Passage 15

¹For a disciple, it is far better to search out and remove his own faults than to search for his good qualities. Such a person can advance quickly. Only one who reaches that state can place the whole burden upon Bhagavān's power and remain fearless and free from anxiety. That is the true sign of blessedness. Our Arjuna came to such a state. Wishing that all humanity should reach it, Bhagavān made Arjuna the occasion and offered this nectar to the world. ²If we pause and reflect, we can see clearly for whom this nectar was given. Milk need not be drawn from the cow for the cow's own sake. Arjuna, the calf, drank his fill; the calf needs no more. Nor do the cows drink their own milk. Shall we say it was drawn for the milker? The ever-content Paramātma has no need of it. Then for whom is this milk-nectar, the essence of the Upaniṣads—this Gītāmṛta? Kṛṣṇa Himself says it is for the su-dhī, those of good and discerning understanding. The Gītāmṛta is therefore meant for those who would cultivate noble qualities. Consider also the place where this great labour took place: between two armies. Ah, what a profound meaning! On one side the sons of Dharma, on the other demonic tendencies; between good and evil, amid the conflict of dualities, man weeps in saṁsāra, unable to find the way. It is to such people that Bhagavān gives the nectar of the Gītā. Arjuna's problem should not be regarded as his alone; it is the problem of humanity. Otherwise would a man of such wisdom as Arjuna, in surrendering to Kṛṣṇa, ask merely for preyas—the enjoyments of this world and the next? Those can be obtained by human effort; they are fruits of Karma. His attitude was: 'It would be foolish to ask You for what my own effort can obtain. I am not such a fool. Grant me śreyas, that which my effort cannot produce. It is not a fruit of Karma; it can be received only through Your grace.' Thus Arjuna entered prapatti. Surrender to Bhagavān is called prapatti. ³There is much that may be said about this Śaraṇāgati. In the world, man takes refuge in many forms of pride, possessiveness and ego; he seeks shelter in money, gold, possessions and vehicles. Yet the blessedness of taking refuge in Bhagavān does not come easily. How can it, when people take the joy of objects as their support and forget the very source from which those objects come? How long can the supported exist without the support? Is there anything that needs no support at all? If there is, it is Paramātma alone and nothing else. Therefore true Śaraṇāgati is to take refuge in Sarveśvara, the support of all. To take refuge instead in impermanent, dependent things is ignorance. Arjuna was a great jñānī, and so he took refuge in Paramātma. Śaraṇāgati itself is spoken of in three forms. ⁴'Tvam evāham, mamaiva tvam, tvam evāham iti tridhā'—first, 'I am Yours'; second, 'You are mine'; third, 'You are I.' Considered in sequence, each is higher than the one before. In the first, 'tvam evāham,' Paramātma is completely independent and the devotee dependent upon Him. It is like the cat and her kitten: Bhagavān carries the bhakta. This is gentle and accessible to all. In the second, 'mamaiva tvam,' the bhakta appears independent and Paramātma willingly becomes dependent upon the bhakta. Sūrdās's Bhakti illustrates this: 'Kṛṣṇa! You may escape from my hands, but let me see how You can escape from my heart!' he cried. Paramātma accepted with loving dignity, 'Child, I am dependent upon My bhakta.' See! Bhakti can bind Bhagavān Himself—but the devotee must be utterly carried away in such Bhakti. ⁵Then Paramātma takes the devotee's good and bad entirely as His own and extends His grace. The Lord's promise in the Gītā, 'yoga-kṣemaṁ vahāmy aham'—'I bear their Yoga and Kṣema'—is fulfilled in this way. The third form, 'tvam evāham'—'You alone are I'—is undivided Bhakti. What is gained by offering everything but still preserving a separate 'me'? That remains dualistic surrender. This third is Advaitic Śaraṇāgati and flowers into the awareness 'Vāsudevaḥ sarvam'—Vāsudeva is all. As long as there is identification as a devotee, the bhakta is servant and Bhagavān is Lord. As long as there is identification as jīva, the bhakta is a part and Bhagavān the Whole. When identification with the upādhis is relinquished and one abides in one's svarūpa, bhakta and Bhagavān are one. Hanumān, in the Rāmāyaṇa, expressed all three of these states in relation to Rāma. The same principle is indicated in the second chapter of the Gītā through the anubandha-catuṣṭaya. 