Top Ten Life Lessons from The Bhagwat Geeta – Timeless Wisdom

Disclaimer: this is a series of ten articles to appear in sequence. Each article includes one life lesson from one of the oldest texts produced by mankind.

The Background

Pandavas: The five sons of Late Pandu; the king of Hastinapur.

Kauravas: The one hundred sons of Dhritarashtra the blind provisional king of Hastinapur.

Duryodhana, the eldest of the Kauravas, refuses the claim of Pandavas to rule their own kingdom. The Pandavas make a last-ditch effort to avoid the bloodbath and send Lord Krishna to negotiate peace. Krishna wants the status quo to be restored and asks Duryodhana to return the kingdom of Indraprastha - which he and his cohorts deceitfully taken from them - to the Pandavas.

Duryodhana turns down the offer and rejects the truce. Krishna further barters peace for five villages so that Pandavas may live peacefully. Duryodhana refuses even that and denies the Pandavas the land equal to even the size the point of a needle to live on their own motherland.

Then, Krishna breaks the ominous news that there will be a great war that would bring the house of Kurus down and there would be a war that would bring destruction at the biblical scale.

Arrogant Duryodhana gets enraged orders to arrest and incarcerate Krishna. Krishna is no ordinary mortal. Krishna is incensed and pulls out his chakra – the weapon only he knows how to use. Bhishma knows what he can do with this weapon. He knows that Krishna can kill the entire Kuru clan in the blink of an eye. He begs Duryodhana to stop and let him go as it is also against dharma or the law to arrest and imprison a messenger.

Krishna leaves the court and the stage is set for one of the greatest and bloodiest wars ever fought on the face of this Earth. The kings from across the subcontinent and beyond muster their armies and arrive at the battleground of Dharmakshetra, Kurukshetra. Some legends say that the armies of Yavanas – the Greeks – also participated in this war.

Krishna has vowed not to fight and is Arjuna’s Charioteer instead.

Just before the war Sankhas – conchs which were used as trumpets those days – could blare, Arjuna asks Krishna to take his chariot in the middle of the battlefield so that he can see both the armies and have look at all his kith and kin who have gathered here to kill each other?

1. Emotions, Reality, and Indecision

Emotions camouflage the reality around us and hinder us to comprehend the real world esp. during crises. The resulted delirium makes one forget the real purpose and confusion in such a situation may result in the winning of the evil forces which is neither good for the individual in action nor for the society at large.

When Arjun glares at both sides, his muscles start convulsing, his mouth gets dry, his magnificent bow Gandiva slips from his hands, he goes week at his knees and slips in his seat.

He says Krishna, “O Madhav – one of Krishna’s many names – how can I kill all my elders like Bhishma, the grand patriarch of the family, my revered guru Dronacharya with whom I have spent so much time and became the warrior and archer I’m today and all my brothers whom I have always held dear and my friends among them those who have assembled here to fight?

Even if I kill them, win our kingdom back, and have all the luxuries and pleasures of the world, my heart will always be filled with guilt and never enjoy the fruits of victory. Fear of losing his own near and dear ones cripples Arjuna. Otherwise, Arjuna would have killed many in the blink of an eye without any compunction.

Krishna on the other hand can clearly comprehend that Arjuna has not become Ahimsak or nonviolent all of a sudden. He knows the kind of consummate warrior Arjuna is. He would kill any opponent in a fraction of a second, were they not his own relatives. Arjuna had fought with and vanquished them in the battle of Virata. All these people were his relative then and are still his relatives so what has changed in between.

Now, since it is the question of life and death, he has become jittery. The idea of the decimation of his own clan has overwhelmed him. Arjuna’s behaviour has no effect on the enlightened being as Krishna is. He knows that Arjuna’s chitta or psyche is not at all nonviolent it is his temporary state of mind that has been triggered by events unfolding around him.

So, how does it matter if he doesn’t want to fight and kill in the war? Krishna knows a kind of beastly human being Duryodhana whose actions have brought everyone to this juncture. Duryodhana had conspired and hatched plots to get them out of his way. If Duryodhana wins this war the vile Duryodhana would bring disaster upon the kingdom and citizenry of it.

The reality is Duryodhana will happily kill Pandavas and claim the kingdom. The overwhelming emotional state of mind Arjuna is jeopardizing everything they have stood for and everyone that has come here to fight a just war. Arjuna has forgotten that what tactics he resorted to finishing them off throughout his life.

Once it was decided that there would be a war Duryodhana has left everyone in this binary situation where either you win or die. Arjuna’s indecision can cause such mayhem and suffering that people of the empire have to endure. His inaction in this war would endanger what they have stood for and the hardship born by them throughout their life.

The takeaway.

1. At times life doesn’t leave you with many choices. You have to make decisions that you may despise. Pandavas never wanted to fight a war with their cousins. But Duryodhana has left them with no choice but to fight.

2. Once you have made the decision that may cost you dear. The decision where you have put everything at stake. It could be your labour, wealth, principles, or even your life. And there is no going back now.

3. In such moments of reckoning, overwhelming emotions can rattle you and muzzle your thinking. A muddled mind can breed confusion and take you away from reality.

4. Not being in touch with your reality may cause you to make gross mistakes that might have disastrous consequences and result in greater harm to society. And it becomes even more dangerous when the decisions are not made by an ordinary individual but by an individual who has to answer for society at large.

What transpires next would bring further learnings for us. Keep reading, keep enjoying the reading.

To be continued………