Gita 04.42 – Win the inner war with spiritual knowledge and fight the outer war

Thank you Bhagavad Gita 4.42 so here this is the concluding verse of the fourth chapter therefore now to understand what therefore refers to we will have to go back to the previous verse the previous verse has told that Arjuna if you work in knowledge if you work in yoga renouncing the fruits of work then and you counter your doubts by knowledge then you will be situated in the self and you will not be bound so therefore because you will not be bound therefore that which is born of Jnana that which is situated in your heart that out of your grip to your heart Jnana seen with the sword of knowledge Atmanaha within the soul within yourself Chitvainam Chitva cut off Samshayam Yogam Samshaya whatever doubts you have cut them off Arjuna Yogam Yoga in the practice of yoga to practice yoga to practice yoga be situated rise descendant of the Bharata dynasty so this is a call for inner war Arjuna is an outer battlefield and the stimulus for speaking the Bhagavad Gita is that he has refused to fight the war Krishna told Arjuna in 2.9 I cannot fight and he became silent so at one level Krishna is speaking the Bhagavad Gita to Arjuna to make him fight the war but interestingly Krishna does not give a call to physical war in this verse Atishta and Utishta may seem to be calls for rising and fighting but Krishna is not talking about a physical fight over here he is talking about the inner fight because he is talking about using the weapon of Jnana Jnana seen he is not telling Arjuna you are archer use your Gandiva he is saying use the sword of knowledge so Krishna Arjuna has the skill the competence the expertise to win the outer war but he has he has become disheartened in the inner war and if we have lost the inner war then there is no chance that we can win the outer war many times in sports such as cricket it is often said that sports is like a sports is a cricket is a mental game so if suppose one player can intimidate the other player one player can appear very confident very calm and intimidate the other player then the batsman have to score a lot of runs in the last over but the batsman appears very cool and composed and somehow intimidates the bowler then the bowler becomes jittery and then the bowler strays in line and length and because of that the batsman is able to hit and win the match so the point is that often a person can underperform if the mind is not there if the mind is jittery that means if one has lost inner confidence then outer performance becomes difficult so outer performance is a function of inner confidence and sometimes when we have to fight within we have to fight our lower self to get inner confidence and then there can be outer performance so Krishna is not calling in this verse for outer performance directly he is calling for inner confidence through an inner war and this he says therefore that which has been born of knowledge agyan sambhootam so the doubt which Arjuna had oh if I fight then I will be bound by karma and therefore I should renounce the world Krishna has comprehensively refuted that by stating how don't equate inactivity with freedom from bondage and activity with bondage don't make a simplistic reduction understand the truth properly so the smart agyan sambhootam this is agyan to equate inactivity with freedom from reaction and action with reaction it is actually motivation which will determine what will be the reaction or not so this doubt has come from agyan so counter of that ritstham which is there within your heart jnanasinatman use the sword of knowledge a sword is sharp and cutting so similarly the doubts that are there they form like shackles like strong ropes which drag our consciousness which hold our consciousness back don't let our consciousness move towards spiritual truth move onwards in the spiritual path move towards Krishna but here he is saying hold it back don't let it hold you back rather the doubts which hold you back chittvaynam, chittva, cut them off Krishna used the word chittva in the previous verse also not exactly chittva but similar word jnanasanchin samshayam with knowledge, with jnanasanchin cut it off and what should you do after cutting off like that ritstham jnanasinatmanha and chittvaynam samshayam yogam chittvaynam asamshayam remove your doubts and all your doubts have gone away atishthotishth rise and fight so the rise and fight has in one sense a double meaning it does refer to Arjuna Krishna does want Arjuna to rise and fight to not to not give in to the uncharacteristic and unbecoming weakness which will be seen as spinelessness which will be seen as cowardice which will result in infamy which will be for Arjuna not just infamy but also will be adharmic for him. Krishna certainly doesn't want Arjuna to capitulate, to cop out but at the same time Krishna also wants to help Arjuna Krishna wants to not just dogmatically insist Arjuna that you follow my instruction Krishna wants to explain to Arjuna why he should do what he is telling him and that's why he gives this philosophical analysis which is there in the Bhagavad Gita by which Arjuna can understand the rationale for what Krishna is asking. Now with this rationale when Arjuna acts then he will be able to act effectively now gyan asi sword of knowledge later on Krishna will talk about the ropes of the rope of desire in 16.12 he says he says materialistic people are bound by hundreds of ropes of desires now the ropes of desires come because we imagine that doing a particular fulfilling that desire will bring us happiness just like alcoholic is bound by desire to move towards the bottle of alcohol and to drink now the way to break free from that bondage from the rope that is pulling one towards the sense gratification is no I will not do it just by will power if we try to stop ourselves it's quite difficult but if we use our intelligence use our remember through knowledge I am a soul material things cannot give me happiness and this is not new I have tried this many times far from giving me happiness it has given me misery as Krishna will tell in 5.22 that actually worldly indulgence ends in misery so when one thinks like this that this will ultimately end in misery and therefore there is no need for me to get entangled in this and with this understanding a person stays away from sense gratification then what happens of course just as there can be rope of desire similarly there can be a rope of doubt also doubt makes our desire drags our emotions and doubts often drags our intelligence in a particular direction when we have a doubt it's like a sore spot no we want to scratch it and the more we scratch it the worse it becomes so like that there is when we focus on doubts again and again and again the doubts seem to grow bigger and bigger but instead if we get the doubts addressed we ask questions acquire knowledge and get the doubts addressed then we can move onwards straight in our spiritual life and Krishna is telling Arjuna fight so fight means use this word of knowledge to dispel the doubts that are there and once those doubts are gone then you will get inner confidence and with that inner confidence utthishta aatishta uthishta rise physically so you will rise emotionally you will rise intellectually and emotionally internally you will have knowledge and you will have confidence and then you will rise physically also with your Gandiva appraised to fight thank you.