Chapter 1- Yoga of Despondency of Arjuna

 

The fantastic spiritual superhero! (Chapter 1, Verse 30)

गाण्डीवं स्रंसते हस्तात्त्वक्चै व परिदह्यते |

न च शक्नोम्यवस्थातुं भ्रमतीव च मे मन: || 1.30||

gāṇḍīvaṁ sraṁsate hastāt tvak chaiva paridahyate

na cha śhaknomy avasthātuṁ bhramatīva cha me manaḥ

Oh Krishna! I am not able to stand firmly and my mind seems to be whirling and I notice the omens to be adverse!

~ Chapter 1, Verse 30

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Questioner (Q): Acharya Ji, from the above shloka, I realized that at times I too feel paralysed around my loved ones when it comes to taking the right action. My attachment towards them gets overwhelming at times, and I find myself difficult to hold steady.

Arjuna, like me, seems to give all excuses possible for not doing the right thing. He’s willing to die, but not ready to do the right thing. In such situations, many times I have spent all my energy maintaining my composure, which results in inaction and thus defiance of the right action.

Does the right action have to wait for my composure, or can it proceed even with trembling hands or an unsteady mind?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Come on, what makes you think that being the creature of this earth that you are, you will be able to do the right thing without shaking, without having unsteady hands?

We seem to have romantic fantasies even in spirituality. We have been fed a lot of spiritual notions it seems. We carry images, rather long videos, of how a really spiritual person is like. Steady, firm, unwavering, unshaking, doing the right thing without the least trace of discomposure, fantastic, heroic, super heroic—that’s what we want. Superhero movies. Juvenile, so very juvenile!

What’s your take on a spiritual master? Some kind of a batman able to conquer everybody without getting even the slightest bruise? (Audience laughing) That’s what you find in superhero movies, right? All the bad ones of the world are standing against your superhero, and they are carrying AK-47s, machine guns, Sten guns, Tommy Guns, and a few nuclear reactors. One or two bombs won’t suffice, so they have brought along a dozen reactors and uranium and plutonium enrichment plants as well so that bombs can be delivered in real time!

And then, your stud, without so much as blinking his eyes, just whistles and blows them away.

That’s what the movies have fed you, right? And either willingly or subconsciously you have extrapolated the same story to the spiritual domain.

How does the parallel scene look like in the spiritual domain? Here is your realized master, and in front of him are standing all the bad chaps—kaam, krodh, madh, moh, lobh, maya, mātsarya, bhaya—and they are carrying all the destructive weapons possible; property, sex, allurement, prestige... Those are the nuclear weapons, you see, to destroy you internally.

And then, your spiritual master, without so much as blinking an eye, just blows them away. “I command you to disappear! By the power of the Lord, thy shall be no more!” and they are all gone!

(Audience laughing)

Happy!

Popcorn time!

That’s your pop-spirituality with your popcorn. Fed to you by mom and pop.

You know what you have done to all the saints and the masters and the heroes who loved you and fought for you? You have destroyed them; you have turned them into caricatures; you have created images of their infallibility. You have said, “They were supermen, so I will not leave behind any trace of their fallibility. I will not show that they too trembled; I’ll not allow it to be shown. In fact, I will distort history to represent them as superhuman!”

So Jesus, for example, cannot be shown to be afraid, Buddha cannot be shown to be attached, and if Krishna or Rama are shown to have human fallibilities, then there is a large hue and cry and an uproar. You say, “But how could Rama be so vulnerable to the opinion of an outsider that he really shut the doors on his wife? But if Rama is really an incarnation of Vishnu, why was he weeping so inconsolably over Lakshman’s fainted body? If Rama is really god on earth, then why did he not know, using his magical powers and clairvoyance, where Ravana had taken Sita away? Why did he have to dispatch Hanuman?”

