Gita 13.10 Detachment is not meant to make us hard-hearted

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Krishna is listing out the elements of knowledge over here in the section of the 13th chapter from verses 8 to 12. He talks about the 20 items that comprise knowledge and here he is listing out Asakti is attachment. Asakti is the opposite of attachment which is the change of the emphasis from a to a leads to a complete opposite meaning Asaktir Anabhishvangaha.
So Krishna talks about attachment and he talks further about non-entanglement specifically the general detachment and then he talks about specific non-entanglement with Putra, daar, graha, adishu, children, wife and house. It is interesting that Krishna uses the word putra here before daar. Normally whenever the objects of attachment are talked about it is the wife is talked about usually the first.
Here putra, the son is talked about first and of course yes people get attached to their family members. They may be attached to their parents, to the children, to the spouse and to the child also. The sequence we can say has some significance because in the Mahabharata Arjuna will lose his sons.
He loses Iravan and then he loses Abhimanyu also. Iravan is his son to Anaga princess and Abhimanyu is his son to Subhadra and Abhimanyu is especially heroic and Arjuna becomes infuriated on death of Abhimanyu because Abhimanyu not just because Abhimanyu was dear to him because Abhimanyu was slaughtered with a brutal level of unfairness that Iravan was killed by Alambush another Rakshasa. It’s a long fight in which Iravan who had earlier fought with other warriors he got exhausted and then he was overpowered by Alambush but Abhimanyu too had fought a long fight but then eventually Abhimanyu was killed by six warriors who conspired together to attack him and that was itself literally unfair and further because all those warriors were of a older generation.
Abhimanyu was actually just a child of 16 and he was like their son or grandson and for them to conspire to kill him like that in this most unethical and brutal way was heart-wrenching, agonizing, mortifying, devastating, crushing for Arjuna and when Arjuna is infuriated and shattered Krishna doesn’t tell Arjuna that hey did you forget the Bhagavad Gita? I told you don’t become attached to your you should not be a person knowledge is not attached to one’s son of course Arjuna did not let his so there are whenever there are whenever there are reversals especially involving our loved ones whenever you lose someone dear there is naturally distress that comes because of it and there can be devastation also so spirituality does not require us to deny or reject normal human emotions it actually asks us to not let our emotions be limited only to those normal human emotions that we have relationships based on the body and because the body is also our part so those relationships have their importance at the same time the so there will be some amount of emotion invested in the body and the relationships that are based on the body but we as souls are capable of much more and being capable of much more means that we can experience emotional richness and fullness at a higher level in loving reciprocation with Krishna but when we let our emotions be restricted at the physical at the bodily level based on because of our attachment to the body then we limit the scope of emotional richness that we can avail so um detachment is not detachment is not a recipe for emotional barrenness it is the pathway to emotional richness emotional richness of holistic nature wherein rather than having our emotion restricted to the bodily level we have emotions elevated to the spiritual level primarily channeled to the spiritual level and then when we when we are ourselves connected with our pure devotional intense emotions with Krishna then we can also see the connection of matter material things and people who are with our relationship in this world and we can see it all connected and integrated in our relationship with Krishna and with such connection such integration we can move onwards in our journey towards Krishna with with an holistic approach we don’t become hard-hearted by rejecting the material but at the same time we don’t also become become weak-hearted by being sentimental so hard-heartedness and weak-heartedness can both be transcended by pure-heartedness when we are devoted to Krishna when our when we are by our connection with Krishna getting fulfillment through our relationship with Krishna through our relationship thing then we can invest emotions as necessary in this in the things of the world and act responsibly in whatever roles we are playing in this world but we don’t get emotionally consumed by those things we maintain a sense of perspective and while constructively contributing at the material level we stay connected to the spiritual level and we seek shelter and fulfillment at the spiritual level so Krishna points to such spiritual fulfillment or he will talk about it in the next verse when he will talk about how we need to be unflinchingly devoted that undeviated bhakti is what is going to enable us to connect with Krishna but in this verse he talks about constantly being equipoised so how do we know somebody is attached or detached it depends on kind of notions that are generated in them through the world’s ups and downs the world is by its very nature subjected to an unpredictable level of ups and downs and unpredictable magnitude unpredictable frequency and when when our sense of self-worth self-identity comes from the world then we cannot but be shaken by that but when we have an elevated self-understanding when our self-security self-worth comes from our relationship with Krishna from understanding that we are spiritual we are eternal parts of Krishna then we can be equipoised amidst the world’s ups and down and we can stay spiritually focused so detachment and equanimity Krishna puts together over here and both he uses to point towards spiritual emotionality so equanimity and detachment are founded in spiritual devotion