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In pursuing and attaining knowledge, what counts is attention, assiduous application of the mind and intelligence. Once this is ensured, the seeker is sure to attain the desired knowledge.

Dear and blessed souls:

Harih Om Tat Sat.

Krishna lifts Arjuna’s enquiry to the Soul-level

Krishna lifts Arjuna’s enquiry to the Soul-level Krishna first pointed (2.11) the contradiction in Arjuna in having spoken like a wise-man but behaving like the unwise. How did Krishna raise such a striking note? For, the wise and enlightened do not grieve over either the dead or the living. They view life and death as complementary to each other. Either cannot be without the other.

Krishna next told Arjuna that there was no time when he was not, Arjuna was not or the others were not. Nor would there be a time when they would ever cease to be. Every one, verily understood, is everpresent. Rightly comprehended, existence will never become extinct, but will continue to be. No existence can give rise to non-existence at all.

Is not all this knowledge alone? Every bit of this knowledge has the effect of redressing delusion and instilling pure wisdom, bestowing liberation, freedom and ecstasy.

Purity infused by Teacher’s spiritual tuition

The wholesome effect of wisdom is quite evident from what transpired in the battlefield between Krishna and Arjuna. The instruction a teacher well-versed in Scriptures, imbued with the requisite realization of his Self, imparts to his dedicated disciple, is far more than mere words and ideas. Every word of spiritual wisdom contacting the eardrums instantly traverses to the brain registering its sublime impact. That is instantly transformed into knowledge, involving deeper levels of the disciple’s personality, wherein the content and functions are alike totally spiritual.

Transcending matter, the spiritual domain works with its own invisible laws and procedures. The resulting purity, sublimity, refinement and exaltation, though indescribable, are experiential. This is what transpires in Guru-shishya interaction, revealing inconceivable possibilities. Krishna-Arjuna dialogue as also the longer one between Sage Vasishthadeva and the 15-year-old prince of Ayodhya in Yogavasishtha-ramayana, are instances depicting this inner spiritual transpiration and its fruition.

What need to be purified are the mind, intellect and ego, which constitute the inner personality of human. When Krishna specifies that to reach the inner spiritual layers and bring about purity there, nothing is as effective as spiritual tuition and reception, it is a great revelation. Every seeker should absorb the message, cherish and nourish it wholeheartedly.

Seeker will take some time to have the required spiritual knowledge, enlightenment. He has to pursue his yoga practice diligently for a time. Depending upon the complexity of one’s inner personality, the period may differ for every seeker. That does not matter. Maturation takes time. The seeker should not bother about it. His attention must be constantly on his sadhana, striving. Leave the rest for Nature to deal with and bestow. A very good assurance indeed!

Inner achievement promised

Next verse (4.39) is the crowning statement Krishna makes on the subject. In pursuing and attaining knowledge, what counts is attention, assiduous application of the mind and intelligence. Once this is ensured, the seeker is sure to attain the desired knowledge. He must, of course, have adequate sense-regulation as well. Sensory restraint is a very special discipline Krishna enjoins right from the second chapter itself. In fact, this is the apoorvata, a special rarity, singular feature, of Krishna’s warfield dialogue!

After gaining true spiritual knowledge, realization, the seeker before long achieves supreme peacefulness, quietitude, which marks the finale of spiritual pursuit and fulfilment. How well put!

One important point to be noted about the whole dialogue is that the spiritual pursuit is solely mento-intellectual and the means to take to and fulfil it is to get duly instructed by the competent teacher. Listening to the Teacher, raising questions, getting the necessary clarification and stabilizing one’s understanding, pursuing it thereafter with the desired exclusiveness and attention, are the only course to be adhered to. Let seekers be sure of this.

Fate of the ignorant, the inattentive and the doubtful

In the next verse (4.40) Krishna strongly denounces the ignorant, inattentive and the doubtful seeker, stating clearly that neither is this world of any use to him nor the other. Such a cautionary denunciation is verily too grave.

Human life distinguishes itself from the rest on earth, not by dint of our body and senses and what all potentials they have. For, many animals have senses even more powerful and effective than human’s. Our distinction consists in the inner power of thinking and knowing, as well as the capacity to articulate what we wish and will. In other words, gaining knowledge, expressing it meaningfully and benevolently, is the real human distinction, superiority. If we do not express these superior faculties, we will only degenerate. So, not gaining knowledge is a crime, also a grave neglect, leading to the downfall of human life.

The same can be said about attention or attentiveness. Assiduous application of our mind and intelligence is a requirement for gaining knowledge as well as applying it to specific tasks and ends. Those lacking attentiveness will not be able to either know something or do anything effectively. One has to definitely observe others and also emulate them wherever necessary. A newborn child learns everything, from standing, walking and speaking only by seeing others. So, attention is the quality which makes any one look at another closely and then learn. Imagine a student sitting in the class room, not attending to what his teacher teaches and demonstrates!

Doubt not the sacred words

Then the third negative note is doubting. In walking, we first place a step forward. Instantly the other leg follows and places the next step. In doing so as well as walking and running, can any one doubt whether such a motion is possible? To doubt is suicidal. Our Scriptures set forth a number of propositions. In reading, understanding and following what they state, can any one be hindered by doubt?

