India lost Gita, West got Gita || Acharya Prashant (2023)

Acharya Prashant

🧔🏻‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant? Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquiry-gita-course?cmId=m00021  📚 Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books? Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?cmId=m00021  📝 Read 3 handpicked wisdom articles, just for you: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articles?cmId=m00021  ~~~~~  Video Information: 17.02.23, Bhagavad Gita, Greater Noida  Context: ~ For the West Gita didn't turn into religion, it remained philosophy ~ There can be no dissent without freedom and there can be no love without freedom. ~ When do we loose measure of anything's importance? ~ What breeds contempt? ~ Why are Indians indiferrent to Gita?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~  #acharyaprashant

Transcript

00:00So, thank you for organizing this session. So, talking about Bhagavad Gita is important.

00:09So, I was just reading about one American naturalist named Henry Thoreau. He says that

00:17every morning I base my intellect in the stupendous philosophy of Bhagavad Gita in comparison with

00:26which our modern world and its literature seems trivial. So, I think that Western world has

00:35acknowledged the importance of Bhagavad Gita a bit more than Indians have. I may be wrong

00:42on this, but that's my one observation. You are right. When something is just too close

00:52to you, you just somehow lose measure of its importance. Because the Gita happens to be

01:09a commonplace thing in India, a household name in India, therefore it is evident that it has ceased

01:20to mesmerize Indians. Familiarity, someone said, breeds contempt. So, yeah. If not contempt,

01:36then at least indifference. If you become familiar, too familiar to greatness, greatness ceases to

01:49dazzle. The West encounters the Gita with relatively fresh eyes. The West does not rush

02:14to worship the Gita. It says, wow, here we have a piece of text. Literature, let me look at it

02:27objectively afresh. And when you look at Gita that way, that's when it reveals its riches to you.

02:42I have been lucky in that regard. I could play with the Gita because I was not introduced to

02:54the Gita in a traditional way. Nobody told me that you should go and take a bath before touching

03:07the Gita or that you should sit or squat facing one particular direction if you are reading the

03:14Gita or that you should not be lying in your bed while reading the Gita. I have done all of that.

03:21There have been nights when I have dozed off with the Gita lying on my chest. I have not read the

03:40Gita in any kind of structured or sequential way. I would just open the book randomly and allow the

03:53verses to captivate me. I've also not felt obliged to go by the conventional meanings of the verses.

04:11So it helps if you can look at the world or anything with unconditioned eyes. If you approach

04:33something with predetermined respect, you lose the thing. When you turn something into organized

04:50religion, you lose touch with its underlying beautiful philosophy. So Gita became a small part

05:08of a huge religious complex for Indians. For the West, it didn't turn into religion. It remained

05:23philosophy and that's why the West seems to be able to penetrate relatively deeper into the Gita.

05:42You name Thoru, there are several other examples and we have more examples coming up every decade.

05:54India, that does not quite seem to be happening. See the Gita is not tradition. You have been with

06:13the Hindi course as well. You very well know that the Gita is an active destroyer of convention,

06:20tradition, myth, belief, such things. And that aspect of the Gita has hardly ever been brought out.

06:33If you see what Arjun stands for, Krishna is representing an attitude that can

06:45very truthfully be called as very modern.

06:57And because modernity first came to the West, therefore the West is naturally more likely

07:08to resonate more closely with the Gita.

07:21So what I have observed that people here are afraid of condemning or saying anything against

07:28Gita even if they don't feel right about it. Whereas in West, for example, Jean-Paul Sartre,

07:36he started condemning that, not condemning, but he said that I didn't like the fact that

07:43Krishna was pushing Arjun to fight. Though he corrected himself later, but I was saying that

07:49Sartre didn't think that. Critiquing, he was critiquing. So he was not afraid of critiquing.

07:57Yes, the same thing, I found myself in the same situation. I recall that many a times.

08:14So I would pick up a particular verse and vividly remember one day father was on the dining table

08:25and I go rushing to him and I say, yeh toh koi baat nahi hui. And I was pointing at a particular verse.

08:33What is this written? What is Krishna saying here? Yeh toh koi baat nahi hui. Those are my words.

08:40So I was lucky, I could have that freedom to openly dissent against even Krishna.

08:49And had I not had the right to dissent, I would also not have the right to love.

09:04Both require freedom, no? There can be no dissent without freedom and there can be no love

09:12without freedom. So Gita can be read only in freedom.

