Arjunas Qualification For Hearing Gita Wisdom- Gita Verses 11 Gita 1.44 – 46

We have the verse over here, So, we are discussing here, Arjuna is giving more or less his concluding reasoning and he’s saying that, such a great sin.
So, he’s saying that, I am here and this battlefield, Arjuna, as we know, is in the middle of the battlefield, in the middle of the two armies. And he’s thinking that we are fighting this war and we are ready to kill. This is a great, great atrocious wrong that we are doing.
So, how can I be doing this? And in one sense, this is humility. There’s a striking difference between humility and ego. Many differences.
But generally, if you see, one difference is, whenever we are doing any action, that action has some motivation. And we try to assign or we try to understand our motivation. So, when ego is there, we try to assign the highest motivation to our action.
I am doing this for your good. Say, if I get angry at you and I yell at you, I say that, I did this because you are about to make a terrible mistake. I did this only for your good.
I can’t even understand it. But when there’s humility, there is like the lowest motivation one expects. Actually, I lost my temper.
I tend to just use it sometimes. I’m sorry about that. So, sometimes when an action is done, quite often the motivation is somewhere in between these two.
It’s the real motivation is in between. But what motivation a person assigns to one’s actions is significant. So, what happens is that here he’s assigning the motivation, Raj Sukalobian.
This is simply out of greed for kingdom. Now, we have not gone too much into the history and it’s worth going to the history over here. What is Arjuna speaking? If you look at the history, these two brothers, it’s, I’m going to talk about this now because in the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna starts going more into philosophical reasoning.
But if you look at the history, these two dynasties, the Pandavas or Kauravas, they are more or less contemporaries. And if you look at the overall history, the Kauravas have committed several atrocities. In many ways, they have attacked and tormented the Pandavas.
Now, they tried to poison one of them, poison Bhima. Then they tried to burn all of them alive, including their mother alive. That was ghastly what they tried to do.
Then they tried to, they actually didn’t try to, they just defrauded them of the entire kingdom and stole their kingdom. Then after that, they even tried to dishonor and disrobe their wife. And after on top of that, now if you consider there was this one kingdom that was Hastinapur.
And when the Pandavas had been sidelined, they created, they were given a barren patch of land, which they made into another kingdom called the Indraprastha, another kingdom. You don’t want to get into the names. But basically, this was a kingdom that under the Pandavas expanded much more because they were such virtuous rulers that it was a small place, but it became huge and prosperous.
But then the Kauravas did their own scheming. So basically, the Kauravas were ruling here, the Pandavas were here. But what the Kauravas did was that through a scheme, they just took this entire kingdom for themselves.
They took it entirely as their own kingdom. And the Pandavas were exiled to the forest. They were basically living in a small kind of hermitage.
That’s how they had lived for a long time. For 13 years they lived like that. And now all the Pandavas were demanding was the kingdom that they had developed, that they had got from their, they had manifested in the wilderness.
So the Pandavas were the opposite of being greedy. If they had been greedy, they would have asked for the entire kingdom. But the Pandavas were even just our half of the kingdom they wanted.
And when that was not happening, they were ready to settle even for five villages. We are five brothers, this gives us five villages and we’ll be happy with that. So basically, they were not, it’s very wrong to consider that they were greedy.
But eventually what happened is, he’s thinking like this because he’s so concerned about the warfare. He wants to stop the warfare. He thinks that, you know, I’m not really nobly motivated.
I am ignobly motivated. I’m motivated by greed. That’s in one sense a sign of his humility.
That he’s ascribing this motive to himself. Humility means to ascribe the lowest motive. But sometimes humility can be at the cost of honesty.
Where, what is happening is because he just feels this war is so terrible and I want to avoid it. So what is happening is, he’s taking a humble position, but he’s also either consciously or unconsciously distorting the reality. It’s not they who are greedy.
In fact, earlier he has said, you see in 38, 39 verses, they are motivated by greed, but we shouldn’t be motivated like that. But now he’s saying that, okay, we are fighting. If we know all this is happening, all this is likely to happen, then in spite of that we fight.
