Gita 01.31 What we think of as long-term may not be long-term enough

Bhagavad Gita chapter 1 text 31 here Krishna is speaking or rather Arjuna is speaking to Krishna and expressing his apprehension about fighting the war and he says I do not see any good by killing my own people I do not see how any good can result or my own people in this battle and therefore seeing this and therefore I do not desire victory nor do I desire anything else that might come from it nor can I desire to get victory the royal opulence that will come from the victory the happiness of having a kingdom the Bhagavad Gita is essentially a book that guides us to uncover our motivations psychologists often analyze why we do what we do, what makes us act or the way we act and it's not an easy question to answer because quite often our actions are not very easily predictable we do something sometimes we profess or desire or aim to do one thing and we end up doing another thing so here Arjuna is analyzing the usual motives for fighting a war if war is treated like a sport then there is simply the joy in winning that is there and that joy in winning is what motivates players to compete to demonstrate their skills to demonstrate their speed, their strength their abilities basically so many competitions are held simply because people want to because people want to get the joy of winning on top of that the competition becomes even more intense if there is a prize over there so there is a lot of prize money to be got and certainly people will want to join people will want to move on people will want to participate in it and get to the top so in many ways war is like sports of course war is far more grievous in terms of its consequences but still we can understand much about the psychology of warfare in the Bhagavad Gita by comparing it with the psychology of sports as we see it today because most of us do not have much experience of war but we all probably have good amount of experience of sports either we have played it or we have watched it and we have been intensely emotionally involved in it when we are watching it so normally players will play to win and gain a profit so Arjuna is saying I do not these motives no longer have any appeal for me now because I can see that they don't count how will they make any difference if my own loved ones are killed so Shreya means to look for some long term result to see beyond the immediate so Shreya I did not see any long term benefit by killing my loved ones in the next verse he will explain how killing the loved ones will lead him to be completely alone and there is no point in enjoying the enjoyable things of life if there is no one to enjoy them with so it is important for us to understand that every one of us sometimes has a surface motive and sometimes has a deeper motive and in trying to get that which is at the surface you may end up losing that which is below the surface so for example sometimes a husband may want to win the affection of his wife parents may want to express their love for their children and if they think that they work very hard and they earn a lot of money and they provide a lot of things to their loved ones then the loved one will be happy and then the mutual love will increase but sometimes when they get into the zone of earning more and more that means working more and more and they don't have time for their loved ones and even when they have time come back home they are so tired that they are just physically not capable of paying due attention or doing anything for their loved ones at home or sometimes they will be so stressed out by working excessively hard in a super competitive environment that they may emotionally be distanced from or they may snap and shout and alienate those the very people whom they wanted to attract and thus the surface motive can work against the deeper motive so it's important to remember why we are doing what we are doing that way we will ensure that the surface motive won't get in the way of the deeper motive for us so here Arjun is saying that the deeper motive for me is to express my to be in the company of my loved ones thinking what will be the joy for me if he wins the war he would like to celebrate that with his mentors with Drona and Bhishma but if Drona and Bhishma are killed then what is the joy of victory with whom will he share that joy so he is thinking that from that deeper perspective there is no point in fighting now Arjuna is both right and wrong in his analysis because although at one level he is right in thinking that there is no point in fighting if the cost is greater than the gain of the surface level so Arjuna is having serious second thoughts serious second thoughts about continuing with the war so Krishna will take him deeper and tell him that what he thinks as Shreya is actually not Shreya so Arjuna is saying that possessions are not as important as relations which is definitely true we don't want to lose our possessions we don't want to lose our relations to gain our possessions gain some possessions but then deeper than relations is the relationship with the supreme and the Bhagavad Gita's message will take Arjuna to the point of realizing that what Arjuna thinks of as long term that there is something which is even more long term than that that actually when we practice Bhakti we need to recognize that we are souls and as souls we have an eternal relationship with the supreme soul and we need to act in a way that takes us to the top most level of experience takes us towards realizing our eternality in our relationship with Krishna and that we act that way so that we through all our actions grow towards Krishna so beyond possessions is relations and beyond relations is devotion that is the hierarchy that will be revealed by Krishna to Arjuna but at this stage Arjuna is thinking that gaining the kingdom is short term whereas protecting his relatives is long term and he is thinking that fighting is inadvisable because he is giving up the short term for the long term so there is a progression in the revelation in Bhagavad Gita and Arjuna reveals himself to be a person capable of long term thinking and he is not enamored by possessions at the cost of relations but Krishna will take him further deeper and show that there are considerations beyond what he is considering and those considerations are based on our eternality and our eternal relationship with the supreme reality that we will discuss in due course as we move forward in our study of the Gita.