Start with this first lesson, from the Spiritual primer. Do not merely boast that you have mastered the Bhagavad Gita having read it a hundred times over, and learnt by rote all the slokas with all the commentaries so far written upon them. Among all the millions who have taught the Gita, Arjuna alone had the Vishvarupa Darshana, the realization that this Universe is but a partial manifestation of His immeasurable glory; why is it that these greatest Pundits had no such experience? Realisation of that reality can come only to the aspirant who deserves it. Arjuna had reached the highest stage of surrender when the teaching started and during the process, he had unexcelled ekagrata or concentration. No wonder he was blessed.

Unless one has the same degree of surrender, the same yearning and the same concentration, how can one expect the result that Arjuna attained? It is no easy path, this path of saranagati, of prapatti, that the Gita lays down. The seed that is dried in the sun will sprout when planted in the soil; it has Janana (birth) and Marana (death); the cycle of birth and death cannot be got rid of by study and scholarship. Most Sadhakas are like the dried seed only. But, Arjuna was not a dried seed; he was a fried seed only. He was Gudakesa, who had mastered the senses. He had repelled the advances of Urvashi, whom he defeated, by his attitude as a son towards his mother.

For all who seek to cleanse the mind and climb upwards to the realm of spiritual bliss where ‘this’ and ‘that’ are discovered of the Name is the most effective Sadhana. (SSS Vol. 6, pp. 46-47)