which is raised by us due to ignorance, greed and callousness towards the consequences of war."

The answer of Bhagavan Sri Krishna, representing the Unity of the cosmos, is simple and precise, though it is apparently a long gospel of many chapters. Arjuna was thoroughly mistaken in assessing the values of life. Lord Krishna tells: "Your understanding is turbid; it is not clear enough to grasp the vitality of life. Nobody asked you to start the war. It is you who started this, and I merely said nothing against it. If you want it, have it and be done with it. After having started it of your own accord, relying on the strength of your own army, listening to nobody else's advice, what makes you now sing a different tune altogether, as if you are another person having nothing to do with the previous person that you were, who decided to wage the war?" The answer of Arjuna was: "I do not know what to do. Tell me what is my duty." The answer is the Bhagavadgita which is supposed to be a gospel on duty.

What is the duty of man? I began by speaking of the four conflicts, which the Bhagavadgita endeavours to resolve. To solve the first conflict Arjuna thought that battle is the only way. But before the war took place outside, a war broke out inside him. There was a psychological war which fumed up like wildfire within the mind of the hero, even before the outer social war took place. Lord Krishna asks: "Do you know why this happens? Do you know why any war takes place at all? Why conflicts should arise at all? The ultimate cause of all conflicts - do you know what this is, Arjuna?" Sri Krishna himself replies: "You do not know anything. You do not know that you have a higher conflict pushing you forward into a further external conflict. Behind the social conflict is the individual conflict. Behind the individual conflict, there is another conflict which is not apparent to the mind of any person!" But Krishna knew what it was.

It is the conflict between the individual and the world as a whole in the form of this vast creation. Man has estranged himself from Nature. This is the third conflict - the conflict between man and Nature. The world seems to be outside us, and we seem to be strangers in this world. We are not sure whether we are really wanted in this world. Sometimes it looks that we are not wanted at all, and yet we, somehow, reconcile ourselves with the hardships of this mysterious creation and pull on in life, "get on", as we say. The world is not going to be reconciled if we are not going to obey its laws. Because of a conflict of our individuality with the universal Nature, we suffer various pains - hunger and thirst, heat and cold, and, finally, death. All these catastrophes of human life, and life in general, are the outcome of an isolation of the individual from the cosmic Nature. Nature does not die; it is the individual that dies. Nature has no hunger and thirst; it is the individual that has hunger and thirst. Nature does not feel cold, Nature does not want a blanket or a sweater; it is the individual that feels heat and cold. The bodily limitations, the vital limitations, the mental limitations and the intellectual limitations are the outcome of this bifurcation of personality or individuality from cosmic Nature. If we are to be tuned to Nature, then we are to become an integral, vital, universal part of Nature. Then we will have no hunger and thirst, no heat and cold, no death. But why should this difficulty arise? No one wanted to isolate oneself from Nature. Nobody would purchase trouble deliberately. Then why has this happened? Who is responsible for this banishment of the individual from Universal Nature?

This third conflict is due to another conflict altogether, viz., the fourth conflict - the conflict between the Universe and the Absolute, between man and God. We are estranged from God Himself. That is why every other conflict has cropped up. Social conflict or political conflict is due to individual conflict. The individual conflict is due to the conflict of natural forces in respect of the individual. This, again, is due to a higher conflict between the Universal Soul and the individual soul, man and God waging a war with each other. Then it is that God has released this huge army called Nature, with all its terrific armament.

The war seen before you is nothing but the array of forces which God has unleashed to teach you a lesson. The whole world is up in arms against you, because you have set yourself against God. Can you expect to have peace and happiness here when you wage a battle with God Himself? But this is the secret that man does not know because of an original sin of man, the fall of man, the fall of the soul from its Divine Status of Universality. Unless you reconcile yourself with God, you are not going to reconcile yourself with Nature. Nature is nothing but the army of forces let loose by God against you, as a reaction to your rebellion against Him.

When there is a war between two countries, you cannot speak to the soldiers, "My dear friends, please do not fight," for they are not responsible for the battle. They are released by some other force behind them. You must tackle that force which is the cause of the release of these forces. Why do you talk to the soldiers, poor fellows? They know nothing except that they have been ordered, and they act. Thus, there is no use of speaking to the world: "My dear friend, wind, do not bite me; O water, do not drown me; O fire, do not burn me." They will say: "We do not know; we are only ordered to act and we shall do according to the order. You speak to the Person, the Force who has ordered thus. Otherwise, we shall burn you down, cut you, blow you up, drown you and kill you." So, there is no use trying to get rid of the troubles of life, because these are forces released by a higher Nature. Unless you reconcile yourself with God, you are not going to be friendly with Nature. And unless you reconcile yourself with the Nature, the cosmos as a whole, your internal conflicts are not going to cease. And until the internal conflicts are solved, the external wars are not going to end. The social peace which you are clamouring for, the national peace, the world peace, the Ramarajya as you call it - all these wonderful things that you are aspiring for in life - cannot be had on earth until you solve the causative conflict that is between you, Nature and God.

This is the essence of the themes described in the chapters of the Bhagavadgita. You are face to face with the Supreme Being in the eleventh chapter; and whatever I have told you so far is the inner significance of the contents of the first eleven chapters. The chapters that follow from the eleventh onwards describe methods of practically applying this knowledge in specific contexts of life. Before doing anything, understand well. Think well logically, dispassionately, taking into consideration all aspects of the question that arises in your mind. Cast your glance around you, and recognise where you really stand in this world, what your difficulties are, and tap the difficulties in their roots. Then it is that you will be blessed, and mankind at large will reach supreme beatitude.

Social collaboration, individual self-control, universal interrelatedness, and Absolute Oneness - these are the standpoints from which the Bhagavadgita exhorts us at different levels of its teaching. The highest Reality is Aksharam Brahma (The Imperishable Absolute). It is the Supreme Person, or Adhiyajna, from the standpoint of creation. It is manifest as Adhibhuta (the external universe as the object) on the one side, and as Adhyatma (the individual experiencer as the subject) on the other side. The Divine Principle organising the relations between subjects and objects is Adhidaiva (superintending deity). The movement of the cosmic cycle, the inexorable impulse to action, the universal urge of creativity, is Karma-Visarga (the complex of activity determined by interconnected universal factors). No one can escape this duty of 'All-Life', and none can afford to be ignorant of this secret of existence. Here is the Bhagavadgita in a nutshell.