“Coward” - what makes someone a coward? Well, in this case at least, it’s when deep inside you know you should do something, but your mind keeps coming up with compelling excuses why it’s not the “best” thing to do.

Krishna calls Arjun a coward straight off the bat. Arjun counters that he would rather be ridiculed as a “coward” than do the wrong thing.

“Right & Wrong” - Who knows what is right and what is wrong? To oversimplify: “Right” is what you should do, what you are responsible to do. But that’s quite confusing isn’t it.? YES. I feel happy to know that the Hindu way of looking at the world does not pretend to specify clear cut rights and wrongs. What is right in one case for one person might be wrong in another case for another.

Arjun doesn’t want to be a coward; he want’s to do the right thing - but he can’t figure out what’s right and what’s wrong.

“Maya / Confusion / Illusion” - Krishna’s tactic on helping Arjun out of his confusion is to remove his confusion at the root. He immediately begins discussing life and death. (Don’t forget they’re talking on a battlefield... about to become the home of a lot of death.)

“You grieve for those who are beyond grief” ...what a great quote.

Death is an illusion. No one and nothing ever ceases to exist; Although everything always changes from one state to another - This idea is completely consistent with what we are capable of observing in the physics of the natural world. Energy is never lost, but is constantly transformed.

Pain and Suffering - Although death is an illusion it’s still a painful illusion. But Krishna says that one should put pain into perspective. Pain comes and goes, the results of our right or wrong actions linger on far longer than the pain or pleasure they initially bring.

That summarizes the gist of how Krishna responded to Arjun’s dejection. The rest of the chapter - maybe even the rest of the book, in a sense - elaborates on it: Krishna tells Arjun that his duty in this case is to fight and kill (to know why you need Mahabharat backstory). And that even when one’s duty causes suffering - even to the utmost point: death - one still must carry out one’s duty.