What does bhagavad gita say about jesus

She said that each of these writings taught their respective communities how to love one another and make the world a better place. In modern society, this is a very appealing statement. If this was true, how could any religion claim to be superior to another? Unfortunately, I believe my friend has been misguided. She is a very sincere and lovely person, but the religion that she and so many other Hindus follow is wholly inadequate when compared to the Christian religion.

It is my purpose in this article to show the inadequacies of the supposed god Krishna and, thus, question the foundations on which many Hindus base their faith. From what I have learned, there are many important Hindu writings, which I am sure would benefit me in my study of this religion. The translator, A. Because Bhagavad Gita is spoken by the supreme personality of godhead, one need not read any other Vedic literature …This one book will suffice because it is the essence of all Vedic literature BG Intro, The introductory material of the BG actually claims that:.

Krishna descends to this planet once in a day of Brahma, or every 8,,, years BG, xviii. One can imagine how difficult it would be to historically prove this claim. The writing of the BG has been dated somewhere between BC and AD but there is no evidence within the writing itself that assumes a historical date of the events therein.

The Krishna consciousness movement is essential in human society, for it offers the highest perfection of life. In this present day, people are very much eager to have one scripture, one God, one religion, and one occupation. Therefore,…let there be one scripture only, one common scripture for the whole world — Bhagavad Gita…let there be one God for the whole world — Sri Krishna…and one hymn, one mantra, one prayer — the chanting of his name…and let there be one work only — the service of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

It is clear from these quotations that the respected swami does not consider all religions to be good and useful. On the contrary, the BG and its introduction makes similar claims of religious exclusivity that the Bible makes. There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

If both of these religions claim to be exclusively true, their teachings deserve examination. The result of such a blunder will be that the misguided student of Bhagavad Gita will certainly be bewildered on the path of spiritual guidance and will not be able to go back to home, back to the Godhead. In order to save oneself from this offence [interpreting the Bhagavad Gita without first trusting in Krishna], one has to understand the Lord as the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Much like the Book of Mormon Moroni , the BG asks its reader to trust it as absolute truth before reading it. I find this to be a major logical fallacy. Ought we trust someone just because they tell us they are trustworthy?

In everyday life, we only trust things that have already proven themselves to us. The Bible teaches this clearly:.

Examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good. Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God , because many false prophets have gone out into the world. I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false.

If a god capable of giving us intellect and reason actually exists, we would expect his writings to be in accordance with the intellect and reason that his creatures exhibit. The duties and qualities of each of the four divisions Brahmans, Ksatriyas, Vaisyas, and Sudras are laid out in BG Peacefulness, self-control, austerity, purity, tolerance, honesty, knowledge, wisdom and religiousness — these are the natural qualities by which the brahmanas work.

Heroism, power, determination, resourcefulness, courage in battle, generosity, and leadership are the natural qualities of work for the ksatriyas. Farming, cow protection and business are the natural work for the vaisyas , and for the sudras there are labor and service to others. Take note of what this passage teaches. There are certain classes of people who cannot attain to virtues such as: purity, honesty, knowledge, and wisdom. The lowest class cannot attain to anything higher than physical labor and service to others.

Examine the teachings of the BG passages regarding duty. Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your actions. BG In summary, everyone is born into a particular caste, which comes with its own particular duty. It is sinful to reject your prescribed duty or to aspire to a higher duty than the one you have been born into. Consequences of actions are, after all, not your fault since Krishna demands that you follow your duty. Take careful note of the implications of the following passage:.

By following his qualities of work , every man can become perfect. Now please hear from Me how this can be done. By worship of the Lord, who is the source of all beings and who is all-pervading, a man can attain perfection through performing his own work. You are a soldier and it is your duty. God will show us the way to serve. All we have been given is on loan from God. To give money to people who would use it for drugs or other evil is wrong, harmful, weakening.

But the discriminative devotee who wisely shares his wealth, knowledge, and spiritual treasures to the benefit of those who are needy, worthy, and receptive fits himself for liberation. He who succumbs to temptations will remain entangled in sense objects, far removed from soul knowledge.

