[Advaita-l] Fw: [advaitin] Re: regarding karma yoga

[Sudhakar Kabra]

See comments inline below:

--- On Sun, 7/1/12, Sunil Bhattacharjya <sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Sunil Bhattacharjya <sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com>
Subject: [Advaita-l] Fw: [advaitin] Re: regarding karma yoga
To: "Adiscussiongroupfor Advaita Vedanta" <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
Date: Sunday, July 1, 2012, 1:01 AM

For favor of comments by the esteemed friends.

Regards,
Sunl KB


----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Sunil Bhattacharjya <sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com>
To: "advaitin at yahoogroups.com" <advaitin at yahoogroups.com> 
Sent: Friday, June 29, 2012 9:36 PM
Subject: Re: [advaitin] Re: regarding karma yoga
 

Namaste,

Thank you for the detailed definition of these words. It is said in English that an Ounce of practice is worth a Ton of theory. so kindly permit me to supplement your excellent definitions with an excellent practical example. Lord Krishna gave the Bhagavad Gita discourse at Kurukshetra. We know that one, who remembers all the verses of the Bhagavad Gita,  can recite it in about one hour. Actual conversation between Lord Krishna and Arjuna could have taken even less than one hour. Before the war started Arjuna wanted to have a look at the people he was going to fight and Lord Krishna took the Chariot to the middle of the war zone so that Arjuna could see both the warring parties. After the discourse was over Arjuna was looking at Yudhisthira and found that Yudhisthira was preparing to go to the elders Bhishma and Drona to seek permission to start the war and then Arjuna also joined Yudhisthira for that. That confirms that the discourse indeed lasted
 only a short time.


SK: On the context of time many present day historians are divided. Prof P.Lal considers it to be a monologue between Arjuna's conscience and himself though the chariot was standing in between the two armies it could have taken a few minutes. Vishwa roopa darshana is said to be a mental visualization. Rest like Yudhisthira taking permission was an act before war.




 It is another thing many eminent scholars wondered how Lord Krishna could have given a discourse in the battle field. They might not have read the Mahabharata properly because in addition to what I said above there was also an agreement between the Kauravas and the Pandavas before the war. According to that agreement no unarmed warrior could be attacked and Lord Krishna started his discourse  only after Arjuna laid down his arms and this is given in the last verse of the first chapter of the Bhagavad Gita. 

SK: The rule of unarmed warrior was violated during the war itself, like killing of Abhimanu. Comparative philosophers believe that Mahabharata war was less followed by rule than Ramayana war where shri Rama asked Ravana to go back and come the next day for a fight with astra and shastra when he was unarmed.They attribute it to yuga phenomena.


The discourse started only from the second chapter, so also Adi Sankaracharya's commentary on the Bhagavad Gita starts from the second chapter.

Now coming to the topic of Shravana, Manana and  NidhidhyAsana let us look at Arjuna's getting the Gita-Jnana by listening to the Lord for less than one hours and he did the Manana so that he could ask so many questions for clarification of his doubts and with the Jnana he could take a decision when the Lord asked what had decided to do. This I consider as probably the best example of one becoming Jnani through Shravana, Manana and NidhidhyAsana. 
SK: Arjuna did receive the jnana but he did not become jnani after that.Otherwise:1. The lord would not have said yatha icchasi tatha kuru because vision would have been clear.2. There is an incident in Mahabharata itself where after Arjuna asks lord what he said before the war to be explained again but the lord just ignored it saying it is not the right time.


Lord Krishna also said in the Bhagavad Gita that the Sthita prajna  / Shthiraprjana is one who is in Samadhi, one who is in Dhyana. one who is in Dharana and one who is in Pratyahara or in one word who is in NidhidhyAsana. Arjuna could not keep up with the last requirement and that is why he had to approach the Lord for a second round of discourse and the Lord obliged him indirectly through the Anugita.

Regards,
Sunil KB