At some time or other, all have mused over the reasons for the prevalence of suffering that seems to characterize human existence. Many take to the spiritual path in their search for the answers to the riddle of life and death, or out of a sense that we are much more than a flesh and blood form.
The great scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, provides answers to vital questions that invariably plague the serious seeker regarding the cause of suffering in the world, and the means to remedy such suffering.
The Bhagavad Gita, or "Song of the Lord," is one of India's most revered scriptures. In it Lord Krishna councils on the battlefield a dejected warrior of the Pandava army, Arjuna, who is depressed at the prospect of having to kill his kinsman in the Kurukshetra War. Yet the battlefield setting is an allegory for the much larger battle of life, and through his discourse he arms Arjuna, and hence all of us, with the knowledge which enables us to rise from ignorance to knowledge; from suffering to freedom.
In chapter II of the work, Lord Krishna helps Arjuna to understand that grief is a product of ignorance or wrong understanding. The following is a brief look at verses 11 through 23:
The Bhagavad Gita, Chapter II (verses 11 ? 23)
Unwilling to fight his kinsmen, Arjuna decides to lay down his weapons and refuses to engage himself in the battle, yet Lord Krishna rebukes him...
Verse 11:
Lord Krishna said: While speaking learned words, you are mourning that which is not worthy of grief. The learned neither laments for the dead or for the living.
Verse 12:
Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings and never shall we cease to exist in the future.
Verse 13:
Just as the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from childhood, to youth, and to old age, similarly the soul passes at death into another body. The wise are never deluded by this.
Commentary:
Lord Krishna is helping Arjuna, and hence all of us, to understand that all of our suffering comes from mistaking the unreal for the real. What is it that is born and dies? And what is it that passes from one body to the next, but which is itself unborn and undying? The wise (or learned) do not grieve for the living or the dead out of an understanding that the soul is indestructible. What appears to be born and to die (the body) is not worthy of grief because, being impermanent, it is not real. The belief in reincarnation is not what grants us relief from grief here. Indeed, one need not believe in it at all. It is the ability to distinguish between the soul and the body that is key: the body dies, the soul does not.
As the body is temporary, all experiences had through it are likewise transient, and Lord Krishna advises Arjuna not to become attached or deluded by the pairs of opposites (pleasure and pain) which are ever changing hands, but to tolerate them with forbearance...
Verse 14:
O Arjuna, only the interaction of the senses and sense objects give cold and heat, pleasure and pain. These things are temporary, appearing and disappearing; therefore try to tolerate them.
Verse 15:
O noblest of men, that person of wise judgment, equanimous in happiness and distress, whom cannot be disturbed by these is certainly eligible for liberation.
Commentary:
In his Four Noble Truths, the Buddha states that everything in life is impermanent, constantly rising and falling, and our attachment to that which is ephemeral or impermanent is the cause of all suffering. The remedy lies in detachment (and is ultimately cemented in nirvana), which arises with the dawning of this knowledge.
Lord Krishna agrees...
"The pleasures born of sense-contact," he explains to Arjuna, "are wombs of pain. They have a beginning and an end; the wise does not delight in them."
Like the drug addict seeking the ever-illusive high, we also incur great suffering in resorting to sense pleasure in our attempts to find fulfillment. Put another way, lasting happiness cannot be had via the medium of fleeting experiences. After the pleasure has passed, the attachment and desire for repeat experience yet remains. This is feeling of lack, the agitation of desire, is suffering. Hence, the wise seek the bliss of contentment.
It is important to note that so long as the body exists, it will be visited alternately by pain and pleasure. Yet the important distinction is that the wise do not run after sense-pleasures, knowing that attachment and indulgence in them only results in pain. When either experience arises, he views them with the knowledge that they are both temporal and illusory.
Verse 16:
In the unreal there is no duration and in the real there is no cessation; indeed the conclusion between the two has been analyzed by knowers of the truth.
Verse 17:
But know that by whom this entire body is pervaded, is indestructible. None can cause the destruction of the imperishable soul.
Verse 18:
The material body is ephemeral and perishable ? its end is certain. But the embodied soul is eternal, indestructible and infinite; therefore fight, O Arjuna.
Commentary:
"Viveka" is a Sanskrit term meaning "discrimination." It refers specifically to discrimination between the real and the unreal. Lord Krishna here is helping us to understand that what arises and dissolves, what is born and dies, is unreal. Put another way, what did not exist before and will not exist after is unreal in the middle.
Verse 19:
Anyone who thinks the soul is the slayer and anyone who thinks the soul is slain, both of them are in ignorance; the soul slays not, nor is it slain.
Verse 20:
The soul never takes birth and never dies at any time nor does it ever come into being again when the body is created. The soul is birthless, eternal, imperishable, and timeless, and is never destroyed when the body is destroyed.
Verse 21:
?O Arjuna, one who knows the soul as eternal, unborn, undeteriorating and indestructible; how does that person cause death to anyone and whom does he slay??
Commentary:
It is Arjuna's duty to fight, and Lord Krishna is trying to get him to see that he must perform this duty - even if it involves killing. The "soul reality" is that the self is eternal and indestructible, hence birth and death are fictitious - they do not apply to it. The idea that it can be slain is false, which negates the idea of a slayer as well.
Verse 22:
Just as a man giving up old worn out garments accepts new apparel, in the same way the embodied soul giving up old and worn out bodies verily accepts new bodies.
Commentary:
The ability to distinguish between the body and the soul is what saves us from suffering. When one gets into a car and prepares to drive, it would be incorrect to say that one has become the car. We never lose sight of the fact that the driver and the car are separate entities. When the car becomes run down and is no longer operable, one gets another car. When the body become decrepit or is destroyed by disease or accident, the soul gets another one.
Verse 23:
Weapons cannot harm the soul, fire cannot burn the soul, water cannot wet and air cannot dry up the soul.
By constantly dwelling on our true nature as the indestructible soul, all suffering and fear of death gradually depart. Like the amnesiac who begins to remember his true identity, we begin to experience the thrill, freedom, and ever-new joy of Self-realization.
Remain as the Witnessing Consciousness amidst the passing phenomenal experiences of the three states of waking, dreaming, and deep sleep. You are ever the imperishable Soul.