http://seminary.bhaktivedantaacademy.com/classes/bhagavad-gita-thematic

Given in Bhaktivedanta Academy, Sridham Mayapur, November 2011-April 2012

The following are lecture notes briefly delineating its contents.

• When the living entity is on the same platform with the Lord, he can be involved there. When one appreciates the Lord's activities and pastimes, they can participate. Other spiritual practitioners are fearful.
• Impersonalists may get liberated, but it is always temporary because the living entity cannot function without a body, either material or spiritual.

• One is only beyond the material when one is solidly situated on the spiritual platform.
• One becomes situated wherever one's understanding lies - the materialist in the material endeavor, the impersonalist in temporary liberation, the devotee in the Lord's pastimes.
• By seeing the universal form the impersonalists can get a glimpse of the greatness of the Lord.
• Christians have all kinds of weird concepts about what will happen after death and how will we get to heaven in this body.
• By identifying with the body, or denying its existence as impersonalists, one always remains fearful.
• Attachment is the karmi, fear is the impersonalist, anger is Buddhist. We should have a game "Angry Buddhists.'' Why mess with birds if one can shoot Buddhists?
• 35:40 Materialists are fearful of losing material relationships. Impersonalists are fearful of gaining spiritual relationships.
• 36:20 How can we be sure that our relationship with Krishna is developing? Knowledge and detachment are symptoms of advancement.
• We can only approach the Lord through authority and disciplic succession.
• 53:00 To be a materialist is a prohibited action.
• There is no reaction doing various activities in Krishna's service, but from not serving Krsna there is always a reaction.
• One may seemingly take subordinate position to demigods, but one still feels that one is in control. Such attitude does not work with the Supreme Lord. So those in the modes of passion and ignorance tend towards the worship of demigods.
• It takes a very long time to become good at karma and yoga.
• It is not actually proper to worship just one or few demigods and not others. And there is 33 million of them.
• People who worship demigods are sense gratifyers. Those who do not worship anyone are animals.
• Are there traffic jams on the razor's edge of the spiritual life?
• Full surrender is not the external activity, it is the mood.
• Anyone in the four authorized Vaishnava lines is on the proper path, but they have different destinations within the spiritual world.