Gita 02.31 – Dharma is not a blanket injunction but an individualized customization

Thank you so here Krishna in his argument with Arjuna in his discussion with Arjuna is now moving to a different argument after talking about Atma Gyan now he is going to talk about how that Atma Gyan is to be applied so verses 11 to 30 talk about knowledge of the soul and therefore that because the soul is indestructible and the body is inevitably destructible so do not lament but if the question comes up ok even if I understand I am the soul what do I do in my life practically I still have to live in this world and to live in this world I have to act here and how do I act after I understand I am the soul so Krishna will talk about various levels of Dharma and the first level that he talks of here is the level wherein he talks of the Kshatriya Dharma which based on an understanding of the eternality of the soul aims for heaven so swadharmam pichaveksha aaveksha considering deliberating thinking deeply swadharmam pi by deliberating on your swadharma navikampitam arhasi navikampitam by kampa kampa means to tremble means to hesitate you do not deserve to hesitate navikampitam arhasi bihu you to tremble why dharmyad yuddha shreyo anyad dharmyad in the sense of dharma yuddha fighting a war so dharmyad yuddha shreyo anyad any other shreyo any other long term good that is not kshatriyas chene vidyate there is nothing else that a kshatriya can do which will be better navidyate that means that there is nothing better now this is interesting that a kshatriya in the vedic culture is taught to act according to the path of honour and acting according to the path of honour means that one lives with not just the goal of worldly prosperity but also other worldly goals so a kshatriya who fights honourably is a person attains auspiciousness attains heaven the attainment of heaven will be talked about in in the future verses in this section but lets focus on this point that swadharma swadharmam apichaveksha considering your swadharma so this is the first time this word swadharma comes in the bhagavad gita and that actually this word indicates the dynamism of dharma that means dharma is not something which is simply on off or dharma is not exactly universal or you could say one size fit all that means that krishna is talking of the friendship between dharma and swadharma so dharma is different for different people so what is the dharma for one person may not be the dharma for another person and that is evident also in the fact that different varanas have different dharmas so the whole idea is that we are all different individually we are all as individuals we are different and we cannot be expected everyone to do the same kind of activities therefore because of this diversity in our life the consequences that swadharma that we all need individual customization of dharma for us so that does not necessarily mean dharma has to have infinite varieties it simply means that dharma has to be customized so with the broad level there are the four divisions of dharma into the four varanas so the swadharma is the customization of dharma in a way that can be best practiced by an individual according to one's nature and situation so each of the varanas has their own dharma the duties of a kshatriya and a ahimsa are different in the duties of a vaisya in fact they are so different that sometimes there may seem to be no similarity very little similarity between the two now ahimsa is considered to be duty of a brahmana but yudhe cha pyapalayanam not going away from a battlefield is considered to be a quality of a kshatriya so although both of them are ultimately at the spiritual level meant to follow the same dharma so the spiritual dharma of all of us is the same to love and to serve Krishna but at the material level how that dharma will be expressed will vary according to person to person so this is something similar to how in hospital the whole hospital is a place for treatment but not everybody can be given just the same treatment different people have different behaviours and according to the diagnosis of the doctor a particular treatment has to be prescribed so the same treatment cannot be prescribed for everyone so the four what are called as castes in the caste system today are actually four human types so the intellectual, the administrator the business person and the general assistant these are four human types, broad human types of course there are many sub-gradations in them but these four broad human types they are engaged materially according to their nature and in that way their individual talents are utilised and society gets the maximum benefit by having them engaged according to their nature and by so doing they can all move onwards in their spiritual journey they live in relative satisfaction materially because they are engaged according to their talents and society values their contributions so materially there is satisfaction what is considered to be such a major aspect in the society, job satisfaction they get that and after that they further also get they, because they are relatively peaceful materially compatible materially they can focus on moving onwards and using their energy to grow spiritually also so swadharma is the concept of swadharma indicates the depth of thought that Vedic spiritual culture has given for how best to arrange society so as to ensure its optimal material administration and the best individual utilisation and the best spiritual growth both individually and socially and Krishna is telling Arjuna Swadharma so contemplate on your swadharma so all of us we too when we have to make decisions in our life we do understand ultimately that we want to serve Krishna and that is our ultimate duty but along with that we also need to recognise that we have a particular swadharma and without understanding that swadharma we will not in the most in the best possible way for ourselves so discovering our swadharma will not be very easy but still by observing ourselves and seeing what we are good at seeing how we can best contribute in our society we can understand our swadharma and we can act so the idea is that after I understand I am the soul that doesn't mean I just summarily reject the body no I understand how my body is constituted and accordingly I engage myself in the best possible way in the service of dharma swadharma according to my spiritual nature and also according to my spiritual nature I practice the paradharma of loving and serving Krishna which is universal for all living beings and the swadharma is customised according to individual nature.