Let us a take look at
the scene of the Kurukshetra battle field, just before the commencement of the
war. The armies on either side are ready to fight on receiving the go signal.
It is at this juncture that Arjuna becomes philosophical, or does he?
He laments to Krishna
about the futility of fighting a war and killing his own kith and kin. A
magnanimous thought, no doubt, if only it were sincere!
Let us take a closer
look at the battle field. The Kaurava side has a larger army comprising 11
Akshouhinis as against 7 Akshouhinis of the Pandava Army. And arrayed against
the Pandavas are such invincible warriors like Bhishma, Drona and Kripa!
Arjuna is naturally
worried about winning the war against such odds. This is not my conjecture.
Here is what he says as quoted in the the Gita:
“Seeing these my
kinsmen, O Krishna, arrayed, eager to fight, my limbs fail me and my mouth is
parched, my body quivers and my hair stands on end.”
Obviously, these are
symptoms of panic. But Arjuna tries to rationalize his fears by projecting them
as feelings of remorse. But his words betray his real feelings. He goes on to
say, “I see bad omens, O Krishna and I see no good in killing my own kinsmen in
battle.” Again he takes shelter under superstitions and sentiments.
What has happened to
him? Confronted and confounded by the enormity of the situation and the
magnitude of the task before him, Arjuna is bewildered by the prospect of
defeat. He is overwhelmed by emotions. His personality of a valiant hero breaks
down and gets transformed into that of a child in panic. But, not being a child
and hence unable to cry, he looks for escape routes.
Swami Chinmayananda
calls this state of mind Arjuna Disease. This is not a pathological disease but
a psychological one. Though named after Arjuna, every one of us may be affected
by this disease at some stage of our life.
Recall the situations
in which you have retreated when you should have acted. And you would have had a perfect reason for doing so. The human mind
is an excellent instrument. It can rationalize and create reasons to suit our
whims.
Many a manager puts up
with indiscipline, inefficiency and other such deficiencies on the part of the
people working under him. He would often rationalize his inaction by deluding
himself that he has been putting up with such malaise in the interest of
maintaining good relationship with his people. The truth could be that he lacks
the courage to face the consequences that would arise if he were to act.
It was Krishna who
diagnosed the disease Arjuna had had. But if Krishna had told Arjuna about his disease,
Arjuna would not have accepted his diagnosis. So, Krishna moved Arjuna towards the solution by
enlightening him and cured him by making him aware of the truth about life
and how to live it.
As mentioned earlier, all
of us are liable to be overtaken by this disease sometime or the other. So, how
can we get cured of this?
Diagnosis of this
disease by itself will be a major step towards getting cured of this disease. And
only you can diagnose it. In any case, you are not going to accept the
diagnosis of another person. Diagnosing this disease is going to be difficult
most of the time. Though the symptoms will be there to be clearly seen by us,
one has to be honest to oneself to recognize the symptoms for what they are.
Once we are honest
enough to accept that we are under the grip of the Arjuna disease, the cure will
be easy.
We should think in
terms of what we should do in a given situation. That kind of thinking will
loosen the grip of this disease and facilitate fast cure by putting us in the
right frame of mind. Once we are in the right frame of mind, we will know what
the right thing to do is and we can set out to do it.