The central philosophical thesis of the Mahabharata is contained in the famous song of the Lord, the Bhagavadgita. Arjuna, at the commencement of the Mahabharata war, shows signs of bewilderment and mental confusion and refuses to take up arms even after having undertaken this task after great deliberation earlier. Having engaged himself in a duty befitting his position in society, he withdrew himself from discharging an obligation, which was really more than a question of personal prestige and etiquette, for it involved a principle transcending a simple option on his part. Human weakness overcame the powerful hero, and Arjuna succumbed to the temptations of love and hatred and an eye to the coveted result of action. This condition of the mind of Arjuna raised a universal question, that of duty in the human world. An event in the battle opened the portals of the larger problem of life. Arjuna's predicament became a human situation, for the problem of Arjuna was the problem of man. And the answer of Krishna to the query of Arjuna is the gospel of God to humanity as a whole.  

A peculiar human difficulty evoked an astounding reaction from Krishna. The Bhagavadgita commences with a dramatic setting described in its first chapter, wherein the spiritually blind Dhritarashtra's question is followed by the entry of the proud Duryodhana into the scene of the battlefield. The self-aggrandising boast of the Kaurava king revealed his secret anxieties over the result of war and he was suspicious over the qualitative strength of his quantitatively larger army. He had invincible but unwilling fighters like Bhishma, mighty but unscrupulous warriors like Drona, and reliable but disabled friends like Karna. On the other hand, the Pandavas had whole-hearted supporters like Krishna and the blessings of the gods who were eager for the victory of the Pandavas. Notwithstanding that destiny seemed to favour the Pandava forces the man in Arjuna disclosed his foibles before the Divinity in Krishna, when Arjuna's heart sunk in grief over the inevitable destruction of his loved relations, the uncertainty of victory and the social usability which, he thought, was to be the outcome of mass-scale destruction of people. These reasons were enough for Arjuna to make up his mind not to fight. Krishna's answer to Arjuna's question is the eternal gospel.

Krishna commences his teaching with a declaration of the indestructibility of the Soul and the futility of grief over the death of what cannot die. The birth and death of the Soul are like the changing of one's clothes while the person in essence undergoes no change in the process. All experience of change like pleasure and pain is the consequence of the contact of the elements with the essential consciousness projected through the mind and the senses. The contact, naturally, is impermanent and hence its reactions are to be endured with fortitude. The unreal cannot be, and the real cannot not be. The Soul is real. The contacts are not real. No one can destroy the indestructible Soul. The argument of Arjuna against destruction of life is answered by the doctrine of the deathlessness of the Spirit behind all life, but the essence of the gospel of Krishna is something more than this, for it is centred upon the Absoluteness of God.

The ultimate reality is God, who is Absolute. He is the supreme Brahman which cannot be designated either as being or non-being, from the human standpoint. It has hands and feet everywhere; eyes, ears and faces everywhere; and it exists enveloping everything. It has the characteristics of the percepts of all senses, but it is itself devoid of the senses of perception. Though it is unattached to external objects, it is the basis for everything. Though without descriptive qualities or epithets, it is the reservoir of all of them. Being inside and outside all things, it may be said to be both moving and unmoving. On account of its subtlety it is not visible to the eyes. Being infinite, it looks at if it is far, but being the Self of everyone, it is very near. Though it appears divided among the divided bodies, it is really undivided like the ocean beneath the waves. It is the absorber and releaser of everything, the Light of all lights, beyond the darkness of ignorance. Such is the description of the Absolute given in the Bhagavadgita.  

The Absolute appears as the universal Virat when it is regarded as the support of the Universe. In the eleventh chapter of the gospel is sung a description of the Universal Being. The form of this Divinity is incapable of being visualised by the transitory mind of the mortal individual, for all thoughts and acts, whether of mind or of body, have objectives in space and time as their ends, while the Divine Being is above space and time. To understand (Jnatum), to see (Drashtum) and to enter (Praveshtum) into Reality, a transcendence of individuality in a state of universal transfiguration of personality is necessary. God in His form as the Universal Maker of things determines the course of events in His cosmic scheme of creation, and it is the duty of the individual to act merely as His instrument and not assume a false responsibility of doership and enjoyership in life, which belongs to God alone. This perception of truth requires the development of a spiritual vision (Divya-Chakshus) and it cannot be comprehended by the senses or even the logical intellect. The Universal Form which Krishna assumed stunned the egoistic individuality of Arjuna, and in a thrill it looked as if his very being would evaporate in those dizzy heights of that blazing eternal form, which, with its supernal radiance, darkened the lights of thousands of suns. The descriptive powers of the poet reach their summit here in this apotheosis of human language.  

