# Source-mapped topic studies Publisher: Dharma Open School by Aniruddha Dāsa Edition: school research edition Content last modified: 2026-08-26 Scope: 14 research-edition inquiry guides. Reuse: Free to download for personal study and teaching preparation. No separate open licence is asserted for editorial research-edition text; retain provenance and check permissions before redistribution or adaptation. --- ## What does the Gītā distinguish from the changing body? Begin with the text’s distinction between the embodied knower and bodily change. Do not jump from the word “self” to every later claim about identity; establish what each passage actually adds. **Keep this distinction visible:** “Body”, “embodied one”, “knower of the field” and “Supreme knower” are related expressions, not interchangeable labels. A careful study maps their grammatical and argumentative roles. ### Source trail - **BG 2.13:** Introduces continuity through bodily stages and another embodiment. - **BG 2.20:** Collects negations about birth, death and destruction. - **BG 13.2:** Distinguishes field and knower and introduces a further theological claim. ### Inquiry - What changes in each passage? - What is said not to change? - Which conclusion is text and which is inference? **Practice:** Draw a two-column map: claims about the body and claims about the knower. Add the exact verse beside every line. **Teach back:** Explain the distinction in 90 seconds without using the word “soul”, then reopen the verses and correct your language. --- ## How does Kṛṣṇa identify Himself within the dialogue? Study first-person claims in sequence rather than collecting honorifics. Ask what Kṛṣṇa says about appearance, relation to the world, knowledge and the origin of what exists. **Keep this distinction visible:** A speaker’s self-description, Arjuna’s response and a commentator’s theological synthesis are three layers. Keep them visible so conviction does not erase provenance. ### Source trail - **BG 4.6–8:** Connects divine appearance with protection, correction and dharma. - **BG 7.7:** States a relation of dependence using the image of gems on a thread. - **BG 10.8:** Begins the four-verse core with a claim about origin and response. ### Inquiry - Who is speaking? - What first-person claim is made? - How does the listener respond? **Practice:** Build a claim–evidence table using only first-person statements and their immediate context. **Teach back:** Present one claim, its textual evidence and one limit on what that passage alone establishes. --- ## What actions, dispositions and relationships constitute bhakti in the Gītā? Treat bhakti as a patterned orientation expressed through remembering, offering, worship, dependence and action - not as a mood word detached from the dialogue. **Keep this distinction visible:** The text uses related terms such as bhakti, bhaj, man-manā and mad-yājī in different grammatical settings. A translation may smooth those differences; the study notebook should preserve them. ### Source trail - **BG 9.26:** Links a simple offering with bhakti and the person who offers. - **BG 9.34:** Sequences attention, devotion, worship and orientation. - **BG 12.6–7:** Describes practices and divine response in relationship. ### Inquiry - What does the person do? - What inner orientation is named? - What response is promised or described? **Practice:** Turn each action word into an observable weekly practice while keeping the verse reference attached. **Teach back:** Explain why bhakti in these passages is more specific than “feeling spiritual”. --- ## Why is karma more than a slogan about consequences? The Gītā’s discussion moves among action, duty, attachment, sacrifice, inaction and the result of action. Begin by identifying which problem a verse is answering. **Keep this distinction visible:** Karma can name action, prescribed action or the binding consequence of action depending on context. “Do your duty” is therefore not a complete explanation. ### Source trail - **BG 2.47:** Distinguishes entitlement to action from control of its fruits. - **BG 3.9:** Contrasts action for sacrifice with action that binds. - **BG 4.17:** Requires inquiry into action, wrong action and inaction. ### Inquiry - Which sense of action is active? - What produces bondage? - What relationship to results is prescribed? **Practice:** Analyse one ordinary decision under four headings: action, motive, attachment to result and responsibility. **Teach back:** Answer “Does the Gītā say results do not matter?” in two sourced sentences. --- ## How does the text connect continuity, remembrance and future embodiment? Study the argument as several connected claims rather than treating a single verse as the whole doctrine. Bodily continuity, another embodiment, consciousness at death and destinations appear in different contexts. **Keep this distinction visible:** A comparison can support continuity without explaining every mechanism. Later passages add conditions