When suicide is bad why did Arjuna resolve to commit suicide if he failed to kill Jayadratha by sunset?
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reject. When suicide is bad why did Arjuna take a vow that he would commit suicide if he was not able to kill Jayadratha? See the Kshatriya culture is a culture of honor and heroism that means honor means this is what I commit to do and I will do it like Dashrath Maharaj no for him to send his son Ram to the forest was terrible it was worse than death but what happens Kshatriyas they are trained that if you make a word you have to honor it and that sense of honor is the means by which they are protected from abusing their power they are kings they can do whatever they want who is going to question them, who is going to stop them they are so powerful but the Kshatriyas are trained right from the childhood you have to honor your word and that way they may give honor although they may be tempted to use their power in a bad way to exploit others they will not do that because that is not the honorable thing to do so the sense of honor in Kshatriyas is very important and the sense of honor brings out the best within them so that even when the best thing is difficult to do it brings out the best so like that when Arjuna is taking a vow that I will kill Jaidrath otherwise I will enter into fire the focus of that is not that he wants to commit suicide suicide when we understand it today it is the way it is done today it is simply that people are frustrated with their life frustrated with problems in their life and they feel that this problem has no solution and therefore I will commit suicide I will end my life so it is more a frustrated response to inability to deal with problems in life whereas in the Kshatriyas case they are in a war field and death can come at any moment so they already by entering into war itself they are ready to die at any moment so it is not that they are fearful of the problems of life the situation is very different the point is when they are taking a vow it is within the course of the war an enemy’s arrow may kill them at any moment but they take a vow that I will do this and if I don’t do this I will die I will end my life so that ending that vow the focus of the vow is not ending one’s life the focus of that vow is I will do this no matter what it takes and as far as the ending of life is concerned that can happen any day on a war field so the the focus is on stating that I will do this I will make sure that I can jail better so that sort of when Kshatriyas take vows like that it brings out the best within them so in all such statements whenever it is there we have to know what is the focus so ok I will give one example I don’t know whether I can explain it in a way in which you will understand it there is a verse in the Purana which says that Lord Vishnu tells the devotees tells his devotees tells Dharadhuni actually he says actually I don’t reside in Vaikuntha I don’t reside in the spiritual world I don’t reside in the yogi’s hearts I don’t stay in all these places I stay where my devotees chant my glories now the emphasis of the statement is what the focus is what that where devotees are chanting Krishna’s glories that’s where we can we can perceive Krishna’s presence Krishna is in the spiritual world but how can we perceive his presence there we can’t but when devotees chant and we feel spiritual inspiration we feel Krishna’s presence so now when Krishna is saying I am not present in Vaikuntha it does not mean it’s like in Vaikuntha there is a throne and the throne is empty Krishna has left so every statement has a focus and I am making myself clear so the focus of the statement is not that Arjuna is going to commit suicide the focus is that Arjuna is going to do everything possible to make sure that he kills Jaipat so all statements have a focus and when we see that focus then we can understand the statement properly does that answer your question thank you for your intelligent question Hare Krishna Hare Krishna