Dear All,
Now, we move to the other important verses in Chapter 1
Verse 31
Nimittaani cha pashyaami vipareetaani keshava;
Na cha shreyo'nupashyaami hatwaa swajanam aahave.
(And I see adverse omens, Kesava! I do not see any good in killing my kinsmen in battle.)
Commentary
Swami chinmayananda writes,
In this state of mental confusion, when his emotions have been totally divorced from his intellect, the 'objective mind,' without the guidance of its 'subjective-aspect,' runs wild and comes to some unintelligent conclusions.
He says, 'I desire neither victory, nor empire, nor even pleasure.' It is a recognized fact that a patient of hysteria, when allowed to talk, will, in a negative way, express the very cause for the attack.
For example, when a woman, hysterically raving, repeatedly declares with all emphasis, that she is not tired of her husband that she still respects him, that he still loves her, that there is no rupture between them, etc., she, by these very words, clearly indicates the exact cause of her mental chaos.
Similarly, the very denials of Arjuna clearly indicate to all careful readers how and why he got into such a state of mental grief. He desired victory. He urgently wanted the kingdom. He anxiously expected to win pleasures for himself and his relations.
But the challenging look of the mighty Kaurava forces and the great and eminent warriors standing ready to fight, shattered his hopes, blasted his ambitions, and undermined his self-confidence and he slowly developed the well-known "Arjuna disease," the cure for which is the theme of the Geeta.
Dear All,
Before declaring this verse, Arjuna even says in the previous verse that he does not seek any victory, any pleasure, any good (upon killing his own Guru/brothers and other warriors) !!!
When one’s emotions are running unchecked, rationality goes out the window. That’s when one starts talking or thinking about irrational things like superstition, which is what Arjuna was alluding to in this verse.
On the surface, one would attribute Arjuna’s second statement in this verse to an outpouring of compassion towards his kinsmen. But, would an outpouring of compassion cause a panic?
The true underlying emotion that caused this panic was fear. And what was Arjuna afraid of? Arjuna was accustomed to winning every war that he fought. When he saw the caliber of warriors in the Kaurava army, his ego felt extremely threatened that maybe this time it won’t win.
Here we see that Arjuna’s ego was trying to deflect this fear by substituting compassion for the true emotion of fear.
If we look back in our life, there are so many moments where, we are afraid from within to take up any action and instead of accepting our fear openly, we speak philosophy, we quote some leaders, we even end up quoting Swami ( which would have been spoken by Swami in some other context) and plug it in as our excuse to run away from action/renouncing an action.
And, it is not that we are making fool of others. We make fool of ourselves and we believe in what we are speaking, to escape from what we actually must do in a given situation.
When life teaches us through experience and when we look back, we laugh at ourselves and say to ourselves, what all we spoke/thought, to justify ourselves, in the past!
Think.....!!!
Love