and destinations; label each addition rather than reading it backward into the first verse. ### Source trail - **BG 2.13:** Uses bodily stages as the near side of a comparison. - **BG 8.6:** Connects remembrance at death with a reached state. - **BG 14.14–15:** Relates death under different guṇas to differing destinations. ### Inquiry - What continuity is asserted? - What condition is added? - What mechanism remains unexplained here? **Practice:** Create a three-verse argument map and mark every arrow “explicit” or “inferred”. **Teach back:** Explain the doctrine without pretending BG 2.13 answers every question about the process. --- ## How do sattva, rajas and tamas explain patterned experience and action? The three guṇas are presented as qualities of material nature that bind, produce characteristic knowledge and action, and can be observed without reducing a person to a permanent label. **Keep this distinction visible:** A diagnostic description is not a licence for social ranking. The text also describes one who sees the modes operating and is not destabilised by their appearance. ### Source trail - **BG 14.5:** Introduces the three guṇas as arising from prakṛti and binding the embodied. - **BG 14.17–18:** Connects the modes with characteristic results and trajectories. - **BG 14.22–25:** Describes a response that is not simply another personality label. ### Inquiry - What quality is described? - What effect follows? - What response transcends simple identification? **Practice:** Observe one decision for a week and record clarity, agitation and inertia as changing influences - not identities. **Teach back:** Use one example to explain the modes without labelling another person. --- ## What makes learning from a teacher different from collecting information? The Gītā places approach, inquiry and service beside the teacher’s seeing of truth. The learner is neither passive nor self-authorising: questions and disciplined reception work together. **Keep this distinction visible:** A textual description of learning does not verify every person who claims authority. Identity, lineage, conduct, competence and accountability require evidence beyond a title. ### Source trail - **BG 4.34:** Connects approach, inquiry and service with instruction by seers. - **BG 13.8:** Includes approach to a teacher within a wider discipline of knowledge. - **BG 18.63:** Shows instruction followed by reflection and responsible choice. ### Inquiry - What is asked of the learner? - What qualifies the teacher in the verse? - Where does responsibility remain? **Practice:** Rewrite one vague question into a precise inquiry with context, prior study and the decision it affects. **Teach back:** Explain why inquiry and service need not be opposites. --- ## Where does vocal remembrance appear in the Gītā’s practice language? The Gītā repeatedly describes glorifying, remembering and speaking of Kṛṣṇa. A Gauḍīya study can connect this with a wider theology of the holy name while clearly labelling which claims come from later or other sources. **Keep this distinction visible:** The Gītā passages provide a foundation for constant glorification and remembrance; a complete doctrine of nāma-tattva requires additional identified texts and teachers. ### Source trail - **BG 9.14:** Describes continual glorification and disciplined devotion. - **BG 10.9:** Describes devotees speaking and enlightening one another. - **BG 10.25:** Names japa among sacrifices in a list of representative excellences. ### Inquiry - What vocal act is named? - Is it individual or shared? - What further doctrine would require another source? **Practice:** Keep a seven-day record of a short vocal practice: time, attention barrier and one adjustment. **Teach back:** State what these verses support and one nāma claim they do not establish alone. --- ## How are divine energy, material nature and difficulty of crossing described? Māyā should be studied as part of the text’s account of divine energies and material nature, not as a casual synonym for “nothing is real”. The world’s operations and the difficulty of crossing are both affirmed. **Keep this distinction visible:** Illusion, material nature and divine potency overlap in some teaching contexts but are not identical English concepts. Preserve the Sanskrit term and its immediate verbs. ### Source trail - **BG 7.14:** Describes a divine guṇa-made māyā as difficult to cross and names a response. - **BG 9.10:** Places material nature under divine supervision in cosmic activity. - **BG 18.61:** Uses māyā in an image of beings moved as if mounted on a machine. ### Inquiry - Whose potency is named? - What action does it perform? - What way of crossing or reorientation is given? **Practice:** Replace three casual uses of “illusion” with the more exact relationship described by the cited verse. **Teach back:** Explain why māyā does not mean that lived experience is simply nonexistent. --- ## How is the accompanying and governing