US Presidential debate & dilemma: Making sense with Bhagavad-gita

Transcript

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Hare Krishna American presidential elections controversy over the age and qualification of the participants making sense with the Bhagavad Gita recently after the first debate between Biden and Trump in which Biden’s feebleness and frailty because of his age became undeniably evident for everyone there has been an increasing demand that he stepped down I would like to look at this issue from the perspective of the Bhagavad Gita and the broader Mahabharata of which it is a part while Biden’s situation is strikingly reminiscent of the blind King Duryodhana the blind King Dhritarashtra his opponent Trump’s situation is also unfortunately reminiscent of the son Duryodhana let’s look at the similarities in terms of three D’s for Biden and three I’s for Trump the first D is denial it was clear to everyone that Biden himself as well as his group of his supporters which included not just his team but much of mainstream media were actively covering up the signs of his aging which were increasingly evident during his fumbles and memory lapses and even brain freezes during many of his public appearances this is by no means a criticism of the individual it is tragic when we see a healthy person is becoming worn out because of old age the Bhagavad Gita in 13, 8 to 12 explains that old age is one of the universal evils of material existence and seeing a person just fade away like this is a scary reminder of the fate that awaits all of us in the future in this very life but while this is an inevitable event in terms of the body’s aging the denial is disturbing and can have devastating consequences especially when the person is in a position of great power Dhritarashtra was limited by his blindness and while he could not be the king he remained in a denial of his desperate desire to be the king and his great attachment and the complication that his wanting to hold on to the kingdom was going to cause to everyone from denial comes deception deception is where Dhritarashtra ended up becoming a puppet for Duryodhana where he was used by his wicked son for pursuing his own agendas and it’s clear that Biden is not really in charge of his faculties and there is the deep state which is ruling through him using him as a puppet, one person might be on the chair but there is another in power and this is a subversion of democracy and such deception can go on for some amount of time but it cannot go on forever the Bhagavad Gita states that we may use our intelligence to arrive at conclusions opposite to what are the reality this is intelligence in ignorance but the real danger is that such denial and deception can lead to destruction because we are talking about the head of state over here Dhritarashtra’s weakness coupled with Duryodhana’s manipulativeness led to a fratricidal war which caused immense devastation to the world at that time today we see that two long wars have been raging across the world with no sign of either of them ending and the cost in terms of human loss as well as infrastructure destruction is heart breaking such destruction is a matter of especially great concern when the person who is supposed to have control of the nuclear force of the country is not in control of their own faculties and may very well become a puppet for the military industrial complex as a former US president Eisenhower talked about with its own nefarious agendas this is not meant to be a criticism of one political party it is just a correlation of a contemporary situation with a situation described in the epics the Bhagavad Gita tells us that in this world every endeavor is covered by fault 1848 that there is no there are often situations when there are no easy choices the other candidate from is also no paragon of virtue in many ways is impudent impulsive and insensitive which were also the characteristics of Duryodhana impudent is a person who just does not respect authority figures even those who are respectable authority figures and while some people may consider such impudence to be a sign of courage others may see it rightly so in many occasions as a sign of recklessness so Duryodhana was impudent towards Bhishma, Drona even Vyasate who were all this advisors and well wishers there are many occasions where Trump has neglected the good advice of people and has unnecessarily alienated audiences because of that then there is also the point of not just impudence but also impulsiveness impulsiveness is where Duryodhana giving into his impulses would come up with terrible schemes and cause unnecessary harm to himself and to others Trump with his twitter handle was a person who caused a lot of unnecessary agitation in fact after twitter ban much of his raging went down the social network does not have that much reach and that impulsiveness is something which is definitely counterproductive the Bhagavad Gita states that a leader needs to be respected but a leader also needs to be respectful that when talking about the example that a leader needs to set in 321 the Gita states that everyone needs to have especially those in leadership need to have virtuous qualities and such qualities of impulsiveness or impudence they do not reflect the divine nature at all and lastly is insensitivity that sometimes Duryodhana would get unnecessary joy in causing hurt to others as he did when he tried to not only dishonor Draupadi but also tried to create friction and breakage among the Pandavas and their family such insensitivity where either one is not aware of the hurt that one is causing or one goes about and causes hurt to others without caring for it just because one is very powerful this was unfortunately evident in some of Trump’s statements about women and some people in the military so this is unfortunate overall that the world is in a situation where the strongest country in the world at least at present has only these two people as a choice among leaders in the Bhagavad Gita Arjuna on seeing the universal form prays for peace and pacification so we can also pray that the world moves towards pacification and whoever comes to be helm of leadership has a greater level of sattva and a greater level of service attitude by which they can help be a part of the solution and not a part of the problem thank you broadly there are two kinds