Gita 13.08 The Gita is not a glorification of war, but a delineation of dharma

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Krishna. Thank you.
Bhagavad Gita 13.8 Amanitvam adambhitvam ahimsa shantirarjavam acharyopasanam saucham sthaivyam atma vinigraham. So amanitvam adambhitvam. Krishna, in these verses from 13.8 to 12, speaks about qualities that endure one, that comprise knowledge.
Krishna has given a similar list of qualities earlier when he talked about in 12.13 to 12.20 about qualities that endure a person to him. Essentially, the point that Krishna makes through it all is that there may be different places and different qualities are talked about and they are all important in their own way. The key thing is to recognize that ultimately we are all meant to move closer to Krishna and the best way to move closer to Krishna is by learning to slowly but steadily practice our spiritual life and cultivate the qualities necessary for growing spiritually.
So here Krishna talks about amanitvam adambhitvam. So here Krishna is talking about the qualities in terms of the negative. Mana means honour.
So amanitvam means one who does not seek honour. That means even when one has some good qualities, one does not go out craving for honour for those qualities. Prabhupada writes, humility means do not be anxious to have the satisfaction of being honoured by others.
So a knowledgeable person knows that actually whatever qualities I have, whatever is it that makes me honourable, that makes me honour worthy, that is actually not mine. That is coming from God. It is a gift of God and as such it is meant to be used in His service.
So let me use it in the service to the best of my capacity and in this way I can grow in my spiritual life because I will be engaged in a mood of service using what is given by God in God’s service. So when we focus too much on considerations of honour then we lose the opportunity to grow in our life because we oversee the positive, that is we have some gifts which are meant for service and we focus instead on that which is not on our control, that which is actually Krishna’s gift. We start seeking honour based on that and then we rather than making a positive contribution, we get carried away in our own world not doing a contribution or doing a contribution seeking simply gratification, simply seeking simply honour and our focus is shifted from service and focus shifted from Krishna.
So humility does not mean that one does not accept honour or one does not act in honourable way. It means that being honoured is not the purpose of one’s living, acting, working. One’s purpose is to make a contribution, to serve.
Now adambitvam is something slightly different or something significantly different we could say. Dambha is a show basically. So adambitvam means one does not put up a show.
So in mana one has qualities and one seeks, one is honoured for those qualities. In dambha one does not have qualities and one pretends to have qualities in order to gain honour. So adambitvam means that one considers as if I don’t have the one thing that I don’t have the qualities.
Why am I trying to, still I want the honour and I will seek the honour by seeking fame, by putting on a show. Like some people may act as religious if they live in a religious society and even if they don’t have a truly religious inclination and that by that show of religion they want to gain prestige, they want to get honour. So ahimsa is non-violence.
So it’s interesting that Krishna is speaking to Arjuna who is going to fight a war, who has had second thoughts about fighting a war and Krishna is speaking to him to get him to fight the war. Krishna is telling him that, oh Arjuna, a quality of a person’s knowledge is ahimsa. So the Bhagavad Gita, although it involves a war field setting and although it leads to Arjuna fighting a war, it is not a glorification of war.
It is a delineation of dharma and dharma sometimes requires the fighting of war also. So that is what is talked about. So ahimsa is a valuable quality.
It is not that one should, at least provocation, one should just start fighting. One should learn to be tolerant. One should learn to ahimsa shanti re.
That brings it, shanti, tolerance, forbearance, forgiveness. So those two are related, non-violence and forbearance. So sometimes people may provoke us but some provocations we just need to let them pass rather than letting them get carried away, letting them carry us away.
We let them pass and in that way we learn to tolerate things and move on in our life. Ahimsa shanti arjavam. Arjava is straightforwardness, simplicity, truthfulness.
So in life there are many situations in which we may tend to become diplomatic and we may need to be diplomatic but diplomatic is different from being political or conniving or cunning. So one is clear about one’s purpose to serve and then one does whatever is required for one’s service. One’s purpose is very clear and the purpose is not centered on selfish aggrandizement.
So when one is very materially attached then one has a lot of self-interest to protect and then one does a lot of things because of such self-interests. But if one is spiritually inclined then such a person is ultimately interested in Krishna and for the sake of Krishna that person does whatever it takes moving slowly but steadily in a mood of service towards Krishna. So actually Krishna talks about how one should worship and serve one’s Acharya.
So we all need guidance. We all grow by learning and we learn from others. So a mood of respect leads to proper transfer of knowledge when we try to learn.
If there’s a mood of dismissiveness, of arrogance then we cannot learn. This water flows from a higher level to a lower level. Similarly an attitude of respect towards our teachers helps us learn from them and helps us grow thereby.
So Krishna tells that a knowledgeable person knows that those from whom I’m getting knowledge I need to respect them. Acharyopasinam. And then Shoucham.
Shoucham is cleanliness. So cleanliness is conducive for our growth because cleanliness enables us to move closer to Krishna. Cleanliness enables us to move.
Ultimately we need purity internally to go closer to Krishna. And externals are reflections of internal. So if externally clean then we can be internally pure also.
It’s easier. And cleanliness actually is encompassing external as well as internal. Shoucham.
Sthairyam Atmanigraham. And sthairya is steadiness. Now it’s the nature of the mind is chanchala as Krishna has talked about and Arjuna has also mentioned especially in the sixth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita.
Chanchala. Now the opposite of chanchala is thiram. So Krishna in fact he was chanchalam asthiram.
Arjuna has said that chanchalam means Krishna. Pramathi, ballabhad, dhudham. And this is definitely means chanchalam asthiram.
Krishna has said that Arjuna yes the mind is chanchala is asthiram. So sthairya is steadiness. So that means the mind will be restless but we need to be steady.
And that requires a certain level of control over our mind and certain level of detachment from our mind. To the extent we identify with the mind to that extent we cannot be steady. To that extent we will get carried away wherever the mind goes.
To that extent we will lose ourselves in mundane things because the mind is mostly attached to mundane things. That’s what self-restraint. That means we might get impulses from within coming from our mind.
Come on eat this, watch this, touch this, enjoy that. But no we have to consider what is our best interests and act accordingly and that requires a certain level of self-restraint. So Krishna is a list of qualities here and this list of qualities will continue and in the next four verses and we will discuss them.
The common pattern in these qualities as we see is that they comprise knowledge and they are the characteristics of a knowledgeable person and they are the characteristics by which we can internalize knowledge. And we can know who has internalized knowledge. If those who are demonstrating these qualities