Consolation for the bereaved
Consolation for the disillusioned
Consolation for the disappointed
Consolation for the morally slipped
Consolation for the spiritually fallen
Consolation for the bereaved.
The matter over which you grieve does not call for any sorrow! Reevaluate the situation, you will drop your sadness.
ashochyAn anwashochah twam prajnAwAdAn cha bhAshase
gatAsoon agatAsoon cha na anushochanti panditAh ||2.11||
“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.”
A re-education of the mind through metaphysical and psychic methods is the last word in psychotherapy which the West has yet to discover and accept, but which the East has declared and justified to the world. Krishna is starting his entire Geeta lessons with this attempt at the re-education of Arjuna. At every level of our personality we view life and come to our own conclusions over things. Thus, we have a physical estimate of the world outside from our body level, apart and quite distinct from our emotional picture of the life from our mental level; and also an intellectual concept of life from the level of our intellect, which differs from both the above estimates. Physically, what I see to be a woman is mentally my mother, and intellectually, the same sacred feminine form is a bundle of cells, each having in its protoplasmic contents a nucleus to preside over its functions. The imperfections that I see in a physical object can fail to give me misery if I successfully gild the object with my emotional appreciation of it. Similarly, an object which is physically abhorrent and mentally shameful can still fail to provide me with any sorrow if I can appreciate it from my intellectual level.
Similarly, that which gives me despondency and dejection at the physical mental, and intellectual levels can yield a thrilling inspiration if I perceive it from the spiritual level. Krishna is advising Arjuna to renounce his physical, emotional and intellectual estimates of his teacher and his grandsire and the whole battlefield problem, and to re-evaluate the situation from his spiritual understanding. ||5.1||
Consolation for the disillusioned
Failures and painful discoveries occur in life. Face them, not allowing them to depress you.
yam hi na wyathayanti ete purusham purusharshabha
samaduhkhasukham dheeram sah amrtatwAya kalpate ||2.15||
“O chief among men, that firm man whom, surely, these afflict not, to whom pleasure and pain are same, is fit for realising Immortality of the Self.”
Calm endurance in both pleasure and pain is a condition necessary for the right knowledge of the Self, according to the technique of Selfrealisation as explained in the Upanishadic lore. Based upon that fact, here Lord Krishna explains that one who has found in himself a mental equipoise, wherein he is not afflicted or disturbed by circumstances of pain and pleasure, alone is fit for attaining Immortality.’
Through the Geeta, our poet-seer,Vyasa, is making Lord Krishna declare that the purpose of life for everyone is the attainment of perfection. To train ourselves to endure meekly the little pinpricks of life, and with magnanimous joy, heat and cold, success and failure, pain and pleasure, is itself the highest training that life can provide to all of us. ||5.2||
Consolation for the disappointed
Rise, see what you CAN do, do it!
tasmAt twam uttishtha yashah labhaswa
jitwA shatroon bhunkshwa rAjyam samrddam
mayA ewa ete nihatAh poorwam ewa
nimittamAtram bhawa sawyasAchin ||11.33||
“Therefore, stand up ! and obtain fame. Conquer the enemies and enjoy the flourishing kingdom. Verily by Myself they have been already slain; be You a mere instrument, O left-handed Bow-man! (Arjuna).”
Here Lord Krishna is directly consoling Arjuna that he should stand up and catch the time and claim success and glory. Whatever be the might and strength of the negative forces, the all consuming power of Change has already destroyed them all, and Arjuna has only to come forward, act the part of a hero and claim the crown of victory all to himself: ” I have already slain them, be merely an apparent cause.”
The concept of self-surrender and the theory of serving the world in constant awareness of the Lord, are not idle dreams prescribed for escaping the gross realities of the world. It is essential for man to raise both his calibre and temper so as to work efficiently and achieve successfully in the world. It is the secret technique of keeping oneself constantly in a mood of tireless enthusiasm and joyous inspiration. ||5.3||
Consolation for the morally slipped
Turn to God today with a sincere and intense resolve. Lord’s compassion knows no bounds. The criminal in you will be transformed to a saint!
api chet sudurAchArah bhajate mAm ananyabhAk
sAdhuh ewa sah mantawyah samyak wyawasitah hi sah ||9.30||
“Even if the most sinful worships Me, with devotion to none else, (or with single-pointedness), he too should indeed be regarded as ‘righteous’, for he has rightly resolved.”
