Shrimad Bhagwad Geeta Shlok Blog -52
Shlok-05
गुरूनहत्वा हि महानुभावान् श्रेयो भोक्तुं भैक्ष्यमपीह लोके । हत्वार्थकामांस्तु गुरूनिहैव भुञ्जीय भोगान् रुधिरप्रदिग्धान् ॥ 2-5 ||
English Transcription
Gurunhatwa Hi Mahanubhaawan Shreyo Bhoktum Bhaikshyampeeh Lokai | Hatwarthkamaanstu Gurunihaiwa Bhunjeeya Bhogaan Rudhirpradigdhaan || 2-5 ||
Hindi Translation
Mahanubhaav gurujanon ko na maarkar is lok mein main bhiksha ka anna khana bhi shreshtha samajhta hoon kyunki gurujanon ko maarkar yahan rakt se sane hue tatha dhan ki kaamna ki mukyata wale bhogon ko hi to bhogoonga.
English Translation
It is better to eat beggars’ food here in this world than to kill teachers of great honor. If I were to kill my teachers, who are greedy for wealth here, I would enjoy pleasures smeared with blood.
Meaning
In the previous Shlok, we saw how Arjun told Shri Krishna that he worshipped Guru Dron and Bheeshma Pitamah and he did not fear his dying, but their dying because he did not know how to fight those whom he respects and how to deal with the idea of losing them forever because he loved them and that is why he did not want to kill them. He mentioned that he was not a coward of his death but a coward of his loved ones' death and thus, he did not wish to fight.
In this Shok, we will see how he establishes the same thing even better. Arjun actually started out rebelliously. He hated how he was called a coward and disgrace and he replied in angst and fervor of Shri Krishna’s statements. But he soon realized how wrong he was and how he needed to focus more upon the fact that he needed some retrospect into his actions because he was not entirely wrong but entirely right.
He thought that he felt what he was going to do was wrong. Shri Krishna is more talented than him and yet he is encouraging him to not stop and go ahead and fight. Shri Krishna would never do that if it was wrong because he will never support the wrong of anyone for any reason. So there has to be something that Arjun was missing out on and Krishna knew because of which everything that Arjun said was true and yet useless and Krishna’s advice to fight made sense. In search of that reason, Arjun softened his ton with Shri Krishna and mentioned that he did not find anything concrete that was fight-worthy, even if he knew they wanted to fight him.
Arjun told Shri Krishna that he was of the opinion that if he will deny fighting, then his army will also deny fighting. Duryodhan is a lot bad but he too is a great warrior and he knows that he will not fight when he sees the entire Pandava army standing in one place. If Duryodhan, doesn’t fight alone, his army will also deny fighting. If his army stops fighting, then there will be no war and everyone can just be where they were, fair and square.
The downside of this will be that if there is no fighting, the situation will be back to the same things again I will not get any property. My family will not get any safety. We will be deprived of more things than we actually have. We will be hated more and maybe Duryodhan and the team will again try to kill us, now with more high a resolve than before because now he has a motive to do so as well.
With that, maybe I have to adapt to begging and living in the most disgraceful way possible, whereby I will need to beg and plead for my family’s food and then my own. It will be a very tough phase for all of us, but in foresight, we will not kill our teachers and we can live without the satin of that on us. So I accept the poor life over the seemingly great one to save myself from the guilt of killing my elders and my teachers and also to save my family from the sin of the same.
Arjun was sure that if he had to resort to the disgraceful side of living in poverty, there will be people who will hate him, there will be people who will pity him and there will be people who will empathize with him. Yet, Arjun will take pride in being unapologetically happy and satisfied with everything he has seen and achieved because he will not be killing his teachers and elders.
Arjun also said that he knew that there were people in the Kaurava army who were fighting for money, property, and materialistic things. But Bheeshm Pitamah, Guru Dronacharya, and some others were not fighting for these materialistic things. They were only fighting to gain some revenge on a few members of the Pandavas or they were compelled to fight the Kauravas because they had some personal reasons because of which they could not fight against the Kauravas like Guru Dron’s own son was fighting with the Kauravas and fighting against him with the Kauravas meant not being able to save him from dangers. These things made these people only guilty of the fact that they too were playing upon the emotion of attachment and not hatred. They only made one error. They had eaten the food of the enemy and given them the promise to support them in their times of doom, so now, they had to live by the promise even if it made them sin.
Conclusion
Arjun could not see the positive side of war that Shri Krishna could see and thus, he wasn’t as happy to kill because he saw killing as wrong and he could not see beyond the reason why killing was not wrong according to Shri Krishna here. It is more like a game of perspectives. When people have a different perspective about things, they react differently and they approach things differently. In such a case, there are more people who see the top layer of anything and make a decision and there are people who introspect everything before even holding an opinion, leaving the decision part alone. Thus, Arjun was the first kind of person whereas Shri Krishna was trying to make him the second type of person.
That’s it for Shlok-5, Chapter-2 of Shrimad Bhagwat Geeta. See you tomorrow in Shlok-6, Chapter-2 and till then catch up till Shlok-4, Chapter-2 here.
Follow us:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RudrakshHub
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rudrakshahub/?hl=en
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=6965943605077164032
Youtube: https://youtu.be/HDQG48vMRoU
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7sAblFEsUcFCdKZShztGFC?si=61a7b9a9e46b42d6
