(Prabhupada's lecture - Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 2.1.4 – Delhi, November 7, 1973)
The Bhagavad-gītā begins, therefore, this self-realization. Dehino 'smin yathā dehe [Bg. 2.13]. Asmin dehe, this body, contains the dehī, really the proprietor. So such person, apaśyatām ātma-tattvam [SB 2.1.2], they are simply busy with all these things: body and children and wife and relationships. Dehāpatya-kalatrādiṣu [SB 2.1.4]. Because, through kalatra we increase. Strī means "which expands," strī. Strī, one accepts strī, wife, means to expand his relationship. As soon as I get one strī, one family becomes my father-in-law, and in relation to, I have got my family, and she has got her family. We combine together. Then boys, children. Then get them married. Increase. Increase relationship: "He is my brother-in-law, he is my father-in-law, he is my father, he is my brother, he is brother's brother-in-law, father's father-in-law..." Just like Arjuna was seeing. Oh, Arjuna was seeing like that: "How can I kill them? They are all my... " The same.
As ordinary man has got, so Arjuna was playing the ordinary man, just like. He was thinking, "Here is my brother-in-law, here is my brother, here's my nephew, here's my father-in-law, here's my grandfather. How can I kill them?" So... But they will be killed. Nobody can protect. But we are paśyann api na paśyati, that "I have my father; he was killed. He is gone, dead and gone. So I will be also dead and gone, and my son will be also dead and gone." So why we are depending on these things which will be dead and gone? Nobody will live. Nobody will live. Take big big leaders in our country or any country. They are absorbed in nationalism, cannot give up the post of prime ministership, presidentship or leadership. Even great leader like Gandhi. He was always... He got sva-rājya. I wrote him letter: "Mahatma Gandhi, you have got respect as a religious personality. If you..." (aside:) Don't bother, don't... "If you take preaching these things, what I am doing, preach Bhagavad-gītā... You are also lover of Bhagavad-gītā." No. Even after getting sva-rājya, he was implicated. Unless he was killed he would not leave it. Everyone has to leave it, voluntarily or by force, but they will not leave it voluntarily.