'Prasannam' points to fitness, adhikāra. Arjuna became fit because he recognised his own mistake and surrendered. When a person truly knows his own error, he enters the state of adhikāra and has awakened from tamoguṇa. Eating and sleeping alone are marks of tamas. Arjuna had risen above that dullness and become vigilant within the antaḥkaraṇa, so he could recognise his error clearly. Seeing this, Kṛṣṇa Paramātma smiled: 'Dear one! Sleep is only a subsidiary mark of tamoguṇa. What can this sleep of moha do to one who has conquered ordinary sleep? Its effect upon you was temporary. That is why you have returned so quickly to yourself, seen your error, and taken refuge in Me. Dear one, could you not have left all this weeping at home?' From that moment Kṛṣṇa Paramātma became Guru and began shaping Arjuna as disciple. ⁶Kṛṣṇa is the Lord of the senses; Arjuna is one who had mastered them. Hence Kṛṣṇa is called Hṛṣīkeśa and Arjuna Guḍākeśa. If we ask the cause of sorrow, we discover that the body is taken as its basis; rāga and dveṣa—attraction and aversion—bind one to the body; and behind rāga-dveṣa lies the judgement, 'this is desirable, that is undesirable.' In delusion the jīva divides experience into favourable and unfavourable. What it labels bad becomes an object of hatred; what it labels good becomes an object of attachment. But in Bhagavān's vision there is no absolute 'this is good' and 'that is bad.' The cause of such division is dualistic Buddhi—taking the One as two. Arjuna had remained immersed in ignorance because of this. The first cause of ignorance is the absence of tattva-jñāna, knowledge of Reality. People explain tattva in many ways, but what is the final certainty? As long as ignorance remains, the jīva is born and dies again and again, rising and sinking in an ocean of sorrow. Uproot ignorance and man becomes free from sorrow. Yet in the world many treatments are devised, practised and preached for this enveloping ignorance, with words repeated like parrots. It is like applying collyrium to the eyes for a stomach ache: the disease is one thing and the treatment another. How can a cure result? When the pain is understood and the right medicine given, the illness subsides. Such divine medicine is possible to Nārāyaṇa alone. Here Kṛṣṇa found the medicine suited to Arjuna's disease and gave it directly. The medicine brought the inner impurity to the surface. To expose the deep root of the sore that surface remedies could not heal, Kṛṣṇa Paramātma questioned him in this way. ⁷'Why, dear one, are you weeping like a coward? Is it because Bhīṣma, Droṇa and the others will die? Your tears are not merely because they will die. It is the mamakāra—"they are mine"—that makes you weep. People everywhere do not weep simply because death occurs; they weep because the one who dies is "mine." Dear one, how many who were not yours have you killed before now? Where were these tears then? It is the possessiveness toward those you see before you that has cast you into such sorrow. The cause of mamakāra is ahaṁkāra. In deep sleep ahaṁkāra is absent; therefore you know nothing of what happens to the body lying there, to the bodies of your own people, or to the money, gold, possessions and vehicles you have gathered. "Aham"—I—is primary; only afterwards comes "mama"—mine. Is this not natural? Foolish one! To take the body, which is not yourself, as yourself is ignorance. To mistake anātma for Ātma is inverted knowledge; it is not Jñāna. Therefore, Arjuna, nothing else can remove your ignorance. Jñāna alone is the divine medicine.' Thus, from the very beginning Kṛṣṇa commenced the teaching of Ātma-jñāna. This is the eleventh śloka of the second chapter, from which the teaching of the Ātma begins. It may be regarded as the seed-śloka of Gītā pārāyaṇa. ⁸Śloka: 'Aśocyān anvaśocas tvaṁ prajñā-vādāṁś ca bhāṣase; gatāsūn agatāsūṁś ca nānuśocanti paṇḍitāḥ.' ⁹In this śloka Kṛṣṇa refutes two errors in Arjuna's position. The first is grieving for those who are not truly to be grieved for, because he attributes the body's destruction to the Ātma. The second is exposed in the words 'prajñā-vādāṁś ca bhāṣase': while speaking like a paṇḍita, he treats his own svadharma as adharma. The reader should notice that two kinds of moha had entered Arjuna. One is common moha: taking the body to be the Ātma and superimposing the body's attributes upon the Self. The second is an extraordinary or particular moha: regarding the battle that is his svadharma as adharma. This latter confusion is specific to Arjuna's present crisis. Kṛṣṇa