09:21When you make the Gita a part of your religious complex,

09:30when you turn it into an obligatory reading, then there is no freedom.

09:34So talking about that from verse 1, I took two inferences about that. I would like to

09:48share it with you. So Dhritarashtra, the scripture starts with a blind man's question. I mean that is

09:56rightfully a good thing because only a blind man should ask a question. A person who sees,

10:02I mean he won't have any requirement to ask anything and hence there will be no need of a

10:07scripture. Second thing is Dhritarashtra was blind and it is seen that his sons were all behaving

10:15blindly. It seems as if in Ishavasya Upanishad, we say fullness gives rise to fullness. The reverse

10:23of that is happening. Blindness gives rise to blindness. Only a blind man can reproduce 100

10:29I mean 100 children. Then from verse 4, and if you want to extend the whole thing a bit,

10:44when the very genesis of the battle was in those words of Draupadi that pointed at the same thing.

10:59He said, that's what exactly you are saying.

11:06Yes. So you take all of that together and it's all quite

11:19full of symbolism and significance.

11:22Yes. So in verse 4, actually when you see two parties fighting,

11:31suppose two parties are fighting, generally we will find that one party is condemning the other.

11:38I think about others. But here we see a strange thing. Duryodhana is instead praising Pandavas.

11:45That is a strange discrepancy which I found.

11:47Hmm. Because these are not two parties fighting each other. This is

11:57one party fighting the truth.

12:03Duryodhana wouldn't have been found in that kind of trembling condition

12:09were he facing the Pandavas sans Krishna.

12:17It is the presence of Krishna on that side

12:22that is making Duryodhana go so unhinged.

12:30The words are utterly loose.

12:33So I remember that even in chemical equations, even in science, we say that there are two chemicals.

12:40But there is the requirement of a catalyst. Catalyst here is Shri Krishna. Catalyst is not

12:45an active participant in the battle, in the reaction. But catalyst is something whose presence

12:51is mandatory for the reaction to happen. So Shri Krishna is something like a catalyst, I feel.

12:57You could say that. You could even say that Krishna is the very laboratory

13:03within which the reaction is taking place. A catalyst is just an enabler.

13:13Krishna here is more than an enabler. He is the very foundation on which all this is happening.

13:22But that's another level of description. What you have said is just all right.

13:26And final thing. So if I ask you, or if I may ask you, can you name one person, one fighter,

13:34who is the biggest fighter in Pandavas? Who will that be?

13:39Fighter in what sense? Skill, experience, what sense?

13:43Yes, if I ask who is the biggest fighter in Pandavas, who will that be?

13:48Yes, if I ask who is the biggest fighter in Pandava group, then who would you say?

13:53Arjun. Yes, now everybody will say like that. But if you look at verse number four,

13:59Duryodhana takes the first name of Bheem, not Arjun. Duryodhana takes the first name of Bheem

14:05but not Arjun. That's because Bheem was leading the army from that side.

14:10Okay. Bheem is Bhishma's counterpart from the Pandava side.

14:14Okay. So that's the reason.

14:20So what I thought is maybe because you need somebody like Bheem who can easily be bondaged

14:26in a woman's wife's promise. You could say that or you could say that

14:32when it comes to a personal center, Duryodhana was not too likely to face Arjun in the battle.

14:47There were others who were going to take Arjun on, right? You would have Bheeshma,

14:53you would have Drona, then Karna. These were the people who are going to match Arjun

15:00in archery. Duryodhana would have a personal duel with Bheem and Duryodhana knew it was coming

15:15and it indeed did come, right? So you could say that that's the reason

15:21Duryodhana is more likely to remember Bheem. See it's like

15:29if you are an opening batsman, when you look at the 11 players on the other side, you are most likely

15:46to look first at their opening bowler because he is the one you are going to face and dread,

15:56right? As an opening batsman, why would I think too much about, let's say,

16:10let's say their spinner. Opening batsmen hardly get to face spinners.

16:17So, but then I know that the pitch would be fresh and raw and that tall opening bowler,

16:24he is going to have a good go at me. So, if I am to talk of one face as representing

16:36the opposing team, I would name their opening bowler. So, that kind of a thing,

16:46but here even that is probably not applicable. It's just that Bheem is leading the side.

16:52Even Vedanta also says that we look at our counterpart in the world. We always

16:59find out from the entire view, we always find which is my dual counterpart.

17:04That's the nature of the ego. Yes. Yes, that is being explained.

17:11Thank you so much. Thank you.

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