Gita 01.39 Our sense of honor coming from our lineage can raise us but can also stop us from rising to the highest

Bhagavad Gita chapter 1, text 39, Arjuna is continuing to speak. His reasons for not fighting. So here Krishna is speaking with great diligence.

Arjuna is speaking rather in various arguments why he feels he should not fight. And he's saying that, in the previous verse he said that, we can see the consequences of destroying the dynasty. And he's giving here with a list of those consequences.

Kulakshaya pranashyanti, he's outlining, not a list, an outline, a description of those consequences. Kulakshaya pranashyanti, that Kulakshaya pranashyanti, when the, when the dynasty is destroyed, Kula dharma sanatanah, then the Kula dharma is destroyed. Dharme nashte kulam kuchnam, adharmobhibhavatyota, when Kula dharma is destroyed, adharma predominates.

So now here Krishna, Arjuna uses the word Kula dharma sanatanah. The Kula dharma, which is sanatan, it's a very striking juxtaposition of words by Arjuna because the Kula dharma is not normally considered to be sanatan. The sanatan dharma is a dharma of the soul towards Krishna.

That is a dharma of the soul to love Krishna, that alone is sanatan. Sanatan means eternal. Everything else apart from that is temporary.

We have various dharmas, we could say duty, nature, responsibility, role, whatever word you want to use for dharma. So we have various dharmas in this world. But the only sanatan dharma is a dharma of the soul for Krishna.

And that dharma is not what Arjuna is referring to. In fact, in the first chapter of the Gita, Arjuna doesn't refer to it at all. He refers to, he gives a great stress on Kula dharma throughout the first chapter.

His Kula dharma is to protect his Kula. And then he says Kula dharma sanatanah, that it is eternal. The word eternal can also be used in a sense of ancient, for a long long time.

At one level, we could say, these are words which Arjuna has spoken out of illusion. Because he's thinking that actually he is unable, he's in illusion and thinking that what is material is actually eternal. Nothing material is eternal.

So like in romantic movies and novels, they have the idea of happily ever after. Actually there is no happily ever after in the material world. There are only temporary things in the material world.

And whether they are happy or also open to question. But more importantly, nothing is eternal. Then, even the duties, our own association with the dynasty is definitely not eternal.

We are souls on an eternal journey. And in each life, we will be born in different dynasties and accordingly we will play different roles within the dynasties. So there is nothing specifically to be attached to while we are in the world.

And yet, our gene is enormously attached. Here, or at least in this chapter, it appears as if he's so attached to the temporary. One side of attachment is that it distorts our perception.

And what distorts our perception is by making less important things appear more important. And more important things appear less important. Like Arjuna has said earlier, लोभो पहत चेत सहाँ, in the previous verse, that even if they don't see the harmful effects of fighting against family members, and yet we can see, because they are blinded by greed.

The blinding of attachment is not selective, not exhaustive. It is exhausting, of course, because we keep slaving for some object or the other. And in slaving for that object, we keep suffering.

So the blinding of the sense object, the blinding by the sense objects, we could say, that is something which every one of us has to face based on our attachments. But another way that blinding results, it's not just some things we see and some things we don't see in terms of space, or in terms of the existence of those things, but also our sense of time gets warped. That means something which is temporary, we start thinking of it as eternal.

And that which is eternal, we start thinking of it as negligible, as not worth thinking about also. In this way, we stay bound in material existence, unable to process our desires and move forwards. So for each one of us, it's vital that we evaluate our conceptions in the light of reality, not in the distorted light of sentimentality, in the hard, in the unsparing light of facts, not in the flickering light of feelings.

So of course, to respect Arjuna's feelings here are not mundane and sensual or that level mundane, but still they are mundane in the sense that they are non-spiritual. He is thinking that the venerable tradition that has been going on for a long time, the glorious Kuru dynasty, the whole dynasty is destroyed, and what will remain of our dynasty? A sense of honor is always deeply ingrained in the warriors at those times. And with that sense of honor, when they worked, there was no way they could actually get away from whatever worldly situation they might find themselves in.

And they had to do what they considered to be the right thing. And this sense of honor of doing the right thing enabled them to stay away from dishonorable actions. And yet, that very sense of honor might blind them to ultimate reality.

So ultimate reality is that only the soul is eternal, only the soul's relationship with the Supreme Soul is eternal, and to the extent that that relationship is focused on, to that extent we grow in life, to the extent that relationship is neglected, to that extent we stay ignorant. Even if we appear relatively, in the material sense, to be highly knowledgeable. Knowledge is not just contextual.

Knowledge is transcendental. There is contextual knowledge that is required and there is transcendental knowledge that is also needed. So Arjuna, with his feelings driven by veneration for tradition, does not see the reality that even the tradition is temporary, that even, that everything material is short-lived.

And what he is considering to be Sanatana Dharma is actually not Sanatana Dharma. And what he thinks will preserve the Sanatana Dharma will actually damage the Sanatana Dharma. That is what the Gita's message will reveal.

And to mistake the temporal to be eternal, the ephemeral to be eternal is the essence of illusion. Whether it be to mistake something sensual to be eternal, or to mistake something traditional to be eternal, it's all temporal. And to mistake like this, it's all delusional.

Because the Bhagavad Gita reveals a soberingly serious worldview, wherein it tells us that nothing of the world is going to last forever. And thus, we need to turn our consciousness only towards that which will last forever. And that is the soul and the soul's relationship with the whole.

So that the Bhagavad Gita will reveal its narrative. And Arjuna here is, Arjuna here is trying to, is recognizing the limit is acting within a Sattvic illusion. An illusion that is driven by the mode of goodness.

Thank you.