Gita 03.01 – The Gita’s complex multi-level message is intellectually challenging and fulfilling

Thank you this is Arjuna Vachan this is the first verse of the third chapter and here Arjuna is speaking about the course of action that he should specifically follow Krishna has answered Arjuna's question about the characteristics of the symptoms of self realized person over verses 55 to 72 now the background question which Arjuna had was would such a self realized person fight or not and in the verses from 55 to 72 Krishna does not use the word fight at all even once also in fact Krishna uses the opposite word shanti several times and just in the concluding verses 70 and 71 there is twice shanti and before that also that was there in 66 also so although Krishna is using the word shanti in terms of deep inner spiritual peace not in terms of a political peace in the external world but there is no call for direct call for fighting on the other hand there is a call for there for attaining peace so Arjuna gets confused because of this what exactly does Krishna want him to do and so he asked this question if you think it is better better than karma you say it is your opinion you are the maintainer of all living beings then why are you engaging me in Arjuna uses two names to refer to Krishna in this verse and he raises the question why Krishna are you engaging me in terrible karma so the question which Arjuna is asking is here the word buddhi was used several times in the last section and Krishna has also used the word buddhi yoga several times so now buddhi intelligence if it is used to if it is connected with the gyan marga which focuses on inaction then buddhi usually involves giving up action so if you say buddhi is better than karma then why are you engaging me in ghora karma so now the question is that ghora karma what is the ghora karma now in 2.49 Krishna has used the word so he has said keep avaram karma keep inauspicious work far away so the question comes up now Krishna has told give up the inauspicious work and so now there actually Krishna is talking about giving up karma kanda and doing karma yoga so the avaram karma is karma kanda because it keeps one in the cycle of birth and death it takes one to heaven but again brings one back to earth and the cycle goes on whereas buddhi yoga will actually take one to liberation as Krishna will tell later in 51 one will become free from all bondage and attain supreme liberation so Krishna is telling that give up karma kanda and practice karma yoga now Arjuna is only thinking in terms of two options action which involves fighting the war and inaction which involves acting inaction is what a person knowledge would do so Arjuna sees two options if he has been buddhi he will do no activity and if he does karma then he is doing ghora karma avaram karma he is fighting against his relatives and thereby he will get entangled so actually he is seeing two options but Krishna Krishna has actually analyzed four options here actually if you see there are multiple options not in four let's start with understanding whatever options are there right now Krishna has talked about vikarma then he has talked about so he has talked about at least karma kanda and karma yoga and then below karma kanda is vikarma and above karma yoga is gyan yoga now whether gyan yoga is above karma yoga exactly the hierarchy we will discuss that a little later basically there are four options gyan yoga, karma yoga, karma kanda and vikarma so Arjuna has conflated, conflated means mixed distinct categories into one has conflated karma yoga, karma kanda and vikarma into one category only and he is calling it as ghor karma so he is thinking that he is thinking that there is only one and only one or two but two actually contains what he calls as two is two, three, four, there are three options over there so where Krishna has told Arjuna to take up two and not three that means do karma yoga and not karma kanda Arjuna is thinking that my option is between one and four he is not considering two, three, four as different categories, he has conflated them all into just four so he is saying Krishna you are told that buddhi which you say is gyan yoga is better than karma which he is referring to as vikarma, fighting against my relatives and killing them so why are you asking me to do vikarma after telling me to do art in buddhi so tat kin karmani ghore mam so essentially now we will see here that the complexity of the Gita's message because of it being multi-level can make even Arjuna confused what to speak of all of us now Arjuna had lived in a spiritual culture where he had heard philosophical message many times in the past and yet he was confused then it shouldn't be surprising if we find ourselves confused by the Gita's message and unable to understand it at first reading, second reading, even after multiple readings but if we persevere in trying to understand if we clarify, if we ask questions to the right persons those who have studied, those who have realized then we can gradually get understanding and go deeper but the complexity of the dialogue of the Gita also be a testimony to the seriousness of the subject that the Gita is not just throwing commandments at us, do this, don't do this that is, it is there now I mean no disrespect to the biblical commandments by using the word throwing commandments I only mean that the Gita is a far more reasoned philosophical dialogue with subtle levels than the kind of dialogue that is, kind of conversation that is often found in the other scriptures of the world so the Bible and the Quran the Quran is basically a unidirectional revelation from Allah to Gabriel to Muhammad so there is no question answer practically over there the Bible is also a narrative primarily of the activities of God's people or the parables of Jesus in the New Testament there is no such serious deep philosophical discussion anywhere and this philosophical depth of the Gita can make us very intellectually fulfilled spiritualists where we can go deep into the depths of the Gita's message and absorb ourselves in it and thereby absorb ourselves in the Gita and those of us who do not have an intellectual side, we can study the Gita and we can we can do the study of the Gita as a service and then we move on to other subjects where we get more relish but the important point to recognize is that the Gita offers us abundant facility for using all our intelligence in comprehending Krishna's profound, multilevel and fulfilling message.