Gita 16.14 Greed makes the covetous murderous

Transcript

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Bhagavad Gita 16.14 असव्मयाहतः शत्रुर् हनिष्ये चापरानपी ईश्वरो अहम् अहम् भोगी सिद्धो अहम् बल्वान्सुखी Krishna is here continuing to describe the mentality of the ungodly and he states like असव्मयाहतः शत्रुर् this enemy I have killed हनिष्ये चापरानपी and that enemy I will kill soon ईश्वरो अहम् अहम् भोगी I am the controller I am the enjoyer सिद्धो अहम् बल्वान्सुखी I am perfect, I am powerful here Krishna is describing how greed can degenerate with an alarming speed to monstrosity the word mercenary mercenary refers to simply a person who works for money but it can also refer to a person who kills for money that mercenary mentality turns murderous the previous verse has talked about how the person dreams and schemes about getting more and more money इदमद्धिमया लब्धम इमं प्राप्से मनोरतम् इदमस्ती इदमपिमे भविष्यति पुनर्धनम् this much I have accumulated and this much I will accumulate in future so now here the verse goes on and states that in that craving to earn money what happens one becomes not just mad in the sense of being obsessed one also becomes mad in the sense of being desensitized, monstrous murderous असो मयाहतः शत्रोर this enemy I have eliminated and that enemy I will also eliminate in one sense Krishna is speaking to Arjuna who is a Kshatriya and he lives in a circle of Kshatriyas and in Kshatriya life killing is not uncommon in fact Kshatriyas may often when they fight often their purpose is to either capture the enemy or to kill the enemy so we could say in that context the reference to killing is to be understood and Krishna may well here be referring to the mentality of someone like Duryodhana who was covetous and monstrous he kept coveting the wealth of others especially the wealth of Pandavas and in that greedy pursuit he became monstrous not thinking about anything else even basic human sensitivity what to speak of filial relational affinity because the familial affinity the Pandavas were after all his cousins but he saw them as his worst enemies simultaneously and obviously this verse can resonate far beyond its context and the craving for money can blind people to everything else and thus we may simply start in a disproportionate and disastrous way anchoring for that which they just can’t have ethically so for everyone of us we have certain lines that we can’t cross that we won’t cross rather but we start those lines are frequently not cast in stone and those lines are pushed by indulgence by fantasizing even if we do not indulge as for example a youth student born cultured family may have a line that I will not drink or do drugs but then as that child as that young person lives in the association of people who do these things then let me try it once what’s the harm maybe I should become experienced so that line gets pushed forward once and then once that line is crossed once crossing it the second time is not all that difficult because the mind has already become you could say conditioned or programmed in that way and then after that it becomes relatively easier to cross it the third time the fourth time and then not only cross it but go further and further down that degraded course of action so that’s how obsession can end in degradation because when we are obsessed by something we can think only in terms of that thing and not in terms of the broader picture of things and thus even people who are reasonable, responsible, ethical, sensitive in one dimension of their life may be monstrously insensitive in another dimension of their life because they have indulged so much in it so for example when a person steals once for money that may be because of the force of circumstance there is just no other way to earn and one desperately needs for some urgent purpose but then one does it again second time, third time, fourth time and eventually that becomes a compulsion which is just not resistible and thus one ends up dragged down the path of degradation by one’s lower desires one may go from a small robbery to a big robbery and one may go from simply stealing something minor to even hurting people in order to steal not just hurting but it may even go to killing so the lines that we know that we shouldn’t cross if we cross them at any time that should actually put us in high alert not just because the consequences of the wrong doing may hit us which of course they will in due course as per the law of karma but also because the indulgence is so because the indulgence itself is so entangling that we will be become more and more degraded by that and ironically or tragically we could say instead of recognizing the gravity of the wrong doing that one is doing or the severity of the degradation into which one is getting sucked the mind perversely makes one delight in thinking how clever I am, how smart I am that I can even do this and get away with it and that nobody comes to know about it so instead of contemplating how we are being caught by our own desires we end up congratulating ourselves for having not been caught for our deeds so that means that a person may think that I am the controller, I am the enjoyer I am surrounded by such influential people and I myself am so influential that nobody can catch me that I am above the law that I will not be bound by the consequences of my actions but one may not be getting the consequences of one’s deeds we may not be caught for our deeds but we are already caught by our desires which are dragging us down a dangerous path of degradation and delusion which will eventually lead to deadly amounts of distress this illusion to which the ungodly, the demoniac are subjected will be described in the next verse