In Chap­ter II of the Bha­gavad-Gita, San­jaya nar­rates the dia­logue between Arju­na and Krish­na amidst the bat­tle­field. Arju­na, over­whelmed by com­pas­sion and grief at the thought of fight­ing his revered elders, such as Bhish­ma and Drona, con­fess­es his inabil­i­ty to engage in the bat­tle, despite its hon­or and duty aspects. He con­sid­ers it bet­ter to live on beg­gar’s bread with loved ones than to achieve vic­to­ry stained with their blood, reveal­ing his moral and emo­tion­al tur­moil over the war­fare that pits him against his kin and men­tors.

Krish­na responds by address­ing Arju­na’s doubts and sor­row, empha­siz­ing the eter­nal nature of the soul and the tran­sient aspect of bod­i­ly exis­tence. He intro­duces the con­cept that the soul is eter­nal, nev­er born, and nev­er dying, unaf­fect­ed by phys­i­cal harm or death. Krish­na argues that one’s duty in their role, espe­cial­ly for a war­rior like Arju­na, is to engage in law­ful com­bat. The sor­row and hes­i­ta­tion that Arju­na expe­ri­ences are due to his focus on the tem­po­ral, per­ish­able nature of the body, rather than under­stand­ing the imper­ish­able soul’s eter­nal essence. Krish­na encour­ages Arju­na to per­form his duty with­out attach­ment to the results, there­by intro­duc­ing the con­cept of “Nishka­ma Kar­ma” (action with­out desire for the fruits of action) as a means to achieve spir­i­tu­al lib­er­a­tion.

Krish­na fur­ther crit­i­cizes those who adhere strict­ly to the let­ter of the scrip­tures for mate­r­i­al gains and argues for a life of action dri­ven by right­eous­ness and duty, not by the desire for rewards. He posits that true wis­dom and lib­er­a­tion come from detach­ment from the dual­i­ties of life, like plea­sure and pain, and an unyield­ing devo­tion to the path of right action.

The dia­logue tran­si­tions into a deep­er philo­soph­i­cal dis­cus­sion where Krish­na explains the prin­ci­ples of yoga as a path to real­iz­ing the eter­nal essence of the soul, con­trast­ing it with the tran­sient nature of the phys­i­cal world. This yog­ic path leads to peace and lib­er­a­tion, marked by equa­nim­i­ty in the face of life’s dual­i­ties. He describes the sage who has achieved this state as being detached, self-con­tent, and stead­fast in med­i­ta­tion, unaf­fect­ed by desire or the sen­su­al plea­sures of the world.

Through this con­ver­sa­tion, Krish­na seeks to restore Arju­na’s resolve by pro­vid­ing him with a broad­er spir­i­tu­al con­text for his duties as a war­rior, mov­ing his per­spec­tive from the imme­di­ate dilem­ma to the eter­nal dhar­ma (right­eous path) that gov­erns the cos­mos and the soul’s jour­ney through count­less life­times. This chap­ter sets the foun­da­tion for the rest of the Gita’s teach­ings on dhar­ma, yoga, and the nature of real­i­ty.