ARJUNA'S ARGUMENT AT KURUKSHETRA AND SRI KRISHNA'S ANSWER ARJUNA'S ARGUMENT AT KURUKSHETRA AND SRI KRISHNA'S ANSWER by Kireet Joshi The Mother's Institute of Research, New Delhi mothersinstitute @ hotmail .com © Author All rights reserved including translation into any Indian or Foreign language. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, or by any means (electronic, photocopy or otherwise) without written permission of the author or the publisher. First edition, 2011 ISBN: 978

APPENDICES Selected chapters from 'Essays on the Gita' - Sri Aurobindo Our Demand and Need from the Gita The world abounds with scriptures sacred and profane, with revelations and half-revelations, with religions and philosophies, sects and schools and systems. To these the many minds of a half-ripe knowledge or no knowledge at all attach themselves with exclusiveness and passion and will have it that this or the other book is alone the eternal Word of God and all others are either impostures or at best imperfectly inspired, that this or that philosophy is the last word of the reasoning intell

Significance of the Gita as a Synthesis of Yoga The supreme significance of the Gita lies in the fact that in no text of yoga Shasta or the science of yoga do we find such a perfect system of karma yoga known to man in the past, and that it is the greatest gospel of spiritual works ever yet given to the race. The great basics of karma yoga are laid down in this text with an incomparable mastery and the infallible eye of an assured experience. It is true that at its close, we do find the possibilities of further development. The yoga of the Gita is a synthesis of yoga, and although it aims at utilizing action as a constant method

Sri Krishna's Answer The answer that Sri Krishna gives can be received and understood only if one realizes that even at the summit of the ordinary mental level of consciousness, there is no solution to the problem of the kind that Arjuna was confronted with. The mental consciousness is limited and remains confined perpetually in the state of egoism and duality, and even at its highest level, the strain and stress of the stains of ego and dualities do not get diminished; on the contrary, the acuteness of the strains is felt to be so drenched in grief that the only way in which one can cure that grief is to discover a higher level of consciousness, if such exists, and if

Bhagavadgita and Contemporary Crisis Bhagavadgita has this uniqueness that, unlike other great religious books of the world, it does not stand apart as a work by itself. It is given as an episode in an epic history of India and of a great war fought in it. This episode focuses on a critical moment in the soul of one of the leading personages of this epic history, Mahabharata. It is also a moment of the crowning action of his life, where he faces a work which is terrible, violent and sanguinary. And he is confronted with a critical choice when he must either recoil from it altogether or carry it through to its inexorable execution. The criticality of

Arjuna's Argument Let us state the argument of Arjuna: "I do not see any good by slaying my own people in the fight. O Krishna! I do not long for victory, nor kingdom, nor pleasures. O Govinda! Of what use is kingdom to us, or enjoyments, or even life? Those for whose sake we desire to gain kingdom, enjoyments and pleasures, they are arrayed in battle, not caring for their lives and riches...; even if they kill me, I do not want to kill them, even for the kingdom of the three worlds, — what then to speak of gaining this earth? What pleasures can be ours after we have killed the sons of Dhritarashtra? Sin will only accrue to us if we kill these evil ones. Even if they, whos

Primacy of Knowledge in the Synthesis It is significant for the synthetic character of the teaching of the Gita that even though at the very outset when Arjuna declares, "I will not fight", and even though Sri Krishna begins his answer by appealing to him to act and to fight, the very first note that is sounded by Sri Krishna in his refutation of the argument of Arjuna is a note concerning the supremacy of knowledge. Sri Krishna points out that although Arjuna's argument had the appearance of a learned man and possessor of knowledge, the very first premise of knowledge was missing from his argument. Those who have knowledge, says Sri Krishna in effect,

YOGIC SCIENCE AND VEDIC YOGA There is a larger perspective in the context of which the theme of Yoga stands out as a subject of great contemporary relevance. That larger perspective is that of the acute crisis through which humankind is passing today. This crisis has arisen, it seems, from the fact that, while on the one hand, it does not seem unlikely that we may succeed in creating a system of life, practically covering the whole globe, which can provide to human beings means and materials to satisfy hedonistic, selfish and egoistic wants on such a scale that, for quite a long indefinite period, humankind might remain chained to circles of lower life marked

SIGNIFICANT FEATURES OF HINDUISM (as they have emerged through a historical process) The significance of the history of the religion that gave no name to itself but which, in its later stages came to be called Hinduism, lies in the fact that it came to develop itself into a congregation of religions providing, at the same time, to each human being with his or her own method of inner experience. It began with the Vedas and developed various facets of spiritual experience, philosophical thought and systems responding to emotional and vital needs as also demands of the physical nature. It maintained a continuous thread uninterruptedly right up to the pr

ANCIENT INDIAN WISDOM AND CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES What are the critical problems of today? And what could be relevance of ancient Indian wisdom in resolving our predicaments when the modern knowledge appears to have been so advanced? Since the last two centuries, humanity has taken a serious turn, and in its worst manifestation, two devastating wars have stormed the entire earth, and in its best manifestation, global aspiration to unite the peoples of the world has taken a concrete form. On its worst side, the survival of humanity on the earth has come under severest attack; on its best side, it has come to be realised that a new conscious