Art, Literature & Culture

Start with Ahankaar: Gita Acharan (1)

By K Siva Prasad- 16 Feb 2020
260

start-with-ahankaar-gita-acharan-1-

16.02.2020: Bhagavad Gita is a 700 verse conversation between Lord Krishna and Warrior Arjun on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. 
Just before the start of the war, Arjun gets the feeling that war would kill many of his friends and relatives and argues that this is bad from many points of view. 
Arjuns dilemma emanates from his presumption that “I am the doer" - Ahamkarta and is also known as Ahamkaar. This Ahamkaar keeps us telling that we are distinct, but the reality is different. Though ego is usually given as meaning to Ahamkaar, but ego can be taken as one of many manifestations of Ahamkaar.
The entire conversation is about this Ahamkaar, be it directly or indirectly and Krishna gives various paths and milestones (yardsticks) to get rid of it.
If we take the Kurukshetra war as a metaphor, all of us enter into a situation, like Arjun did, in our daily lives be it in the family, workplace and in terms of health, wealth, relationships etc. As long as one lives, these dilemmas are natural till Ahamkaar is understood.
Gita is about what we are and certainly not about what we know nor what we do. Like no amount of theory can let us ride a bicycle nor swim, no amount of philosophy can help us unless we see life eye to eye and guiding principles of Gita would help us to reach the final destination -the inner self which is free of Ahamkaar.
From the surface, it appears that times have changed since Gita was given to Arjun by Lord Krishna. Certainly, there is lot of change brought by developments in science in the past couple of centuries,   but in reality, from an evolution standpoint of view, humans didn't evolve any further. The internal side of the dilemma remains the same. Outer manifestations (trees) might look different, but inner part (roots) remain the same
(Author K Siva Prasad is 1993 batch IAS officer, Punjab cadre)

free stat counter