Gita 11.41 Knowledge reveals the power asymmetry to be in the opposite direction

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Bhagavad Gita 11.41 sakheti matva prasabham yaduktam he krishna he yadava he sakheti ajanata mahimanam tavedam maya pramadat pranaye navapi So Arjuna in the previous verse has offered repeated obeisances obeisances from the front, obeisances from the behind obeisances from all directions namo namaste to sahasrara krutva punas chabhuyo pinamo namaste Now after offering these profuse obeisances he is moving towards a more personal expression of emotion from 36th text to 40th text he has been talking more in terms of the philosophical glory of the supreme position of the form that he is beholding now as he contemplates that that form is actually not different from the person whom he is beholding and who has been with him all the time through thick and thin who has been his close friend then he is recognizing that oh I did not treat my friend properly I did not treat him with proper respect and how he disrespected him and how that was inappropriate that will be expressed in these verses sakheti matva I considered you to be my friend prasabham yaduktam prasabham so sometimes I did not speak appropriately uktam he krishna he yadava he sakheti there is krishna so I call you krishna he yadava he sakheta and what was wrong with saying this this person krishna's name is krishna he is also yadu dynasty member of the yadu dynasty so what's wrong with calling him ajanata mahimanam tavedam I did not know your mahima I did not know your great position your supreme position ajanata maya brahmadat pranayena vapi and I spoke out of I spoke to you in this way it was due to out of pramad out of madness or out of pranaya affection now imagine extremely powerful person say the head of state of a country is going somewhere along the way there is somebody who comes along and starts thinking very nonchalantly with him very in a very familiar way with him the question may come up what's going on here what is going on you may wonder and is this person drunk and this person is showing no deference no respect for the head of state just talking so casually or you wonder maybe is this person a friend or a relative or a close acquaintance of the prime minister that's why they are talking so closely so when there is absence of due deference while dealing with a with a very powerful person that can be because of that absence of due deference can be because of either affection or because of intoxication and now in Arjuna's case he is not he actually gives both possibilities and does not insist that all I did was out of affection he says maya pramadat pranayena vapi it might have been because of affection it might have been because of madness whatever it was but I spoke disrespectfully I did not speak with proper respect and then in later verses he will say he says please I beg I seek your forgiveness he will speak that a few verses later but so what exactly is the form of disrespect over here these are three words that are spoken so what is disrespectful about these verses is explained by Chakravarthy in his commentary that Arjuna when he was talking with Krishna sometimes Arjuna is thinking like this out of his devotional emotion he says that sometimes I thought that actually that no I am a directly a member of the ruling family my brother is directly the ruler so I am the same generation in which the rulers are there so in that sense whereas Krishna was simply a descendant of the Yadava dynasty he was never the ruler he was the ruler and he was the grandson of the ruler and thus their relationship was not exactly of equals Arjuna thought that Arjuna is thinking that I thought like this this is what I thought I was not properly respectful I thought that actually because the two of us are not equals so when we are having a friendship actually I am doing a favor to you by calling you Sakha because if friendship is to be among equals and you are not my equal then how are we having friendship that's my favor to you and now Arjuna realizes how colossally mistaken he was in his conceptions yes this is not a relationship of equals but it's a relationship of unequals in a completely opposite dynamic it's not that Arjuna is greater than Krishna rather Krishna is thousands millions unlimited times greater than Arjuna and greater than everyone else because he is God so thus the point being made here is O Krishna you are the supreme and I out of my ignorance out of my intoxication out of my madness I thought that I was doing a favor to you by calling you as a Sakha whereas it was my great fortune that you considered me to be your Sakha maya pramanat pranayainavapin so knowledge reveals the asymmetry in the relationship to be in the opposite direction suppose say there is a company there is a manager and there is a person working as a clerk or an assistant in the company and the boss may think I am doing this person a favor by having him as a clerk and maybe then he becomes a junior partner, a partner in the company but still he thinks you know I made him the partner but then later on this company manager finds that this person who he thought was he was doing a favor by making him a partner he is actually the son of the owner or he is himself the owner in disguise owner of the company was a reclusive kind of person who is not known to have people, not known to make public appearances and he had come incognito to try to see the working of the company and this company manager will be shocked there was asymmetry in our relationship I was superior to him rather he is way way superior to me so Arjuna thinks that Krishna by calling you by being somewhat disrespectful to you hey Krishna hey Yadava hey Saketi although you are simply Krishna you are a cowherd boy although you are still a member of the Yadu dynasty not the ruler of the Yadu dynasty not a direct in the ruling generation also but still I made you my friend and in thinking like this I was foolish to think myself superior to you and just by thinking like this I was disrespectful to you now that disrespect for that disrespect I will he will apologize in future but let's in our future words continue and discuss what where this thought leads to thank you.