🧔🏻♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant?
Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquiry-gita-course?cmId=m00021
📚 Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books?
Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?cmId=m00021
📝 Read 3 handpicked wisdom articles, just for you: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articles?cmId=m00021
~~~~~
Video Information: 17.02.23, Bhagavad Gita, Greater Noida
Context:
~ For the West Gita didn't turn into religion, it remained philosophy
~ There can be no dissent without freedom and there can be no love without freedom.
~ When do we loose measure of anything's importance?
~ What breeds contempt?
~ Why are Indians indiferrent to Gita?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
#acharyaprashant
Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquiry-gita-course?cmId=m00021
📚 Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books?
Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?cmId=m00021
📝 Read 3 handpicked wisdom articles, just for you: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articles?cmId=m00021
~~~~~
Video Information: 17.02.23, Bhagavad Gita, Greater Noida
Context:
~ For the West Gita didn't turn into religion, it remained philosophy
~ There can be no dissent without freedom and there can be no love without freedom.
~ When do we loose measure of anything's importance?
~ What breeds contempt?
~ Why are Indians indiferrent to Gita?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
#acharyaprashant
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00So, thank you for organizing this session. So, talking about Bhagavad Gita is important.
00:09So, I was just reading about one American naturalist named Henry Thoreau. He says that
00:17every morning I base my intellect in the stupendous philosophy of Bhagavad Gita in comparison with
00:26which our modern world and its literature seems trivial. So, I think that Western world has
00:35acknowledged the importance of Bhagavad Gita a bit more than Indians have. I may be wrong
00:42on this, but that's my one observation. You are right. When something is just too close
00:52to you, you just somehow lose measure of its importance. Because the Gita happens to be
01:09a commonplace thing in India, a household name in India, therefore it is evident that it has ceased
01:20to mesmerize Indians. Familiarity, someone said, breeds contempt. So, yeah. If not contempt,
01:36then at least indifference. If you become familiar, too familiar to greatness, greatness ceases to
01:49dazzle. The West encounters the Gita with relatively fresh eyes. The West does not rush
02:14to worship the Gita. It says, wow, here we have a piece of text. Literature, let me look at it
02:27objectively afresh. And when you look at Gita that way, that's when it reveals its riches to you.
02:42I have been lucky in that regard. I could play with the Gita because I was not introduced to
02:54the Gita in a traditional way. Nobody told me that you should go and take a bath before touching
03:07the Gita or that you should sit or squat facing one particular direction if you are reading the
03:14Gita or that you should not be lying in your bed while reading the Gita. I have done all of that.
03:21There have been nights when I have dozed off with the Gita lying on my chest. I have not read the
03:40Gita in any kind of structured or sequential way. I would just open the book randomly and allow the
03:53verses to captivate me. I've also not felt obliged to go by the conventional meanings of the verses.
04:11So it helps if you can look at the world or anything with unconditioned eyes. If you approach
04:33something with predetermined respect, you lose the thing. When you turn something into organized
04:50religion, you lose touch with its underlying beautiful philosophy. So Gita became a small part
05:08of a huge religious complex for Indians. For the West, it didn't turn into religion. It remained
05:23philosophy and that's why the West seems to be able to penetrate relatively deeper into the Gita.
05:42You name Thoru, there are several other examples and we have more examples coming up every decade.
05:54India, that does not quite seem to be happening. See the Gita is not tradition. You have been with
06:13the Hindi course as well. You very well know that the Gita is an active destroyer of convention,
06:20tradition, myth, belief, such things. And that aspect of the Gita has hardly ever been brought out.
06:33If you see what Arjun stands for, Krishna is representing an attitude that can
06:45very truthfully be called as very modern.
06:57And because modernity first came to the West, therefore the West is naturally more likely
07:08to resonate more closely with the Gita.
07:21So what I have observed that people here are afraid of condemning or saying anything against
07:28Gita even if they don't feel right about it. Whereas in West, for example, Jean-Paul Sartre,
07:36he started condemning that, not condemning, but he said that I didn't like the fact that
07:43Krishna was pushing Arjun to fight. Though he corrected himself later, but I was saying that
07:49Sartre didn't think that. Critiquing, he was critiquing. So he was not afraid of critiquing.
07:57Yes, the same thing, I found myself in the same situation. I recall that many a times.
08:14So I would pick up a particular verse and vividly remember one day father was on the dining table
08:25and I go rushing to him and I say, yeh toh koi baat nahi hui. And I was pointing at a particular verse.
08:33What is this written? What is Krishna saying here? Yeh toh koi baat nahi hui. Those are my words.
08:40So I was lucky, I could have that freedom to openly dissent against even Krishna.
