Bhagawad Gita - Ch2. Verses 9-11 [Swamy Chinmayananda]

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saNjaya uvAca:

evam uktvA hRSIkeSaM guDAkeSaH paraMtapa

na yotsya iti govindam uktvA tUSNIM babhUva ha 2.9

 

Sanjaya said: 9. Having spoken thus to Hrishikesha, Gudakesha, the destroyer

of

foes,

said to Govinda: "I will not fight" ; and became silent.

 

[Commentary by: Swamy Chinmayananda]

This stanza and the following, together constitute the running commentary of

Sanjaya the faithful reporter of the Geeta. He says that, after surrendering

himself to Krishna, seeking the Lord's guidance, Arjuna, the great

CONQUEROR OF SLEEP and the SCORCHER OF HIS FOES, declared to Krishna,

the Lord of the senses, that he would not fight, and became silent.

 

No single individual alive at that period had the authority to call back the

armies

from the field of Kurukshetra except the blind old uncle of the Pandavas. He

had

the status and the weight of opinion necessary for ordering a truce even at

a time

when it looked as though the time had slipped through the fingers. Sanjaya

hoped that Dhritarashtra would understand the futility of their fighting

against Arjuna, who would

certainly conquer the Kaurava forces, since the "Knotted-haired" warrior

(Gudakesha) had

surrendered himself to the Lord of the senses (Hrishikesha), the Winner of

the World (Govinda).

But, Dhritarashtra was born-blind, and had grown deaf to the words of

warning uttered

by the good, due to his infinite attachment to his children.

 

tam uvAca hRSIkeSaH prahasann iva bhArata

swnayor ubhayor madhye viSIdantam idaM vacaH 2.10

 

10. To him who was despondent in the midst of the two armies, Hrishikesha,

as if smiling, O Bharata, spoke these words.

 

[Commentary by: Swamy Chinmayananda]

Thus standing between the two forces, the good and the bad, arrayed

for a battle to death, Arjuna (the jeeva) surrenders completely, to the

Lord (the subtler discriminative intellect), his charioteer, who holds the

five horses (the five senses) yoked to his chariot (body), under perfect

control. When the stunned and confused ego --- Arjuna --- totally surrenders

to

Krishna, the Lord, with a smile, reassures the Jeeva of its final victory,

and

declares the entire message of spiritual redemption, the Geeta. In this

sense

we analyse the picture painted in Sanjaya's words, borrowing our sanction

from

the Upanishads. Once we agree to read this Upanishad-sense in the picture

painted

here by the words of Sanjaya, we can discover in it an Eternal Truth. When

the ego (Arjuna)

in its dejection sits back in the body (chariot), throwing down all

instruments of

ego-centric activities (Gandiva), and when the sense-organs (the

white-horses) are held back, well under control, by the pulled-reins (the

mind), then the charioteer (the Pure Intellect)

shall lend the ego a divine strength, and guide it to the ultimate victory

over the

forces of Adharma with the help of the dynamism of Dharma, even though the

former

may seem much stronger in force than the simple-looking dynamism in the

latter.

 

 

SrIbhagavAn uvAca:

aSocyAn anvaSocas tvaM prajNAvAdANS ca bhASase

gatAsUn agatAsUNS ca nAnuSocanti paNDitAH 2.11

 

The Blessed Lord said: 11. You have grieved for those that should not be

grieved

for; yet, you speak words of wisdom. The wise grieve neither for the living

nor

for the dead.

 

[Commentary by: Swamy Chinmayananda]

When we rightly diagnose Arjuna's dejection, it is not

very difficult for us to realise that, though

its immediate cause is the challenge of the war,

his condition of mental torture is only a symptom

of a deeper disease. Just as a true doctor will try

to eradicate a disease, not by curing the

symptoms but by removing the CAUSE of the disease,

so too here, Lord Krishna is trying to

remove the very source of Arjuna's delusion.

