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PREFACE
There are others who hold forth that no man can go to heaven without placing his faith in Jesus Christ, the one Son of God. We often hear people say, “There cannot be such a sage or seer or prophet again.” But all this is nothing but blind, irrational orthodoxy. The essence perceived by all true sages is the same. Its universality makes the Geeta unique among the eminent sacred works of the entire world. That also makes it a yardstick by which the veracity of other holy books can be tested and judged. So the Geeta is that touchstone that vindicates the substance of truth in other scriptures and also resolves disputes arising from their sometimes incompatible or even contradictory assertions.
As it has been pointed cut, almost all holy books abound in provisions for worldly life and sustenance, and also in directives for religious rites and ceremonies. There are also introduced into them-in order to make them more attractive-sensational and even dreadful accounts of what ought or ought not to be done. It is so unfortunate that people blindly accept all these superficial matters as the “essence” of dharm, forgetting that regulations and modes of worship that have been laid down for the conduct and sustenance of physical life are bound to undergo change with place, time, and situation. This really is behind all our communal and religious disharmony. The uniqueness of the Geeta is that it rises above temporal questions and reveals the dynamic way by which man may achieve perfection of the Self and final absolution. There is not a single verse in the whole composition that is concerned with sustenance of physical life.
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