Sharing Sanjivani (Sanjivani - Life Saving Herb)

Chapter 21 How to differentiate right things and wrong things?

(21) How to differentiate right things and wrong things?

Lord Krishna advises Arjun not to feel sorry about the death of anybody because a real soul is permanent and a part of eternal truth and Almighty lives within everybody’s body none can kill him and no one should try to kill him as a soul cannot be cut off by any weapon or any mantra or by any curse. According to the story of Puran Bruhad Aranyak (a holy book) the head of Stakalya was cut off due to the curse of Yagyavalkya because he could not answer the question of Yagyavalkya.A soul cannot be burnt by curse or mantra or by fire as a tiger was burnt without fire because of the curse of Damayanti-wife of King  Nal . A soul cannot be wet by water or mantra or by a curse. As we know in singing of tune of’ Malkosh’ (name of a Rag) even a stone becomes wet and on seeing moon Chandrakant Mani becomes wet. A soul cannot be wet by any lyrics or a soul cannot be dried up by curse or Mantra or by wind or by medicines as Agastya Rishi sucked the ocean and made it dry. Hence a soul in anybody’s body cannot be cut off. A body is bound to die but not a soul and when a knowledgeable person knows about that truth he would not feel sorry for the death of anybody.

When a person tries to know truth and untruth and do experiments on his own he could be known as a meditated yogi when he does experiments on other people he is known as scholar. But if a person does experiment on others and keep himself away from all these things he could be a learner and literate but he would not experience the supreme authority of truth and untruth. Knowledge is for scholars but BHAGAVAD GITA is not only for the scholars. It is for everybody whoever wants to know what is right and what is wrong. All the discussion and conversation of Lord Krishna and Arjun on the battle field of Kurukshetra is full of experience of knowing the physical body and the spiritual soul. All the criticism of substance is useful for learners whoever wants to know ‘What should I do and what should I do not do ’ in my life time. The BHAGAVAD GITA is therefore the Art of living on the earth and the path of knowledge to lead us to Salvation. Every person whoever repeatedly, truthfully, having trust on Lord Krishna and faith without any doubt with firm determination wants to know the truth and the supreme authority of God could experience the essence of it and find out the solutions in his own way.

Our body is an instrument to perform our duty and we have to accept our body because we have to do our Karma when we want to write we need pen, pencil or chalk –stick to write anything but as we finished our writing we put the pen down. Our body is an instrument like chalk-stick to fulfill our task when the task is over we have to leave it. Everybody has to give up untruth after knowing the truth. If we can leave untruth we can easily reach our destination of Salvation. We should feel oneness with only those things which are universal in form, with which we can keep our relations permanently, from whom we never desire anything and we want to sacrifice whatever we have with us as our own property .All these things can be offered to God only because we feel oneness with Almighty only. We cannot keep unity with ever changing substances, places, people or relations forever. We cannot feel same feelings for our relations with anybody. They may be parents, husband or wife, children, Guru and friends. When the purpose and motive are change we cannot feel same intimacy through our life. Our relations are based on give and take. Every relation is connected with expectations to get something. Hence it is not possible that we could not expect anything from parents, children, husband, wife or friends in return. And again we cannot give everything to our relations or sacrifice everything for them because we always think about our self first of all the relations and then about others. No one dies after the dead is the bitter truth of all love stories. An experiment was done on the mother monkey and her baby monkey in the study  of psychology. She tried to save her baby monkey from drowning in the deep water but as and when she herself was going to be drowned  into the deep water she put her baby monkey down and climbed over his body to save her. If a mother can do this to her baby to save her own life what could be expected from the other relations?

When we think our body as our own property we are attached to it emotionally. Every comforts and luxuries of life given to our body gives us happiness and any discomfort gives us unhappiness. And hence we cannot achieve our goal of eternal happiness or cannot find truth. We are engrossed in illusion and delusion of   possession but if we cannot come out from these illusions, we will not achieve the real substance in the life which can give us unconditional peace of mind and eternal ecstasy. If we understand that this body is going to leave us and it is not under our control, why shouldn’t we abandon its attachment? If we can do it we can recognize our eternal form and oneness with Almighty. We are attached to body and hence we cannot reach to the eternal joy. We are attached to our good deeds, our religious thoughts and our pious position and illusion of being devotee. When we perform religious rituals, yagna, tap, charity and help the needy, do yoga or converse with our God in meditation we think that we can reach to the Almighty but our attachments to our physical body and worldly things distracts us and our all efforts prove useless. When we desire something it is illusion. We do everything to get everything. Illusion creates instability of mind and attachment of worldly things would not allow unification with Almighty in steady meditation. Hence whatever we do with these physical bodies as good deeds, whatever we ponder for religious awakening and whatever we do to become steady destroy our illusion and all the instruments based for the achievement of salvation and they would try to destroy our delusion and help us to find out the eternal truth. Hence Lord Krishna advises Arjun to be free from the illusive attachments of body and think about the wellbeing of soul in particular and welfare of mankind and his subjects in  general. Lord Krishna answered both the questions of Arjun as he was worrying about the separation of beloveds. He was feeling himself guilty and sinful for killing his own relatives. He was worrying about going to hell after his death because of killing his own people. We too have to understand what are the right things to do and what are wrong things not to follow and must be avoided.

Let’s comprehend Lord Krishna’s speech further…