Gita 16.03 Giving appropriate honor promotes harmony demanding excessive honor disrupts harmony

Transcript

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Bhagavad Gita 16.3 Krishna is continuing the description of the godly qualities, the divine, 16.3 states So here Krishna describes six more qualities. The eagerness to do things. The fortitude, the capacity to sustain, to hold on, to commit even amidst difficulties.
The tenor of these qualities. Tenor is Adroho. Droha is envy.
Adroho is freedom from envy. Na atimanita. Atimanita means a demand for excessive prestige.
Expecting to rise beyond one’s social position. Bhavanti Sampadam Dahivim. These are the characteristics of those who are godly.
Abhijatasya Bharata. They are born with these characteristics. So here Krishna is describing primarily his thrust, his focus is on raising one’s consciousness upwards towards the supreme, ultimately.
He is the goal in the 15th, in the 13th chapter Krishna has talked about the tree of material existence. 15th chapter he has talked about the tree 15.1 and 13.22 describe the bija of the tree in terms of one’s desire. Purusha Prakriti Sthohi Bhoomte Prakriti Jaan Gunaan.
The desire to enjoy that gets the soul caught in the things. And here he describes that this part is, this divine and demonic nature describes the two extremes of this tree. The upper extreme and the lower extreme.
And here Krishna is concentrating on the point that actually every one of us needs to purify ourselves by the steady cultivation of the right actions. So there are certain dispositions, certain qualities which we will be inclined to have by the kind of birth that we have. By birth itself we will have certain qualities.
So it’s interesting Teja and Shama we could say are somewhat contradictory qualities because at one level we can say Teja refers to the vigor to act with strong emotion, with strong action, vigor. We want to change things. Something needs to be done.
A person has that vigor, the energy, the spirit to make sure that it gets done. On the other hand Shama refers to the other extreme where one refuses to be captivated by the ups and downs of people’s actions and one doesn’t let their action determine one’s reaction. One acts according to one’s principles.
So one is ready to forgive when others have done some wrong. The temptation to bring about a change especially becomes a temptation when we make it as an excessive expectation from others and we hold an unforgiving attitude towards others when they are not able to make that change. If we see that every single person is a product of their own conditionings and that’s why they cannot be expected to very easily or very harmoniously change themselves for the better.
It is going to require effort. It is going to require energy. It is going to require determination.
Then Yakshama so then we will be ready to forgive because we don’t let our interactions with others be guided by our unrealistic expectations from them. Dhruti is refers to the determination. We all need whatever course of action we follow even if it is the right course of action the principle course of action.
It is not always easy to follow. In fact it is quite difficult to follow on most occasions. So to stay committed to that is not easy.
And in order to stay committed we need to have the determination that determination essentially means that no matter what our emotion is we persevere in that which is important for us. So Shoucha refers to cleanliness the extent we can keep our internals clean uncontaminated to that extent we can have determination because it is the inner contamination that makes us vulnerable to outer temptation. The inner contamination that erodes our determination say if somebody has never drunk alcohol then even if they pass by a bar there is no temptation.
So the force of the external temptation depends on the magnitude of the inner contamination. And if one has been able to cultivate inner purity Shoucha which can of course also refer to external cleanliness but if we have inner purity then our determination is actually much easier to sustain if we have less impurities. And Krishna talks about two things which may which can be impurities adroho na atimanita droha is envy so we may have decided a particular course of action to follow but when we see others getting laurels we see others getting honor getting fame getting power then we may start getting distracted from our purposeful principle life thinking that we have to do some shortcuts by which we can get what they have got.
It’s only when we learn to keep ourselves pure and focused that we can move towards Krishna in a steady way that we can bring out our best. Often the attitude of envy is a result of excessive materialism because when we compare ourselves with others and think that our self-worth depends on our comparative worth as compared with others that if somebody else can do something better than what I can do then that means somebody has a better position than what I have that makes me insecure that makes me feel inferior then the envy becomes much more but if we are secure in our spirituality in our understanding that we are souls who are parts of Krishna and who are always loved by Krishna no matter whatever be the circumstantial situation that we are in no matter how many people are above us or no matter how many people are below us we don’t focus so much on our position in the pecking order we focus on our disposition as directed towards the supreme so then that inner security through our emotional connection with Krishna will help us to resist whatever distractions we may be vulnerable to so adrohna atimanita it’s interesting maan itself is not considered to be bad over here atimanita is considered to be bad over here so there is honor which is a part of any society every society has to have some kind of hierarchy even if it is a non-linear kind of hierarchy even if it is a very horizontal society still within that also there is some amount of hierarchy unavoidably there so for dealing with that hierarchy there has to be honor given to people at their appropriate positions but see if a student starts demanding the respect that is offered to the teacher if the child starts demanding the respect that is offered to the parent if the law breaker starts demanding the respect that is offered to the law abider there has to be a basic human respect that is to be offered to everyone no doubt Krishna says about in 5.18 how the wise person sees both a dog, a dog eater a brahmana everyone equally but then there is also the acknowledgement of one’s external situation and one does not expect respect which is disproportionate when seen in the light of one’s external position so that not expecting excessively this is this indicates this is the characteristics of the daivi prakriti so Krishna is describing in these three verses the characteristics of the godly