Acharya Prashant explains that the Bhagavad Gita is special because it is narrated in a very worldly and practical setting. It is not a guru sitting under a shady banyan tree in the tranquil silence of a holy jungle, sermonizing to a pliant, obedient, and willing student. Instead, the setting is a real-life one, a war chariot, not a temple. There are armies around, not silent, idyllic trees and cute animals. The discourse is not academic at all. The one being spoken to, Arjun, is a biased, emotional, and unwilling listener. He is not a keen student but a reluctant one, almost wrestling with Krishna. The outcome of their conversation will actively decide the fate of many million residents of the kingdom. Life and death depend on this discourse in the literal sense, not just figuratively. Therefore, the discourse has so much potency. Because Arjun is such a tough nut to crack, Krishna is forced to be at his best—not merely godly, but at his tactical best. His persuasion has a cutting-edge mastery. The words proceeding from Krishna must be of the highest intensity and potency. This situation reflects the challenge of a real guru, who has to deal with uninterested and sometimes undeserving students. The task of the teacher is not to polish an already existing gold ornament, which is grooming, but to take an ordinary piece of metal, like iron, and turn it into gold. This is what Krishna is doing on the battlefield. The Gita is an epic within an epic. It is real. As long as Arjun lives within us, caught in our flesh, blood, tears, emotions, and past, we will continue to need Krishna. The Gita is immortal because we forget our dharma, and it is ignorance that stands between us and our duty. Krishna had to come up with hundreds of verses because the task was to convince someone to fight and kill his own kith and kin. Ultimately, it is not Krishna's persuasiveness or erudition that wins the day, but his love that wins Arjun over.