Before a prescription can inspire action, the diagnosis must inspire conviction Gita 18.72

Before a prescription can inspire action the diagnosis must inspire conviction sometimes we tell people to do certain things do this and don’t do this and yet they don’t do it and we get irritated exasperated, frustrated infuriated and we may come to our wits end, what should I do why don’t people listen to me at such times we may need to look deeper to understand that what we are giving them is a prescription and to take a medical metaphor before the patient will be inspired to take the prescription or do the action according to the prescription the patient needs to hear the diagnosis and be convinced about the diagnosis something might be very obvious to us but it may not be at all obvious to the person whom we are telling to do something it may not be at all evident to them why it should be done and we may we may just presume that they understand or we may understand we may just explain in a very cursory way without really concerning ourselves with whether they have understood or not and therefore what we need is proper persuasive explanation that inspires conviction Krishna himself demonstrates this in the Bhagavad Gita when he after completing the Gita he doesn’t just directly call for action in fact the Gita doesn’t conclude with an explicit call for action the Gita just concludes with a inquiry about clarity of communication clarity of understanding 1872 is the last word spoken by Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita and therein he says that so Arjuna have you been able to hear attentively did the war impending war and the battlefield setting did it distract you? were you able to focus? if you are able to focus then have you understood? has your illusion and ignorance been dispelled? so Krishna doesn’t stress the diagnosis Krishna doesn’t stress the prescription he stresses the diagnosis and because the diagnosis is so persuasive naturally in the next verse the prescription is also accepted as we see in 1873 Arjuna says that so actually my illusion is dispelled my doubts have gone my memory has been restored and I have become composed and therefore I will do your will so rather than telling people what to do we need to focus more energy on telling them rational intelligible non-judgmental reasons for why they should do what they need to do or more even broader now what will be the consequences if they continue their course of action their present course of action and what will be the better results if they choose another alternative course of action that we are recommending so when our diagnosis becomes convincing then the prescription will be adopted by them enthusiastically thank you Hare Krishna