​If we are to act according to our nature, why did Parashurama appear as brahmana and then act as kshatriya?

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Transcript

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So the Bhagavad Gita Krishna says that one should act according to one’s nature.
Then why did the Lord appear as a Brahmana and then fight as a Kshatriya? Yeah, the point here is that there is dharma and there is apadharma. Apadharma is the normal activity that a person is supposed to do. But apadharma is emergency duty.
So when there is emergency, at that time one may adopt other forms of action, which may not be normally prescribed for oneself. And those emergency form of actions, they should be done as long as the emergency is there. And after that emergency is over, one should stop doing that.
So similarly, we look at Parashuram’s life. Parashuram did not directly start acting as a Kshatriya. So he acted as a Brahmana.
And he was living his life as a dutiful Brahmana, performing austerities, performing sacrifices. But when there was a grievous violation of the normal codes of conduct, of the dharmic behavior by the king himself. Now, where could he go to express his grievance? Who would do redressal of that grievance at that time? There was no one.
So that was the apathy, that was the emergency. And in that emergency, for Parashuram it was important that he himself take up the apadharma. So in the dharma scriptures itself, the dharma shuktis, they describe that actually when a Brahmana is, when there is an emergency, a Brahmana can act as a Kshatriya.
And a Brahmana can take up residence. So that may also happen in other historical incidents when particular circumstances come up. So as I said that after, in the history of Maharashtra, the Peshwas may have sometimes, they were Brahmanas, but they took up that role.
So that’s what is required in particular situations. That is what can be done. The specific context for the Bhagavad Gita’s declaration that one should act according to one’s nature and one should not act according to another’s nature is that there is acting according to someone’s nature to evade one’s own duty and to avoid the unpleasantness that is associated with one’s own duty.
So Arjuna in that context, in the context of the Kurukshetra war, when he wanted to avoid warfare, it was not that there was an emergency, that there was no single Brahmana in the kingdom and that’s why he had to do the Brahmanical duty. So it was more of he was giving up his duty because of the unpleasantness of the Kshatriya duty, not because of the emergency need of a Brahmana duty. So what the primary thrust is, don’t give up that which is natural for oneself, just because that is unpleasant.
So if we pursue through the pleasant and unpleasant, eventually we will attain transcendence. That’s what the message of the Gita is. Thank you.
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