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Chapter 1 Text 21-22
arjuna uvaca
senayor ubhayor madhye
ratham sthapaya me ‘cyuta
yavad etan nirikse ‘ham
yoddhu-kaman avasthitan
kair maya saha yoddhavyam
asmin rana-samudyame
Translation
Arjuna said: O infallible one, please draw my chariot between
the two armies so that I may see those present here, who desire
to fight, and with whom I must contend in this great trial of
arms.
Lecture Ruzov V.O.
In
these verses we see the first symptom of something called
“weakness of heart”. What is this? It is when there is not
enough determination in following the way of spiritual
development. It is a lack of will power. Will power is what we
need most to cleanse the heart of all foolish things that don’t
want to leave on their own. They like living in us, they are
used to our heart, and plan on staying here for a long time,
like bums on a bus…
It
usually happens that after the first joy of being close to the
Absolute Truth, a person starts worrying very much about his
flaws and his foolishness, which don’t allow him to move ahead
as fast as he wants. In Sanskrit this stage is called “anartha-nivritti”.
Before it, the person was “happy” and “satisfied”, being under
the influence of his mind’s talk, which sang songs about his
importance, greatness, and specialness.
Fortunately, we are very lucky that we did something good in
this life, and so the Absolute Truth looked at us with wonder
and brightened our heart with its look. The Truth looked at our
heart, and so we looked into our heart also. At that moment, we
began to feel ashamed, because there was nothing we could boast
about before God. We finally saw something we tried not to see
before, and now we have to do something about it…
Spiritual “weakness of heart” is much like physical heart
insufficiency. Bhagavad-Gita is a prescription for this illness.
It can heal even the worst stage. As a matter of fact, in
Ayurveda, heart insufficiency is treated with medicine made from
the bark of a tree called “Arjuna”. It is sold as a tincture,
tablets, or a powder. I use it on a regular basis.
How
does this illness show itself? The symptom is the desire for
material satisfaction. Such a person does not have enough
strength to refuse the low things for the sake of the ennobled
things. This is truly bad karma, which comes to us as a
punishment for our sinful activity. The sin is that we do want
to become saints, but not now, we want to cleanse our heart of
harmful desires, but just not now, we do want to become the
servants of God, but not now… This means that we ask God to
fulfill our foolish desires, instead of asking him to give us
strength to get rid of them.
On
the level of philosophy, weakness of heart is when we try to
prove to ourselves and everyone else that the desires of our
body and mind are truly the desires of our soul. If I want
something, this means that my soul wants it and God wants me to
do this. However, this is the way to hell. The desires of the
soul and the body are not the same. The body wants to get
pleasure and the soul wants to give pleasure. The body wants to
be loved, but the soul wants to love. The body wants to be
served, but the soul wants to serve. The body wants to keep
everything for itself, but the soul wants to give. The body
wants to eat, but the soul wants to feed. The body wants to
sleep, but the soul wants to guard the sleep of its beloved.
On
the other hand, weakness of heart is also when we are too
attached to many insignificant and useless things. It is like
our heart is bound to this material world by hundreds of
threads. Yes, they are thin, but when there are a lot of them,
we are like Gulliver, who was tied by midgets with their
threads. Sometimes, people follow the spiritual path and give up
their families, jobs, country, and think that when they tear
apart these chains, they will become free. However, this is just
self-confident bragging, because in truth that person’s heart
still has thousands of little attachments that won’t allow him
to make even one step forward. This is called “tuchha-asakti”.
It is like a cloud of attachments. Giving up big things and
still saving attachments to small things is a deadlock. Sooner
or later such a person will stop his development; he’ll get
tired of fighting this contradiction. Actually, it becomes
painful for him to follow the path of spiritual development,
because these attachments have tied his arms and legs.
Remember: If we are not ready for real and complete renunciation
from everything material for the sake of the soul, our
self-confident and premature renunciation will bring nothing new
into our life, except horrible pain…
A
Story about a Rich and Poor Pilgrim
Two
pilgrims were walking along in holy places. One of them was
rich, and the other was poor. The poor pilgrim always laughed at
the life of the rich pilgrim. He said that the rich pilgrim is
going by the path of great saints, but carries too much luxury,
clothes, and money with him. The rich pilgrim didn’t answer him.
But
once a misfortune happened: they were sleeping under a tree and
lightning hit that tree. Both of them died. Servants of the sky
came for them and told them to follow them. Both sadhus (people
who lead a saintly life) started their way to heaven, but in a
few minutes, the poor sadhu became worried and said that he
forgot his broken plate under the tree. He wanted to come back
for it; he said he couldn’t go further without it.
The
heavenly angels said to him: “True renunciation is not how much
you have, but whether you are ready to give up everything you
have once and for all, as soon as the time comes…”
Four signs of an ill heart
There are four symptoms of a weak heart. They are described by
Bhaktivinoda Thakur in “Bhadajana rahasya”: 1) tuchha-asakti –
attachment to insignificant material things and pleasures, 2)
kuti-nati – a tendency to lie and search for flaws in people; 3)
mat-sarya – jealousy, 4) pratishthata – the desire for fame.
