Gita 02.34 – Engage the power of honor to encourage honorable action

Thank you so here Krishna is continuing his argument is reasoning to persuade Arjuna to fight and he is talking about the consequences of not fighting so in the previous verse he said that you lose your sadharma and you get paap and he is also hinted at akirti this also he has talked about in 2.2 now he is emphasizing this actually this he will emphasize in the next 2-3 verses and let's look at what he is saying over here so your infamy kathishanti te avyayam kathishanti bhutani is living beings people in general they will talk about your infamy about your inglorious action about your not just inglorious ignominious action very disgraceful action of leaving the battlefield te avyayam avyaya Krishna has used the word avyaya to refer to the soul the soul is immortal but Krishna he is using now avyaya as an adjective for the infamy he is saying the infamy will go on and on and on and on for a long long time sambhavitasya cha kirtir sambhavitasya so one who has been given sambhana so for a person who has got the bhava of sambhana for one who has been honoured cha kirtir kirtir akirtir infamy the disgrace of infamy will be marnaat atirichyate it will be worse than death so Arjuna you are saying that that actually you are ready to die if you if you if you he had told in towards the end of the of first chapter in 1.45 so here Krishna is responding and saying Arjuna actually it is marnaat atir it will be worse than death for you to suffer like that. The suffering will be worse than death. Now, here it seems honour is given a lot of importance.

Why is that? Actually, we have to understand the difference between honour, pride and arrogance. Although they may sound similar, there is such a significant difference between them. The word honour is often used in a positive connotation.

Now, pride we often use it in a negative connotation, whereas often people also use pride in a positive connotation. For example, we may have hotel pride or hotel executive pride or we may say that this particular project is a pride of the city. So, even Muscon's temple in Delhi was called as the pride of India.

Some other temple may be called as the pride of Maharashtra or whatever. So, it means pride is not considered as a negative. No, it's something which is glorious.

It is not wrong to feel proud of something glorious if that pride inspires us to act in a glorious way, to act in an honourable way, to act in the virtuous right way. So, pride often can have positive or negative connotations depending on the usage. The negative connotation word is arrogance.

You don't have any hotel arrogance or say he is the arrogance of India or this particular place, nobody calls it like that. The word arrogance definitely has a negative connotation and arrogance is undesirable, but pride is not necessarily always undesirable. So, even Prabhupada would say to his disciples that when they would take initiation and they would take the vows of initiation, he would say that this is your word of honour and if somebody did not keep the initiation vows, he would say what would happen? How could you not keep your word of honour? Don't you have a sense of honour? You have taken a vow in front of the spiritual master, in front of the deities, in front of these honourable individuals, how could you not have kept the vow? So, the point of that is to recognise that we are expected to act honourably now and the sense of honour inspires us to act honourably.

So, similarly, honour is talked about in the positive sense in the Bhagavatam, in the Bihu Maharaj section, Ahok Kshatriya Tejas, Ahok Tejak Kshatriyaana, Maan Bhangam Amrishatam. You see how glorious the effulgence of the Kshatriyas that they cannot tolerate the destruction, the insult, the impugnment to their honour and that actually enables them to work wonderfully, to do heroic, courageous, extraordinary things. So, here Krishna is using the power of honour to impel Arjuna to act honourably and that is the overall strategy of Varnashram Dharma and that is in general the strategy of society.

Now, of course, even in society, in general, there are certain activities which are shamed and certain activities which are honoured and by having certain activities which are shamed and scorned and derided, people are discouraged from doing those activities. So, for example, say in today's culture, now there is increasing sensitization of the brutality of the crime of rape. So, in the past, when rape would occur, often it would be the victim that would be stigmatized and the victim would often not even have the courage to report the crime.

But now, as the cultural ethos is changing, the support is coming for the victim and derision and condemnation and punishment is coming more swiftly for the victimizer, for the criminal. So, by this, by the public scorning of a particular action and the person who does that action, people in general, they are made to think, to hesitate before doing something dishonourable, something terrible. Now, in this way, society can actually inspire people or impel people by using the power of their sense of honour and nobody wants to be, nobody wants to be disrespected by society.

We all need a sense of belonging, we all need a sense of respect. It's not a need of the ego, it's a basic human need. You all need to belong.

And all of us have a lower side, that lower side impels us to do wrong things and by encouraging or by honouring things which are right, which are noble, which are virtuous, society encourages people to put down their negative side, to control and reject the negative side and to bring out their virtuous side. So, this same principle was channelized in the Kshatriya community by the principle of heroism, heroic courage being honoured among Kshatriyas. So, if a Kshatriya acted honourably, fighting heroically, even against overwhelming odds and came out unscathed, came out successful, the Kshatriya would become a hero for a long, long, long time to come.

So, as Arjuna had done single-handedly, besting the Kaurava hordes, not just the Kaurava hordes, but the Kaurava champions also at Virat. So, he had gained immortal fame. So, now if somebody is getting immortal fame and after that somebody performs extremely terribly, chickens out at the critical moment as Arjuna is doing.

So, the point is that the power of honour is used to encourage, inspire people to act heroically. So, Arjuna had acted so heroically at that time and that inspired other warriors also to act heroically. And if a Kshatriya would act in a cowardly way, then people would talk about it and the infamy would spread and that infamy, especially for one who has been honoured, would be terrible.

And that infamy would, the fear of that infamy would impel the Kshatriya to act honourably and in that way the Kshatriya would be able to stay away from dishonourable course of action and stay firm on the course of honourable action. So, Krishna is talking more about the social reality than the underlying subtle psychological reality. The subtle psychological reality is that we all want to have a sense of belonging and a sense of acceptance and respect within the community that we belong.

And that innate longing within us is channelised and utilised within Varanashram and within the specific Kshatriya community to give dis-impetus to Kshatriyas from acting in cowardly ways and to give them impetus to act in heroic ways. So, Arjuna, if he acts in a cowardly way, he will have to bear the brunt of the consequence of being dishonoured and that reminder Arjuna, Krishna is using as a speed breaker or almost a stopper from Arjuna's.