Gita 01.46 – When the eye disheartens, let the ear hearten

Thank you. Bhagavad Gita 1.46 So here Sanjay, who had begun this chapter from the second verse onwards, is now speaking.

Of course, throughout it is Sanjay speaking, but when Sanjay is repeating someone else's speech, at that time, the speech is attributed to that person and when Sanjay is reporting the event, when no one is speaking, then that report is attributed to Sanjay in the Bhagavad Gita. So when Arjuna has fallen silent in the previous verse by saying that better that I die unarmed and unresisting than fight against the Kauravas, he becomes silent at that time. And that is now being reported by Sanjay to Dhritarashtra.

So Sanjay spoke, Arjuna spoke like this. Arjuna, Sankhe, Sankhe is in the battle field. He was on the chariot, he was standing on the chariot ready to fight, but then Upavishad, he sat down.

He lost his heart to fight and physical unwillingness manifested in moving from the ready position of standing or being ready to fight to sitting down, being unwilling to fight. He put aside. Chaap is bow.

So he put aside his bow and arrow. His mind became samvigna. It became filled with, agitated by, distressed by, shocked by anxiety.

So here we see the emotions that Arjuna was going through that were grinding his heart, creating turbulence in his heart, they had an effect of causing his distressful sitting down. So he sat down and he put aside his bow and arrow. So it said actions speak louder than words.

So till now Arjuna had been speaking words saying why he should not fight and he gave his decision and he did not in one sense wait for Krishna's approval. He sat down over there. So of course he is not told Krishna to turn the chariot around and go away from the battlefield.

So in that sense, it's not a complete abandonment of the battle plan, but at the very least it is a significant checking. So abandoning means giving up, checking means not doing. It's a significant checking of the battle plan, stopping of the battle plan.

So this is actually the end of the Arjuna-Vishadha Yoga section. So as we had mentioned earlier, this chapter is called by two different names. Saini Niriksha Yoga, which Prabhupada translated as observing the armies, which is from verses 1 to 26, 27 being the transitional verse and from 27 to 46 is Arjuna-Vishadha Yoga.

So Vishadha is grief, lamentation and that is expressed over in the last verse. So actually, after Arjuna saw, there is a saying about a great western conqueror, he came, he saw, he conquered. Now in the case of Arjuna, at least in the first chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, he came, he saw and he was conquered.

He was conquered not by the outer enemy, but by the inner enemy, by the inner enemy of confusion, depression, misconception. He came on the battlefield, he came in the middle of the battlefield, the purpose was to see. I want to see, Arjuna had said in verses 21 to 23 and we saw how so many times the word see, see has come.

So Arjuna saw and after seeing what happened, he is conquered. He is conquered by the confusion of his mind, which has made him give up his determination to fight. So, he put aside his bow.

So, although the enemy has not conquered him, a fighter requires, most importantly, in the fight, the fighting spirit. When the fighting spirit is lost, then, even if the fighter has not lost the fight, still, it's only a matter of time before the fight will be lost. Sometimes, if the fighting spirit is lost, then the fight is lost even before the fight has begun.

So sometimes, some players play a match itself with a defeatist body language and they don't have any hope of winning and they just start the match with hoping that they don't get a very bad battering. And that defeatist body language, if it is because of a hopeless inner attitude, an inner attitude of feeling that they just don't have any chance and they would rather not play the match only because they are going to get beaten, then, if they don't have that fighting spirit, then they will surely be beaten. So here, Arjuna's fighting spirit has been taken away by the sight on the war field, the sight of his family members, relatives, well-wishers and that sight has taken the fight out of him and therefore, he has put aside his bow.

So Arjuna's Gandiva bow can represent our determination. The Bhagavad Gita, of course, is historical and in addition to the historicity, there can also be deeper significances. So Madhavacharya talks about how there can be literal reading of the scripture, there can be ethical and there can be metaphorical.

So the metaphorical is not wrong as long as it does not supersedes or contradicts the literal. Now, the metaphorical reading here is that just like Arjuna come ready to the war, to fight the war, fight the battle, similarly, we all have to fight the battle of life and sometimes we see such discouraging, disheartening things in life that we feel, what is the point of going on? What is the point of it all? And we just feel like giving it all up. We also put aside our metaphorical Gandiva bows.

Now, hearing the message of the Gita inspired Arjuna to eventually pick up the bow. So, we see at the end of the Gita, Yatra Yogeshwara Krishna Yatra Partha Dhanurdhara So Arjuna, Dhanurdhara, he is the carrier of the Gandiva bow and at that time he was, he had started carrying the Gandiva bow once again. Visrujya, what he had done, putting aside the bow, which he had done over here, that ended and he picked up the bow once again and he raised the bow ready to fight.

Similarly, in this world, we may face, we will face discouragements. Sometimes heartbreaking discouragements and disappointments and devastations. But, if we understand the message of the Gita, meditate on the Gita, meditate on Krishna's enduring, unfailing, unflinching love for us, then that will give us the motivation, the inspiration, the conviction to see beyond whatever discouragements we are undergoing and to see Krishna, and to see Krishna beckoning us, inviting us onwards to Him and that will inspire us to again rise.

That whatever goes wrong in my life, Krishna is there waiting for me and that will always stay right for me and therefore let me keep marching right on straight. And that way, just as perception can cause discouragement, so oral reception, seeing can cause discouragement, but hearing can counter that discouragement and infuse us with divine determination to persevere no matter what the odds.