presence within described? The Gītā describes an inner witness, permitter, supporter and knower, while also distinguishing the individual knower. Map each title to its verse before combining them into a systematic account. **Keep this distinction visible:** The individual self and the Supreme Self are discussed in close relation. Similar vocabulary does not erase the distinction the passages themselves make. ### Source trail - **BG 13.23:** Collects the titles witness, permitter, supporter, enjoyer and Supreme Self. - **BG 15.15:** Links presence in the heart with memory, knowledge and forgetting. - **BG 18.61:** Describes the Lord situated in the heart of all beings. ### Inquiry - Which title is used? - What relation to the individual is described? - What action is attributed? **Practice:** Create a five-title glossary and attach only the function supplied by its immediate verse. **Teach back:** Explain the distinction between “knower of this field” and “knower in all fields”. --- ## What movement does śaraṇāgati describe in the Gītā? Surrender appears as taking refuge, reorienting action and trusting a promised response. Read the culminating instruction with the dialogue that prepares it, not as an isolated slogan. **Keep this distinction visible:** Surrender is not permission for coercion by another human being. The object, speaker, promise and preceding deliberation remain essential to the passage. ### Source trail - **BG 7.14:** Connects taking refuge with crossing divine māyā. - **BG 18.62:** Directs refuge with one’s whole being and names peace and destination. - **BG 18.66:** Gives the culminating refuge instruction and promise. ### Inquiry - Who is the object of refuge? - What is relinquished or reoriented? - What response is promised? **Practice:** Choose one contested decision and distinguish responsibility, control of outcome and the refuge orientation you can actually practise. **Teach back:** Explain surrender without using it to remove another person’s agency. --- ## How does the Gītā move from inevitability to preparation? The text treats death as certain for the born, but it does not stop at inevitability. Attention, remembrance, action and knowledge shape its practical response to mortality. **Keep this distinction visible:** A statement about inevitability is not a dismissal of grief, medical care or ethical responsibility. Read philosophical claims and human context together. ### Source trail - **BG 2.27:** States the cycle of death for the born and birth for the dead. - **BG 8.5:** Connects remembrance at death with destination. - **BG 8.6:** Generalises the relation between remembered state and what is reached. ### Inquiry - What fact is asserted? - What practice is prescribed? - What pastoral question remains? **Practice:** Write a one-page mortality reflection with one source claim, one personal response and one concrete responsibility today. **Teach back:** Offer a two-minute explanation that leaves room for grief rather than arguing against it. --- ## What is liberation from, and what positive condition is described? Mokṣa and brahma-nirvāṇa appear alongside freedom from binding action, inner steadiness, equality and devotion. Avoid reducing liberation to mere disappearance or escape. **Keep this distinction visible:** Different passages emphasise freedom, realisation, peace, devotion or destination. A systematic conclusion should show which verse supplies each element. ### Source trail - **BG 2.51:** Connects relinquishing action-fruits with freedom from birth’s bondage. - **BG 5.24–26:** Describes inner happiness, self-mastery and brahma-nirvāṇa. - **BG 18.54:** Describes brahma-bhūta equanimity and entry into higher bhakti. ### Inquiry - What bondage ends? - What positive capacity appears? - How is devotion related? **Practice:** Make a freedom-for/freedom-from table and attach a verse to every cell. **Teach back:** Explain why liberation in these passages is more than “getting out”. --- ## How does humility function as knowledge and communication? Humility is listed among the qualities of knowledge and divine character, and it also appears in disciplined speech. It is not self-erasure; it changes how truth is pursued and expressed. **Keep this distinction visible:** Humility does not require accepting falsehood, abuse or manufactured status. Pair freedom from pride with truthfulness, courage and nonviolence from the surrounding lists. ### Source trail - **BG 13.8:** Begins the qualities of knowledge with freedom from pride and pretence. - **BG 16.1–3:** Places humility among a broad set of divine qualities. - **BG 17.15:** Defines discipline of speech through truth, benefit and non-agitation. ### Inquiry - What is absent? - What positive conduct accompanies it? - How does speech reveal it? **Practice:** Rewrite one corrective statement so it remains true, useful, non-agitating and specific. **Teach back:** Explain the difference between humility and making oneself falsely small. ---