Every indulgence in any form of sense-lures reinforces the desire for that experience. Repetition leads to the formation of nearly unshakable bad habits. With every effort to resist, we will strengthen the ability to do so. Every time we ask God and guru to help us, we are closer. A devotee who is master of his senses is ready for emancipation.

He relinquishes passing sense pleasures for the sake of eternal joys. Renunciation is not an end in itself, but clears the ground for the manifestation of soul qualities. No one should fear the rigors of self-denial; the spiritual blessings that follow are great and incomparable. To engage in actions without desire for their fruit is true tyaga renunciation. God is the Divine Renunciant, for He carries on all the activities of the universe without attachment to them.

Anyone aspiring to Self-realization — whether he be a monastic or a householder — must act and live for the Lord, without being emotionally involved in His drama of creation. The eyes that see God are honest and artless. He who is free from deceit may gaze on the Utter Innocence.

The aspiring devotee strives to be free from guile and crookedness. To regain the shahja or natural state of his true being he makes himself as open and candid as the sun. Master never gives up on anyone. He promises us more than the moon and the stars, and without even meeting him in the flesh, because of his sincerity and straightforwardness, we know we can trust him. He knows that the cosmic law will see to it that all injustices are rectified; it is unnecessary and presumptuous to attempt to hasten its workings or to determine their form.

Retribution at the hands of the immutable law of karma has for its proper and far-seeing purpose the eventual spiritual redemption of the sinner. Even if justice does not seem to prevail, the karmic law will not fail to balance the scale.

Evil persons, after death, go to astral realms where they are not given the same freedom of those who are good. I have created all things out of one portion of myself. He is in all things pantheistically, and he is the first and best of all things. In the tenth chapter he names with great particularity sixty-six classes of things in which he is always the first: the first of elephants, horses, trees, kings, heroes, etc. The late Dr.

Zeus is the head and Zeus the centre. Let us notice a few examples of the alleged parallels more particularly. In Chapter IX. Even if there were no pantheistic differential at the foundation of these utterances, it would not be at all strange if exhortations to an all-embracing devotion should thus in each case be made to cover all the daily acts of life.

But aside from this there is a wide difference in the fundamental ideas which these passages express. But Krishna identifies the giver with the receiver, and Arjuna is taught to regard the gift itself as an act of God. Even those the devotees of other gods, who worship in faith, they worship me in ignorance. He is to refer all his daily acts to the Infinite as the real actor, his own personal ego being ignored. It could give comfort only to the evil-doer who desired to shift his personal responsibility.

Let us consider another alleged resemblance. The one was cold philosophy, the other was experience, fellowship, gratitude, filial love. What pantheism taught was that God cannot be known practically—that He is without limitations or conditions that we can distinguish Him from our finiteness only by divesting our conception of Him of all that we are wont to predicate of ourselves. He is subject to no such limitations as good or evil. I am the Vedic rite, I am the sacrifice, I am food, I am sacred formula, I am immortality, I am also death; also the latent cause and the manifest effect.

This is the God whom the Bhagavad Gita proclaims. It is rest in the sense of extinction; it is death; while that which Christ promises is eternal Life with unending and rapturous activity, with ever-growing powers of fellowship and of love. Take another alleged parallel. Chapter VI. Now, in view of the great plausibility of the parallels which are thus presented to the public—parallels whose subtle fallacy the mass of readers are almost sure to overlook—one can hardly exaggerate the importance of thoroughly sifting the philosophy that underlies them, and especially on the part of those who are, or are to become, the defenders of the truth.

I recall an instance in which an honored pastor had made such extravagant use of these New Testament expressions that some of his co-presbyters raised the question of a trial for pantheism.

But it is one thing to employ strong terms of devotional feeling, as is often done, especially in prayer, and quite another to frame theories and philosophies, and present them as accurate statements of truth. Paul in his most ecstatic language never gives any hint of extinction, but, on the contrary, he magnifies the conception of a separate, conscious, ever-growing personality, living and rejoicing in Divine fellowship for evermore.

