Re: gItA shloka
From the Bhakti List Archives
• February 12, 2000
Sriman Chandrasekaran said: I have a doubt in the purport of the following verse in the 3rd chapter of gItA. .......... >>> tAn akr~thsna vidhO mandhAn kr~thsnavin na vichAlayEth || Meaning for this is given in a book as, "let the wise men, who have no attachments, not unsettle the mind of the foolish men, who do actions with attachment" I am confused about this advice of the Lord. I request gItA experts in this list to clarify what is exactly meant here.<<< My observations on this verse are as follows: In an earlier shloka (V 26, ch.3) also similar advice is given: "One should not produce fragmentation of the mind among the ignorant who are attached to action. The wise one should cause them to enjoy all actions, while performing actions himself in a disciplined manner." In V67, Ch 18 , we see more or less similar advice: "This (gItA) shall not be spoken of by thee to one who is without austerity, nor to one who neglects worship, nor one who does not desire to hear what is to be said. nor to one who speaks evil of Me" Even knowing Arjuna, the Lord does not start giving advice until Arjuna surrenders to Him as shishya and asks for guidance (v7, ch2). For everything there is a prerequisite. A fertile soil, water, light, heat and air are necessary for seed germination. However, seed has to be viable in the first place! Lord Krishna has tremendous experience in this area of dealing with many raw (apakhwas, not ready yet) characters such as DuryOdhana, Kamsa, Shishupala, etc. Advice to people who appear to be relishing their activities may simply go waste and may even lose it's value. Worse yet, the advice may even be misunderstood. This will cause more damage than good. I am sure we all can quote many misunderstood practices in world traditions (including Hindu) which have caused more harm than good. The Hindu belief is that those who are not ready yet will come around, at some time or the other, in one life or the other. One shouldn't be hasty in bringing everyone around at the same time. Here is a story adapted from the Panchatantra : A monkey herd was feeling very cold. They decided to make fire to keep warm. They all went around making a pile of twigs and dry leaves. That was easy. The tough part was how to light the pile. As the day was sinking, it was getting colder, and the need to keep warm was becoming more intense. All their effort of gathering twigs was going waste. Luckily, the monkeys spotted a bunch of glowing fire flies. They were so happy that they found fire. Now they went after gathering as many fire flies as they could. They would put those flies on the pile and started to blow! Of course they were all already feeling warm (all that running around). Now a bird named needle face, thought this whole thing was foolish and kept advising the monkeys that the fire fly is a bug and it is not fire. He even ate a couple of glowing fire flies to prove the point. The monkeys which were fully convinced about their efforts (as noted above they were feeling warmer) and did not relish the bird's advice. To prove the point, the bird even brought in a Biochemist, who gave an eloquent presentation on how an enzyme called luciferase present in the fire flies converts luciferin to produce ATP (Chemical energy) for the flies to fly . In this reaction some of the energy is also let out as light (energy). This made monkies even more angry. long behold, a monkey slapped the bird and that was the end of needle face. (Moral: If someone is fully convinced it is working, don't be in haste to tell it is not) Daasan Sreekrishna Tatachar
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