Superheroes have to be perfect, right? Superheroes can’t have weaknesses, frailties. Superheroes have to be cast in an image so distant that no relationship remains possible between you and the image, so that you can safely continue in your old rotten ways and say, “Oh, but that chap was superhuman! He cannot be an example to me. He could do what he did because he was extraordinary, special, divine, belonging to the Beyond. He was transcendental; I’m not. He belongs to the skies; I live on the earth. So, I have, therefore, no responsibility to learn from him or live like him.” Such an obnoxious inner conspiracy towards yourself! Bad. Very bad.

It is from that mindset that this question tonight is arising. The questioner is saying that “when I do the right thing, often I find myself trembling,” and then, very innocently he asks, “Does the right action have to wait for my composure, or can it proceed even with trembling hands and unsteady mind?”

Sir, madam, one hallmark, one unmistakable quality of right action would be that it would require all your guts. It is only false action that you can comfortably undertake. Falseness is never troublesome; Truth always is. Whenever you would be doing something that would be real, you would know it by the discomfort it would cause to you.

You’re asking me, “Is it possible to act rightly with trembling hands?” I’m saying, you can act rightly only with trembling hands. Understand the theory part of it.

The Heart, the Truth inside you acts rightly, but it acts through your body and mind, and the mind is habituated to falseness. So, through a false vehicle, the project of Truth is being undertaken. What will that project do to the vehicle?

Q: (Inaudible)

AP: Are you getting it?

Truth is like acid, and you are supplying it through a pipeline that is clogged with rubbish. You are using the pipeline just to supply the acid, supply the acid to the point of action. But in the process of transportation, what will the acid do to the pipeline, to the vehicle of supply?

Q: Cause erosion to it.

AP: Cleanse it, sir! Cleanse it. This difference in description makes all the difference in life. That which you call as erosion will be resented; that which you call as cleansing will be supported. The moment you call the action of acid upon the pipe as erosion, you will not support it, so be very cautious in the choice of your description. Are you getting it?

Whenever you will do something that is worthwhile, it would be characterized by a shakeup, a tumult in your life. And that is the reason—now you know—why so few people do anything that is truthful. Who wants discomfort? Who wants to feel unsettled, even if the settlement is a false settlement?

So just because something makes you uneasy, do not drop it. More often than not, unease is a sign of the approach of Truth. And just because there is something you can comfortably do, don’t continue with it. Chances are your comfort is a false and harmful comfort.

There is nobody, I’m assuring you, who has had it easy. Drop the superhero myths; even they had it as difficult as you have.

What do you think, Buddha coolly walked out leaving Yashodhara and the toddler behind in the middle of the night? No! He was trembling. He felt his insides crashing into a thousand pieces. It was not easy. After stepping out of the door, I tell you, three times he pulled himself back. Several voices within him told him, “No, no, no! Leave it! Alright, tomorrow. Tonight is not the time. See how peacefully she sleeps? What will she see in the morning? Tomorrow, tell her everything and then bid her goodbye!”

And then, another voice that said, “But what’s the need to quit like this? Can’t it happen in the palace itself? Can’t you continue to be a prince or a king, a husband and a father, and still get the clarity that you want? Can’t you? Can’t you?”

It’s never easy. It is never easy for anybody, be it a prophet, a saint, a soldier, a scientist. Our constitution is such that it opposes Truth, so if you want to live by the Truth, you will have to live against yourself. Just that if you are determined to live against yourself, with time, gradually you find that your internal resistance to Truth drops. But you cannot wait for that resistance to drop.

You are saying, “Should I wait to be composed before I undertake the right action?” No, no, no. Your resistance against Truth will drop only when you commit to yourself that you will stay with the Truth in spite of the resistance.

You stay with the Truth; don’t mind the resistance. Bear it, cry and bear it, weep and bear it, wince and bear it, but bear it. And if you keep bearing it, then your resistance realizes that it's futile to insist. Resistance gradually drops. Now there is just you and the Truth. The resistance is slowly fading away.

But that will happen after long. You can’t wait. And that won’t happen if you keep waiting, so you have to start right now.