And what reason could be there other than greed? So is our claim to the kingdom so important that we are ready to devastate the entire society for generations to come? So, oh, you see, oh, but it’s very sad that we are contemplating this. Now there is something vital missing in his argument that he’s thinking that Arjuna’s thought is fighting, what will it lead to? Its consequences. But one thing he’s not thinking is not fighting will also have consequences.
So is it that all the people who are over there, they are going to live peacefully? The Kauravas have a track record of being vicious. So is it that suddenly they’re going to become peaceful and let all the social order and everything go on? Well, unlikely. While in the period in which the Kauravas were ruling, they didn’t do too much disruption.
Why? They didn’t do too much exploitation or devastation or selfish excesses because they wanted to win over the population. They knew the Pandavas are going to come back, they’re more popular, they’ll have a claim, they wanted to support, so they acted good. But it’s not that they had any change of heart and that was seen by how they utterly rejected this proposal derisively even for five villages.
So if the Pandavas completely were off the picture, then the Kauravas would have no challenge and maybe the dark side would cover up much more than and the result would be that they would devastate society. So he is generally the way our mind starts thinking is when it goes in one direction, it just goes a lot in that direction. And yes, fighting is terrible, no doubt.
But sometimes you just don’t have any good choices. You’re fighting or not fighting. So and Arjuna himself will acknowledge that later.
Fighting is terrible, but not fighting is also terrible. So that part right now he’s not thinking. He will think about it in due course, but I just wanted to bring it up right now.
As I said earlier, 38-39 he said that he said that they are having greed, but we are not. So they may fight, but we should not. So but then he’s saying that, but if we are going to fight, what reason could be there? It must be greed.
Is it really greed? It could be a higher reason. But at this point, he’s saying no, it’s greed. So is he being humble? I would say it’s more that the very fact that he can think of some this lowest motive for his action.
That itself is a pointer to his humility. But in this particular context, that is not the reason why they are fighting. So I was making a more general psychological point that even for a person to think, yeah, you know, when I got angry, it is not about you.
It’s about I only go off the handle at times. A normal person would say, you know, you did this and you did this and you did this. You deserve what I gave you.
You deserve more in fact. You asked for it. Arjuna is not going in that direction.
So that shows his thoughtfulness. In fact, many of the commentators in the Gita, they said that the first chapter shows Arjuna’s qualifications for receiving spiritual wisdom. That how Arjuna is such a reflective person.
Now Arjuna is definitely reflective. Now that does not necessarily mean that all reflections are necessarily correct. But the point is he’s being reflective.
So some people can be thoughtful, but that doesn’t mean that just because they’re thoughtful, they are right. But if they’re thoughtful, then what will happen is when there will be a discussion, they won’t just be irrationally sticking to their opinions. Because they’re thoughtful, by further thoughtful deliberation, they’ll be ready to revise their opinions.
So his thoughtfulness is being shown. He’s on the no fighting train. So he’s just seeing that right now.
But when Krishna will present alternative things, he will also observe those. In fact, we’ll see later that now his moral reasons are coming to an end. Some people say that Arjuna just shot the war and he just got an attack of nerves.
I can’t fight. But it was not at all like that. Because not once in the series, the Arjuna’s reasons that are there, what’s not there, what’s absent is fear of his own death.
Not once does he mention that. So his concerns are about something bigger than himself. Like say there’s a big tech company and there’s a big recession and that company is going to go under.
Now the CEO could be worried. Hey, I bought this mansion in California. How am I going to pay for this mortgage? Or the CEO could be thinking, I’ve got 500 employees in my family, in my company.
How are they going to have their livelihood? How are they going to take care of their families? So both could put them in anxiety, but both are indicating a very different mentality. So Arjuna’s anxiety is there, fear is there, indecision is there, but it is from a very broad perspective. He’s thinking about considerations far bigger than his own safety.
And that’s why the next text will come up, which will say that what he is ready to sacrifice. So Arjuna is saying over here that if he’s, now you could say the war is two ways. It’s not just they are attacking, he’s attacking them, they are also attacking him.
The Pandavas and Kauravas. So now if the Pandavas decide that they are not going to attack, there’s no attack from their side, but that does not mean the Kauravas are not going to attack, they’re going to attack. So he puts aside his arms, he refuses to fight, but they will kill him.
