Bhagavad Gita - Adhyay 1 - Arjun's Greif (Arjun Vishad Yog) - post2

The first chapter of Bhagavad Gita gives message that the root cause of all sorrow and suffering in this world is our inability to deal with conflicts. This is the reason why Shri Krishna taught Gita to Arjun in the middle of the gruesome battlefield, with sword clanging, trumpets roaring and the soldiers screaming.  

Conflicts are everywhere and sooner we recognize the truth of conflicts and it's impact, the sooner we progress in our personal, professional and ultimately in a spiritual journey. It means that when we don't know the cause of the disease, we cannot take medicine. Also one cannot solve his problems alone. The maximum that one can do, as a limited human being is re-arrangement or re-shaping of the problem. 

Conflicts are of three types : Material, Mental and Spiritual.

The first kind of conflict is everywhere - like atoms collide with each other. We humans have conflicts at each level, like with children, siblings, spouses, bosses, co-workers, states and countries. To deal conflicts at material level, we need to learn how to act and what to speak in any situation.

The second conflict tells about how we conduct ourselves in the material conflict, which largely depends on the state of our mind. Our mind is always in the conflicts of our rational side and ego. Our primary conflict urges our ego, the part of our mind that either oversimplifies or exaggerates situations, and responds to every situation with a 'fight' or 'flight' reaction, which silences the rational part our mind that can think logically and clearly. And when our rational mind gets active, we are not able to make the right decision because we cannot resolve conflict arguments. We always talk to ourselves in our mind.

Let's go back to Arjun's dilemma during the battlefield of Kurukshetra. While confronting the material conflict, Arjun was clear in his rational mind that he is a warrior and he has entered the battlefield to fight a war against the enemy for just a cause. But after seeing his family and relatives on the other side of the war, who are on the enemy side, his rational mind became conflicted and started chattering "should I kill my family? or should I perform my duty?". But later on gradually, his primitive mind took control over his rational mind, and went into the silence mode. His primitive mind started telling him - "it's better that I should run away and become a monk, than to be a warrior". This reconciles his conflict in his mind and causes a mental breakdown in the middle of the battlefield. He was not able to fight, nor able to decide, he just wanted to escape from the battlefield.

We all come across such a situation so often, and we fail to decide what to do and what not to do. The uniqueness of Gita is that it teaches us how do we deal with these two levels of conflict.

To get out of the conflict, Shri Krishna took the chariot to the middle of the battlefield, from where Arjun can easily see his dear friends, teachers and relatives at the other side of the battlefield. Doing this, immediately opens the third type of conflict i.e. identity. Arjun now started thinking -  "who am I ?, Am I the warrior fighting for just a cause?, or am I beloved student of my teacher?. If I am a warrior, I should be in Pandava's army and if I am a good student, I should be in the Kaurava's army. I cannot decide my identity so let me quit, which is the easiest option I can see".

Quitting anything is the default response of the ego or we answer our ego with our failure. While talking to Shri Krishna about the conflict, Arjun had all the justified answers to quit the battle. This is what we all do. Generally when we get into some conflicts, we try to quit and run away from that situation. We use all the possible logics or God or religion and put all the rationalization to justify our quitting to ourselves and to others. 

The confusion of identity is related to the third type of conflict called spiritual conflict. Unless we know what we are or who we are, what god is and what is our connection with him, we will never be able to resolve all of our material and mental conflicts. Here the problem of sansara (world) is related to the problem of attachment, grief and delusion.

In this case Bhagavad Gita is trying to tell that when one is not happy with oneself, he or she seeks for external help. This leads to dependency and attachment. Further this disturbs our mind and a disturbed mind can make faulty judgements, and complicate the matter further. 

Here Arjun was also veiled by attachment, his discriminative power becomes inoperative and he commits a series of false judgements. In this chapter, Arjun found himself in the sea of attachment, sorrow and delusion. He wanted to find the solution and he was thinking that quitting the battle was the only solution. But his rational mind is not convinced by this statement. Also had not realized that finding the solution is not in his hands. He cannot surrender to Shri Krishna either, so he was in dilemma, and sat back on the chariot sorrowfully.