We face so many unreasonable situations in life. We have to face it instead of philosophising it. When doing so, if we do not bring in the totality of our being, we will be victims of the situation. When there is a breakdown, don’t we justify it? We question ourselves and those around us, “Why is there a breakdown?”
This is what happened to Arjuna when he looked at his situations in life. Just as how we justify our misery, he told Lord Krishna, “How can I counter-attack with arrows men like Bhishma and Drona, who are worthy of my worship? They are my gurus. If they were bad, I would have no problem, but they are noblemen.” We should feel the emotion in this speech. If we empathize with Arjuna’s psychology, it is ours as well—the psychology of humanity.
In life, it is important to listen. When we counsel others, we counsel ourselves as well. We have to listen to chaos wisely, to bring transformation. Krishna listens to Arjuna with patience. He converts Arjuna’s breakdown into a breakthrough. How? With just three words. First is paristhiti—situations of life. Arjuna views the situation as bad, and therefore, feels that he deserves to be miserable. He had to fight Bhishma and Drona.
We too go through situations like this and create misery. This is an ordinary paradigm, creating misery in our lives. In the ninth chapter of the Gita, Krishna unfolds Arjuna’s situations. We should try and absorb this without resistance. We should not agree or disagree, but only look at the meaning of what is being said.
We all think our misery is because of our bad health, children’s behaviour, competition, corruption, etc.
We do not realise that there is internal and psychological corruption. At every moment, our soliloquy corrupts us. Our beliefs corrupt us. So do our dogmas, opinions, religious prejudice, etc. We should address the corruption within as Krishna taught. External corruption is the result of internal chaos.
Lord Krishna validates the situation by giving it a deeper meaning. He says the state of mind is more important than life situations because it creates chaos. This is the second factor, called manasthiti. Krishna tells Arjuna, “A man must elevate himself by his own mind, not degrade himself. The mind is the friend and the enemy as well.” He tells Arjuna to lift himself using his mind.It is not that life is short, but we start living it late. If you don’t live life wisely, this is what happens.
Teacher: “Why are you late?”
Student: “Mom and dad were fighting.”
Teacher: “How does that make you late to school?”
Student: “One shoe was in mom’s hand and the other in dad’s.”
The third word Krishna uses to help Arjuna convert his breakdown to breakthrough is atmasthiti or the state of being. If this is utkrisht (excellent), then our perception will be different and if it is nikrisht (inferior), we will operate from a lower self. When we do that, even simple things appear complicated. If we operate from a higher self, we can simplify complicated things.
Swami Sukhabodhananda is an international management spiritual & corporate guru Join him for an online workshop on Spiritual Warrior, starting November 20.
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