When one reads the Srimad Bhagavad Gita not as scripture alone but as a transcendental dialogue between cosmic consciousness and the individuated self, one begins to perceive its deeper logic — what may well be called the categorical imperative of existence itself.

At the heart of this dialogue lies a metaphysical premise: the advent of the micro-soul being — the jivatma or self — from the Paramatma, the generative super-energy that functions as the mother-father atom of all creation. The self, or soul-being, is thus a sub-atom, a carrier of condensed consciousness-energy, emanating from that supreme generative nucleus. It is this energy — the primal impulse of consciousness — that seeds all subsequent manifestations across the manifold planes of the universe.

The universe, in its multidimensional diversity, exhibits this energy through innumerable manifestations — in the mineral, vegetal, animal, and human forms. Among these, the humanoid represents not the culmination but the conscious theatre where cosmic morality begins to take form. Yet, before this stage — in that pristine state of the soul’s first emergence — there was neither the physicist’s “action and reaction,” nor the moralist’s “good and evil.” It was an era of nebulousness, when existence was not yet moralised, and energy merely was — unpolarised, unjudged, unmeasured.

However, as the cosmos unfolded and the play of energies diversified, the equivalence between cosmo-anthropology and theo-soul anthropology began to take shape. Since the human quest for meaning is inseparable from our spiritual lineage, our understanding of morality too arises from this soul-energetic inheritance. While there may be no empirical data to verify this genesis — for it transcends laboratory empiricism — the logic remains spiritually coherent.

In this scheme, every soul-being, as it took off from the generative atom, carried varying intensities of consciousness-energy. Some were more luminous, others more inert. This inequality of energy potential marked the first fissure — the cosmic genesis of action, reaction, and their consequential overreach. The inter-soul influence thus gave rise to the earliest moral dialectics — of benefic and baneful energies, of punya and paap.

From this doctrine of overreach — the effect of one soul-energy upon another — emerges the earliest architecture of ethics. It is here that the Bhagavad Gita and Kant’s categorical imperative intersect in philosophical harmony. Kant’s categorical imperative — that one must act only according to that maxim which can be universalised — is but a rational restatement of Krishna’s transcendental law: that action, when in harmony with dharma, is cosmically righteous, and when in disharmony, it is self-destructive.

In the battlefield of Kurukshetra, when Śrī Krishna exhorts Arjuna to rise, wield his bow, and act, He is not inciting violence — He is invoking the categorical imperative of cosmic balance. He declares that the moral measure of action lies not in personal sentiment but in alignment with the higher order of ṛta — the cosmic law. Thus, the Gita’s injunction is not a relativist ethic but a transcendental logic, in which the soul-being is called upon to act in consonance with the universal energy-field of righteousness.

Śrī Krishna’s counsel thus recognises that every human being is a composite of energies — some luminous, some dark. These energies are accumulated across epochs of existence, marshalled through experience, thought, and action. The Gita’s ethical philosophy therefore rests not on fear or reward, but on the inevitability of energetic consequence. Positive soul-energies nurture the good, leading to benefic outcomes, while negative energies perpetuate suffering — both being bound by the inexorable law of moral causality.

This is the Gita’s categorical imperative: that consciousness, once individuated, must act; and in acting, it cannot escape the law of consequence. The freedom of will granted to each soul-being is simultaneously its burden and its opportunity. For every choice is an energetic transaction with the universe, either harmonising or disturbing the balance. The Gita, in its divine pragmatism, tells us that to abstain from righteous action is itself an act of moral cowardice — a withdrawal from the cosmic duty of participating in the evolution of consciousness.

Śrī Krishna, enthroned on the transcendental plank of the Sahasrara — the thousand-petalled lotus of supreme awareness — stands as the prescient voice of cosmic reason. His words to Arjuna are neither theological sermon nor political counsel; they are metaphysical imperatives that uphold the eternal rhythm of creation. In this light, good and evil are not theological constructs but energetic polarities, perpetually seeking equilibrium.

In the human realm, therefore, ethics cannot be divorced from cosmology. The Gita’s moral law — that good must overcome the negative energies, de hors biological or emotional bonding — is not an injunction of faith but a statement of cosmic necessity. To act righteously is to align one’s micro-energy with the generative super-energy — to allow the soul’s luminous essence to overcome its own shadow.

In the end, the Bhagavad Gita offers not commandments but consciousness. Its categorical imperative is the inexorable law that every soul-being, by the very virtue of existence, must strive towards its original luminosity. The battle of Kurukshetra, then, is within — between the light and dark energies we have nurtured across lifetimes. To act in accordance with truth, courage, and detachment is to fulfil the highest cosmic duty — the duty to evolve.