Gita 02.71 – Peace comes not by relocation, but by renunciation

Thank you come on giving up all us all material desire all selfish desires the puma person who charati moves around without any attachment nirmamo nirahankaraha without a sense of proprietorship without the false ego such a person attains peace so here krishna is essentially telling arjuna how he can have peace so he says that arjuna you will not get peace simply by avoiding war peace is more an inner state than an outer state we often try to get into peaceful surroundings if we are agitated and that may be good but sometimes the surroundings can be peaceful and still we may be agitated internally if we are attached internally to things which agitate us so the way to peace is not relocation but renunciation relocation means that we move from one place to another from say if we have a conflict if we have a if you're working in a place where there are too many conflicts with colleagues there's too much politics or whatever or sometimes people are in a relationship where there are too many conflicts and people think just let me go somewhere else let me make a fresh beginning so relocation is what many people think of as the way ahead now in some cases relocation may be required but that is that is only the beginning of the solution that is not the solution often as long as we are attached to things working a particular way and the world is not going to work that way the world often works contrary to our will and though we do need to make certain things happen as a part of our responsibilities as part of our aspirations but still we also have to recognize the reality that sometimes things will not go our way and people will not behave the way we want or the way they should as per our expectations and we have to live with that so renunciation refers to that not just giving up everything and becoming a renunciate but cultivating a healthy emotional distance from things that are not all that important so that we can stay focused on the things that are actually important so here Krishna is telling Arjuna what Krishna is telling may seem to be entirely impractical especially for a person who is as entangled in the world as a warrior is Krishna is telling him that how can a warrior who is fighting in a war be free from all desires omams charitiness spruha have no attachments now desires are something which come and go attachment is something deeper which you repeatedly create desires so what we are attached to we desire again and again on the other hand desire may just something be which this comes occasionally because we see something or perceive something so desires may be occasional whereas attachments lead to habitual desires of the same kind and then so have no proprietorship and no ego now a Kshatriya has kingdom and Kshatriya is also meant to have a sense of honor Krishna himself told Arjuna earlier that do not get or do not lose not that for a Kshatriya dishonor is worse than death so here what is the meaning by nirahankara now the word ahankara or ego or arrogance has multiple meanings one in a one in a conventional or conversational sense and the other in a philosophical sense in the normal conventional sense conversational sense when we use the word ego it primarily refers to how certain people may have so how certain people think that they are right that they are superior to others that they actually know better than everyone else so that is actually a misconception which is in caused because people think that what I know is right and what everyone else knows is wrong or I know the best so this sort of attitude is often alienating to others because people feel people feel minimized by those who have I know it all attitude so that is ahanka ego in a conversational sense he has too much ego he always thinks that he's right whereas in a philosophical sense ego refers to the misidentification of the soul with body ahankara so here krishna is using ahankara more in the philosophical sense than the conversational sense though in a conversational sense also it could be applied krishna is telling arjuna that don't think that you know better than me actually but arjuna has already admitted that in the sense that arjuna said that dharma samudha jetaha in 2.7 he said that I'm confused about what I should do so in that sense what arjuna says applies more to the general philosophy according to krishna actually arjuna applies more to the general philosophical sense that nirmamo nirahankara that actually oh arjuna act in a do not identify with the body so why not identify with the body why do not because when we identify with the body then we seek peace at the bodily level at the material level and when there is no identification with the body then we don't we seek we still want peace you'll get peace but it will not be at the bodily level by misidentification what do we mean for example say somebody is caught watching a is caught in watching a cricket match and now in the cricket match the favorite team is say performing poorly and goes from a winning situation to a to a pathetic loss now the spectator will get very attached spectator will get very agitated because especially the spectator is attached to cricket and now what happens in the cricket field is not in control of the spectator and or the person is watching on tv spectator the tv spectator so now the tv viewer or that matter the viewer on the field also can't really control what happened on the stadium the stadium can't control what is happening in the actual cricket field so now to the extent there is attachment to that extent there will be agitation when somebody decides i don't care about cricket or somebody is not emotionally attached to cricket then what happens in the cricket field will not matter all that much so krishna is telling arjuna that act in the knowledge of your spiritual identity and when you act with this knowledge of your spiritual identity you will not be agitated you will not be lost you will not be you will be able to stay peaceful Charati refers to moving about and this is actually a in relationship to arjuna's question prajetakim so how does such a person move about that was what arjuna had asked how does a self-realized person move about means how does he engage the senses in krishna engage in service engage in the senses while staying still in self-realization so krishna says over here by keeping oneself free from desires now here what he's talking about if we see so it's all related with false material desires so we can we should have spiritual desires because we can never be desireless and the concept of spiritual desires will be more vividly introduced from the seventh chapter onwards where krishna will use the word 7.1 make your mind attached to me but suffice it to say over here krishna tells answer the arjuna's question by stating that by avoiding attachments you will attain peace it is not by avoiding the avoiding duty you will get peace your kshatriya duty you but you do what call what is causing agitation for you is not the duty but the duality that is created by attachment give up that duality give up that attachment and then you will be peaceful.