Gita 02.72 – Spiritual connectedness can provide peace even amidst violence

Asia brahma stithi is the spiritual situation so krishna is saying this is the spiritual situation nainam praptya atma muhyati when one is attained in this situation one will not be burdened one is situated like this at the time of death one can attain spiritual liberation so krishna has in the previous words stated what is this what is this state he's been talking basically state about sthita prajna or person who is well situated in knowledge that was arjuna's question at the start of this section from 2.54 to 2.72 and 2.71 specifically and several verses prior to that we have all been addressing this so 2.71 was nithaya kamaan nitha sarvaan the giving up the person lives without desire without the sense of I and mind which a person attains shanti peace the thought is confirmed at the start of the battle was that there will be a ghastly fratricidal war instead of the peace that the virtue finder would have preferred especially when the alternative was fighting against one's own relatives and others now if you study the Mahabharata we know that the Pandavas had an ambition possible within their power to avoid war so external peace is dependent on outer factors that are not always well controlled so that is frequently not an argument but when outer factors go out of control then we may lose outer peace but we don't lose inner peace if we stay fixed in spiritual consciousness then we can stay peaceful even while being engaged in a peaceless activity which has war externally so Krishna is in a very attention commanding way using repeatedly the terminology of peace in this section of the Gita he started with 2.56 अशान्तिस्से पुदावि सुखान्भी so without a steady mind and intelligence one cannot have peace and without peace how can one have happiness so Krishna doesn't say that without two people coming together at the negotiation table how can we have peace he is not talking about that kind of peace and again in 2.70 he talks आपो हिमाणम चलो प्रतिष्टु समुद्रहात प्रविशिन् the 8th word कामानि प्रविशिन् तिसर्वे सशान्धिमात्नो काम कामि so आपो हिमाणम चलो प्रतिष्टु that ocean is always being filled and still it is not disturbed disturbed by the constant inflow of water from rivers because it is so large समुद्रहात प्रविशिन् the 8th word कामानि प्रविशिन् तिसर्वे similarity water will flow into the consciousness of a seeker but one who is not disturbed by that inflow of desire सशान्धिमात्नो काम कामि so one who is not disturbed by the inflow of desire such a person attains peace not one who panders to desire काम कामि there also Krishna has used the terminology of peace सशान्धिमात्नो first in 2.67 Krishna has said that inner and spiritual connectedness of the mind and intelligence are required for peace then in 2.78 he has stated that the refusal to be disturbed by desires is what is required for peace and in 2.71 he has stated that essentially detachment is required for peace so now Krishna is talking about this inner situation of detachment because of connectedness with some higher reality Krishna has not yet talked about explicitly the higher reality except for giving a hint of it in 2.61 2.61 he has stated person is well situated he is controlling his senses focusing the consciousness on me later on that the way to experience an oceanic fullness of consciousness is by the connection with Krishna by the absorption in Krishna by the cultivation of bhakti which will enable one to experience the fullness most easily so now with that kind of fullness having been experienced Krishna goes ahead and speaks over here the next state such a situation is a spiritual situation of consciousness the word Brahma is generally used for spiritual reality Krishna will towards the end of the Bhagavad Gita use the word Brahmaputra Prasannatma that Brahmaputra that one is situated on the spiritual platform so here also Brahm means the path and he is saying that right now we need to experience spiritual consciousness sometimes but our consciousness does not stay steadily spiritual it stays spiritual for some time and then it returns back to the material world whereas Krishna is talking here about consciousness that stays steadily spiritual spiritual and if one is situated like this at the time of death at the time of death then what will happen? Brahma Nirvana Brahma Nirvana one will attain spiritual liberation one will attain that so here Krishna gives us a glimpse of the seminal decisive importance of the moment of death this theme will not be returned to till the end of the 7th chapter and it will be delivered in the 8th chapter especially in the last verse of the 7th chapter in the 1232 he says so basically you have to understand Krishna's supreme position we are situated even at the time of prayanakar we are at the time of liberation they will be properly situated Krishna has said earlier that one is yukta, one can become liberated also so essentially this verse talks about the situation by which one can eventually attain liberation now the antakala the thought of death or the moment of death and thought of the moment of death is never a very pleasant thought and most of the time we would like to avoid thinking about it so although it's not easy not to think about it because death is all around us at all times not exactly all times in terms of 24 hours it's not that the specter of death is looming around us directly in our vicinity but we know that death is taking its unrelenting tone on someone or the other at each moment and nowadays with news available constantly the awareness of death has become much greater with people recognizing that death is the unrelenting with people we are forced to hear a bomb blast is happening there a tornado is coming there a road accident happens there a murder happens and this kind of things are so distressingly commonplace that we can't deny the reality of death and yet we do try to deny it and deny it forcefully we deny it so that our daily life of enjoyment that is oblivious to death that can go on so the Bhagavad Gita here urges us to no longer persevere in such a suicidal way of living to instead adopt a more healthy way by learning to focus on spiritual reality so that practice of our consciousness throughout our life so that it can be fixed to Krishna at the moment of death that theme will be talked about later as of now Krishna's focus is more on giving Arjuna a sense of the overall reality so thus by cultivating the practice of yoga and Krishna will tell you later in the Bhagavad Gita how bhakti yoga is the most recommended form of yoga by cultivating such practice one can steadily but surely attain the highest perfection that of not only peace even amidst the war but more consequentially the peace of liberation from material existence.