Gita 01.11 The protector too needs to be protected

Thank you bhagavad gita 1.11 so here is the last word that durodhana is going to speak in his starting speech starts from third text and goes to the eleventh nine verses he is addressing the remaining warriors now all of you wherever you are situated whichever part of the battlefield you are situated from there you have to protect Bhishma Bhavantaha is a respectful second person address Tuam is a normal second person address Bhavan is the respectful second person address like hindu in hindi you may have tu and aap so all of you from your respective positions please protect Bhishma now durodhana had suspicion about the loyalty of the two foremost warriors in his army Drona and Bhishma and most of his speech was meant to incite Drona to fight in a wholehearted way by reminding him that his old enemy Drupada was on the opposite side and Drupada's son was the commander at the same time now he is doing a balancing act and he is making sure that Bhishma doesn't feel neglected Drona is his martial teacher and Bhishma is his grandsire so if we consider overall the point that there is no easy way to take things forward when there are many people involved and there are multiple egos involved the word ego can be used in a negative or derogatory sense this person has too much ego or it can just be used in a functional sense that everybody is an individual and everybody needs to be acknowledged if their contribution their role their significance is not acknowledged at a human level we feel demotivated so to avoid such feelings of demotivation we need to be reasonable and logical in the steps that we take unless we do that we can't move forward in our life so Duryodhana is diplomatic and he recognizes that now he has to make sure that Bhishma does not feel neglected so in the previous verse he said our army is protected by Bhishma and now he recognizes that that is credit for Bhishma but at the same time he needs to give more credit to Bhishma and also give due credit to all the other warriors who are on his side so the defender also needs to be defended nobody in life is invulnerable in an army if the biggest warrior can be put down many times in an army the king or the commander is killed by the opponents even if the remaining army is still strong even if the remaining army has still large number of soldiers and large number of weapons still they may run helter-skelter in fear in chaos, in panic so it's vital that the defender also needs to be defended the chief defender the chief protector the protector also needs protection when Arjuna penetrated into the Kaurava army formation to reach Jaidrath at that time he had two warriors with him who were meant to guard his wheels because if the enemy attacks and breaks the wheels of the chariot then the warrior becomes immobilized and that is a serious problem significance of what is spoken here is that the army structure has been well designed and Bhishma who is competent enough to lead the Kaurava army from the front will still need protection from the flanks, from the sides if that protection is missing then that could lead to problems therefore in whatever position whoever is from that position each member needs to protect Bhishma this principle applies in life in general also for example we need our intelligence to protect us from illusion but at the same time our intelligence also needs to be protected our intelligence will protect us from temptation but that temptation can continuous exposure to temptation in a undiscerning way can wither down can wither away, chip away our intelligence and leave us with nothing with no facility left at all to do anything worthwhile in our lives so therefore if we are to move step by step towards purification towards elevation of consciousness it's vital that we learn to protect our intelligence if we don't protect our intelligence no one will so of course to protect our intelligence we need to both study scripture regularly and avoid unguarded exposure to temptation we can't live we live in a world that is filled with temptations so we can't function in the world with closed eyes we can't avoid perceiving temptation but we can definitely avoid unguarded exposure to temptation unguarded means if we are not aware that this can be illusion this can delude me that I need to protect myself from this so we may we may encounter the temptation but recognizing that they can tempt us, will put us put us on the guard just like if we are walking near a steep cliff we have to be on guard now if that is the only path for us to get to the destination we will walk along the path we will keep a reasonably safe distance and we will walk alertly similarly we could say that intelligence protects our consciousness but then our consciousness has to protect our intelligence if you consider consciousness to be like a territory which needs to be guarded then intelligence is like the guard intelligence is able to identify who is who when some person comes in is this a spy? is this an enemy? is this an ally? who is this? at the same time consciousness is what makes us aware of things so we can't be discerning without observing so consciousness helps us to be observant and then intelligence helps us to be discerning thus the protector needs to be protected Bhishma is the protector in the battlefield setting and other warriors need to protect him just as for us, our intelligence will be a protector but then will be the protector of our consciousness and our consciousness needs to protect our intelligence.