therefore first rejects the common moha and then removes the particular one. From the twelfth through the thirtieth ślokas of the second chapter He gives Ātma-bodha to remove the common delusion. Then, in reply to the special delusion, He gives eight ślokas establishing svadharma; these are called the Dharma-aṣṭaka. Afterwards He teaches Niṣkāma Karma Yoga—how that svadharma may be performed so that it becomes not a cause of further birth but a cause of Mokṣa. At the end of the second chapter comes the description of the sthita-prajña, the embodied image of steady wisdom. Listen now to Kṛṣṇa's further teaching. ¹⁰'Arjuna! Think for a moment about who you are and what you are doing. You speak as though you know everything, yet you weep like one who has lost all discernment. Your words are the words of a paṇḍita; your conduct is that of the unknowing. If I judge by your speech, you appear wise; if I judge by your action, you appear ignorant. Your condition is bewildering. Shall I call you a paṇḍita? A true paṇḍita does not grieve over life and death. One who grieves in this way is not a paṇḍita.' ¹¹('Paṇḍā' here means Buddhi capable of determining tattva; one who possesses it is a paṇḍita.) ¹²'Those who know the secret of the body and the Dharma of the Ātma as they truly are—such alone are paṇḍitas. They do not grieve either for those whose bodies remain or for those whose bodies have fallen. In every pair of opposites they preserve composure of Chitta. It is the ignorant, who know neither, who lament for the dead. Those who know partly but not fully worry about the welfare of the living; those who truly know grieve over neither. Dear Arjuna! Are you weeping because the bodies of Bhīṣma and Droṇa will die, or because their Ātmas will die? If you say it is for the body, for how many bodies will you weep? If tears could keep a body from falling, people would hire mourners and keep their loved ones alive by weeping. That is never so. Even if this body were placed in a vessel of nectar, it must perish. What is gained by grieving for it? If you say you grieve for the Ātma, that is still less intelligent. Death cannot approach the Ātma. It is eternal, true and stainless.' ¹³'Why then are you weeping? Your grief itself shows the absence of Ātma-jñāna. Battle is the svadharma of a Kṣatriya. You ask, "How can I kill Bhīṣma and the others in battle?" Dear one, perform the duty that has come to you and become kṛtakṛtya—one who has fulfilled what must be done. You asked, "How shall I strike Bhīṣma in battle?" Notice: the question concerns battle, not murdering him in his home. You did not say "at home." Killing in a house would indeed be adharma; how does righteous battle become adharma? Dear one, has even this discrimination deserted you?' ¹⁴'Enough, foolish one! Rise and be ready. You have smeared upon your head a possessiveness that has no reality and collapsed under its weight. Sarveśvara is the cause of all, not you. There is a mighty Power at work. Those who know that Power do not tremble even before dissolution. For a Kṣatriya, battle is a sacred ford; knowing this well, Bhīṣma, Droṇa and the others have come prepared to lay down their bodies in battle and cross beyond. See whether they are weeping like you. They will neither grieve nor retreat. Arjuna, this is a severe test for you!' Kṛṣṇa did not stop there: 'Pārtha! There was never a time when I did not exist, nor a time when you did not exist. The same is true of these kings and this army. We have never been nonexistent.' In this way He taught the unity of the 'tat'—Paramātma—and the 'tvam'—jīvātma—and opened the meaning of the mahāvākya 'tat tvam asi.' Just as clay exists before the pot, the substratum exists before every imagined form. ¹⁵Arjuna then recovered some clarity and replied: 'Kṛṣṇa! You may be Bhagavān and therefore indestructible. But I am not grieving for You. Tell me about us, who were born yesterday, live today, and die tomorrow.' This point should be observed carefully. Bhagavān, the meaning of 'tat,' is eternal; but all that appears as 'tvam' is also, in truth, eternal. Ordinary minds do not grasp this at once. Kṛṣṇa Paramātma therefore continued: 'Dear one, you too are eternal. Though "tat" and "tvam" appear limited and separate through upādhis, when the upādhis are set aside they are one. Gold exists before the ornament, in the ornament, and after the ornament is melted down. In the same way, the Ātma, of the nature of Consciousness, neither comes along with the bodies nor departs with them.' Thus Kṛṣṇa taught Arjuna.