Essence of the Bhagavad Gita

The Bhagavad Gita is India’s best-known scripture – a dialogue between a warrior-prince named Arjuna and his charioteer and spiritual guide, Sri Krishna.

For Easwaran, a foremost translator of the Gita, who taught classes on it for over 40 years, the Gita’s epic battle represents the war in our own hearts and Arjuna’s anguish reflects the human condition: torn between opposing forces, confused about how to live. Sri Krishna’s timeless guidance, Easwaran argues, can shed light on our dilemmas today.

Placing the Gita’s teachings in a modern context, Easwaran explores the nature of reality, the illusion of separateness, the search for identity, the meaning of yoga, and how to heal the unconscious. This book is his distillation of the Gita’s teachings from the end of his life, based on talks given to his close students and published here for the first time. Easwaran shows how, through the principles of yoga and the practice of meditation, the Gita can point a way forward for us, both as individuals and in society today.