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The message of the first chapter of the Gita is this: The root cause of all sorrow and suffering in this world is our inability to deal with conflict.

“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil?”

— Epic...

This confusion of identity is the third type of conflict, the spiritual conflict. Unless we know who we are, what God is, and what our connection to that God is, we will never be able to completely resolve all of our material and mental conflicts. This is the central theme of the first chapter.