SOME THOUGHTS ON BHAGAWAD GITA--5

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Hari OMThe Gita avers that the ATMA (Soul ) does not repeat not cease to exist when the body dies and is buried,burnt or eaten up by animals, beasts,birds or insects. Lord Krishna declares that grief over death is foolish as the Soul is incapable of death. It is the body that is cast off in death even as we cast off old clothes and wear new ones. The Gita reaffirms that

Self-knowledge alone can deliver one from the bonds of repeated cycles of birth and death (samsara--punarapi jananam punarapi maranam). Most of us are confounded as to our duty (Dharma) and are deeply plunged into the mighty ocean of grief as Arjuna was. Lord Krishna wanted to help His friend out of such grief and introduced him to Self-knowledge when He said:-

 

"You grieve for those who are not to be grieved for......The enlightened grieve neither for the living nor for the dead".(chapter 2 verse 11)

If one were to be called a true doctor, he should be one who not only eradicate a disease by curing the symptoms but also by removing the very cause of the disease. So too, Lord Krishna removes the very source of Arjuna`s delusion in the Gita.

 

 

One`s ego rises when the Pure Self(Atma) is not recognised, and the deep-seated ignorance in man not only veils his Divine Nature from himself, but also projects on the Reality a positive misconception. The egocentric idea that he is conditioned by his own body,mind and intellect, is the true seed of man`s delusory attachments with his own relations and the consequent deep compassion that leads his mind to make him so helpless. Grief and dejection are the prizes that delusion demands from its victim, man. So, by rediscovering ourself as something higher than our own ego , we can put an end to all imagined sorrows that have come to us through false identifications. That is the crux of the Upanishidic Message reaffirmed in the Gita.

 

(to be continued)

G.Balasubramanian