THE VEDAS CONDEMN THE SIN, NOT THE SINNER. The evil ways of the sinner are but expressions of the evil thoughts in his mind, and so, if the texture of the thoughts flowing in his mind could be changed, the texture of his behaviour would also be transformed. He who has come to keep consistently in his mind, thoughts of the Lord, accomplishes, in the warmth of his growing devotion, so total a rehabilitation of the mental life that he cannot there-after carry on his career in sin. Not only does the Geeta throw its gates open to the sinners, but the Singer of the Divine Song also seems to have great missionary zeal to redeem all sinners, and bless them. Even those who are given to evil ways are not debarred from entering the field of spirituality because of their undivine actions and the impurity of their lives. The only insistence is that the worship of the Self must be performed by the devotee with “undivided devotion”.
kshipram bhawati dharmAtmA shashwat shAntim nigachchati
kaunteya pratijAneehi na me bhaktah pranashyati ||9.31||
“Soon he becomes righteous and attains Eternal Peace, O Kaunteya, know for certain that My devotee is never destroyed.”
When a man of evil ways takes to a life of single-pointed devotion propelled by his ardent resolve, that man “SOON BECOMES RIGHTEOUS”. The term Dharma was already explained as “the Law of Being”. Just as heat is the specific quality (Dharma) of fire, without which fire cannot exist, the Dharma of man is the Divine Atman in his heart, without which none of his personality layers can every come to express themselves. Therefore, the term ‘Dharmatma’, in the stanza, is not fully expressed when it is translated as ‘a man of righteousness’.
Single-pointed devotion and self-application develop concentration, and therefore, enhance the subtlety of perception of the mind, and such a mind finds its balance even in the highest altitudes of meditative flights. “IN GOOD TIME”, meaning, ere long, he gains glimpses of the Infinite experience and thus, comes to live more and more as a dynamic saint, wafting the fragrance of divinity through his motives, thoughts, and actions. ||5.4||
Consolation for the spiritually fallen
Even a man of faith who practises the divine life may find a discontinuity in his Sadhana due to a fall, a violent distraction or even death. But the practices he did before will be again picked up by him. Fall he did, but he will rise and march forth!
pArtha na ewa iha na amutra winAshah tasya widyate
na hi kalyAnakrt kashchit durgatim tAta gachchati ||6.40||
“O Partha, neither in this world nor in the next world is there destruction for him; none, verily, who strives to do good, O my son, ever comes to grief.”
Based upon this principle Krishna insists that no seeker is ever lost, although he may slip and fall, or even end his present manifestation; tomorrow is but today confirmed. Krishna supports his statement with the philosophical truth: NEVER FOR THE DOER OF GOOD, DEAR SON, A WOEFUL END’. The one who acts rightly in the present can come to no grief in the future because, the future is but a product of the present and the good is that which yields but success and joy in the future. The fear of Arjuna that the unsuccessful YOGIN–a seeker obstructed and got held up on the path–will get lost ‘as a rent cloud’ here and in the hereafter, has risen from his failure to appreciate the logical continuity and the perfect sequence that is ever in life.
Krishna explains that such an individual in his new life, under the conducive circumstances, gets naturally ‘UNITED WITH THE INTELLIGENCE ACQUIRED IN HIS FORMER BODY’. Such a born YOGI completes his education much more easily than others since to him, it is not an education that is needed, but only a revision or a recapitulation. In a very short time he discovers that all knowledge is bubbling up from within himself and to him study is but a rediscovery of a digested knowledge which was already lying dormant in him. Not only that he comes to discover in himself the knowledge that he learnt in the past, but he easily finds in himself the required enthusiasm and energy for consistent self-application and vigorous pursuit.
Knowledge without practice is a dull, dreary load upon the shoulders of a seeker. Krishna here assures that one ‘FALLEN FROM YOGA’ in the past, when reborn in the right atmosphere, not only gains all knowledge easily, but comes to ‘STRIVE MORE THAN BEFORE FOR PERFECTION. O SON OF THE KURUS’. ||5.5||