Gita 01.27 The sequence of perception determines the consequence on our emotion

Bhagavad Gita 1.27 Arjuna has just come to the middle of the two armies and has seen generations of relatives and people familiar to him arrayed on the other side and that completely discombobulates him confuses him and here the perception and emotion are told and Arjuna saw all of them all of them together he became overwhelmed by overwhelming compassion and he spoke lamenting these words actually for all of us how our emotions are shaped by our situations is quite a complex thing our vision is central to our perception although we say seeing is not believing still seeing has enormous effect on how we act and how we don't act therefore it's important for us each one of us to take tangible steps forward in our spiritual journey by recognizing that we carefully parse evaluate what we put in our what we put in our situation that means what we do what we do with a particular situation, how we deal with that situation depends on what we let in our vision, in our consciousness so Arjuna, when he came initially he was on the battlefield he wanted to say dhartarastra se durbuddhir yuddhe prachakirshau he understood that those people he wanted to know who are the people who are fighting on the opposite side assisting the evil minded son of Dhritarashtra but now he started focusing on so here we see that Arjuna's vision changes completely where earlier he was thinking of people as his as the supporters of somebody evil now he starts seeing them as his relatives if we consider if we consider the process by which our emotions arise the emotions arising we could say are inner response not just to the outer situations but our perception in that outer situation and not just our perception in that outer situation but also our specific focus within that perception that means what is it that we highlight sometimes when we are reading a book if we find something striking we may use a highlighter to mark it so that for our future reading and reference that section will be seen easily while that highlight is physical and has to be physically marked or digitally marked if you are reading on a computer today or on a screen but our mind has an innate highlighter and that highlighter doesn't always do us good that highlighter often does a disservice to us because it takes it may take undesirable parts of reality and highlight them while downplaying the parts of the reality that are not so undesirable the parts of the reality that are more adaptable more amenable for us we may neglect them so it's important that we recognize whether our inner highlighter is working for us or against us say for example if somebody is very interested in certain things say they are interested in a particular character in a novel or a particular kind of scenes they are interested in say reading about action, guns or some people may be interested in steamy scenes then while scrolling through pages they may just highlight that part their mind will just rush to those kind of points so basically for each one of us it's important it's vital that we take things step by step and move in a progressive way based on our intelligence not in a default way as directed by our mind so for Arjuna as soon as he saw the opposite army his mind highlighted the presence of Bhishma and Drona over there Bhishma, Drona, Pramukta Sarvesham, Jumahik, Sita all of them were kings but Bhishma and Drona were highlighted by his mind and when he saw them the result of that vision was that he became overwhelmed and think how can I fight against them they are my loved ones they are the ones with whom who have trained me, who have mentored me who are my venerable elders and seeing them thus affected or directed his vision similarly to other loved ones when we see some things say for example the sequence in which we see things also affects us so if he had seen Duryodhana first over there and then he had seen the other Kaurava warriors and then he had seen other Kauravas specifically and then he had seen the other warriors and then he had seen Bhishma and Drona then he would not have been that affected with weakness because Duryodhana his very attitude and his actions provided Arjuna many many reasons to fight and he needed to acknowledge that and that is what he was focused on doing that is what he did but but that is what had actually made them fight the war that is what he had done earlier they couldn't digest the Pandavas couldn't digest the Kauravas insolence especially against Krishna and that made them fight fiercely against him but now when he saw first the Kauravas Bhishma and Drona and then he saw others the first perception as we say the first impression lasts and the first impression often has a lasting impact the first impression shapes our subsequent impressions so in this case Arjuna's first impression of the opposite party was he saw Bhishma and Drona first and thus he lost his will to fight so for all of us we have to be extremely responsible whereby we don't get let ourselves get carried away by unwanted unhealthy perceptions but instead we guard our consciousness vigilantly keeping in mind that which is most important for us which primarily is our focus on Krishna our desire to serve Krishna and our ultimate attainment of Krishna when we shape our vision in such a way that it is in harmony with our primary intention then our perceptions will strengthen our intention and not weaken that intention when we are looking at something our vision needs to be directed by our intention not that our vision otherwise the vision may well sabotage our intention and unfortunately that's what happens here to Arjuna that his vision will be that his vision sabotages his intention because of the sequence of perception so for example when we see some food items if first we see something which we don't like then that may even if there are other items which we like that may cast negative mood on us now if we have to meet a group of people if first we look at the people in that group whom we don't like that will make us touch and the tension will make us negative in the interaction with the whole group so we the situations are not in our control people's dispositions are not in our control but we can't leave our intentions at the mercy of our situations and to ensure that our intentions work for us and not against us we need to determinedly pursue those intentions by directing our vision in a way that supports and not sabotages the intentions thank you.