Gita 08.07 – Devotion is not about rejecting the outer world but about offering the inner world
Thank you therefore at all times remember me and fight Krishna mayi arpit mano buddhir mayi arpit mano buddhir by offering your intelligence to me mayi arpit mano buddhir my intelligence to me ma me vaishya samshaya you will definitely attain me so here Krishna is speaking and he states that life he has stated in the previous verse how whatever we think about at the moment of death that is what we will attain in our next life and he is talking about how we should think about him to attain him so then the question may come up what determines what we will think about at the time of death is it something we just hope to get it right at the moment of death or is there something we can do to get it right and Krishna indicates that certainly we can do things to get it right so what we can do is he says prepare prepare throughout your life by remembering me tasmat sarveshu kaaleshu therefore at all times mam anusmara yudhya cha mam anusmara yudhya cha remember me and fight Krishna says so mayi arpit mano buddhir what does it mean to remember me and fight Krishna is saying offer your inner world to me the mind and the intelligence comprise the essence of our inner world the ego is of course there but when we are offering it when we are offering ourselves to Krishna the ego also gets subordinated and spiritualized and by this mam eva isyase samchaya you will surely come to be Krishna so now mam anusmara yudhya cha Krishna gives a priority here he says that remember me and fight so there is a balance between material and spiritual life Krishna is not saying that you renounce your material life and just remember me mam anusmara nor is he saying that you don't care about your spiritual life and just do your duty yudhya cha Krishna is talking about a balance between the material and the spiritual so yudhya cha mam anusmara Krishna is telling first yudhya cha Krishna will tell later to Arjuna at the end of the 18th chapter that so in 18.59 and 18.60 he states that and material nature will engage you instead of a spiritual purpose engaging you material nature will engage you we are all bound by our subhava we have to do the work that is prescribed according to our subhava if you say you will not work then what will happen you will still do the work helplessly he says we can't resist the call of nature when it calls similarly when our material nature calls in terms of a person who is brahminical a brahmin or a kshatriya that nature cannot be resisted for very long you will be forced to act accordingly and here also Krishna is saying that you cannot avoid fighting you are a warrior you will fight when you renounce the world now later on when somebody offends you your kshatriya nature will impel you to respond aggressively to it so what you can do is you don't have to reject or oppress or renounce your nature you have to spiritualize it and that maa manushya so when you say remember Krishna sometimes you may think of remembrance of Krishna as as the activity of a as the luxury for armchair spiritualists like say somebody like say some old people with nothing to do they sit around a tea table and they talk about the good old times remembrance of Krishna is not meant to be nostalgia about good old times that sort of nostalgia is more of a escape from present reality into a past reality that is now that was most likely as problematic as is the present but that is now imagined as having been very good so Krishna is not recommending that kind of remembrance when you say in bhakti you should remember Krishna that remembrance is not idle nostalgia it is purposeful action we understand that Krishna is not just someone who had descended to this world in the past it is not that Krishna is someone who just exists beyond this world in his own abode in the spiritual world yes that is true but Krishna is also someone who is present in our heart and who is present in this world in the manifestations and whom we can serve through purposeful devotional action in this world so Krishna is telling so remember me and fight you cannot avoid fighting because that's your nature as a Kshatriya at the same time you have to remember me to attain me at the time of after this life some people think if we just do our duty that is enough there is nothing more that needs to be done Krishna does not support that idea he says that you also have to remember me that my remembrance will act as a practice which will enable you to remember me at the time of death also so now when we say life is a preparation for death whatever consciousness we cultivate whatever attachments we develop during our life those will resurface prominently at the time of death and push us drag us draw us towards the corresponding mode of existence so we do need to remember Krishna so that throughout our life so that Krishna becomes our thought at the time of death at the same time this remembrance is not meant to cause us to withdraw from action that remembrance is to permeate all our action and the permeation of Krishna is pointed to in the next line that offer your mind and intelligence to me it means that by studying the philosophy of Krishna consciousness by chanting the holy names by cultivating remembrance of Krishna in these ways we can make Krishna present and prominent and dominant in our inner world we enthrone him as the lord of our inner world and we envision all our activities as loving offerings to him and in this way when Krishna rules the inner world then when our outer world comes crumbling down as it will sooner or later eventually ultimately at the time of death then that time by letting Krishna permeate our inner being when we strive to remember him thus then he will be if he is our constant thought throughout our life not by withdrawing from the hustle bustle of life but by making him the purpose of that hustle bustle making him the purpose of all our activities because he is in our heart he will manifest from within our heart at the time of death give us his remembrance and enable us to attain him and that's how we all can attain life's supreme success.