VIII: 7

Chapter 8, Verse 7

"Therefore, Arjuna, remember me
At all times, do your duty, and fight.
With your whole mind and heart
Set upon me constantly,
You will come to me.
Never doubt this."

Swami Chidbhavananda:

We all are to discharge the duty that is ours.  Some neglect or give up their earthly duties on the plea that they have taken to the spiritual life.  Others excuse themselves from spiritual practices on the plea that in the midst of their own worldly engagements, they have neither the time nor the inclination for anything else.  Their view is that the sacred and the secular are incompatible.  There is just not enough time for both.

Krishna's message is to sanctify and consecrate the entire life.  So-called secular life may be transformed into service of God.  In this way all of our life becomes profoundly enriched.

Sri Ekanth Easwaran:

When you really give it your best shot all day long, going to bed at night is a great comfort.  No waterbed can ever give the kind of rest that follows a day of doing your darnedest to live a spiritual life.  Then, when you lie down, close your eyes and give your whole mind to the Mantra, it becomes very much like dropping off to sleep in the arms of God.

Falling asleep in the Mantra means that it will go on in your consciousness all night long, nursing the wounds of the day and strengthening your spirit for the upcoming dance the next day.  Dance for God, and you will be given all the health, strength and endurance you need.

Swami Satchidananda:

Now and then Krishna reminds us, "Don't give up.  Go to battle with the proper understanding; then you can win this war."  Here again he says, "Always keep your heart and mind absorbed in me; then you will surely come to me.  It's certain.  You will come to me."

Don't forget what this means.  Krishna is an experience, the experience of peace and tranquility.  That is God.  It is peace that is telling you, "Remember the goal of perfect peace, and fight your battles.  Then you will ultimately be in peace."  We can use all kinds of names and forms and symbols, but we are to remember that peace is our God.  We can't find it without living life with the proper understanding.  Krishna is saying in so many words, "I can't fight your battles for you.  I can only guide you."

A friend:

All experience is the culmination of reflected mirrors revealing our current state of consciousness to us.  Take none of what this speaks of in a literal sense.  The deeper teaching is through metaphor.  The battle is the tangle of our emotions.  With diligence and alertness, we can, through higher and higher understanding, disentangle from the reflections of the mind (the war) and the neutrality of peace is realized.  All awaken, because ultimately there is only here and now.

[When you say that all experience is the culmination of reflected mirrors revealing our current consciousness to ourselves and then mention the importance of disentangling from the emotions, is what you are getting at the importance of making our own unconscious proesses conscious through diligence and alertness to establish peace within?

Then we will no longer project unconscious contents outward on to others to compensate for not facing them in ourselves?

Minus these projections and their reflecting mirrors, we wake up?]

Friend:

That's it.  When we become too attached to the ephemeral and fleeting, we then identify with it and suffer.  We don't want to think that we are gods; we want to realize the One by bringing the subconscious into the conscious so that they are homogenized.  It is not about creating peace; it is about realizing the peace that eternally is, no matter what the form.  From our center, all of creation dances.