The wound that cannot be healed by external application of balms has to be cured by internal remedies. So Krishna prodded Arjuna with queries. "Why do you weep like a coward? Is it because, Bhishma, Drona and the rest are about to be killed? No; you weep because you feel they are 'your men'. It is egoism that makes you weep. People weep not for the dead, but because the dead are 'theirs'. Have you not killed until now many who were 'not yours?' You never shed any tears for them. Today you weep, since you are under the delusion that these whom you see before you are somehow 'yours' in a special way. When you sleep, you are unaffected by this feeling of "I" and "mine", so you are unaware what happens to your body or the bodies of these 'your men' or to your possessions, items which you carefully remember while awake. 'Mine' is the possessive case of 'I' and so it comes in its trail. The fundamental ignorance, my dear fool, is the identification of yourself with something that is not you; viz, the body. Deha is An-aatma; you believe that it is the Atma. What a topsy-turvy bit of knowledge is this! To cure this A-jnana, I must administer the medicine of Jnana itself."

Thus, Krishna started giving him, in the very first instance, the most effective drug, Jnana. This is detailed from the eleventh sloka of the second chapter. This is a key sloka for all students of the Geetha. Krishna condemns outright two objections that were haunting Arjuna for long, saying that the destruction of the body does not mean the destruction of the Atma and that he is grieving for those he need not grieve for. "Prajnaa-vaadaam-scha bhaashase: You talk like a wise man. You say this is Dharma and the other is Adharma, as if you know how to distinguish them," said Krishna.

Here attention has to be paid to one fact. Arjuna is suffering from two types of delusion: (1) Ordinary and (2) Out of the ordinary. To confuse the body with oneself and pine for the body as if something has happened to one is the ordinary delusion. To discard one's own Dharma - (in this case, the Dharma of a Kshatriya) - as A-dharma is a delusion out of the ordinary. Krishna destroys the first and removes the second. The first is dealt with from the 12th to the 30th sloka of the second chapter; Krishna has to tackle the second as a special problem and explain in eight slokas the idea of Swa-dharma or His own Dharma to Arjuna. These are collectively called Dharmashtakas. Swa-dharma does not bind and produce further birth; it can lead on to liberation; it has to be done as Karmayoga, without attachment to the fruit. Towards the close of the second chapter, there is also the description of the successful aspirant who has steadied himself in a purified intellect, the Sthithaprajna.