Rudolf Steiner opens the first of the five lectures on the Bhagavad Gita and the letters of Paul (given during the founding days of the Anthroposophical Society), placing the Gita and the new Anthroposophical movement within the context of an evolution of consciousness divided into historical periods. For Steiner, the present is an era of increasing opportunities for conscious spiritual knowledge, within a broader framework of rapidly growing consciousness of darkness. While his lectures generally describe - with some remarkable digressions - the first and second historical periods after the disappearance of Atlantis, they focus more intensely on the three periods that began from the third millennium until today.

Steiner sees Krishna as a great spiritual teacher and the Bhagavad Gita as a preparation, albeit abstract, for the coming of the Christ impulse as a living incarnation of the world, law, and devotion, represented by the three Hindu streams: the Vedas, the Sankhya, and the Yoga. For him, the epic poem of the Bhagavad Gita represents the fully matured fruit of Hinduism. And while the letters of Paul are related, essentially they represent the seed of something completely new.