Eknath Easwaran on Bhagavad Gita - II

In a heroic age, on the vast plains of North India, a timeless spiritual classic
was born — the message of Sri Krishna to Prince Arjuna, on the brink of a war he
doesn't want to fight.

- Beginning of the write-up on the blurb of Eknath Easwaran’s commentary of Gita

In the whole of Mahabharatha, both prior to the Gita episode and after that, Arjuna never asks any kind of spiritual or philosophical advice from Krishna (except for a little discourse called Anugita towards the end of the epic). As a matter of fact, even during the Gita episode, he doesn’t ask for any philosophical advice, but just shares his rather out-of-place sadness at the impending senseless violence and destruction, and in a rather elaborate way as if he were having a chat during a hot long Indian afternoon, while slow Hindustani music is playing in the background. He also expresses his drastic, inexplicable and even bizarre change of mind about not being interested in fighting this war anymore. It is bizarre because he sees nothing unexpected at the battlefield, it is not like you go into a boxing ring and see your opponent for the first time. You have known your opponent all your life, you have all the time known what to expect exactly, there is absolutely nothing new you discover when you see this opponent physically. So why raise any issues now?

But in the case of Arjuna, physically seeing the enemy arrayed on the opposite brings about a radical change in his mind. For the first time in his life, and very nearly the last time, he starts almost-thinking. He starts elaborately contemplating on the consequences of the war now, when the engagement has already happened, just the shots haven’t been fired yet. Had he felt that remorse at the end of the war, or in the middle of it, it would have been more logical. Till now nobody ever ponders about the gruesome consequences of the all-out destruction that was about to come, though Krishna and the elders of the clan try a little to stave it off — suddenly what has gotten over Arjuna? Is he so erratic as to be utterly unpredictable and undependable or is he schizophrenic or a case of split-personality or is he suddenly prone to awakening for brief moments in an otherwise somnambulistic life? Is he the moronic one or are the readers of Gita supposed to be that?

But Krishna seems heads and shoulders above Arjuna in this kind of stupidity. His message, the divine message, the so-called song celestial is completely unwarranted to begin with. Battlefield is not the place to sing incredibly long songs of romance or friendship, or of philosophy and spirituality. All these people are standing ready with their arms on both sides, even the conchs are blown, the green signal has been given to take off and run into each other, and these two guys on the frontline go on interminably yakety-yakking between themselves about God knows what, in fact knowledge of God, soul and so on! So everybody else is supposed to wait in the scorching sun, while our two heroes go on discussing all the schools of Indian philosophy? What were they doing till then anyway? Let me repeat, never before or never afterwards does real philosophy come in Mahabaratha, just utterly pathetic moral platitudes and inane palaverings. (for example, Bhisma says on the most humiliatory public stripping of Draupadi , “The course of morality is subtle and even the illustrious wise in this world fail to always understand it.”)

Have these two poltroons no manners or any rules of conduct whatsoever, keeping everyone languishing in the sun like that indefinitely? Philosophy, metaphysics are all good, but before someone gets into all that, they need to have basic common sense. Or else it can lead to a toxic combination of imbecility and esotericism, just as it has happened in the India psyche all these ages ago. If the writers of Gita had any common sense, they would have at least put it this way: Arjuna suddenly starts feeling qualms, not on the eve of the war, not on the morn of the war, but right in the battlefield (clearly implying that his brain had been vacuous all this time, and only a spectacular visual stimulus of vast enemy hordes could shock it into functioning ever so briefly), and confides it with Krishna, who then understands that this is not the right frame of mind to enter into an all-decisive war, so on behalf of Arjuna meets the enemy side and negotiates with them to postpone the encounter by a day or so, till Arjuna can make up his mind, and later they both sit in a room all evening and night and discuss why killing off everyone in the war is so vital for the progress of the country plus various other philosophical matters, till Arjuna gets his nerve back.

Intelligence is normally defined as the ability to act in response to the needs of the situation. For example, an advanced robot is much better equipped than a primitive robot to assess its environment and act accordingly. Going by this most simple and acceptable definition of intelligence, the Gita, the supreme scripture of Hinduism and one of the most revered texts of spirituality all the world over, is the humongous pinnacle of unintelligence, i.e., of total stupidity. If Arjuna’s reaction is bizarre, Krishna’s response takes bizzareness to unprecedented, unimagined heights. Imagine a situation: a beggar on the road asks you for a rupee, and there and then you launch off into an 18 -college lectures worth of material on world economics, upon which people down the ages go on debating and commenting — standing in the middle of the road, perhaps attracting a bunch of passersby and creating a traffic jam. It is good that you know so much about economics, and are very eager to teach it all to some beggar who does not have a notion of the subject, just as Arjuna had no notion of philosophy — that too in one single marathon session; but at least have the decency to bring him inside the house first. Or else people can think of you as a total nutter. However no one ever in the history of the world ,except yours truly gober man here, has even remotely suggested at the possibility, of someone being some kind of total nutter. Btw, that someone is supposed to be the Lord God of this universe!