Krishna in the preceding chapters has set forth amazing knowledge about life, interaction, our attitude towards both, making significant evaluations. Should we doubt them? Or should we reverentially take to his analyses and the wisdom he showers? The dialogue, historically transpired in Kurukshetra 5159 years ago. The documentation we have on it is what Vyasadeva has inscribed. Can we doubt the entire writing, questioning its veracity? It will be suicidal if we do so. For, Vyasadeva’s writing was based on whatever he witnessed himself. His narration was about six generations beginning from himself, extending to and including Janamejaya, the sixth. Imagine well the veracity of what he wrote.

We are not the body

Our Scriptures alone tell us that we are not the body, which is but an outcome of material food we consume. Being a material mass, the body lacks the potential to generate any experience or knowledge. How then is our life fully experiential? All experiences belong to the mind and intelligence, which are not material. They are above matter and energy.

Once you admit this, can you ever say ‘I am the body’? Unless this fact, nay truth, Vedas set forth, is there before us, how will you ever come to know of it? Tell me now, whether you can doubt the Scriptures and their revelations and evaluations! So, there is untold meaning in what Krishna says about the doubtfuls. They have neither this world to achieve their objectives nor the other world. Because, to lead a meaningful life and pursue our objectives, we must have doubtless faith in what we see and seek to interact with. The doubtful simply perishes, even after gaining the most resourceful human life!

Krishna delivers the formula to overcome all sin

Let us proceed to the next verse (4.41). The entire dialogue was occasioned by Arjuna’s grief, delusion, doubt and fear about the impending Mahabharata war, wherein he felt he had to encounter a huge army of 4.5 million fighters, almost all of whom would be killed if the war was to be fought to its conclusion.

Imagine the state of Arjuna’s mind. Nevertheless, the battle had to be fought. To empower Arjuna for the great task, Krishna was repeatedly emphasizing spiritual knowledge and philosophy, the only redress for and safeguard against all sins and bondages. Sticking to the same thread, Krishna sets forth four formulae by which Arjuna could remain unscathed by the whole catastrophe and his crucial role in it.

Embodying Samatva-buddhi-yoga

First is to resolutely abandon the subjective-results of all karmas by embodying Samatva-buddhi-yoga – yoga-sannyasta-karmāṇam. Adopting yogic outlook or vision, Arjuna will be renouncing the feeling of doership about karmas, virtually all activities. And by empowering himself with the spiritual wisdom exposed so far, Arjuna will have dispelled all his doubts, anxieties and apprehensions about having to do even sinful acts. What more? He should be an ātmavān, one immersed in the Self. He should ‘Selfize’ his mind, intelligence, ego and body. This means he should by reflection and rumination realize that the content of mind, intelligence and ego, is the same as the source substance, the spiritual sentience, the Self, animating the body. Everything inner is but an expression and display of the singular Self. Devoid of the Self, none has any existence, expression or display. Such wholesome vision is a full protection, an insulation for all actions against their imagined consequences.

Dharma-saṅkaṭa – dilemma of confused righteousness

Now we go to the last verse (4.42). Krishna exhorts Arjuna to invoke jñāna, the spiritual wisdom he has gained so far, as a sword and cut of the doubt dwelling in his heart. Arjuna being a valorous fighter, Krishna exhorts him to slay the doubt of his heart. Think well about the scene in front of Arjuna and Krishna!

Arjuna came to Kurukshetra after 13 years of preparation, having acquired his Gāndīva bow and empowering himself with Pāśupatāstra as well. His intention was obviously to fight the war against Duryodhana, who was trying to destroy Pandavas for many years. Despite this, Arjuna was totally unnerved on seeing Bhīshma, Drona and his own relatives on both sides. Suddenly doubt and fear assailed him. Main resistance was “how to despatch arrows at grandfather and Teacher. How can it be moral at all? ”

If they themselves chose to array with Duryodhana and command his army, where should any doubt be there for Arjuna? The decision should have been a well-thought out one. War can be with anyone, even relatives and friends. Once they assemble themselves in front, no further questions or doubts should any righteous fighter entertain. Did not Krishna kill Kamsa, his own uncle?

Realization of Self – the only panacea

But somehow Arjuna could not resolve the resistance. Here Krishna makes it clear that no doubt is called for. After all, none is his body. The ‘I’ in every one is an expression of sentience, Consciousness. It permeates and animates the body. By animating the body, the ‘I’, the Self, does not lose its subtlest nature and hence omnipresence. How can the omnipresent act at all? No action and hence no consequences too, are to be imputed to the Self.

This knowledge should be sufficient to allay all doubts, suspicions, fears and anxieties about activities in general. Resistance is from the mind, and its redress lies in the intelligence, which expresses as knowledge. So, “slaying the doubt of the heart with the sword of knowledge about the Self, adopt yoga, as I have explained it. With firm resolve, get up and proceed with the task ahead”, exhorts Krishna.

What is yoga? It is samatva-buddhi towards sukha and duḥkha, pleasant and uncomfortable, dharma and adharma as well as fruition and non-fruition of actions. In order to practise this inner yoga of the mind, you must always be in the midst of duality – sukha-duḥkha, gain and loss, which activity and interaction necessarily fetch. Thus, both sukha and duḥkha together, becoming a complement to each other, will lead you forward comfortably. How beautiful the course of life will be!