LOTUS GITA- APATH TO SAVATION

Short commentary on
Gita: A path to Salvation

CHAPTER-1
1. Back ground:
The sequence that led the development of thoughts as enshrined in Gita is the time when the Great War was to begin between Kauravas and Pandvas where Duryodhan was leading the army of Kauravas and Arjun was leading Pandvas. Duryodhan was worried about the weak situation of his army. Because his army’s eldest head Bhisma was equally near to the opposite part. He asked the other commanders of his army to take care of Bhisma.
2. Show of breath power through blowing conches:
Blowing of Conches in the beginning of all the important project is traditional and customary act. This denotes not only individual’s strength but a call to start the act with full force. Before actual beginning of the battle the commanders of both the sides blew their famous conches. The atmosphere at that moment was full of sounds blown from various types of conches.
3. Confusion of Arjun
The side of Pandvas was being led by Arjun. At that moment the circumstances which pressed Arjun to think of withdrawal from the battlefield are quiet obvious. He was confused by the situation when he saw that all the opponents were his near, dear and respected relatives and he will have to fight against them.

4. Logic behind confusion:
Arjun found it very difficult to digest the idea of winning the war after killing nears and dears. Accordingly he expressed his thoughts to Krishna about the utility of such a war that is with a view to kill the near and dears. The reasons he explained were logical,
1. Because, the object to win the kingdom, victory and pleasure is only for the sake and show for all those kinsmen who are standing before him to sacrifice their lives,
2. He should not wish to kill those teachers, fathers, sons, grandfathers, maternal-uncles, fathers-in-law grandsons, brothers-in-law and other relatives who are arrayed in the battle field, even for the kingdom of all the three spheres. The question was merely for a piece of small earth,
3. He will not be able to get any pleasure if the sons of Dhritrashtra are killed in the war, the death of whose, can only bring him a sin.
4. Therefore, there is no need to commit this sin by destroying the lives of relatives. The death of kinsmen-may not be the source of happiness to any one. Though the evil to be created by the murder of friends and the destruction of families is not realized by them owing to their being over influenced by greed.
5. Though Kauravs are infected by greed in their minds and have lost their intellect therefore they are unable to foresee the evils of destroying own race and creating enmity with the friends. Still we should not try to be aside from the sin and evil?
Arjun counted the consequences through family destruction:
1. When a family is destroyed the conventions and traditions running with that family also comes to an end.
2. When the traditional faith is lost then rest of the family is grabbed by no religious activities.
3. This situation affects the housewives and deprives them of their morality, as a result of which, their issues are of mixed blood and their activities being quite different and hatred and that also create class confusion.
4. Their impurity of blood, besides, class confusions, leads them to lifelong hatred, which puts obstacle before them in establishing their relations, which they can only gain in the families of their own type and thus all elements of their ancestors disappear from among them and impurity exceeds to such an extent that they become totally different from their ancestors.
5. The everlasting misdeeds abolish the established customs of their community which speaks also upon their relatives, companions and society thus making whole of the community victim of impurity, irregularity and unlawfulness.
6. The evils mentioned above grow like a contagious disease and cause uneasiness in their own minds and speak ill upon the mode of their life.
7. It becomes wholly and solely dirty; full of uneasiness and anxiety-a hell life-which they have to lead for a long time it is gathered.
In the last Arjun counted that the sin, which is going to be committed, might be very big as: “we are endeavoring such a barbarous act as to destroy the numerous human lives-the lives of our own kinsmen-for the sake of our own pleasure and kingdom”.
Therefore he declared that the best course will be, if: “I offer myself without any resistance and without any arms before the weapons of my enemy the Kaurvas and the good, it will be if they kill me all alone in this battle for the sake of consolation.”