Gita 18.47 Acknowledging our present diversity is essential for realizing our spiritual commanality

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Bhagavad Gita 18.47 Krishna speaks here about how he is ordained, arranged for various prescribed duties according to people’s particular natures and then everybody has a recommended way to be elevated and that way works the best for them. So, that point is being stressed over here. For Arjuna, it is the Kshatriya way that will best lead to his elevation.
The Brahmana way of forgiving and renouncing will not work for him. So, Krishna is telling here, that it is better to do one’s own work even if it involves some force. As compared to Paradharma, it is better to be Svanushthita, be situated in one’s own work, Svabhavanyatam, Karma and if one does one’s own activities, Kurvan, Naapno, Tikil, Visham, one will not get any contamination, one will not get any entanglement because of working according to one’s own nature.
So, this means that every one of us has to choose a little bit of our particular situation and focus on the ultimate destination from our location. So, suppose, we are having a meeting at a particular place with someone important. All of us have our own homes and or our offices where we are based and from there we have to go to that place.
So, although our destination is common, our path will not be common because our location is not the same. Depending on where we are, the path to the same destination will be different. So, just as our physical location will lead to a slight change in the path or a major change in the path depending on where that location is with respect to destination.
So, somebody wants to go to say Phoenix from New York, they may have to go westwards, but somebody from LA has to go towards Phoenix, they will have to go eastwards. Somebody from Toronto has to go to Phoenix, they will have to go southwards. Somebody from Orlando wants to go to Phoenix, they will have to go northwards.
So, if somebody comes to know that, oh, the person from Toronto is going southwards and the weather is going south is so nice, the north is very cold and now we are moving south and it is feeling it is so much better, so much more pleasant weather. So, let us go towards that. Then it won’t work because the problem will be that even if the weather there is pleasant, here the weather may not be pleasant.
If you go southwards, it might be storm from Orlando, a hurricane might be coming, there might be a storm over there. So, we can’t simply imitate others and think that, oh, others’ drive in this direction was very pleasant, so my drive in that direction will also be very pleasant. Now, obviously, at a physical level, we understand that we all are at different locations, but at a psychophysical level also, we all are at different locations.
So, even if we want to go towards Krishna, we cannot go towards Krishna by following exactly the same material trajectory. Spiritually, of course, there are some practices which are common, just like if people are driving, then the activity of driving is common, the principles of driving are common, but the direction of driving may be different and will be different even if the destination is the same, because the starting point is different. So, similarly, even if all the four Varanas, Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra, all of them want to attain perfection, for them to attain perfection, they all need to move forwards progressively in understanding that from where they are, their consciousness has to evolve towards spirituality.
So, the laudable virtues that a Kshatriya is meant to cultivate will be different from the laudable virtues that a Brahmana is meant to cultivate. Of course, there will be some virtues which will be common to everyone. Say, for example, there can be different professionals, a doctor and an engineer.
Now, they may need to both develop ethos of responsibility, ethos of honesty, ethos of diligence. Certain virtues are common. But a doctor will need to know about medicine exhaustively and an engineer may not need to know about machines exhaustively.
So, even if both want to go to the same destination of earning a respectable livelihood, they will have to choose the path differently. An engineer may have to, if they are mechanical engineer or civil engineer, they may have to, say, a civil station, some natural scenic areas may have to be brought down so that they can get the builder, so that they can build something over there. That may not be pleasant.
They may be sensitive to ecology and they may not want to bring down the trees, but they may have to. A person who is training to be a doctor, they may have to cut, they may have to dissect animals as part of their study of the bodies so that they can be better equipped to treat human beings. Now, they may find cutting animals distasteful, even horrible, distressing, but they may have to do it.
What can we do at this situation? So, now, if a doctor goes and starts breaking trees, that will be culpable. But if, and similarly, if an engineer starts cutting down, dissecting animals, that will also be a problem. But if both do what is required for their particular vocation, then it won’t be a problem.
So, svabhāvaniyatam karma kurvannāpnotikilviśam svabhāvaniyatam karma. That according to one’s svabhāva, we need to act. And the more we act according to svabhāva, the more we grow spiritually.
The more we progress towards Krishna by acting according to our nature. So, the nature that we all have is individual, is dynamic, is something that each one of us has to mould ourselves according to. Unless we learn to understand where we are psychophysically located, we won’t know what is the path for us to get to our destination.
That’s why so when going from the south, somebody who is in Orlando wants to go to Phoenix, they have to go northwards. Even if that road northward is difficult, but still that is what they need to go through to get to their destination. And when that road, initially it might be difficult, and later on it might be a smooth road.
Somebody coming from Orlando to coming from Toronto towards Phoenix, initially it might be a unpleasant road, but later on it may become unpleasant, we don’t know. So, we have to focus not on which road is pleasant, but which road is serving our purpose. So, our duties are all meant to serve the purpose of purifying and elevating and liberating us.
Krishna has said in the previous verse that we can that the living being can attain perfection by working according to one’s nature. So, to the extent we understand this principle that we all have a nature and we all are meant to serve according to our nature, to that extent we all will move forwards towards the destination of elevation and liberation. So, to realize our material spiritual nature, which is common to all living beings, we have to work according to our material nature, which is different for every living being.
So, acknowledging our present diversity