In the New Testament the expressions of our union with Christ are often reversed: instead of speaking of Christ as abiding in the hearts and lives of his people, they are sometimes said to abide in Him, and that not in the sense of absorption.

The essential hope of the Gospel is that those who believe in Christ shall never die, that even their mortal bodies shall be raised in his image, and that they shall be like Him and shall abide in his presence. It only remains to be said that, whatever may be the similarities of expression between this Bible of pantheism and that of Christianity, however they may agree in the utterance of worthy ethical maxims, that which most broadly differentiates the Christian faith from Hindu philosophy is the salient presentation of great fundamental truths which are found in the Word of God alone.

Divinity does not here become the mere charioteer of human effort, for the purpose of coaching it in the duties of caste and prompting it to fight out its destiny by its own valor. Christ is our expiation, takes our place, for our sakes becomes poor that we through his poverty may become rich. What a boon to all fakirs and merit-makers of the world if they could feel that that law of righteousness which they are striving to work out by mortifications and self-tortures had been achieved for them by the Son of God, and that salvation is a free gift!

This is something that can be apprehended alike by the philosopher and by the unlettered masses of men.

Another great truth found in our Scriptures is that the pathway by which the human soul returns to God is not the way of knowledge in the sense of philosophy, but the way of intelligent confidence and loving trust.

This has been the vain effort of Hindu speculation for ages. The author of the Nyaya philosophy assumed that all evil springs from misapprehension, and that the remedy is to be found in correct methods of investigation, guided by skilfully arranged syllogisms. This has been in all ages the chief characteristic of speculative Hinduism. And the Bhagavad Gita furnishes one of its very best illustrations. It is a reaching after oneness with the deity by introspection and metaphysical analysis.

It is not practical knowledge; it is not a belief unto righteousness. Faith is not an act of the brain merely, but of the whole moral nature.

The wisdom of self must be laid aside, self-righteousness cast into the dust, the pride and rebellion of the will surrendered, and the whole man become as a little child.

This is the way of knowledge that can be made experimental; this is the knowledge that is unto eternal life. Another great differential of the New Testament is found in its true doctrine of divine co-operation with the human will. Our personality is not destroyed that the absolute may take its place, but the two act together. Over against this the Gospel presents the doctrine of co-operative grace, which instead of crippling our human energies arouses them to their highest and best exertion.

It imparts the greatest encouragement, the truest inspiration. We notice but one more out of many points of contrast between the doctrines of the Hindu and the Christian Bibles, viz. I am aware that in the earlier chapters of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna urges Arjuna to valiant activity on the battle-field, but that is for a special purpose, viz. It is wholly foreign to Hindu philosophy; it is even contradictory.

The author of the poem, who seems to be aware of the inconsistency of arousing Arjuna to the mighty activities of the battle-field, and at the same time indoctrinating him in the spirit of a dead and nerveless asceticism, struggles hard with the awkward task of bridging the illogical chasm with three chapters of mystification. But we take the different chapters as they stand, and in their obvious meaning. Holding the body, neck, and head straight and unmoved, perfectly determined, and not working in any direction, but as if beholding the end of his own nose, with his heart in supreme peace, devoid of fear, with thought controlled and heart in me as the supreme goal, he remains.

Who can imagine Paul spending all those years of opportunity in sitting on a leopard skin, watching the end of his nose instead of turning the world upside down! The same spirit which brought Christ from heaven to earth sent Paul out over the earth. He was not even content to work on old foundations, but regarding himself as under sentence of death he longed to make the most of his votive life, to bear the torch of the truth into all realms of darkness.

He was ready for chains and imprisonment, for perils of tempests or shipwreck, or robbers, or infuriate mobs, or death itself. In a word, Christ and his kingdom displaced the power of evil. He could do all things through Christ who strengthened him.

Nor was the peace which he felt and which he commended to others the peace of mere negative placidity and indifference. It was loving confidence and trust.