Arjuna said: O Madhusudana, killer of the enemy, how can I counterattack, shooting arrows at my grandsire Bhisma and teacher Drona, who are worthy of my worship? It is better to live in this world by begging, without taking the lives of our great, noble elders and teachers. Otherwise, by killing them we shall only live in this world to enjoy their wealth and properties tainted with their blood. We cannot understand which will be better for us victory or defeat because those sons of Dhartarastra, whom if we killed we should not care to live, now stand before us on the battlefront. Now I am bewildered. What is my real duty? Overwhelmed by apprehension for the fall of our dynasty, I am begging You to please tell me clearly which course of action is most beneficial for me. I am Your surrendered disciple. Kindly instruct me. Even if we obtain an unrivaled, expanding empire on Earth and supremacy over the kingdom of heaven, I cannot find anything to allay this sadness which is leaving me senseless. Sanjaya said: In this way, the chastiser of the enemy, the intensely alert Arjuna, addressed Krsna who is the Lord of the senses of all beings. Then he declared, Govinda, I will not fight, and fell silent. O Bharata, thereafter Sri Hrsikesa, in the midst of both armies, smilingly addressed the griefstricken Arjuna as follows: The Lord said: O Arjuna, you are mourning for that which is unworthy of grief, and yet speaking words of wisdom. But the wise lament neither for the living nor the dead. Never was there a time when I, you, or all these kings did not exist. As we are at present, so have we been in the past, and shall continue to be in the future. As the embodied living being gradually passes in this body from childhood to youth to old age, so also that soul attains yet another boy at death. The learned are not deluded by such a transformation. O son of Kunti, only the engagement of the senses with their objects gives rise to the sensations for cold, heat, pleasure, and pain. But these effects are temporary they come and go. Therefore, O Bharata, you are to endure them. O noblest of men, a person of steady intelligence, equipoised in pleasure and pain, undisturbed by sensual experiences, is certainly eligible for liberation. Of the changeable, such as the body, there is no everlasting existence; of the everlasting soul, there is no transformation or destruction. Seers of the truth have thus distinguished and analyzed the nature of both eternal reality and temporary illusion. Know that the soul who pervades the entire body is imperishable. He is unchangeable and everlasting, and no one can destroy him. Only these physical bodies of the eternal, indestructible, and immeasurable soul are subject to destruction. Therefore, fight, O Bharata, and do not give up your natural religious principles. Those who think that the living being is a slayer, and those who think that he is slain, are both ignorant of the true nature of the soul - the soul neither slays nor is slain. The soul is never born and he never dies, nor does he repeatedly come into being and undergo expansion, because he is unborn and eternal. He is inexhaustible ever-youthful yet ancient. Although the body is subject to birth and death, the soul is never destroyed.
Posted on: Sun, 06 Jul 2014 06:07:37 +0000
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