Vinobha's Introduction to Bhagawad Gita

[Guest guest]

Namaste:

 

Before we formally start chapter 10, let us get some perspectives of

Gita. I like this introduction by Vinobha and I thought I share this

with you,

 

regards,

 

Ram Chandran

 

 

 

Vinobha's Introduction to Bhagawad Gita

>From today, I shall speak to you about Srimad Bhagavad Gita. The

bond between the Gita and me transcends reason. My heart and mind

have both received more nourishment from the Gita than my body has

from my mother's milk. Where the heart is touched, there is no room

for argument. Leaving logic behind, I beat the twin wings of faith

and practice and, to the best of my ability, fly up into the heavens

of the Gita. I live and move in the atmosphere of the Gita. The Gita

is my life's breath. To vary the image, I swim in the sea of the

Gita when I speak of it; but when I am alone, I dive to the depths

of this ocean of nectar and there rest at ease. It has been decided

that I should tell you every Sunday the story of this Mother, the

Gita.

2. The Gita has been set in the Mahabharata. Standing in the middle

of the epic, the Gita is like an elevated lamp which throws its

light on the whole of the Mahabharata. On one side of it, there are

six parvas (chapters) and on the other, twelve. Similarly on one

side there are seven divisions of the army, and on the other,

eleven. In between, the Gita is being taught.

 

The Mahabharata and the Ramayana are the classics of our nation. The

characters that figure in them have become one with our lives. For

thousands of years now the whole of Indian life has been, as it

were, consecrated by the heroes and heroines of the Ramayana and the

Mahabharata like Rama, Sita, Dharmaraj, Draupadi, Bhishma and

Hanuman. The characters of no other classics in the world have thus

blended with the lives of the people. Looked at in this way the

Mahabharata and the Ramayana are undoubtedly wonderful works. If the

Ramayana is an enthralling ethical poem, the Mahabharata is a

comprehensive treatise on the science of society. Vyasa has in his

hundred thousand slokas given us innumerable portraits, customs and

heroic actions which are as beautiful as they are real. The

Mahabharata tells us clearly that none but God is wholly free from

blemish; that none too is an embodiment of absolute evil. On the one

hand, faults are pointed out even in Bhishma and Yudhishthira, and,

on the other, light is out s4. The Mahabharata has become a byword

for bigness; but has not Vyasa anything of his own to tell us? Has

he given in any place any special message of his own? Where is

Vyasa's heart beat to be heard? Again and again we come to jungle

upon jungle of philosophy and preaching in the Mahabharata; but has

he also given anywhere the essence of all this, the central secret

of this massive work? Yes, he has. Vyasa has, so to speak, taken out

the cream of the whole of Mahabharata and put it in the Gita. The

Gita forms the epitome of the teaching of Vyasa, the quintessence of

his thought. That is why Sri Krishna says; "I am Vyasa among the

sages." This manifestation of Krishna in Vyasa becomes fullest in

the Gita. From ancient times the Gita has been given the status of

an Upanishad. The Gita is the Upanishad of Upanishads, because Lord

Krishna has drawn the milk of all the Upanishads and given it in the

form of the Gita to the whole world; Arjuna is only an excuse.

Almost every idea necessary for the flowering of a f5. Everyone

knows that the Gita was spoken by Sri Krishna. The devotee Arjuna,

who listened to this great lesson, became so identified with it that

he too came to be called 'Krishna'. Vyasa, trying to express the

heart of the Lord and his lover, lost himself so completely that he

too came to be called 'Krishna'. The speaker is Krishna, the

listener is Krishna, the reporter is Krishna - thus all the three

have, so to speak, become one, each fulfilling himself in this

oneness. To study the Gita, then, a

concentration of this kind is necessary.

 

Some people think that the Gita should be taken to begin from the

Second Chapter. If the actual teaching commences in the eleventh

sloka of the Second Chapter, why not start from there? Someone even

told me, "God has said that He manifests himself in 'a' among the

letters of Nagari alphabet. Here the sloka 'asochyaananyasochastvam'

begins spontaneously with the letter 'a'. So we should take that as

the beginning." Apart from this argument, in many ways it would be

quite right to take this as the beginning. All the same the

introductory portion preceding this does have a value of its own.

Without this preliminary narrative we cannot properly understand

where exactly Arjuna stands and what the Gita is intended to teach.

 

Some say that Gita was spoken in order to remove Arjuna's weakness

and make him enter the battle. In their views the Gita not only

teaches karma-yoga, the way of action, but also yuddha-yoga, the way

of conflict. But a little thinking will show us how defective this

argument is. Eighteen divisions of warriors were ready for battle.