Wise people teach us how to easily distinguish a good person
from a bad person. A good person does not get mad at bad people.
But, a bad person gets mad even at good people. This is what
true development of consciousness is. The higher our
development, the softer and kinder we are to all living beings.
Such a person knows that if he should get mad at someone, it
should be himself, because he also did a lot of foolish and bad
things. Why does a person get mad at bad people? Because he
cannot over-persuade them and correct them. Actually, people get
mad because of their own feebleness, but they direct their anger
toward other people to justify themselves. Therefore, when we
see the flaws of others, this is a sign of our own spiritual,
philosophical, and cultural weakness.
Therefore, reason is when we keep harmony in our heart. This
means that when we get mad at other people, we should search for
positive traits in that person as hard as we can to level our
attitude toward this person in our heart. Then, our heart will
become calm, and we will find a way to truly help this unhappy
person. Everyone can feel sympathy for a suffering, unhappy,
poor, or sick person. But, only a true wise man can feel
sympathy and love toward a villain…
Wise men recommend thinking positively about each person, even
if he is doing something very negative. For example, if a person
acted wrong, we should think that he really wanted to do what is
right, but for some reason he couldn’t. If he said something
awful, we should think that he wanted to say something nice, but
instead he couldn’t control himself and said insulting words.
Interestingly, if we analyze our own behavior, it will turn out
that this is really the truth… Our positive perception of a
person’s behavior is capable of awakening his reason, and he
will guess what is wrong and what is right.
Unbalance is when we don’t see our own problems, but do see the
problems of others and even fight them. Therefore, we should
start with trying to see our own problems also. Then, we will at
least stop wanting to criticize others. Wise men recommend
accepting an oath or getting rid of a bad habit. This will make
us sober and it will also make us understand how hard it is to
change our own character. Then, we will understand that it is
not so easy to change ourselves, what to speak of changing
others.
What is the primary happiness of spiritual life? It is in
victory of our own foolishness and sins. Having suffered so much
because of our own character for millions of lives, the person
feels true freedom, when he escapes the influence of his own
foolishness. We need this joy of victory, because our past is
only endless defeats.
Krishna, who was ready to serve Arjuna on the battlefield as a
charioteer, is also ready to help us, give us strength to fight
our own character. We have to sincerely ask Him, surrender unto
Him, become his students and trust our fate in Him. This is how
a loving relationship with God begins. We want to serve Him, and
He really wants to help us in everything. Krishna didn’t leave
Arjuna alone on the battle field; He even gave him advice at
different times of the battle. How could Arjuna have lost the
battle? No, victory was certain from the start.
God
is called Hrsikesa, which means “the master of all organs of the
senses in all living beings.” This means that if we ask Him for
help, He makes everything clean and elevated attracting for us,
by using our senses. He also makes everything that is low and
dirty unattractive for us. We ourselves cannot perform such
miracles; we just need to trust our senses to Krishna, like
Arjuna gave the reigns of his chariot to Krishna.
Final Story
Once, the monkey army was making their way through the forest
toward Rama. They were about to join Rama in his quest to save
Sita, his beloved wife. This forest was enchanted, and nothing
grew in it. The trees had no leaves. Even the pine trees had no
needles, and the streams had dried up. Sounds instantly faded,
so it was very quiet.
A
huge army of many thousands of monkeys were going through a
forest. The journey lasted two weeks, they went without
stopping, sleeping, or eating. Finally, they came to a huge
mountain, which had a deep and dark cave. It was impossible to
bypass this cave, and going back meant loosing time. Hanuman
said: “We have nothing to be afraid of, God is with us, let’s go
into the cave”. However, the monkeys were very afraid, because
the cave was very scary – it went down and smelled horrible.
Then Hanuman said: “All right, let the brave ones come with me”,
and he bravely went into the cave. A few monkey generals grabbed
his tail and followed him. At that moment the other monkeys
understood that the brave monkeys are leaving and the rest of
the monkeys will stay here like cowards. Then they closed their
eyes, grabbed each other’s tails and, wailing loudly from
fright, went all together.
They went down, underground, and with each minute it became more
and scarier, so Hanuman started calling out Rama’s name.
Suddenly, his fear disappeared. Everyone understood that Hanuman
believes in God and isn’t afraid of anything, just because he
surrenders unto the name of God. After some time, they entered
the deep underground caves, where there were lots of treasures
and food.
We
are also going by the way of spiritual progress, without
understanding anything and wailing with freight. However, if we
just close our eyes and grab the tail of someone who believes in
the saint name of God, and we allow someone else to grab our
tail, our fear will vanish, and we will reach the other bank –
the spiritual world, where all our problems will be solved.
This is why we accept a spiritual master (teacher). He rids us
of this fear and gives us the opportunity to surrender. We just
have to ask our spiritual teacher questions with great respect
and try to use his advice in our life, understanding that this
is not just a gift from the teacher, but it is a gift from God
Himself. |