There is no place where God is not, and no object in which he is not present. His glory is seen in high relief in everything which exhibits an intensified type of power in any manner. No one who looks to him for solace does ever perish or come to sorrow. Whoever, in undivided contemplation, resorts to him as the final refuge, to such a person he provides all needs and affords protection at all times. God does not need any rich offerings from man; he is satisfied with a dedicated feeling of devotion which can be conveyed through even a leaf that may be consecrated to him. God has neither friend nor foe and he is not concerned either with the good or the bad action of the individual. Krishna declares, as the God of the Universe: "I am the sacrifice and the offering. I am the mantra and the ritual, the oblation, the fire and what is offered in the sacrifice. I am the Father of the Universe, the Mother, the Grandfather and the protector of all. I am the goal, the support, the Lord, the witness, the abode, the refuge, the friend, the origin, the desolation, the substratum, the reservoir, the seed indestructible. As the sun, I give heat; I withhold and send forth rain; I am immortality and also death; I am existence and also non-existence. O Arjuna."  

God can be approached in any way suited to one's temperament and capacity. He does not belong to any creed, cult or religion. He is accessible to everyone, whether man, woman or child, whether learned or ignorant, whether high or low, in society. What is needed is undivided devotion, unflinching love for Him. The way out of all sorrows is to take refuge in Him, to the exclusion of all earthly aids. This devotion, however, is not easy to acquire. It comes by cultivation of it in many lives through which one has to pass, and it is difficult to find one who realises that God is all.

God incarnates himself in the world, whenever there is decline of righteousness and rise of unrighteousness, for the purpose of the protection of the good, the vanquishing of the wicked and establishment of justice in every age.  

The theory of divine incarnation has been a controversial issue in the philosophy of religion and has been one of the intriguing questions in theology. It is impossible metaphysically to interpret to the mind of man the divine secret of the movement of spiritual force in the world. When a solution is attempted, the Avatara reveals itself as the answer of God to the needs of man. There is an internal bond of inseparable relation between the relative and the Absolute, and the descent of God on earth is the pressure of the power of truth forcing itself into the realm of the relative when the harmony of this bond and relation gets dissipated by centrifugal psychic energies that seem to run counter to the integrating centripetal call of God to all manifestation. The descent of God as the Avatara is said to be for the ascent of man to his divine home. As the health-giving forces of harmony in the body perpetually wage a war with the disease-producing toxins, the universal balancing power of the Absolute introduces itself as a corrective element amidst the disturbing forces of darkness. The Avatara is a perpetual activity of God who manifests himself at every juncture or critical situation (Yuge, Yuge) in the life of the world. The Avatara is the recurring reminder of God to man that it is impossible for the undivine to triumph over the essential goodness and divinity immanent in creation.

The Bhagavadgita is the classic treatise on the science of right activity, called karma Yoga. Krishna exhorts Arjuna to engage himself in the performance of duty, by regarding pleasure and pain as well as success and failure as equal, for the purpose of rightly directed work is not the achieving of any result for oneself but discharging the duty of cooperation with the law of the Universe. The merit that a right action produces never perishes in time, however small it be, and even the least effort done in the direction of righteousness is capable of saving one from the danger of falling into the bondage of life. One should, for this purpose, go beyond the pairs of opposites like pleasure and pain, by centring oneself in purity of thought achieved through a care-free life of the establishment of consciousness in the Universal Self.  

One's duty is only to act and not covet the fruit of action. The secret of right action is in so conducting oneself that there is neither regard for the result of the action nor is there total abstinence from action. But the non-regard to the fruit of action is not to be interpreted as callousness to the performance of duty and a carelessness towards its method and purpose - that would be another form of selfishness - for karma Yoga is 'dexterity in execution' and 'balance of mind' in the performance of action. Lest this science of action should be mistaken for mere prudence of behaviour and shrewdness in conduct, Krishna adds that all action is to be done after fixing oneself in Yoga and detaching oneself from any ulterior motive behind it. And Yoga is the equanimous settling of oneself in the consciousness of God.  