Are we to suppose that, by making Arjuna listen to the whole of the

Gita, the Lord made him worthy of the army? It was Arjuna who

quailed, not the army. Was the army then more worthy than Arjuna?

This is utterly inconceivable. It was not out of fear that Arjuna

was turning away from the battle. He was a great warrior, who had

proved his valour on a hundred fields. When Uttara's cattle were

carried off, he routed Bhishma, Drona and Karna single handed. He

was known as the undefeated, as the one true man among men. Heroism

was in every drop of his blood, in the very marrow of his bones. In

order to rouse his feeling and goad him to action, Krishna Himself

attributed cowardice to h8. Still others say that the Gita is meant

to cure Arjuna of his scruples based on non-violence and make him

inclined to fight. In my opinion this view also is not right. In

order to examine this thoroughly, we have first to see the stand

taken by Arjuna. To do this, the First Chapter and its continuation

in the Second will help us greatly. Arjuna stood in the field of

battle with his mind made up, and sustained by a sense of duty.

Fighting, the calling of the Kshatriyas, was in his very nature. All

possible attempts had been made to avoid war, but they had not

succeeded. They had pitched their claims at the lowest, and Sri

Krishna himself had tried to mediate; but all in vain. In these

circumstances he has got together the kings of many countries, taken

Sri Krishna as his charioteer, and is standing on the battle field.

He says to Sri Krishna with heroic ardor: "Place my chariot between

the two armies so that I can look at the faces of the people who

have come out ready to fight with me." Krishna did as he was told,

what does Arjuna see when he turns his gaze in all directions? On

both sides are gathered a thick surging throngs of his own kinsmen

and friends. He sees grandfathers, fathers, sons and grandsons, four

generations of his own people - family, friends and relations -

finally determined to kill and be killed. It was not as though he

haWhen he sees all his own people gathered together, a storm begins

to rage in his heart. He feels downcast. In the past, he had killed

innumerable warriors in many a battle. But never till now had he

felt so miserable, never had his bow, Gandiva, slipped from his

hands nor had his body quaked like this, nor his eyes became wet.

Then, why did all this happen now? Was he moved by the spirit of non-

violence now, as Ashoka was to be later? No, this was only

attachment to his own people. Even now, if those in front of him had

not been his teachers, kinsmen and friends he would have made their

severed heads fly like so many balls. But his attachment confused

him and overshadowed his devotion to duty; it was then that he

thought of philosophy. When a man with a sense of duty is caught in

illusion, even then he cannot bear to face the naked fact of his

lapse from duty. He usually covers it up with an inquiry into

principles. Arjuna was just in this plight. He began to declare

ostentatiously that war was really a sin,

 

Here I am reminded of the story of a judge. He had sent hundreds of

criminals to the gallows, but one day his own son was produced

before him, accused of murder. His guilt was proved beyond doubt,

the time had now come for the judge to pass sentence of death on his

own son. But then he began to hesitate. He called all his ingenuity

to his aid and began to argue thus: "The death penalty is most

inhuman; inflicting such punishment is no credit to man. All hope of

reform is destroyed. The man who committed murder did so in the heat

of excitement when he was beside himself. When the madness has

passed from him, to take him coolly and calmly to the gallows and

kill him is a disgrace to human society; it is a great crime." He

thought up many such arguments. If his own son had not been brought

before him, the Honorable Judge would have gone on relentlessly

condemning people to death for the rest of his life. But now,

because of partiality for his own son, he argued thus. This was not

the voice of his inmost self;10. Arjuna's behavior was like that of

the judge in the story. The argument advanced by him were not in

themselves wrong. The whole world has seen precisely these

consequences follow the last Great War. But what we should think

about is this: that Arjuna had no real vision, it was only clever

and superficial talk. So, without paying any attention to Arjuna's

words, He straight-away began to set about dispelling his illusion.

If Arjuna had actually been converted to non-violence, he would

never have been satisfied until his real point had been met, however

much he was told about wisdom and knowledge. But the Gita has

nowhere answered this point of his, and yet Arjuna was satisfied.

The implication of all this is that Arjuna's attitude was not that

of non-violence; he did believe in fighting. As he saw it, fighting

was his natural, clear and inescapable duty. But he wanted to evade

this duty because his vision was clouded by illusion. And it is on

this illusion that Gita's mace falls most heavily.

