18.73: From “Is God with me?” to “Am I with God?”

The Bhagavad-gita (18.73) expresses the summit of humanity’s faith in divinity when Arjuna declares to Krishna, “I will do your will.”

Our faith in God begins with the feeling that there exists a higher being who will help us if we petition him through prayer. This level of faith is characterized by the primary spiritual question: “Is God with me?” At this level, we have faith in God’s power, but not his wisdom. That’s why we use our own wisdom to decide what we should do and ask for God’s power to help us do it.

When we develop faith in God’s wisdom, then we first seek his guidance to decide what we should do and then seek his power to be able to do it.

If we study the message of the Gita submissively and seriously, as did Arjuna, then the Gita can elevate us from the foothill to the summit of the mountain of faith, as it did to Arjuna, who expressed his mountaintop wisdom in the declaration, “Krishna, I am with you.”