STUDY OF

GITA 4TH FLOWER

November5, 200910:00 am1st chapter

Dr. Shriniwas Kashalikar

November5, 200910:00 am1st chapter

Initially when I began to read Gita, I felt that I am reading a story of war. I was rather put off by the list if names and the description of conches they blew.

Later I read about the repulsion of Arjuna about the idea of war and violence and his arguments about the disastrous effects of war. I felt that there was nothing intellectual and it all seemed to be too obvious to be stated.

But I kept on by hearting it as kind of exercise of memory and probably also to fill the void in me.

I did not quite understand the exact meaning MOHA for long time.

Some said that Arjuna was afraid and some said that it was his love for the family members. Some felt Arjuna was right and some said he was wrong. But I never seem to understand how this was related day to day life of a common man and me.

Some said that the description of war was symbolic and actually Gita relates to the higher self in an individual with his lower self.This seemed impressive but could not explain the relevance of Arjuna’s arguments about VARNA SANKAR i.e. haphazard and lawless marriages amongst different strata and groups in society and their ill effects.

It seems that Gita actually deals with the individual, existence, universe, the time and cosmic consciousness. It also deals with different stages of human development from SADHAKA i.e. seeker and SIDDHA i.e. enlightened individual. It also deals with the various ways and techniques to attain the ultimate state of liberation.

Initially I used to feel that Gita relates to individual emancipation and hence felt that there nothing in terms of solution for the welfare of world. This could be because of the passion and mission born out of ego (not necessarily unjustified or condemnable) that “I have to change the world for better”! Since I was expecting a kind blue print for the universal welfare; and since I did not find it; I used

to feel that Gita is individualistic and hence of no consequences for the global welfare. Naturally I was not quite in love with Gita. In fact I read and studied it with reluctance and as if somebody was pushing me from within to study it persistently.

Due to my honest (though subjective) concern; I was obsessed by global welfare, of which I had faint sketch in mind. But I was neither I was finding any reflections of the sketch in reality; nr I was completely convinced by it. I was probably looking for clearer blueprint in Gita. But since Gita does not give any such blueprint, I was rather getting depressed by reading Gita. However in this turmoil gradually began to subside when I started to realize that the role of Gita is not to provide any blueprint but to

inspire a universal blueprint conducive to blossoming of everyone in the world in a most democratic way!

Some people thought Gita was produced on battlefield, some felt that it was not a creation of one individual. Some said that many people have added different verses out of context and relevance.I felt that such criticism had nothing to do what I was looking for in Gita and hence did not bother. I was not concerned whether it was created by one or many and whether it was narrated on battlefield or elsewhere!

Some people said that it was not proper to read Gita at home as it leads to conflicts in home and some people said that it was inauspicious to read it because it was read after some one’s demise.

All these things disturbed me while studying Gita but not enough to deter me from studying it!

I however felt that it was not very peasant like a romantic poetry and did not generate elation or ecstasy. It seemed remind unwanted and unnecessary and unrelated questions and problems such as those related war and death.Arguments that Gita preaches violence and the opinion that it promotes inequality and exploitation appeared too superficial, highly prejudiced and hence incorrect.

I gradually felt greater and greater need to explore the heart of Gita. I started getting as if haunted by a beautiful and so far unapparent core of Gita.

The Gita begins with the description of legions of Kauravas and Pandavas on the Kurukshetra. Thus Gita directly begins with the most crucial situation one can have in life viz. the question of life and death.

All conflicts in life are concentrated in this situation.

Gita deals war of higher self with the lower self in an individual, where there is too much attachment about likes and dislikes of the lower self. This attachment is depicted in terms of attachment (like that for suicidal and destructive addiction) for the relatives even if they were social psychopaths. This attachment leads to despondent retreat to lower self and passive

acceptance of and involvement in degeneration and decay of one’s own true self (and that of the universe). This is MOHA of Arjuna, which I guess is common to most people in the world (which is why Gita is universal).

The Gita simultaneously deals with the actual war also; because it looks at the individual and society in a holistic way. It conceives and teaches to appreciate that the condition of war within and our response to that war naturally manifest in family and social life.Arjuna’s response of MOHA is a response to inner war; that which manifests in the society! Such despondent to the lower self of an individual is also reflected in the form of retreat to the lower self of the society i.e.

psychopathic and detrimental elements in the society.

It not only depicts the individual and global despondency; but it also depicts an intellectual explanation and justification of such despondency in the form apparently sublime values and concerns. Thus Arjuna is shown dismissing the idea of killing teachers, brothers and other loved ones; forecasting the social holocaust in terms of the ruining of families and the exploitation of widows and mutilation of social discipline and harmony leading to ill effects on the departed souls and the abyss thereof! Thus Gita creates a strong case for individual and social mediocrity, individualism, pettiness, gullibility, defeatism, and despondency with intellectual explanations, which span

from individual and social life and even life after death!

Gita creates a ground for an eternal discourse on individual, social and universal tendencies to sink and decay and the omnipresent omniscient solution to such decay spanning from all eternity to all eternity, with the backdrop of ever provident cosmic consciousness that rejuvenates the mankind time and again from millennia to millennia!

It is after depicting the individual and social despondence (represented by ARJUNA VISHADA) that Gita enters into 2nd chapter.