 

 

Arjuna used not merely the language of non-violence, but even that

of sannyasa, complete renunciation. "Even a life of renunciation is

better than this bloodstained Kshatriya dharma, duty of the warrior

class," he says. But was this the way of life for him, his

svadharma? Was this the true expression of his nature? Arjuna could

have cheerfully donned the garb of a Sannyasi but how could he have

lived the life? If, in the name of sannyasa, he went into the forest

he would start killing the deer there. Therefore, the Lord told him

plainly, "Arjuna, your present reluctance to fight is delusion. The

nature that has become yours through the years will not permit you

to refrain from fighting." Arjuna felt at odds with his svadharma.

But however unattractive a man's svadharma may be, he has to find

fulfillment by persisting in it. Because it is only through such

persistence that growth is possible. There is no question of dignity

involved here. This is the law of growth. Svadharma is not the sort

of thing that one takes up because one thinks it is noble or gives

up because it seems lowly. In the words of the Gita, "sreyaan

svadharma vigunah." (One's own dharma, even if devoid of merit, is

the best for oneself.") The word "dharma" means not the organized

religions, like Hindu-dharma or Muslim-dharma, or Christian-dharma.

Every individual has his own distinct dharma. The 200 people who are

in front of me have 200 different dharmas. Even my own dharma today

is not what it was ten years ago; it will not be the same ten years

hence. As the course of one's life changes through thinking and

experience one's old dharma drops off and a new dharma comes in its

place.

 

However superior another's dharma may appear to be, it is not good

for me to adopt it. The light of the sun is dear to me. By this

light I keep growing. The sun claims my worship too. But if, for

this reason, I wish to give up living on the earth and, go to the

sun, I would be burnt to ashes. On the other hand, even if living on

earth is quite dull by comparison, - even if the earth is quite

despicable when compared with the sun, even if it has to borrow its

light - even then, so long as I lack the capacity to stand the sun's

blaze, I shall have to stay away from the sun and keep growing on

the earth. If someone were to say to a fish, "Milk is costlier than

water; come and live in this milk," would it agree? Fish can only

live in water; they will die in milk.

 

Even if someone else's dharma seems easier, one should not take it

up. Quite often, it only appears easier. If a man in household life

is not able to look after his children properly and, getting

disgusted, gives up the world, it will turn out to be hypocrisy and

will even become burdensome. At the first opportunity, his old

habits and associations will re-assert themselves. When a man goes

into the forest because he is unable to bear life's burdens, the

first thing he would do there is to build himself a small hut. Then,

to protect it, he would put up a fence. Going on thus, he finds that

there too he has to manage, if anything, a bigger household. If a

man's mind is truly detached, surely renunciation is not difficult

for him. There are many texts in the Smritis (sacred codes) which

show how renunciation can be easy. It is really a question of one's

vocation. One's dhrama consists in following one's true vocation.

The question is not whether it is high or low, easy or difficult.

The growth must be real 14. But some imaginative people ask, "If

sannyasa, the way of renunciation, is really better than yuddha

dharma, the way of conflict, why did Lord Krishna not make Arjuna a

true sannyasi straightway? Was this impossible for Him?" Of course,

there was nothing that He could not do. But, in that case, what

would be the meaning and purpose of Arjuna's life? What does he

achieve himself? Almighty God has given us freedom. And so, let

every man make his own efforts; for that is where the fun lies.

Children find joy in drawing pictures themselves. They do not like

someone else holding their hand and drawing the picture for them. If

the teacher gives the answer to all the questions put to the child,

how is the child's mind to grow? So the work of the teacher and the

parents is only to make him attend, and help him with suggestions.

God guides us all from within. He does no more than this. If, like a

potter, He were to beat our clay and mould each of us into a pot,

where is the sense in it? We are not just pots of clay.

>From all this discussion, you would have understood that the purpose

of the Gita is to remove the illusion that stands between us and our

svadharma. Arjuna was perplexed about his dharma, a delusion had

arisen in his mind over his svadharma. As soon as Sri Krishna points

this out, Arjuna himself admits it. The Gita's main task is to

remove this illusion, this sense of "mine", this attachment. This is

why, after Arjuna has listened to the whole of the Gita, Sri Krishna

asks him, "Arjuna, you have got over the illusion, haven't you?" And

Arjuna replies, "Yes, Lord. The illusion has left me; my svadharma

is clear to me." If then we put together the beginning and the end

of the Gita, we see that its aim and effect is to remove illusion.

This is true not only of the Gita, but of the whole of the

Mahabharata. Vyasa said right at the beginning of the

Mahabharata, "In this epic, I am lighting a lamp to dispel the dark

illusion that covers the heart of humanity."

 

Source: Srimad Bhagawad Gita, by Vinobha