The Bhagavad Gita is full of quotable quotes, but Chapter 2, which is a summary of what is to come, has some of the most famous verses which have immediate utility in daily life. Arjuna, having cast his bow and arrows aside, turns to Krishna for guidance, lamenting about the losses the war of Mahabharata would cause to his near and dear ones.
Krishna first attempts to shake Arjuna out of his stupor by reminding him of the obvious consequences of his refusal to fight. It is important to note that Krishna exhorts Arjuna to fight, purely because he was a Kshatriya, a warrior, and he was failing in discharging his duty of defending the side of the good against evil in the great war.
Starting with Sankhya, or the philosophical lens, Krishna reminds Arjuna about the impermanence of the material body and the eternal nature of the soul. He reassures Arjuna that he cannot kill his kith and kin, even if he tried, as their existence transcended their material embodiment, and they were in fact spirit souls. Indestructible, the soul changes bodies like one changes clothes, as it passes through the cycle of birth and death.
As Krishna switches gears to speaking about Karma Yoga, he utters, perhaps the most quoted verse from the Gita. He tells Arjuna that he only had the right to perform his duty, rather than feeling entitled to the fruits of action; reminding him not to be attached to the result, nor to inaction. Such a person, who is able to act, without being influenced by the three material modes which bind us, who is free from attachment, fear and anger, attains an unwavering mind, and is able to transcend the trappings of the material world.
Sensing that it would take more than just rational logic to thaw Arjuna’s frozen mind, Krishna then offers him Bhakti Yoga, the path of devotion. He advises him to drop his biases and fix his consciousness upon him, offering up his insecurities and doubts; this would free him from the miseries of material existence, letting his innate intelligence shine through.
If one had to read only one chapter from the Gita, Chapter 2 is a natural choice. It contains a distillation of the philosophy of the Gita, examining human existence from various perspectives and offers up the paths of Sankhya, Karma and Bhakti to elevate one's consciousness and act without being trapped by the feverishness of action, or its results.
