The Bhagawad Gita was imparted by Krishna to Arjuna just prior to the start of the great war of the Mahabharata for helping the latter to come out of the dilemma he was facing.
Remember, when we have the toughest of times, we silently pray to God without letting others know about it and secretly take a decision, which we normally call as the gut instinct. Maybe there are people who are strong enough not to come under any dilemma of any sorts ever in life, but such people are very rare. At least once in your life, you must have experienced this kind of sudden indecisiveness. But you have had to take a decision to be able to proceed further. In such circumstances, I don't know about others, I quickly pray to my God and take up a decisive stand, thinking that the rest will be arranged by God. Much similarly, Arjuna was facing such a strange dilemma whether to fight his kinsmen or not. At other times, he could have silently prayed like most of us do. But since he had the greatest advantage at his disposal, he thought it best to ask God himself, who was leading him on his way in the disguise of a charioteer.
This part of the epic Mahabharata, where God directly renders his messages to the mortal man on the eleventh day of the waxing moon, is called the Bhagwad Gita, or the Song of God. Hence, it is considered as the most sacred of all available scriptures in the world. This eleventh day has come about to be worshiped asMokshada Ekadashi. According to scriptures, it took Krishna about five days to explain the modes of achieving spiritual unison with the almighty. The Bhagwad Gita is a text containing philosophy where Krishna speaks about human capabilities. It is not about being right or wrong. It is about doing something rather than being inactive. It is about what people can do to achieve their goals without being too very concerned about the end product.
An obvious doubt creeps into the minds of the readers as to how a five-day long discourse could be covered amidst a war of such intensity. Considering the enormity of the divine providence that God himself was speaking, everything else, including distance, speed and time, seemed too negligible. What appeared like an eternity of philosophical rhetoric amidst a battlefield must have occurred, perhaps, in the blink of an ordinary man’s eye. As rightly said by scholars, time stopped during the discourse, it is only a matter of perspective.
Technically, time cannot really stop in classical physics. However, in modern physics with changes in the gravitational field there could be several changes in the temporal and spacial domains. An observer standing closer to the source of gravitation usually takes note of an event happening slower than an observer standing much farther away from the source of gravitation, where an atomic clock would run much faster. This phenomenon was first invented by Albert Einstein and has been tested to be true, and is known by the name gravitational time dilation.
Krishna, the dark, also may be compared to the black hole, one that absorbs everything, does not even let light escape its grasp, akin to the powers of God. What Krishna delivers to Arjuna may have taken a long time. But people who were away from the source of the universe felt that it happened within seconds. What is also relevant from the above inference is, one who is truly a follower of Krishna, who is really passionate about the almighty shall have ample lessons to learn from the Bhagwad Gita, and would take substantial amount of time also, whereas, one who would be absolutely disinterested in it would just be considering it as immaterial as the blink of an eye.
Take an example, a man is distraught about taking a decision to save either the child or his wife at the hospital where his wife is about to give birth to their baby. However, as the doctors have suggested that life of either the mother or the child can be saved the father has to take a decision instantly. What can a man do other than just offer a silent prayer and take up any random instinctive call as to what to do and leave the consequences under almighty. There are chances that while saving the mother, both may die. It could also be possible that while saving the baby, the mother dies. Or the reverse. Or, that after saving the baby, both survive. How is the father (who does not have the future under his control) take the right call? Mathematics say that he does have 25% probability that both his wife and children remain alive. But in practicality, it is quite higher. In such a situation, the father can't say "I don't know what to choose from, so I am not going to take a decision." Some sort of Bhagwad Gita gets preached every time we call him, and we happen to take our stand, rise up against our fears, fight the unknown and emerge victorious almost within very small passage of time.
The war of Mahabharata is nothing but a war within your own self, that rises from within you and you are afraid to fight it. Eventually, an unknown entity empowers you to revolt and take charge of the situation, bringing the darkness right in front of you. And you realize you have to fight this darkness within yourself to let the brighter side of yours to surface. This is the effect of the Bhagwad Gita. It is timeless.
Comments
Post a Comment