08:49And had I not had the right to dissent, I would also not have the right to love.
09:04Both require freedom, no? There can be no dissent without freedom and there can be no love
09:12without freedom. So Gita can be read only in freedom.
09:21When you make the Gita a part of your religious complex,
09:30when you turn it into an obligatory reading, then there is no freedom.
09:34So talking about that from verse 1, I took two inferences about that. I would like to
09:48share it with you. So Dhritarashtra, the scripture starts with a blind man's question. I mean that is
09:56rightfully a good thing because only a blind man should ask a question. A person who sees,
10:02I mean he won't have any requirement to ask anything and hence there will be no need of a
10:07scripture. Second thing is Dhritarashtra was blind and it is seen that his sons were all behaving
10:15blindly. It seems as if in Ishavasya Upanishad, we say fullness gives rise to fullness. The reverse
10:23of that is happening. Blindness gives rise to blindness. Only a blind man can reproduce 100
10:29I mean 100 children. Then from verse 4, and if you want to extend the whole thing a bit,
10:44when the very genesis of the battle was in those words of Draupadi that pointed at the same thing.
10:59He said, that's what exactly you are saying.
11:06Yes. So you take all of that together and it's all quite
11:19full of symbolism and significance.
11:22Yes. So in verse 4, actually when you see two parties fighting,
11:31suppose two parties are fighting, generally we will find that one party is condemning the other.
11:38I think about others. But here we see a strange thing. Duryodhana is instead praising Pandavas.
11:45That is a strange discrepancy which I found.
11:47Hmm. Because these are not two parties fighting each other. This is
11:57one party fighting the truth.
12:03Duryodhana wouldn't have been found in that kind of trembling condition
12:09were he facing the Pandavas sans Krishna.
12:17It is the presence of Krishna on that side
12:22that is making Duryodhana go so unhinged.
12:30The words are utterly loose.
12:33So I remember that even in chemical equations, even in science, we say that there are two chemicals.
12:40But there is the requirement of a catalyst. Catalyst here is Shri Krishna. Catalyst is not
12:45an active participant in the battle, in the reaction. But catalyst is something whose presence
12:51is mandatory for the reaction to happen. So Shri Krishna is something like a catalyst, I feel.
12:57You could say that. You could even say that Krishna is the very laboratory
13:03within which the reaction is taking place. A catalyst is just an enabler.
13:13Krishna here is more than an enabler. He is the very foundation on which all this is happening.
13:22But that's another level of description. What you have said is just all right.
13:26And final thing. So if I ask you, or if I may ask you, can you name one person, one fighter,
13:34who is the biggest fighter in Pandavas? Who will that be?
13:39Fighter in what sense? Skill, experience, what sense?
13:43Yes, if I ask who is the biggest fighter in Pandavas, who will that be?
13:48Yes, if I ask who is the biggest fighter in Pandava group, then who would you say?
13:53Arjun. Yes, now everybody will say like that. But if you look at verse number four,
13:59Duryodhana takes the first name of Bheem, not Arjun. Duryodhana takes the first name of Bheem
14:05but not Arjun. That's because Bheem was leading the army from that side.
14:10Okay. Bheem is Bhishma's counterpart from the Pandava side.
14:14Okay. So that's the reason.
14:20So what I thought is maybe because you need somebody like Bheem who can easily be bondaged
14:26in a woman's wife's promise. You could say that or you could say that
14:32when it comes to a personal center, Duryodhana was not too likely to face Arjun in the battle.
14:47There were others who were going to take Arjun on, right? You would have Bheeshma,
14:53you would have Drona, then Karna. These were the people who are going to match Arjun
15:00in archery. Duryodhana would have a personal duel with Bheem and Duryodhana knew it was coming
15:15and it indeed did come, right? So you could say that that's the reason
15:21Duryodhana is more likely to remember Bheem. See it's like
15:29if you are an opening batsman, when you look at the 11 players on the other side, you are most likely
15:46to look first at their opening bowler because he is the one you are going to face and dread,
15:56right? As an opening batsman, why would I think too much about, let's say,
16:10let's say their spinner. Opening batsmen hardly get to face spinners.
16:17So, but then I know that the pitch would be fresh and raw and that tall opening bowler,
16:24he is going to have a good go at me. So, if I am to talk of one face as representing
16:36the opposing team, I would name their opening bowler. So, that kind of a thing,
16:46but here even that is probably not applicable. It's just that Bheem is leading the side.
16:52Even Vedanta also says that we look at our counterpart in the world. We always
16:59find out from the entire view, we always find which is my dual counterpart.
17:04That's the nature of the ego. Yes. Yes, that is being explained.
17:11Thank you so much. Thank you.