Be Neutral & Calm Before Final Assessment & Decision!

H H Maa Purnananda

“Senayorubhayormadhye ratham Sthaapaya Mechyut. Yaavadetaannireeksheham Yoddhukaamaanavasthitaan; Kairmaya Sah Yoddhavyam Asminransamudyamey.”
– (Sreemad Bhagawad Geeta –1/21,22)

In my view, the given Shlok is one of the most important Shlok-s of Sreemad Bhagawad Geeta. It gives us a major reason for keeping our mind calm and steady.

Every Guru advises the disciples and devotees to keep calm. The teachers in the school yell at the students and tell them to keep quiet. The parents scold their beloved children and ask them to keep quiet. People request their neighbours to maintain quietude in the neighbourhood. All, for different reasons!

Neighbours should maintain quietude for promoting harmony in the society. At home, it is important to create a healthy and loving environment, for which, each member of the family need to have quiet and compatible conversations. At school, it is important for the students and the teachers to have quiet deliberations to maintain healthy communication. Encompassing all such reasons, the Guru advises to hold the mind in a calm and tranquil state, for the inner transformation of the disciples and devotees, for their own great benefit. Despite the teachings at every stage of life, has the human being learnt to keep quiet? It does not seem so! There is so much of commotion in the world! Therefore, ultimately one has to run towards secluded places in search of peace and quietude!

The human mind is not quiet for most of the time. Especially during such times when some major decision has to be taken or at the time of crisis, the mind is all the more disturbed rather than being calm and tranquil. So we can say that most of the decisions taken in the world by human beings are all the outcome of disturbed minds; the reason of disturbance may be whatever! Under such circumstance, can one expect any proper, wise or worthwhile decision being taken by anyone? And yet, things are happening in the world, good and bad, and the world moves on!

Though the given Shlok is indicative of the outcome of a tamed and transformed mind, yet Arjun gets entrapped in despondency! Analyse why?

Firstly, the world is subject to constant change. Moreover, the mind remains unstable, disturbed and indecisive for most of the time. It is indeed a deadly combination – the ever-changing world around and an indecisive mind within! That is why, though he knows that it is the Kaurav-s who have called for the battle, Arjun wants to assess today morning, in the battlefield, right in front of him, as to who all have assembled to face him in the battle. For this final assessment, Arjun wisely asks Sree Krishna, his Charioteer, to take his chariot in the middle of the two armies. This indicates that he wanted to be unbiased while taking the final decision at such a crucial time.

But, after seeing both the armies, even Arjun, the great Pandav prince, loses stability of his mind which otherwise is a tamed and transformed one! At that point he drops his weapons and tells Sree Krishna that he does not want to fight! What disturbed his mind to the extent that such a great warrior which Arjun is, learned and efficient, dynamic and focused, and yet, falls at his knees! As Arjun identifies at the physical level of existence, the influx of attachment in his mind to his kith and kin, completely disturbs it and shatters it. Why? Had he not fought many more battles before this one and had won them too? But, at this instance, he does become biased towards his own people arrayed in both the armies. So, it was not the battle and the destruction that follows any battle, but, it was his mental attachments that crushed the quietude of his mind.

Fortunately, the Divine presence of Sree Krishna becomes his Saviour! And that too is possible only when one has a well-prepared, transformed and tranquil mind that such an evolved individual happens to listen to his Inner-voice, his own Consciousness, Sree Krishna!

Be unbiased and stay calm! Build up the ability to listen to your own Inner-voice! The complete Sreemad Bhagawad Geeta is a great learning indeed!

Join us at SISS with family and friends to invoke the Macrocosmic grace of the Almighty on the commencement of the year 2020 by performing Sree Vishnu Sahastranaam Homam at 11.30 am on 1st January ’20, for achieving the aforesaid ability.