What is violence for the infectant is benevolence for the infected

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna.
What is violence for the infectant is benevolence for the infected. The infectant refers to the agent which causes infection, like a bacteria or a virus or some other microbe. Now, when a doctor is supposed to treat a patient who has been infected, and the doctor has the medicine but the doctor doesn’t administer the medicine, has the capacity to treat but does not treat the patient, then the doctor may say, I did not do anything.
But in doing nothing, the doctor did a serious wrong thing. That is, the doctor would be culpable by negligence. So, similar would be the situation of a martial guardian of society, a kshatriya who, if antisocial elements are wreaking havoc in society, if the martial guardian did not protect those people, then society would get affected adversely.
Society would come under tribulation. Society would come under havoc, and the kshatriya who had the power to protect, the kshatriya did not protect, the kshatriya would be culpable by negligence. So, the Bhagavad Gita warns us in 3.4 that inaction is no protection from reaction.
Inaction is culpable. na karmaṇāṁ anārambhān na iṣkarmyaṁ puruṣhoṣṇute na ca sannyāsana deva siddhim samadhigacchate na karmaṇāṁ anārambhān Not starting work, not endeavouring for work, na iṣkarmyaṁ puruṣhoṣṇute, that does not lead to na iṣkarmya, that does not lead to freedom from reaction. na ca sannyāsana deva And similarly, that taking sannyāsa, siddhim samadhigacchate, does not lead to siddhi, does not lead to perfection.
So, essentially, what the Gita is stating here is that we cannot assume that just if I don’t do anything, I will not get any reaction. Sometimes, not doing a particular thing may lead to a big reaction. Now, in the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna’s reservation against fighting is understandable because he doesn’t want to kill, especially kill unnecessarily.
Who wants bloodshed? Arjuna is also a sensitive, compassionate spiritualist. So now, to understand the rationale for the Bhagavad Gita’s telling Arjuna to do his duty, and to do his duty of fighting, and Krishna’s telling Arjuna that if you don’t do fighting, you will become culpable. So, to understand this, let’s look at what a doctor does when the doctor offers treatment.
Normally, when the doctor gives a medicine, antibiotics or whatever, that medicine is actually violence for the infected. Now, when we say that they have become free from the disease, that means the infecting germs have been killed. So, treatment is itself violent.
But it’s violent for the infected, but it is benevolent for the infected. The nature of existence in this world is that often one life form becomes the the death of one life form is necessary for the life of another. That’s why it’s survival of the fittest.
Now, survival of the fittest is the governing principle for sub-human beings who prevail on the principle of might is right. But in the human species, if we also live according to our lower animal nature, then we too will be governed by similarly the fight for the survival of the fittest. But we human beings are meant to live according to our higher spiritual nature.
And the principles and practices by which our higher nature gets expressed, those principles and practices are the essence of dharma. Dharma is not simply some set of dogmatic rituals, but it is a system of dynamic principles meant to bring out our spiritual side, meant to bring about our higher, nobler side. Now, in general, if people follow dharma, then everybody can become elevated spiritually.
But still there are some people who brazenly refuse to follow dharma, who simply want to delight in their lower side and exploit others. Sometimes to curb such elements requires violence. Now, although it may involve violence to them, that violence is benevolence for the rest of the social body, just as violence towards the infectants is benevolence for the infected body.
So, when we see the Gita stating that violence is not culpable, but in Arjuna’s case non-violence is culpable, we need to see that this violence is not just violence, but actually benevolence. Because Arjuna got this vision and that’s why he shed his hesitation to fight and fought heroically after hearing the Bhagavad Gita. Thank you.