Bhagavad-gita perspective on the movie OPPENHEIMER

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Hare Krishna what is the Bhagavad Gita perspective on the movie Oppenheimer Oppenheimer is a movie about the scientist about Oppenheimer who was considered to be the father of the atom bomb and from the most well known aspects of Oppenheimer especially for those who are followers of Sanatana Dharma and Bhagavad Gita or even Eastern spirituality in general is that he quoted the verse 1133 death I have become the destroyer of the world was the translation that he quoted so the Bhagavad Gita perspective will focus on this point about how he found meaning in the Bhagavad Gita and how we can also find meaning similarly I will talk about it in terms of four D’s rather two sets of two D’s first is divinity amid duality and the second is direction amid destruction so Oppenheimer loved the Bhagavad Gita so much when he was studying at Harvard it seemed he was more interested in Eastern philosophy than in science per se he learned Sanskrit so just so that he could read the Bhagavad Gita in his in its original Sanskrit form and then he also would recommend the book to others in the later stages of his life when he was asked about the books that had the biggest formative influence on him he quoted Bhagavad Gita among the top ten books at the funeral of FDR Roosevelt he distributed Bhagavad Gita to friends as a part of a during the memorial service basically to help them make sense of death so for him the Gita was a book that gave him solace and shelter now what was he looking for in the Manhattan Project so he on the suggestion of Einstein and some other scientists had been appointed by the US government to lead the project for the development of the first atom bomb and in the New Mexico desert what is called the Trinity test was done to evaluate and observe the destructive power of the atom bomb and when that exploded it was a display of incredible power so on seeing that there was one sense there was a sense of awe it was at one level awesome and it was awful just to see that exhibition of power was incredible that was the awesome part but that power unleashed so much destruction was the awful part and in the Bhagavad Gita when Arjuna saw the universal form as described in the 11th chapter at that time he also experienced similar ambivalent emotions two emotions going in different directions initially when he saw this universal form spread in all directions left and right and top to bottom covering all the space around him that reaching up to the sky with no end in sight anywhere he was he saw it as wonderful he saw it as awesome but then within that all pervading universal form he also saw a destructive aspect the fire of devastation coming from the mouth and consuming the various warriors in the battlefield and that unnerved him that he saw as fearful even as dreadful you could use the word awe if you see that we come in the presence of something far bigger than ourselves that can fill us with wonder that can also fill us with fear and that’s the second emotion that he experienced and that’s when he asks that form who are you and in reply Krishna says that literally means time I am now the translation which he had in that it is death I have become time has various features time involves time brings about creation or birth time brings about maintenance and time also brings about destruction but in this case on the battlefield time had manifested in the destructive format so translating it as death is also okay but the point is that both the Bhagavad Gita describes that both of these the wonder of the universe of seeing the reality far bigger than ourselves and the fear the horror even the terror that comes on seeing the you might of that higher reality and how tiny we are in front of that that both these emotions come and so in one sense he was trying to put a finger to his feeling open him and now how much he specifically related his dilemma with Arjuna’s dilemma he definitely related his situation with what the situation that was depicted in the Bhagavad Gita but Arjuna’s dilemma was that he had to fight a war which would cause untold destruction he would much rather not fight that war but not fighting that war could very well mean far greater destruction because tyrannical powers would gain uncontrolled sway on the entire world so similar Oppenheimer felt was his dilemma if they did not develop if America did not develop that weapon of mass destruction WMD in that case it was the atom bomb then Germany would and Germany would win and they would inflict far greater terror on the world the moral lines between the Pandavas and the Kauravas are they as are the lines between the Allies and the Axis just as clear maybe maybe not certainly after the Cold War First World War when after Second World War the Holocaust came about that is that showed an evil of unspeakable magnitude and while destruction always happened during the Holocaust that it brought factory efficiency to mass killing industrial efficiency to mass killing so it was brutal so he in one sense tried to get over his ambivalence that brings me to the second part they’re trying to see find direction amid destruction and that he found solace in the Bhagavad Gita’s wisdom irrespective of whether the war exactly was as righteous or as virtuous as the war of the Mahabharata that shows the potential that even in the most difficult of situations even when we are faced with destruction the Bhagavad Gita has the potential to provide us direction we just need to turn toward it and if we immerse ourselves in the Gita the Gita will speak to us and even when we have difficult decisions to make one of the things that makes the Gita so relatable is that it relates a situation of great dilemma when good people have no good choices ahead of them both the choices they have, Arjuna had choices both of them were bad choices and that is the time when we need the guidance the most we need guidance at all times in life but the Gita’s wisdom relates how a good person when faced with no good choices can still retain their goodness by looking upward not just looking ahead to see what is good and bad but to look upward to see the divine hand to become, to hold the divine hand to become an instrument in the hands of the divine and act in a mood of service do our dharma in a mood of seva, in a mood of bhakti and that is how we can play our part however demanding it might be and whatever dilemma we may present life may present us the Gita holds the wisdom to guide us through it, thank you