Arjuna's Argument at Kurukshetra and Sri Krishna's Answer - Significance of the Gita as a Synthesis of Yoga

Significance of the Gita as a Synthesis of Yoga

The supreme significance of the Gita lies in the fact that in no text of yoga-shastra or the science of yoga do we find such a perfect system of karma yoga known to man in the past, and that it is the greatest gospel of spiritual works ever yet given to the race. The great basics of karma yoga are laid down in this text with an incomparable mastery and the infallible eye of an assured experience. It is true that at its close, we do find the possibilities of further development.

The yoga of the Gita is a synthesis of yoga, and although it aims at utilizing action as a constant method, and even though it leads to highest status of consciousness in which the perfection of action and fullness of spiritual action is attained, it synthesizes both in its methods and in its results a progressive synthesis of action, knowledge and devotion; and this synthesis is so wide and flexible that although it works out the full course of yoga by establishing the path of works as the startingpoint, it admits that even the path of knowledge or the path of devotion can also be an equally effective starting-point. In fact, as Sri Krishna points out in course of his teaching, every path of yoga which has been developed is His path, and that the old or new path, depending upon how the

seeker seeks the highest union with the divine consciousness, the divine consciousness in response answers suitably and provides the right method of progression.