The Gita and War 1

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The Gita and War

 

With all the talk of war everywhere we go, you may find interesting an

article by Christopher Isherwood written towards the end of World War

II. Chris was an outspoken pacifist at a time when such talk was not

well received. This article appears in our book Living Wisdom. It's a

bit long, but worth reading.

 

The Gita and War

By Christopher Isherwood

 

IN THE COURSE of a year spent studying the Bhagavad Gita, I have talked

about its philosophy to a considerable number of people. Whatever else

they had to say, I found them, almost without exception, agreed on one

point: that the Gita " sanctions " war. Some were glad of this. Others

were sorry. But all, I think, were puzzled. Educated in the Christian

tradition, they were accustomed to a gospel, which is uncompromisingly

pacifist. However deeply they might be convinced of the justice of

necessity of some particular conflict, they didn't like what they

regarded as a general approval of the use of military force. They

themselves, mere human beings struggling in the everyday world, might be

driven to fight and kill one another, but they wanted Krishna, like

Jesus, to stand for a higher ideal. That was their reaction.

 

I do not wish to sound superior or conceited when I say that I myself do

not put this interpretation upon the teaching of the Gita. I will try to

explain why I do not: not merely for the information of the few people

who may be interested, but because I want to straighten out my own

ideas. The question is of the greatest importance to me, because I am

myself a pacifist, and because I believe the Gita to be one of the major

religious documents of the world. If its teachings did not seem to me to

agree with those of the other gospels and scriptures, then my own system

of values would be thrown into confusion, and I should feel completely

bewildered.

 

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