 

The ego rises when the PURE SELF is not recognised;

this deep-seated ignorance in man not

only veils his Divine Nature from himself, but

also projects on the REALITY a positive

misconception. The 'ego-centric-idea,' that

he is conditioned by his own body, mind and

intellect, is the true seed of Arjuna's delusory

attachments with his own relations and the

consequent deep compassion that has risen

in his bosom to make him so impotent

and helpless. Grief and dejection are the price

that delusion demands from its victim. To rediscover ourselves

to be really something higher than our own ego, is

to end all the sorrows that have come to us,

through our false identifications.

 

Thus, the ETERNAL SPIRIT in man, asserting its false relationships with his

body, comes to feel bound by a thousand relationships with the world of

things

and beings. The same PERFECT-PRINCIPLE-IN-LIFE, playing on the field of the

mind,

comes to experience the imperfections of the emotional world as its own.

Again, the DIVINE-SPARK-OF-LIFE, assuming, as it often does, a false

identity

with the intellect, comes to sob and suffer for its hopes

and desires, its ambitions and ideologies, which are the characteristic

pre-occupastions of the intellect.

 

The SELF, thus getting reflected in the intellect, the body, and the senses,

is

the ego, which is the victim of the world of objects, feelings and ideas. To

this ego,

belong all the sad destinies of life as well as its fleeting thrills of

acquisition

and possession. The ego in Arjuna suffered neurosis, goaded by its own

delusions and

the consequent misapprehensions. Krishna, in his INFINITE WISDOM, knew that

MIS-APPREHENSION OF REALITY can take place only because of a pitiable

NON-APPREHENSION

OF REALITY. Therefore, in order to cure the very source of Arjuna's

delusion, Krishna

is here teaching him the cream of knowledge, as declared in the immortal

books of

the Hindus, the Upanishads.

 

A re-education of the mind through metaphysical and psychic methods is the

last word in

psycho-therapy, which the East gave to the world, many thousand years ago.

Krishna starts

is entire Geeta lesson with this attempt at the re-education of Arjuna.

True to that traditional cultural concept of education, here, the Great

Master,

Krishna, starts his instructions to Arjuna with a direct discourse upon the

ETERNAL REALITY.

 

The inner equipments of both Bhishma and Drona allowed through them a

glorious expression

of the LIFE PRINCIPLE or the Soul in them, and these great men were

incomparable due to

this Divine shine that beamed out through them. In this clashing of weapons,

to

consider that the cultural soul of Bhishma will be wounded, or that the life

of Drona,

the master-archer and military genius, will be ended, is a delusory concept

of an

uninitiated intellect. By this statement Krishna has indicated to Arjuna a

greater Self

than the ego in every embodiment.

 

At every level of our personality, we view Life and come to our own

conclusions

about things. Thus, we have a PHYSICAL ESTIMATE of the world from the body

level,

quite distinct from the EMOTIONAL PICTURE of life from the mental level, and

also

an INTELLECTUAL CONCEPT of life from the level of the intellect.

 

Physically, what I see as a woman, is mentally my mother and intellectually,

the same sacred feminine form is a bundle of cells, each having in its

protoplasmic

content, a nucleus that presides over all its functions. The imperfections

that I

see in a physical object will fail to give me misery, if I successfully gild

it

with my emotional appreciation. Similarly, an object which is physically

abhorrent

and mentally shameful will still fail to provide me with any sorrow, if I

can

appreciate it from my intellectual level. So, that which gives me

despondency and

dejection at the physical, mental and intellectual levels can yield a

thrilling

inspiration if I re-view it from the spiritual level.

 

Krishna is advising Arjuna to renounce his physical, emotional and

intellectual estimates

of his teacher and his grandsire, and those of the whole battle-field

problem, and to

re-evaluate the situation through his spiritual understanding.

 

This great and transcendental Truth has been so suddenly expounded here that

it has, on

Arjuna, the stunning effect of a sudden unexpected blast. We shall, later

on, understand how

this subtle, psycho-physical shock-therapy did immeasurable good to the

hysterical condition

of Arjuna.

 

"WHY DO THEY DESERVE NO GRIEF? BECAUSE THEY ARE ETERNAL. HOW?"