Chapter 2: Sānkhya Yoga – Yoga of Contemplation on Self / Verse 7

Arjuna confesses he is deluded and cannot decide anything. His mind is constricted. He is unable to think broadly. The path of dharma is not clear to him.

So, he is asking Krishna to tell him the right course of action to follow. He yearns for lasting good and benediction. He wants decisive advice.

“Instruct me, a humble disciple, O benevolent Teacher.”

Thus the whole dialogue is between Teacher Krishna and student Arjuna. It is a human interaction. To attribute anything else to it will be disharmonious!

In the short while in Kurukshetra battlefield, what transpired is something extremely rare, great and glorious.It is a historic episode sparkling in our ageold history, that intercepted the war after war cries had been sounded. It was triggered when heroic Arjuna wanted to examine the armies at the eleventh hour in order to devise his strategy for the unprecedented war.

But, what he saw unnerved him totally. He felt he should not proceed with the war, come what may. He opened his heart to Krishna, saying he would retreat, keeping his bow and arrow down. The great hero sat, unable to stand.

Krishna admonished him in the most severe terms,pointing his wrong and urging him to outlive his unjust sympathy. Arjuna instantly heeded. But the question of how to fight the great adorable grandfather and teacher refused to leave his heart. He set forth his resistance and doubt in unambiguous terms.

But what is epoch-making is the fact that by the time he concluded his words, Arjuna had become a full seeker of shreyas, felicity.

Any time, any place is fit to seek the supreme good of human life, as Arjuna did in Kurukshetra. The supreme good is supreme for every one everywhere. To seek it is the privilege and fortune of the human. Every circumstance or opportunity will only help and facilitate it, as did the Kurukshetra warfield!