No one would gain anything by trying to cease from action, because no one can remain without action even for a moment, as everyone is forcibly driven to it by the properties of Prakriti whose very nature is to evolve increasingly into higher levels of being. There is no point in maintaining an inactivity of the body while the mind and the senses are engaged in the quest of their objects. It is true karma Yoga when one engages oneself in outward action in keeping with the way of the world, while the mind and the senses are under perfect control. The purpose of work is not the achievement of any selfish end but participation in the cooperative activity of creation. Society everywhere lives on cooperation, the mechanism of the body works on cooperation, the world is an embodiment of mutual cooperation, the solar and stellar systems have their meaning in cooperation, the universe with all its contents is a dramatic scene of an all-round cooperative process. This marvellous system of the universal government becomes intelligible in the concept of the Virat-Purusha or God as the Cosmic Person described in the Purusha-Sukta of the Veda and the Vishvarupadarsana of the Gita.  

The responsibility to work is said to cease only in the case of him who is satisfied with the Self and delights in the Self and is contented with the Self. For him there is nothing to achieve and it is immaterial whether he does anything or not, as he has absolutely no dependence on anything in the world. This extraordinary condition of non-action propounded in the Gita is not to be taken as a licence for inactivity of any kind. For the so-called inaction of the knower of the Self is the highest form of action. Noteworthy is the qualification 'he has absolutely no dependence'. It is humanly impossible for anyone not to depend on the world for something or the other, and man depends on society for his sustenance, on his relations for timely help, on the government for his protection, and on the bounties of Nature for his very existence. The state of consciousness to which Krishna refers in this description of the sage delighting in the Self is not any conceivable bodily condition, but is the state of the transcendence of individuality in Universal Being. Naturally, work ceases to have meaning in Universal Consciousness. But work cannot cease in the case of anyone who feels that he exists in a world.  

The great wisdom of action is expressed in the immortal enunciation of its technique that the wise one should engage himself in action outside without attachment inside, in the same way as the ignorant one does it with attachment; nor should the wise one condemn the erroneous acts of the ignorant, because such condemnation would, instead of educating them, mislead them into a state of dispiritedness and lack of zest in life. The duty of the wise is to encourage the ignorant and not to rob them of their faith, for the educative process is a rise from the lower to the higher understanding and not an outward compulsion. What mars the spirit of right action is selfishness in the form of passion, anger and greed. Freedom from these psychological diseases is real spiritual health. Real action is not bodily movement but inner volition born of desire. One who is freed from it does no action, though he is apparently engaged in it in the ordinary sense. The action which tends to the consuming of individuality in the sacrifice of God-consciousness melts away and does not bind the doer thereof. When one beholds the diversity of beings as rooted in the One, he attains to the Absolute, then and there.

The religion of the Gita is not a sectarian doctrine relegated to a section of humanity but a call of the One God to all humanity. While there are those who worship Him in erroneous ways by limiting symbols, they too shall reach Him, if their devotion to the ideals they have set up is exclusive in the sense that it can accommodate or harbour no other thought. Fanaticism in religion arises when there is devotion to one's ideal with hatred for the ideals of others. But this, according to the Gita, is not the way to God, since, thereby, selfishness would stultify the very purpose of religious worship. While the universal religion promises fulfilment of the aspirations of the followers of all paths, it recommends worship of the Universal God, as the ultimate salvation lies in this realisation alone. There is no need to worry about accumulating rich articles for gorgeous rituals, for God is pleased not with the objects offered but with the heart which makes the offering. God is satisfied even with a leaf or flower or a small measure of water offered as token of true devotion unto Him. The duty of the devotee is therefore to dedicate all his actions to God, whether the actions are physical or mental. The God of the Gita declares that He is the same to all in His dealings and even the sinner and the fallen can reach Him with devotion. This is the great gospel of God to man, the religion of man in general, for the sake of the experience of freedom which is immortal.