A Comprehensive Guide to Bhagavad-Gita with Literal Translation Quotes

“Completing our tenure in one body, we enter another, just as one gives up worn clothes and puts on new ones [2.23]. Only an excessively fashion-conscious person anguishes over the loss of a mere shirt or dress. So in illusion, we lose ourselves in grief over the inevitable change of body, forgetting that the body merely garbs an eternal soul. The irony of mundane life is that for all our vanity, we drastically underestimate ourselves. We think ourselves mortal, when we are truly immortal. We endure painful limits to our knowledge and joy, yet as eternal parts of God, Kṛṣṇa, each one of us is entitled to innate and limitless awareness and joy. We need only claim them appropriately [6.20-22]”
― H.D. Goswami, A Comprehensive Guide to Bhagavad-Gita with Literal Translation

“Throughout the Gita, Kṛṣṇa explains that even in this life, within our present body, we can rise to pure consciousness, know God and live in a state of spiritual liberation. At present, our material desires conceal our true awareness [3.39]. Thus, by our decision to embrace or reject spiritual life, we act as our own friend or enemy; we alone elevate or degrade ourselves [6.5-6]. Kṛṣṇa emphasizes that we are responsible for our own condition. The Lord does not force us to do good or evil, and thus is not responsible for the joy and sorrow we create in our lives [5.14-15]. We have free will.”
― H.D. Goswami, A Comprehensive Guide to Bhagavad-Gita with Literal Translation