He is saying here that dying is preferable to causing such destruction. But then again, what he’s not thinking is maybe after his dying, the destruction is going to happen. Isn’t it? Are they going to be satisfied? Okay, now we got your kingdom, now we let everyone live happily.
It’s very unlikely. But again, his readiness, it’s much better that we let everyone, let them kill me, but rather than cause a destruction. Humility is definitely he’s saying that, not thinking less about, you could put this in a thinking low about yourself, and thinking less about yourself, just makes it a little clearer.
Thinking low means I’m a terrible person, and thinking less is, okay, I’m not such an important person and everything has to be about me. Less in terms of, less in terms of time, attention, thought, let me think about bigger things beyond myself. Sarjana is all about over here.
So yes, he’s thinking bigger things about himself, beyond himself. He is also, if you look at it, he’s not thinking so much about when people say that you got attack of nerves. There are different kinds of attack.
There’s attack of nerves, and there’s attack of conscience. The attack of nerves means that a person just feels fearful. It’s a big occasion, and what can I do in this big occasion? Conscience means a person becomes, you could say, hesitant.
Why? Because they’re concerned about, is this the right thing to do? So if Sarjana has any attack, it’s not an attack of nerves. It’s an attack of conscience, and normally when we use the word attack of conscience, it’s when a person is about to do something wrong. If you’re about to rob a bank, somebody’s supposed to rob somebody’s house, hey, maybe I should not be doing this.
So now in that case, it’s clear that that person is doing something wrong, and that time attack of conscience is a good thing. Now, whether Arjuna is an attack of conscience, because is it really clear that he’s doing the wrong thing? That is, it’s definitely not an attack of nerves. The attack of, you could say, if at all you want to use the word like that, it’s more of an attack of the, it’s an awakening of the moral sense, activation of the moral sense.
It’s always there, but it becomes even more active right now. This is a real right thing to do. So that’s what is happening to Arjuna.
Let’s go to the last verse now. So, here is more of the conclusion of the first chapter, and there’s a literal action which is quite dramatic. Arjuna is in quite a dramatic way, he’s put aside his bow, he sat down.
Both of them are indicating his decision not to fight. War is the battlefield, you know, that’s not a place for sitting down and relaxing. That’s not a place for putting down one’s weapons.
So, he’s doing that, and at the same time, he’s filled with grief, he’s filled with lamentation, and it’s like the Bhagavad Gita is talking about a situation that a good person with no good choices, no good options. In one sense, he, a part of it is thinking that, if I don’t fight, they’re going to kill me, they’re going to kill me, and that’s terrible, and they don’t want to kill me, they kill my family also, they kill everybody over here. So, I don’t, it’s just terrible.
We’ll talk about this further, but that’s the situation, a good person with no good option, at least he’s thinking, fighting is not a good option, and Arjuna’s bow, it represents our will to fight, our life’s battle, our determination, our enthusiasm. Life is also like a battlefield, and we all have to fight at times, but sometimes, it’s just too demoralizing. So, Arjuna is putting down his bow, you could say, today’s world sometimes, I just quit.
So, Arjuna is like that, he’s putting aside his bow, and symbolically speaking, at the end of the Gita, Arjuna will pick up his bow, leading us to fight. So, similarly, the Gita for all of us, we will be demoralized by various things in our life, but by understanding the Gita, we all can regain our morale, and we all can function enthusiastically, with a more holistic understanding of reality and our place and purpose in it, which is what the Gita will subsequently tell. So, today we discussed about how Arjuna, first of all, is ascribing the lowest motive to himself.
He is saying that we are fighting out of greed. That may not necessarily be true, but that also shows his character. In that connection, we discussed Arjuna’s character, his readiness to his reflectiveness, even his reflections are not right, but his reflectiveness shows him his readiness, his receptivity, his qualification for receiving the Gita’s wisdom.
Then, finally, we talk about Arjuna’s dejection. Arjuna is giving up his bow, that his bow can represent our determination in life, and the Gita stands ready to help us regain our determination. Just a little help, Arjuna,