A Conversation with Lord Krishna: Five Spiritual Questions of Arjuna

By Swami Bodhananda

At Kurukshetra, Arjuna engages his friend and charioteer, Lord Krishna, in dialogue, asking numerous crucial questions that press upon his mind and heart as he faces his kinsmen and teachers whom he is to kill in battle. Swami Bodhananda has selected five of Arjuna's most significant questions which thread through the Bhagavad Gita. Arjuna's questions are similar to those we might ask as we engage in meaningful interaction and face conflicting values. Like Arjuna, we argue, resist, run away, and make excuses – collapsing and falling short in responding to life's crises. But what if we acquired a unique type of knowledge that would form a foundation both transcending and encompassing all of life's dilemmas, serving as a broad basis for our decision-making? Swami Bodhananda illuminates Lord Krishna's Responses, which provide both solace and wisdom for our personal struggles in a demanding and relentlessly changing modern world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sambodh Publications
• Release date: May 12, 2024

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A Conversation with Lord Krishna: Five Spiritual Questions of Arjuna

By Swami Bodhananda

The book A Conversation with Lord Krishna: Five Spiritual Questions of Arjuna is an edited transcript of a discourse series given by Swami Bodhananda at the Bharatiya Temple of Lansing, Haslett, Michigan.

The lectures were Transcribed and edited by Dr. Raaman Anantaraman, and in Honor of the Inauguration of The Sambodh Center for Human Excellence, in Kalamazoo, 9 – 10 June 2007.

About the Author

Swami Bodhananda is the Spiritual Director and Founder of The Sambodh Center for Human Excellence. Swami Bodhananda is an accomplished teacher of Vedanta and meditation. Swamiji travels in India and the USA and lectures extensively. After completing a degree in economics, he set out in search of divine knowledge. Wandering in the Himalayas, Swami Bodhananda performed tapas for a long period of time. His erudition and insights, along with a rare combination of rational and mystic qualities, make him a captivating and engaging public speaker. He believes that the individual should became a nexus of activities, gathering the might and splendour of Spirit to awaken its fullness, dynamism and beauty, Swami Bodhananda shows the way for an individual to convert weaknesses into strengths, traps into transcendence, dreams into accomplishments, and individual desires into Nature's purpose and God's will.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 – Five Principles of Healthy Living

Chapter 2 – Arjuna’s Five Questions

Chapter 3 – Characteristics of a Person of Steady Wisdom (Response to Arjuna’s Question number 1)

Chapter 4 – Meditation and Activity (Response to Arjuna’s Question number 2)

Chapter 5 – Sin and its Origin (Response to Arjuna’s Question number 3)

Chapter 6 – Help in Our Spiritual Struggle (Response to Arjuna’s Question number 4)

Chapter 7 – The Nature of God (Response to Arjuna’s Question number 5)

Introduction

At Kurukshetra, Arjuna engages his friend and charioteer, Lord Krishna, in dialogue, asking numerous crucial questions that press upon his mind and heart as he faces his kinsmen and teachers whom he is to kill in battle. Swami Bodhananda has selected five of Arjuna's most significant questions which thread through the Bhagavad Gita. Arjuna's questions are similar to those we might ask as we engage in meaningful interaction and face conflicting values. Like Arjuna, we argue, resist, run away, and make excuses – collapsing and falling short in responding to life's crises. But what if we acquired a unique type of knowledge that would form a foundation both transcending and encompassing all of life's dilemmas, serving as a broad basis for our decision-making? Swami Bodhananda illuminates Lord Krishna's Responses, which provide both solace and wisdom for our personal struggles in a demanding and relentlessly changing modern world.

Chapter 2

Five Principles of Healthy Living

You may have heard me speak on this topic before. In spiritual matters, repetition is not superfluous; the message has to be heard again and again for it to become ingrained. Arjuna represents you and me. We all have questions about right and wrong, our identity, the ultimate purpose of life, where we come from, who our Creator is, our relationship with the Creator, and the like. But unlike many of us, Arjuna articulates these questions well, choosing the right words. He is a straightforward, honest, rational, thinking person, who is neither a confirmed devotee nor an