Does the Gita ask Arjuna to choose job over family?
So Hare Krishna question is the Gita an anti-family book because it tells Arjuna to choose his job over his family it asks Arjuna to choose his Kshatriya duty which is his job instead of his Kula Dharma, his duty to his family answer no by fighting the war there was Yudhishthir his eldest brother who was supposed to be the rightful king and it was his kingdom that had been dispossessed and Arjuna was fighting to restore the kingdom for Yudhishthir and even his wife Draupadi had been dishonored and he was protecting her honor so even if you want to talk from the family perspective he was working for his immediate family members and yes he was fighting against his other family members his cousins and unfortunately for him he also had to fight against his grandsire but the important point is that the contours of that conflict were far more complex and we can't say that one is the choice of family and the other is the choice of job now it is true that there is a conflict between Kshatriya Dharma and Kula Dharma in the Mahabharata and Arjuna had to deal with that the Bhagavad Gita's conclusion is not simply a favoring of Kshatriya Dharma or Kula Dharma it is actually the favoring of Bhagavad Dharma over Aparadharma of endorsing Paradharma over Aparadharma now for Arjuna it happened that his Aparadharma so Paradharma refers to our transcendental duty that is the duty of our duty as souls who are parts of Krishna that is our duty to love and serve Krishna so now that is the supreme duty and how we can serve Krishna that will vary according to time,place,circumstance now so the for Arjuna when he was present in the battlefield of Kurukshetra Krishna was there and Krishna asked him to fight the war so for him the Bhagavad Dharma was fighting the war and Arjuna's consciousness is I will do your will so Arjuna's consciousness is not so much that he will not fight that he is fighting because he is a Kshatriya he is fighting because he understands that I am a devotee of Krishna and doing his will is the purpose and perfection of my existence so that's the first point about not reducing the complex ethical dilemmas to simplistic modern categories now the second point is is the Gita per se anti-family or pro-job no the the Gita talks about a balanced culture where all aspects of our life are given due weightage so there has to be time for devotion to God there has to be time for our family duties there has to be time for our earning our livelihood yes today's society is so imbalanced that people get so caught up in their job they often become alcoholics and their primary sense of self-identity comes from from being achievers from rather than so we have an ultimate self-identity or foundational, essential self-identity that we are souls, we are parts of Krishna and the purpose of life is to ultimately realize that identity and rejoice in that identity, in the relationship with Krishna, that brings supreme happiness but while we are living in this world we do have we do assume various subordinate identities so I am an Indian, I am a man I am an engineer or whatever these sort of identities they are not to be rejected entirely they are to be subordinated to the ultimate subordinated to the fundamental identity the quest for realizing our essential identity so in a culture where where there is proper balance then the different identities that we have they are balanced properly so for example if somebody starts thinking in today's society if somebody starts thinking say that I am a person of so and so nation and that is a natural identity, so if Indians go to America then as NRS they will have a dual sense of identity now they are Americans, they may emigrate and become citizens of America but they still have Indian roots so now which identity needs to be given more prominence, that will vary depending on time, place and circumstance so how we can function most effectively at a material and spiritual level that has to be the consideration for determining which identity has to be given prominence so if society glamorizes only the professional success and devalues family success family success means that living in a family in a harmonious and happy way if that becomes devalued then we start minimizing our family identity and we start maximizing over emphasizing our professional identity and that actually to a large extent is the reason for one of the reasons for family family conflicts, family ruptures as may happen in divorce that means if society glamorizes a person just because that person is say a successful manager in a company but then equally important is that the person be a good husband, a good wife or a good parent and do those roles also effectively so the social culture has to be such that it doesn't inordinately glamorize one identity and neglect other identities so if that happens then say the professional identity is too glamorized then people are considered a success because they have been because they have been they are great achievers in their professional field but then their family life is a ruin they have multiple marriages and multiple affairs and their children become the children become addicted to bad habits and become unfortunately misfits in society or rather burdens to society so now when this happens then it is not that everything is alright if a person is professionally good then what happens in the personal life doesn't matter no, the professional success and the personal success both need to be given importance so now if we see in the Bhagavad Gita repeatedly Arjuna is referred to by names connected with his family Kurunandana, Bharatarshabha, Kaunteya, Partha, Pandava so these are all names connected with the family this indicates that he is coming from a respectable family, from a respectable lineage and therefore he needs to act respectively so the idea is the family identity is also given adequate importance and that makes one do the family duties in a responsible way to accept family responsibilities also in a in a mature way even when there are difficulties in executing those responsibilities so in today's society rather than the Gita being anti-family it is actually the contemporary culture that is anti-family in the sense that it glamorizes the professional success much more than family success and that's how people if they are about to lose their job they will do a lot of things to somehow preserve their job, they have business they will take any amount of measures to ensure their business will shut down but then if their marriage is not working and they are on the verge of divorce, how much do they take measures to actually try to protect the family, so often that is just accepted as sometimes it is affected as fate accompany and just people go on with it, that is unfortunate so the Gita's understanding is that there is ultimate spiritual identity which has to be realized but while we are living in the world we have multiple identities which are assumed so that we can play appropriate roles in life in society, so these identities all need to be proportionately emphasized and balanced so that we can function effectively in life so the Gita's social structure, social vision gives due importance to the professional identity as a Kshatriya and to the family identity as a member of a family and it is to the extent that we have a spiritual vision to life, to that extent we can balance the various roles in our life otherwise if we don't have a spiritual vision we have only a materialistic vision, then one particular aspect gets unduly emphasized so for example the Bhagavad Gita or the Bhagavatam condemn people who are too attached to their family identity and therefore neglect spiritual life, so for example a person who is very attached to family members and so does not cultivate attachment to God, to Krishna that is condemned in the Bhagavatam in today's context also a person who is too attached to the profession and therefore just becomes a workaholic who has no time for God or no time for family also that also is undesirable, that also is to be condemned and a proper balance is to be achieved, so by keeping a spiritual focus of life and then accordingly taking up the roles which enable us to function most effectively in society for our spiritual progress and for our contribution to society, that is the way that the Bhagavad Gita recommends, thank you Hare Krishna.